The best part of Will saying he wants forever with Mike so blatantly is that he isn't the one who brought it up, Mike was. In an act of projection he asks "What did you think? That we'd actually get to be together forever? When we're both boys?" and will says yes. He says yes, and Mike immediately regrets it.

im still baffled by the general response to ep 8 btw. sure the dialogue got a little cheesy at times, but the dialogue in this show is always like 15% cheesy? that’s why people like it lol.

i thought ep 8 was really good, plotlines were moving, drama was happening, characters and relationships were being tested. juno temple acted her ass off. i wish the whole season had been like this!

i really don’t understand why everyone disliked this ep so much. am i missing something? am i just looking for something different out of this show than everyone else is? i agree that the season as a whole has been… scattered, but i thought this past ep was really good.

am i missing something?

that entire scene of billy being taken can literally be interpreted as a metaphorical rape scene. he's dragged downstairs by his ankles to an abandoned basement in the middle of nowhere while he's thrashing and screaming for help. the mindflayer holds him down and enters his mouth while he continues to struggle. when he's free, he runs away to his car and drives off to the nearest phone booth because he's terrified that it's following him.

he doesn't know what to tell the 911 operator, would they believe him? it all seemed very unrealistic. he has flashbacks and starts dissociating, replaying the scene in his mind, specifically the scene when it enters his mouth. and then he's faced with himself. the other billy represents the side of him that feeds his degrading emotions.

this is literally a metaphorical rape scene i don't know what to tell y'all. the way will's kidnapping can also be interpreted as a child predator holding a child hostage and violating him. joyce's initial thoughts must've been that her son was kidnapped by a sick person. and the fact that they found will unconscious with something forced in his mouth?? metaphorical assault scene.

and billy's shower scene? the black veins represent the phantom touches and pain left behind by his rapist. he's showering because he wants it off him but it's not going away. he's starting to dissociate and the memories are hitting him full force again.

do the duffers realize this connection? the show would be outstanding if they acknowledged the general theme of vecna/the MF representing an abuser/rapist who specifically targets troubled children because they're easier to manipulate.

I can fix him*

*bad writing, underutilized gameplay mechanics, characters with unfulfilled potential, funded by bootlickers

I finished ff7 rebirth

Can't believe Scar saw a rapidly approaching, dishevled mumbo and went "he's so cute." I need to run unorthodox experiments on them.

IKR SAME OMG

They’re literally perfect for each other <- delusional

But seriously they have so much lore together in my silly brain and the few interactions they do have (WHICH HAS BEEN INCREASING A LOT LATELY MAY I ADD) has been FUELING the fire rapidly and gods gods GODS do I have many thoughts about them

.

i switched from gray-blue to ice-blue eyes on matthias and his gaze feels so much more impactful to me now

Every once in a while I think about my old L.upin III s/i and the whole situation they had going on with him and man...

To maybe add onto this post a little bit because I feel like this is something a lot of people who aren't really deeply informed on mental health and/or trauma might not know.

There is four different survival responses: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. The first two are obviously well known but the other two aren't, however especially fawn is dangerous if it goes unrecognized.

I see people write fics in which Ellie goes from fight or flight straight into fawn and it is portrayed as good and healing, meanwhile she is just stuck in a different trauma response. It's just as unhelpful and just as harmful.

The fawn response is focused around appeasing people and keeping everyone else happy because your brain and body tell you that this is how you keep yourself safe. You disregard your emotions, feelings, boundaries, needs, everything in order to make the people around you like you, especially the one you register as a threat. For example, if you are stuck in survival mode and you get into a small, not dangerous fight with someone, your brain will see this as an immediate threat to your safety and slip into the fawning (in this case). You will ignore your own stance on the topic and take the blame for the fight/the problem, you will appease them and give up your position and take on theirs to make them happy and calm again. People very often apologize for things that are not their fault because it is safer to be blamed in a way you can control (and makes the other person less actively aggressive) rather than be stuck in a fight you have zero control over.

We do actually see Ellie fawning in episode nine, she is not only incredibly dissociated but the way she talks is timid and soft, she also apologizes for not being present when Joel points it out (kudos to him for saying "no it's okay" instead of playing into it). If you do not know what to look for, that moment might not mean anything, but it's a textbook fawn response.

Why am I telling you all this? Because writing Ellie as becoming incredibly obedient and "calmer" in how she responds to rules and expectations is a) not true to who she is as a character and b) actively exacerbates her fawn response and reinforces the beliefs and core assumptions of her CPTSD. Fawning means the people around you do not see your trauma anymore/it stops inconveniencing them, so on the outside they think it's great! Look, they're no longer being aggressive or irritable, this must mean they're getting better, right? But then you look at the person and they're terrified to death of upsetting someone and disregard their needs to make everyone else happy and that is the opposite of getting better.

So please, if you write about Ellie recovering from what she has been through keep in mind that there is more than one way to react to trauma and responses that look fine on the outside are usually *not* fine on the inside. Don't just push her from one survival mode into another one because it's more convenient for you, actually put in the work and make her process it, see where she actually ends up once can break out of it.

god i forgot what it feels like to really be INVOLVED in a story. to have it brewing in the back of your mind on a simmer instead of some spontaneous combustion infatuation that eventually burns down to a dead end. it is so fulfilling knowing i'm going to go home from work and jump back into it, and to know exactly my next step. i genuinely have not felt this way about writing since high school like i'm healed

Gift Wattana Kumthorntip as Zhang To Sir With Love (2022) - Ep. 16

"If you don't want to watch Peking Opera with me anymore, then you should go home."

"this was so obvious to me" wasn't for me. "this game is so easy who would even enjoy this" i did and i found it challenging actually. "nobody would ever fall for this" i did.

when you talk about a video game through the lens of your own experience, you are speaking as a player with your own capabilities and preferences. remember that

even deserves gentle forehead kisses

look at how they massacred my magician...