#we also talked a bit meta about why therapy works the way it does and relationships | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mahalshairyballs · 2 years

Note

Hello 🤗yes I'm the same person who asked about Jake , I really love your essays and can't wait for you to drop the fanfic 🔥🔥

I was wondering though about jealousy with the system would they feel jealous for there SO? Or jealous about each other? Like perhaps Steven feels kinda jealous of Marc's and Layla relationship? Bc Marc would feel more comfortable telling her he loves her? Or how Layla is treating Marc with more attention because of therapy and trying to work things out after the adventure in Cairo?

Would Jake feel jealous of the other two alters bc they can feel loved???

Would Marc feel possisive and jealous over Layla when other alters spend more time with her or even another stranger flirting with her and he's terrified she's gonna prefer a more "stable'' life???

Hey hi ! 👋

Thank you so much for the kind words and reading my writing 😊 🤍🖤. I'll really try to write a fic with these!

Oof that's a big question you're asking here!

I'll try to not ramble too much when I'll answer. Fortunately I think there's a few things here I've already mentioned in my other metas so I'll just reference them.

You're reminding me of that spectrum post I want to make with that question! Since I think they'd fall under one with jealousy.

First, what is jealousy ? To me jealousy and insecurity comes from the same place, jealousy is just the more active version while insecurity is more passive. And then it can escalate to being possessive. Jealousy isn't necessarily toxic or unhealthy , most people will feel jealousy at some point in some form, it's when it becomes possessive that it becomes toxic.

So, starting with Steven

I do think Steven could feel envious of Marc & Layla's relationship and their history together that he didn't get to be a part of. They have a certain understanding, a certain chemistry that comes from their history together. Steven has to build his own with Layla which can be fun, but, even though Layla and Marc's relationship is still bumpy because of the recent events, there's still this something that Layla and Marc have that is missing with Steven's relationship with her.

So Steven could be envious of that, but not really 'jealous'. He's more insecure than actively jealous. And Marc doesn't actually feel more comfortable telling Layla he loves her, not to me anyway.

That's one thing on which Marc would be envious of Steven's relationship. Marc isn't usually distant like he was for most of the show with Layla. We know it was because he wanted to keep her at arms length that he acted that way. I think he's able to be sweet and show affection and be seductive and playful with her. But there's still a few things that are harder for him to do. Like saying how much he loves her. He would love to say it more but it's hard for him. I think he's also envious of Steven's openness and honesty.

Ep. 4

Marc : You also told her the truth, about why I've been pushing her away. That was...unexpected.

I think they'll be able to talk about those things between themselves though. That's why Marc ends up letting Steven get in a relationship with Layla.

They all need to get their ass to - good - therapy though. Including Steven. So yeah Layla will learn more about their system, and maybe understand Marc a bit better, but she'll pay attention to all of them.

Although you do have a point there. Layla - doesn't necessarily prefers - but would focus little bit more on Marc ? Because as much as she loves Steven too, and really likes Jake, Marc is the one she married. And that's for a reason (besides the fact that she didn't know the others existed of course lol). She really does love him. And that's why she was a bit bitter with him in the show. She was heartbroken.

Which brings me to

Marc

I think Marc is more jealous of his alters than he is of other people.

When others show interest for Layla, he gets a little jealous but not that much (what he'd feel internally is another story, but he doesn't show outward jealousy all that much. Just enough so that people know that he is, indeed, jealous. He might even sometimes get into involuntary dick measuring contests. )

With Steven he got a lot jealous. This jealousy is a bit hard to put in words for me. There's part of it that's very 'basal', but there's also the part of it that comes from Marc's view that Steven is 'the better of them'.

We know Marc has an abyssimal view of himself, and you're right when you said he'd be scared Layla would prefer someone more 'stable'. He wouldn't be so much scared as he'd be thinking that she deserves better than him (which, add that to the long list of reasons why he left).

This would also apply to their system. Especially during season 1. Marc left, but that didn't mean he stopped loving her, that he didn't still wish he could still be with her. And then Steven shows up, and she is introduced to him, and she's getting along great with him? While she's mad, for good reasons, at Marc? Marc can see how easily Steven could 'steal' her from him, and how she'd actually be better with Steven than with himself. So that's why he got so jealous of Steven in the show.

The fact that they didn't know each other all that well, even if Marc tried to look after Steven all their lives (he wasn't always watching him), played a big role in that too.

Now that they got each other's back and can better talk to each other, Marc does see how Steven likes her and sees that he's not necessarily a threat to his relationship with her. And Layla wants to date both and will say so.

So he'll agree they can date, but that doesn't mean he's not reluctant about it, and that his jealousy is completely gone - it's not.

Another example is with Jean-Paul. When Marc learns that Jake has started dating Jean-Paul, without telling them, Marc gets *pissed*.

And even though Marc only feels platonic feelings for Jean-Paul, he still sees it as Jake 'stealing' Jean-Paul from him. Jake is also changing their whole relationship, and it wouldn't be the same between Marc & Jean-Paul anymore (without talking about how it'll force them to come out to Jean-Paul about their disorder). So he'll react pretty similarly to how he initially reacted to Steven getting close to Layla. Maybe even worse. Because Marc's gut feeling is just to hate Jake, and not take anything he does charitably.

While Jake's dislike of Marc is part misplaced resentment that's been brewing for years, part reaction to how Marc is treating him once they finally get to talk (Jake is a lot about the 'I'll treat you how you treat me').

And now Jake

Jake's the trickiest when it comes to jealousy? At least he's the one I'm less sure about right now.

What I know is that he has the potential to become possessive of his SOs, will he though? Idk

Maybe he will initially, but he'll be able to control it better with time and therapy.

And yeah Jake would definitely be envious of Steven and Marc on some things. And he definitely would feel that need to be loved. Contrary to physical affection, which he doesn't really feel its lack in his life since it's one of many possible love languages and he just never knew it to miss it, feeling loved- in any form - is an human instinctual need. So even if he never knew it, he'd miss it. The thing is he doesn't know that's what he's feeling. Until he gets it. Then, well, my analogy for an addictive drug works here. And that's why I say he could become possessive of his SOs - whether it's from strangers or his alters it doesn't matter he would react the same.

Problem is, he's supposed to be the one in an open-relationship.

Steven x Marc x Layla are kind of in a poly relationship but it's a triad. Their relationship is closed (...until they meet Matt, but that's way in their future).

While for Jake, he's used to sleep with whoever he wants whenever he wants (because he has to take the opportunity when it presents itself since he knows he wouldn't be fronting for long). And to him sex doesn't necessarily mean anything. And I'd see Jean-Paul being fine with open-relationships, maybe having some experience in that area too.

So I think Jake would get into an open relationship with Jean-Paul (which is also easier to explain as to why they're still with Layla without outing themselves).

Jake does casually date other people (still don't know if I'll include the 'Jake gets someone pregnant' storyline from the comics...Marc would be *furious*), but the relationship that's most important to Jake, and the one he'll fall in love with, is Jean-Paul.

Being possessive and being in an open relationship doesn't work together at all though...

Some talks and changes in their relationship will be needed if it gets there.

16 notes · View notes

matan4il · 3 years

Text

Buddie 406 meta

This is a small thing, but I love how, even though the entire team minus Eddie had experienced the last jinxed shift together, Hen expected it to be Buck who fills Eddie in on their escapades. Buddie are a unit and it’s once again implicitly acknowledged.

* * *

Speaking of that last shift, it was the story of Buck being taught the lesson of not saying the word ‘quiet’, even in a different context on a shift, while this one is all about Eddie learning to respect the jinx or at least his teammates’ belief in it. It could have been Chim, for example, who made the mistake last time, but it wasn’t, they chose Buck. And more than that, this ep explicitly refers to ep 107, with the full moon superstition, and creates quite a similar division of Buck having faith in this type of thing vs skepticism from the person he’s closest to in each ep, Abby in s1 and now, Eddie. Despite their disparity in POV, that was the ep where Buck and Abby end up sleeping together for the first time, so… foreshadowing, maybe? ;)

* * *

Let’s talk about how cute the mini return of Fire Marshall Buck was! I also loved that as he teases Eddie a bit with this, Eddie lets him. They usually have the opposite dynamic, where Eddie teases Buck and Buck lets him (like for example in eps 303, 312, 313, 401). When Buck teases Eddie, Eddie usually does respond (like in the famous kitchen scene in 309). So why is it different this time? We get the answer after a short beat, when Eddie wants to make sure Buck knows it’s ok to take some time to process things. It’s continuing the theme of how supportive he’s been throughout 404 and 405, and I love that even though the ‘Buckley secret’ saga is over, this element continues and Eddie is still so soft and caring with him. Love that for them and for us.

* * *

Funnily enough, Eddie’s advice to Buck, sound as it is, seems to be the exact opposite of the message Eddie himself is meant to learn during this ep, which is that he’s processed enough, it’s time to let go, move on and allow himself to be open to dating. His arc here so very much parallels Buck’s with Ali (with the focal point being ep 208). Buck then was stuck on Abby, who had left him, while here Eddie is stuck on Shannon who left him in more ways than one. In 208 Buck had to negotiate with someone on a call, while drawing from his personal struggle (with Lola), and here, Eddie had to do the same (with Brian). Buck had previously met Ali on a call and then she was brought back for him to have someone to move on to. Eddie had previously met Ana and now he runs into her again on a call, she’s been brought back to serve the same purpose for him. Just like Buck is reluctant to date Ali (he first turns down her invite to meet for a coffee) and has to be nudged towards it by a call that hits close to home (the little speech he hears about Thomas and Marshall’s love), Eddie tells Bobby he’s not ready to move on and his mind is only really changed after a call that becomes very personal (the little speech he gives Brian, the fake firefighter). Then the conclusion of the arcs gives us both men meeting their ‘Love Interest’ in a cafe, where they talk about the phone call that reconnected them and have a laugh together, implying each man had made personal progress by making the decision to meet. It’s a necessary step that requires an LI to help the growth of the protagonist. However, that doesn’t mean the LI is endgame. We learn quickly enough that Ali is mostly an absent girlfriend, until she isn’t one at all. If the parallel trajectory continues, that’s what we’ll have with Ana, too. I said at some point that I believe Ana will be Eddie’s Ali, but wow. I did not expect the parallels to be quite so strong and so structural.

To top all that off, there’s another thing I saw that connects these eps. Ep 208 was the first ep where we heard Buck referring to himself as Buck 1.0 vs 2.0, while this ep introduces Buck 3.0, who believes in therapy and working on himself (such as by reading about love languages and immediately thinking not of himself, but connecting it to Eddie’s love life. Because Buck is clearly Eddiesexual). It’s not structural to the main arc, but it does make the connection between the two eps even more undeniable.

* * *

While the overall arc with Ana parallels Buck and Ali, I felt that when explaining why Eddie is into her (which the show had to do again, because they didn’t do a good enough job with it in 312), they created a parallel with Buck and Eddie in 201. Ana asks if Eddie’s been looking around for her. Might that be a bit like how he most likely asked around about Buck in 201 (since at the gym, he already knew stuff about Buck)? It’s also implied he finds her attractive. Well, ep 201 very much revolved around the attractiveness of these two guys, and them being aware of it in regards to each other as they flex over getting the spot on the firefighters calendar (yes, we usually talk about Buck’s awareness of Eddie’s looks, because that was so front and center, but it had to go both ways given the story context). And then we’re shown that Ana is professionally impressive and that Eddie likes that. Well, what was the turning between Buck and Eddie in 201? The moment when Buck gets to hear that Eddie finds him professionally impressive.

* * *

Also speaking of Buck and Eddie in the Ana context, of course it’s Buck that Eddie has to talk to about Ana right away, and no one else. In return, Buck continues to be preoccupied with Eddie’s love life beyond when he should be, just like in eps 210 and 312. After he exposes Eddie’s encounter with Ana to the team, however, it will be Hen, Chim and Bobby who will encourage Eddie to move on, while Buck, who he first turned to, remained not only silent, but off camera as well. We get close ups of everyone else, but not him. It’s a direct contrast to last week, when Buck talked about his trouble (but not romantically, with someone else) and Eddie got a special focus and zoom in’s (mentioned in my 405 meta). Considering it’s well established that Buck is the person closest to Eddie, I find all of this interesting.

* * *

So at the end of the day, I’m not worried that Ana will turn out to be more than a temporary LI, here to help Eddie grow and develop, but not his endgame. On top of everything else I pointed out, the joke that they share at the end of the ep actually brings in the word ‘jinx’ from the tp title into their first date. It’s not just a background theme anymore, it’s connected to them personally. And is that not a bit of foreshadowing, too?

* * *

Honorary shout out to the way Buck looks at Eddie while Eddie’s saving the day (refuses to lie back or even just lean on an elbow or something, so he’s making a continuous effort to stay up and have a better look at Eddie) and the way they laugh together while on the helium call, because no matter what else is going on, they’re partners, through and through.

Thank you so much to the endlessly wonderful @bicepsie for making these beautiful gifs for my meta post! xoxox Also, if you like my takes on Buddie, you can find more of my meta and fics for them here. Thank you in advance for any show of support! xoxoxox

#buddie #buddie meta #9-1-1 #911 meta #911meta #evan buckley #evan buck buckley #eddie diaz #edmundo diaz #eddie x buck #buck x eddie #911 season 4 #406 #what is my life #wm #911 on abc #911abc #911 abc

825 notes · View notes

wanderingwomanwondering · 3 years

Text

Thoughts on The Buddie Talk from 502

Other folks have looked at this conversation, but I wanted to get on my bullshit about it too. LOL.

So imho this whole conversation is about love and heart, specifically Eddie’s but with Buck’s heart added in. Line by line analysis and commentary. Let the BS begin. Here we go…

Buck: Hey are you sleeping, or just pretending?

Day and night/light and dark are strong themes throughout the episode. @benka79 did a meta on this theme. I think that by extension, awake vs asleep is meaningful in this scene. In matters of the heart, Eddie is trying to sleep or turn a blind eye, doing what he thinks is best for Chris rather than himself. This is exactly what Carla warned him against. But he knows. He knows that Carla is right but he’s ignoring her and trying to ignore Buck. He’s only pretending to be in the dark about his heart and his desires, at least to a degree.

Eddie: I was actually trying to until you interrupted.

Enter Buck, shaking shit up. Interrupting Eddie’s well-intentioned lie. Eddie knows there’s more than meets the eye and Buck is forcing him to open his eyes, wake up and see what’s really going on and reckon with himself and his true desires.

Buck: I’m exhausted. Uh, how are you feeling?

This line has been rattling around in my brain for what feels like a thousand years. Buck is NOT asleep, he’s not able to turn a blind eye. And being the only one willing to look directly at matters of the heart is wearing him out. Dude’s exhausted! He SEES that something is up with Eddie’s heart and he wants Eddie to tell him all about it.

Eddie: Hot. I’m sweating out of places I didn’t know I could.

During the blackout, AC isn’t working so everyone is sweating. Buck even has a thin layer of sweat in the scene. Sweating from the heat is normal and completely reasonable, but is that what’s being invoked here? We know that sweating is also a symptom of health issues (panic and heart problems not the least among them, and definitely symbolically relevant here). Eddie looks like he’s sweating for normal reasons but in the next line Buck questions that.

Buck: No uh like a cold sweat though, right? Uh, any chest pains?

Again, Buck is wide awake. He KNOWS something is wrong with Eddie’s heart/feelings and that Eddie is hiding it from him. He jumps to cold sweats, the kind that are most connected to health problems and are not about the actual temperature in the room. Then follows up with asking about chest pains. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Buck is paralleled with the cardiologist. She’s about Eddie’s literal heart but Eddie’s figurative heart is in Buck’s hands and Buck’s hands only. And my dude is assertively assessing the situation.

Eddie: You don’t give up, do you? I’m fine, Buck.

Good ol’ Eddie, perfecting his avoidance and denial game. But he knows Buck. He does NOT ever give up and he especially doesn’t give up on the people he loves. Eddie recognized this and thanked Buck for it in 303. Buck didn’t give up on Christopher during the tsunami, or on Eddie in Eddie Begins or in Survivors. But that was about Chris and Eddie’s life. This scene in 502 is new in a way. Buck is refusing to give up on Eddie’s heart, his feelings. Now Buck is fighting for Eddie’s quality of life, for his happiness.

Buck: People who are fine don’t go and see cardiologists. You need to tell me if something is wrong.

Buck was so worried about Eddie in 501. Of course Eddie denied that anything was wrong but Buck isn’t stupid. In 501 he asked about the situation clearly and openly because he cares about Eddie and wants to help in any way he can, and Eddie pushed him away. So here in 502 he implicitly invokes the Will. He’s like fine if you won’t tell me as your friend who gives a shit about you, then tell me for Chris’s sake because thanks to the will, I actually fucking need to know if you’re going to drop dead.

Eddie: Alright, it was a panic attack, not a heart attack. A panic attack.

Eddie’s frustrated confession was solid gold. It laid my edges and raised my credit score. He knows that Buck’s persistence is harmless and comes from a genuine place of respect and care. Still, that doesn’t make it any less annoying for a man who’s trying to sleep, pretending his own heart isn’t breaking under the weight of his sense of duty to his son.

Buck: Since when do you panic?

My God, he knows him so well.

Eddie: That’s what I said. I don’t panic. Except I did.

Eddie accepting that this was absolutely a panic attack was huge. Before he had been pushing against the reality of it, but here in Buck’s loving care he could be honest with himself and with Buck that it was indeed panic.

Buck: Ok, well, what triggered it? I mean you did just get shot and almost killed by a sniper. I guess that could be considered an anxiety inducing-

Buck’s in full “cardiologist” mode. He’s paying forward all those years of therapy! What he’s doing here isn’t a replacement for my dude getting some real therapy but here’s Buck with his clipboard efficiently helping Eddie figure his emotional shit out. It’s perfection. It’s also good that he acknowledged the shooting. I think it’s super important that when Buck mentions it, he looks down and away from Eddie.

Buck, my dude, you are not over being covered in the blood of the love of your life. You can still feel his weight in your hands, muscle memory from lifting him above the spray of gasoline and bullets. Eddie may still be asleep on that front but, Buck, you are wide awake and exhausted by the heavy love you’re carrying.

Eddie: That wasn’t it. Ok, if I’m being honest with myself, I think it was Ana.

Oh this is fun. So you are capable of being real, you just choose not to be. Good to know.

Buck: Uh, I thought things were great with her.

Stop. Lying. You saw Eddie get squirrely when talking about the Christening. You saw Eddie get awkward af when A*a and Christopher came to the firehouse. You’ve seen these issues with your own eyeballs. Great? Really? Yeah, this just makes me think muh boy is oblivious and/or he really was expecting Eddie to come clean about issues related to the shooting, not his love life. This reiterates my point that Buck himself is not nearly done with processing the shooting.

Eddie: She’s been a godsend through all this - staying with Christopher - but I think that’s what’s causing the panic. Somehow it become a ready-made family and I don’t know if I’m ready for that.

This portion of the conversation has been analyzed to bits by many brilliant others. I don’t have anything to add. I’m like, look dude, you already have a family with Buck and Christopher. A*a’s effin’ up your happy healthy family flow. It’s ok, just turn her loose.

Buck: So what are you gonna do?

Buck’s wisdom grows every frickin’ day. He knows this isn’t sustainable for Eddie. He knows that the heart matters. He knows that feelings are real and help us navigate toward a happy life. Action is needed and he’s nudging Eddie in that direction.

Eddie: I think I’m just gonna stick it out. Ana’s been the first woman I’ve wanted to spend this much time with since Shannon.

Oh dear, Eddie’s overblown sense of duty to everyone but himself strikes again. He can…tolerate… A*a. How romantic!

Buck: Stick it out? That’s not the way you talk about someone you’re in love with.

Um, no. Buck calls shenanigans. He’s not A*a’s bestie but he doesn’t feel any desire whatsoever to have her condemned to a loveless relationship.

Eddie: My kid loves her!

Always putting Christopher first but not realizing that if he isn’t truly happy, Christopher will know because he’s perceptive af. Plus the two haven’t discussed A*a on screen so I’m not convinced Chris loves her as much as Eddie wants to believe.

Buck: Is that enough? Eddie I have been Ana. I know what it’s like to be in love with someone who is not all the way in. Deep down you know it and it hurts. It hurts worse than the truth, so if you don’t want to hurt Ana, you owe it to her to be honest.

Buck is doing A LOT of work here to help Eddie see that his plan of inaction is not good. He centers Eddie asking him if staying for Chris is enough. When that doesn’t work, he realizes that Eddie doesn’t care about his own heart enough to leave so he changes strategies and puts himself in A*a’s place to invoke some empathy for A*a from Eddie. It’s super…interesting that Eddie doesn’t care enough for A*a to come to this conclusion on his own!!

Eddie: You know it just feels like a lot man.

Why, my dude?? Explain. Could it be that A*a is serving a purpose beyond Chris? Could it be that staying with her helps you avoid, allows you to pretend and be oblivious to deeper truths within your battered but still beating heart? Does she obscure the Buck shaped hole in your ticker?

Buck: Well, go to sleep. You don’t need to decide right now. It’s not like we’re going home anytime soon.

Buck is disappointed, exhausted, and frustrated and it has my dude slinging shade like morning hash. He’s like fine turn a blind eye, ignore your heart it’s cool *all the sarcasm* Then we get the reference to home and the fact that the two of them are far from it at this point and we all know how important home is as a Buddie theme. I wrote a little about it here.

Bonus: Eddie closed his eyes after Buck walked away, the he OPENED them again. He fully saw what Buck was saying. He can’t avoid the truth of his heart for much longer.

Y’all this has GOT to be the season that one or both of these idiots realize their feelings. Excuse me while I end.

#911 fox #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buddie #christopher diaz #ana flores #GO HOME ALREADY #episode 502 #911 meta

43 notes · View notes

transhawks · 3 years

Note

do u feel the reaction to hawks supposedly sticking to endeavor is warranted? idk i feel like no one is giving hawks a bit of understanding like his approach is wrong, but its not as if his own abuse hasnt lead him to idolize endeavor

Here are my thoughts, and I don’t think there’s gonna be any validation for either argument here.

For one thing, I’ve seen far more people saying that Hawks’s feelings towards Endeavor are warranted due to him being an abuse victim and that it’s wrong to call him an apologist than I’ve seen people calling him an abuse apologist. That might be me looking at the tags. My own views are these: much like with Dabi, things are simply, “this explains it”. It does not ‘excuse’ - what excuses actions are things we find moral.

Now, as anyone following me knows, I have extreme leftist sympathies and do not believe in non-violent tactics being upheld as more moral than violent ones. Thus, some of the disruptive actions of the league are well in line with my moral values. So, let’s say, Dabi throwing all that stuff in the open during his video? I approved of it. Him burning Shouto to upset his father? Fucked and I hope there’s narrative punishment for it (probably him causing damage to himself). Similarly, my feelings on Hawks are this: I understand why he idolizes ‘Endeavor’, or the idea of ‘Endeavor’. My whole meta this morning was to explain that his feelings are mostly about himself, in the end. The shining hero Endeavor in his origins is crucial to Hawks’s current of self, and to break that is break him.

BUT.

Hawks is his colleague in a very powerful industry with a lot of social capital. He is not a regular person, but a person with reach and influence and power (though it might be waning).

Let’s take a different look at this: Endeavor is a powerful public figure exposed for what amounts to forced marriage and domestic violence and child abuse. His whole role in society is to inspire and provide feelings of security and yet in his private life, under the justification of heroism, Endeavor terrorized a woman and her children for twenty years.

Please understand - if an actor had this much against him, and a colleague of that actor defended them with the reasoning of, “this man means so much to me and has saved my life”, we’d be furious. Or some of us, because the discussions we have in fandom mirror the same ones we have outside fandom when people we like are exposed and accused. The thing is, the “ideal” of Endeavor has saved Hawks. Endeavor as a person, Enji as a person, has terrorized Rei Todoroki and his children for decades. These are both real things. Where it gets tricky is... does Hawks’s idolization truly outweigh the crimes Enji has committed? Does Endeavor being good in one rather impersonal, honestly parasocial (if we’re talking about him as a kid) relationship with Hawks, outweigh what’s pretty much domestic violence, abuse, likely marital rape?

Ultimately, I think this discussion is worth it. For years people writing about him have made parallels to the #Metoo movement and Dabi really made the connection by exposing him through social media. When you sit and think about Enji and Hawks and Dabi, fighting past those first impulses to defend your fave, you have to think about what stance you’d take morally.

Do victims deserve to be heard?

Does it matter if the victim is not a good person?

In fact if the victim later becomes awful, is the abuse justified?

Or does it really matter if someone terrible was abused?

Do abusers deserve to given chances at power?

If someone is saved from abuse by someone who is an abuser, how is there an reconciliation of those deeds?

Can you admire someone’s work when they’re a terrible person?

Is there a way to still find comfort in that work while acknowledging the harm that person has committed?

What does it mean for someone to have justice?

We need to ask these questions. They’re important in the world we live in, and through BNHA, we can start thinking about our reactions to when people we admire are exposed to be not good people in real life.

For my final point, Keigo’s defense, of course, makes sense because Keigo is ... honestly heavily mentally ill. I think his compartmentalization and lack of outward regret for Twice’s murder and lack of reaction to his mother’s circumstances is clear that there’s a lot of issues with Keigo.

His way of thinking is not healthy; so his reaction to Endeavor is not healthy. I think we can have sympathy for Keigo’s need to keep Endeavor as an inspiration to himself but also agree that the Endeavor Keigo idolizes is a lie, and that it’s unhealthy for Hawks to keep doing so.

Someone can be wrong and yet very justified in their own terms for that behavior. We can also say that Hawks has a vested interest in keeping the status quo that allows Enji to be a hero, too. And that should be critiqued. Hawks should be criticized for supporting Enji as a hero, even if it makes sense that he does so out of his own trauma which should be acknowledged as the source of his problems. We can say Hawks is wrong for supporting Enji but also acknowledge he’s someone who needs therapy.

We should stop being afraid over having these discussions. Sometimes people are wrong, and their behavior is wrong, even with a lot of justifications, but you can’t leave it at them being wrong - because before they can be right, they have to be in a better place to understand why they are wrong.

#asks #bnha spoilers #bnha 299 #long post

237 notes · View notes

taketheringtolohac · 3 years

Note

i 100% believe miles comes out on tumblr like after rise of the ashes or something and everyone rejoices (this headcanon is sheer fucking gold btw)

Oh dear you’ve activated my trap card for this hc get ready for this because i definitely agree that Miles coming out is CELEBRATED on tumblr however it’s a LONG journey before he gets there. Before I get into it though there is a cw for briefly talking about suicide so please be mindful of that! It’s mostly in the context of the note post RFTA and people speculating what happened to Miles in his disappearance from tumblr, but I do talk about it so.

Ok here we go

So Miles is well known as That Guy on Steel Samurai tumblr who is absolutely insufferable to interact with but he writes good meta and writes even BETTER fics, but it’s the kind where something is obviously going on in this guys life and is he ok? Because it seems like he’s working through some shit and that combined with his ask answering sprees of outright denying he’s gay and just talking Like That on the internet people get a kick out of him and he’s JUST tolerable enough that people don’t really DO anything about it. He probably gets a call out post maybe like one time but it’s just by some rando who’s pretty new to the fandom and doesn’t get the sort of unspoken agreement steel samurai collective fandom has made to just put up with him despite him being absolutely dreadful.

But then all of a sudden Miles just... disappears one day out of nowhere. At first it’s just a day, then a day turns into a week, and a week turns into a month and people are like what the fuck? What happened to the iq of 127 guy? And people start writing WILD theories about what happened to him to chase him off the website because it’s like, 2016. But people start to get WORRIED when his longest running fic Updates it’s FINAL(!?) chapter and he just... kills off the Evil Magistrate. That’s when people are like oh my god did he? Did he fucking kick the bucket? Oh my god what the hell and he is just absolute radio silence on tumblr because surprise! He leaves the note in his office and then he also decides to leave tumblr at the same time because he really genuinely thinks that this is it for him.

HOWEVER. Miles also has a best friend in the Steel Samurai fandom. Someone who he met on tumblr years ago and who he enjoyed debating and conversing with who he thinks has very well thought out opinions on the show even if he doesn’t agree with all of them (he does agree with most of their points, which is why he was so open to their friendship in the first place). And they’re the ONLY person who he keeps in contact with while he’s in Europe finding himself after his breakdown.

That person is Maya Fey.

He and Maya became friends years ago and neither of them know who each other are or how old they are or really anything about each other except their screen names and more personal details that they choose to share over kik, which Miles only got because he was curious to know more about her and it was the only platform she offered. She was very hesitant about choosing to become his friend, but Maya’s fixer complex told her wow this is a broken man, maybe IM the one who’s gonna make him a better person and make him less awful. And for the first few years this had minimal success. She got him to say a few more slang terms, but really he didn’t change all that much. But she was consistently kind to him! And once you got to know him he really isn’t that bad, especially in those rare moments of emotional vulnerability he allowed himself (he was too afraid of being “found out” even though he had moved out years ago) and he could actually be a pretty fun guy.

It isn’t until Miles’s year in Europe when things really start to change. He had a very vocal crisis to her over kik that kinda freaked both of them out, and as I mentioned he stopped using tumblr entirely and Maya gets WORRIED about him and he just. Starts telling her stuff because he’s emotional. It’s the most he’s EVER told her and it’s still nothing TOO revealing because he knows how public his image is and he doesn’t want ANYONE, not even who he considers to be his closest friend, to find out who he is online because he doesn’t want to be seen as unprofessional or just general shame about his hobbies. And over the course of that year they just... slowly she keeps beating it into his head that he’s a good person! Or at the very least a FINE one who is trying to be good and that’s all that matters. And like he starts to just... internalize it. And starts listening to her advice about maybe going to therapy. And then HE starts listening to HER problems more and it becomes... a more mutual friendship. And it’s nice because he’s never had anyone like that! But he keeps talking about this guy who saved him and stuff and that’s when Maya is like woah pump the breaks dude we need to talk about how you’re definitely gay and he gets SUPER defensive about it but like over time he just. He starts to come to terms with it, and she helps him a lot but he does a lot of that work himself too.

And so when he comes back in 2-4 he’s starting to feel... better of course but also different? And more confident in himself. He still has a long way to go but he’s learning! And that’s what matters to him! But with learning and trying to be better he realizes something. He has to log back onto tumblr and actually like, apologize for being horrible. And he does just that. But when he logs back on he’s SHOCKED that he has HUNDREDS of asks a lot of them are the usual but a lot of them are also ones of like, GENUINE concern asking if he was ok and if he was still alive and he’s taken aback that people even SENT HIM kind asks when he was so awful to them.

Miles makes a really long apology/announcement post where he’s INCREDIBLY sincere and in it he OPENLY acknowledges that he was dealing with a lot of unresolved trauma and says something about how he came to terms with being gay in his absence and he thinks that that’ll be the end of it but within literal MINUTES of him posting that he’s getting asks telling him how HAPPY THEY ARE that he’s not only ok and doing better but that he came out and people WELCOMING him to the community and then there’s like posts that are like “And people then make posts like wow am I the only one who got emotional about the guy with a iq of 127s thank you post? anyone else? Just me? Ok (12.6k notes)” and “If the 127 iq guy can get better and learn to work towards being positive then you can too (54.9k notes)” within a matter of DAYS and seeing those and just

It’s weirdly SO validating for him that he was being cheered on by literally THOUSANDS of people who are celebrating his growth as a person! That are celebrating his COMING OUT when he was SO scared of that part of himself for SO long. And the fact that people were ROOTING FOR HIM even when he was the actual worst just. It makes him feel so good about himself and it makes him feel loved! So much so that he writes ANOTHER post thanking everyone for being so kind to him and telling them that things DO get better and there ARE people that appreciate them and it just... gets passed around because it’s a really inspiring and reassuring message and people just GENUINELY start to appreciate him. And it’s just a celebration of HIS character growth by THOUSANDS of people he doesn’t even know because man was he famous outside of his perceived sphere of influence due to the amount of meme material he ended up writing.

He still used tumblr and stuff after all this but he’s really calmed down a lot, he even rewrites the ending of his long running fic that caused people to panic about him. And he still answers asks and writes meta and fics and stuff, and he’s still MILES of course so he can be a bit of an ass when you disagree with him but he’s. Nicer. And happier. And that’s what matters.

#GOD this was so long rip to the asker but you really did unlock the secret sappy part of the hc #like maybe its a bit dramatic! but so is he and he gets REALLY into the making up for past wrongs thing so I THINK THIS IS TOTALLY POSSIBLE!#and maybe its a bit much that hes like THAT popular but also he would be. he accidentaly made so many memes. and he just VANISHED.#people think he DIED. he literally comes back from the fucking dead on tumblr and people are like WHAT THE FUCK HES NICE *AND* GAY NOW? WOW #dont even get me STARTED on what happens when he gets engaged.#also miles and maya best friend agenda... yeah #no i dont know how to put a read more on mobile im so sorry #ace attorney #miles edgeworth #tumblr miles #proxy roxy asks

75 notes · View notes

floralovebot · 3 years

Note

I really liked your aisha meta about her bonding and i was wondering what you think is her biggest weakness? And the other characters too if that's okay. Thank you:)

Oh thank you!! Hmm I had to think about this one for a second but I'll try to give you some good answers! Though to be fair, I think most of what I listed are things that have already been said aljdhgjladg

I do want to note, I think all of the major characters had room for growth and self-development especially within the first three seasons. We all know that characterization made a huge nose dive after season 4, so I'm not really going to be talking about the later seasons as they aren't super representative of their personalities (however, i will occasionally mention them for certain characters). \

Anyway, onto our beloved characters mental issues and why they should all be in therapy <3

The Winx

Bloom: I think Bloom is actually a very well rounded main character! She has positives and negatives and those don't often conflate with each other (and I think most of her "too perfect" characterization comes from later seasons). Because of that, I had a hard time thinking about what her biggest weakness is because,, she has a few. However, I think something that stays very consistent throughout the series is her escapism. Bloom is a major escapist, especially when she's feeling unworthy. She has a lot on her plate! And a lot of people rely on her, which naturally can lead to some pretty heavy thoughts ("Am I doing the right thing?" "Do I deserve to be the leader?" "What if they're safer without me?"), however those feelings, when they become too much, often leave her feeling like people are truly better off without her. Then she runs off to Gardenia or she shuts people out or she takes on some dangerous mission just to get away from people. Her escapism often leaves everyone, including her, feeling shitty and it would've been nice to see her grow from that.

Stella: Hmmm, so again most of the early characterization gave the characters a couple of weaknesses so I had a hard time thinking of what Stella's biggest one would be. However, something that I've always noticed about Stella that's always made me feel bad, is her extreme I Need To Fit In Or No One Will Love Me attitude. And obviously that goes into her childhood and upbringing, but it's something that stays with her even after meeting the Winx and having all those You're Perfect The Way You Are talks with Bloom. She often changes her personality/attitude/emotions to fit what she thinks other people will like most. But that heavily goes into her insecurities of thinking people only like her because she's pretty or a princess. Stella's a smart girl and she notices how people respond to what she's doing. But when she's changing something about herself to get others to like her and they respond positively to it? That's horrible for her overall self-esteem and to her just confirms her fears that people don't love her for her true self.

Edit: I absolutely don't want to come off as if I'm saying Stella's personality is fake! Here's a further explanation for hers!

Flora: I think some people might disagree with me on this one, but I genuinely believe Flora's biggest weakness is how often she rushes into something. On one hand, it's admirable and shows how strong she is, but on the other hand, it says a lot about how she lets her emotions run her and often doesn't think things through when someone she loves is in danger or she thinks she needs to do something Right Now. Unless someone else prompts it, Flora often doesn't plan or try to think things through rationally. I don't think it's a bad thing to be in tune with your emotions, but it can become a weakness when you only ever think with your heart and what it's feeling at That Moment In Time. Instead of trying to think rationally or make a plan, Flora often just follows her heart immediately, but that can be a bad thing when her heart is hurting and she's not thinking clearly.

Aisha: It's definitely her attitude of needing to appear emotionally strong all the time. Aisha gives more of herself than she receives from others and a lot of that comes from her need to be seen as Reliable and Good. However, that often means she doesn't get the time to sit with how she's feeling or she pushes her emotions down. She doesn't want people to know that she's feeling upset because she doesn't want people to feel bad for her or use their energy to comfort her. Aisha is definitely a "other people have it worse so what happened to me doesn't matter" kind of person and that's often what hurts her the most. She doesn't let herself be vulnerable and often only does so when she truly can't handle it by herself anymore. And I think this heavily goes into her childhood and how she's had to be independent from a very young age. Aisha doesn't know how to let other people in.

Tecna: Hmmm, on one hand I'd like to say it's her internal battle with her logical side vs her emotional side,, so I'm going to. Personally, I think Tecna is a lot better at emotions than she gives herself credit for, and I think that's her biggest weakness. She doesn't give herself any credit when it's something that doesn't come naturally to her. Tecna had to work on being more emotive and reading other people's emotions correctly and by S2 she's already doing so much better than she was, but she refuses to recognize that. Tecna is so stuck in the "what if i'm too logical/not emotional enough and my friends hate me because of it" headspace that she doesn't even see the progess she has made. Honestly, Tecna being too logical/not emotional enough hasn't been a real issue for years and she doesn't even realize that. It's a little ironic actually, she's so caught up in her emotions about being too logical she can't see how far she's come.

Musa: Her trust issues. Personally, I think Musa's biggest weakness is her problem with trusting people. Because she just.. doesn't. Musa has a really hard time letting people in (for rightful reasons) but she once she does let them in, she has a hard time trusting them too. This is most obvious with her relationship with Riven, but it also comes out with the Winx! She's constantly scared that people are going to leave her or that they don't really like her or that they do like her but she's going to end up driving them away and all of that negatively impacts her relationship with others. She just,, doesn't trust people and has an even harder time trusting herself. I think if Musa had been allowed to truly work through that, she would be much happier.

The Specialists

Sky: I think Sky's biggest weakness is pretty obvious! It's that he does not know how to interact with people. I think I'm one of the few people that doesn't actually hate Sky. I hate that, just like the other characters, he had room for improvement and self-realization, which got scrapped almost instantly for Perfect Prince Sky. Sky, like most of the other royal characters, grew up pretty lonely (and his parents are abslute shit). The only other people he would ever talk to are members of his family, other royals, or people who weren't royal but were close enough to it (ie Brandon and even Diaspro depending on which canon you go by). Because of this, Sky has a really hard time interacting with people in a casual setting. He's great in royal settings and all their missions, but that's because he's allowed to and supposed to act all serious and Business Like. When it comes to talking to people in casual settings, he often fails because he doesn't understand "normal" people and he's never been allowed to just,, sort through his own feelings. It would've been amazing to Sky grow from this, because even in the first season you see hints of Sky rejecting royalty and wanting to be normal. MAN I wish Sky got proper characterization, he would've been so much better if he did.

Brandon: Oh man,, I had a really hard time with this one, because Brandon honestly doesn't have a lot of weaknesses? I think something that could be considered a weakness is that,, he's very devoted once he decides he cares about someone. Which isn't bad! But it often puts him in dangerous situations because he wants to save someone. Like anytime Sky gets into trouble, Brandon is for sure right by his side. Or if someone messes with Stella? Brandon's there. And again, this definitely isn't a Bad Thing, but it can put his own life in danger. And in their line of work it often does. However, I do think this is mostly evened out because of Brandon's ability to call for help and think of a plan. He doesn't often just jump into things unless it's absolutely necessary. He's able to think things through clearly and strategize. Sorry anon but I honestly can't think of any Big Weakness for Brandon, because most of his weaknesses are evened out by some positive. (Like, I was going to say he's a bit of a pushover but,, is he? Then I thought well maybe it's because he's ready to die for Sky,, but like. That's his job? Idk man,, any Brandon stans wanna chime in please?)

Timmy: Hmmm I, once again, had some troubles with this one. Timmy has a few weaknesses, mostly in the insecurity region, but I had a hard time figuring out what his Biggest Weakness is. After some thought, I think it's his eagerness to prove himself, specifically when he doesn't need to. I think this definitely evened out in the later seasons once he got some confidence, but in the early seasons Timmy really wanted to prove himself. He wanted to prove that he was a good specialist, a good friend, a good partner,, just,, everything. He was really set out to prove that he was capable of things. This often put him in dangerous situations that he couldn't handle or something he could handle but was too nervous to. It didn't help that in early seasons some of the other characters doubted his abilities (cough tecna cough). But again, I think this really evened out by S4 and it's not a big problem anymore.

Riven: Ugh goodness where to start.. I think Riven's biggest weakness is actually a mix of Musa's and Timmy's. Riven has a hard time trusting people, especially himself, and he's constantly trying to prove himself. He wants to be seen as reliable and Good and that's where a lot of his competition with other characters, mostly Sky, comes in. But that heavily mixes with his distrust and hatred toward himself. I think most of his Trying To Prove Himself is actually him trying to prove something to himself. He's constantly looking down on himself and that need to prove and be better than other people is a product of that. And I think that's also why he has problems with letting people in. Obviously, he has some general trust issues, with wondering if people just don't like him and what not, but a lot of it is not trusting himself and not letting people get close to him because of that. Riven's biggest weakness is that he doesn't give himself any credit for the progress he's made and is constantly doubting whether or not he's a good person. And that messes with his relationships a lot because he thinks he's not good enough to be around people and that sparks his need to to prove himself. And even when his friends do try to comfort him or say he's enough, he doubts that too. Riven has a lot of problems but most of them go into how much he hates himself.

Helia: Well, as one of the resident Helia stans, I've thought about this a lot. And I've got to say, his biggest weakness is his complete inability to talk about himself. A lot of people think Helia is really good at talking about emotions, but that's only partially true. He's good at talking about other people's emotions. When it comes to himself,,, he's a mess. Helia is consistently really bad at sharing his feelings and even just general tidbits about his life (evidenced by all the times he does/says something and the others get surprised because they never knew that,, years into their friendship). However, this often strains his relationships with people because they end up thinking he hates them or doesn't trust them or something else. While I have my own issues with the later seasons, S5 did a really good job at focusing on this in the show (when it really only ever got hinted at or shown in the comics). The whole Flora/Helia/Krystal thing was a major product of Helia never sharing anything about his own life and Flora's insecurities over if she's good enough. With the mix of being able to talk to people about their feelings, but never his own, it creates this really awkward situation of people just like,, not knowing things about him and then doubting their relationship, but then not being confident enough to express that because Helia still talks to them about their feelings so he must care about them!! .. but does he? It's this internal struggle of he's obviously a friend but why doesn't he ever share anything about himself?? This is even shown in his relationship with Saladin, a literal family member!

I'm.. gonna stop here for now ajghaljdhglj I'm sorry this got so long! And that some of them were shorter than others..

#i did the specialists too because i wanted to talk about timmy and i would feel bad if i only included him #sorry this got so long but i hope you enjoy nonetheless #let me know your thoughts though! especially if you disagree! as long as youre not rude about it i love to hear what others think about thi #winx club #winx meta #answered #anonymous #i didnt proofread this sorry if theres mistakes ahgdljadg #mine.metas

58 notes · View notes

prismartist · 3 years

Text

/rp

okay. if the c!tommy apologists and c!dream haters come after me for this, then so be it.

tommy shouldn’t kill dream. not just because of basic moral decency, but also because, from an outsider perspective, he quite literally has no reason to. because really, it will just do no good to anyone, including tommy.

(uh please keep in mind this is /nm, even if it doesn’t seem like it lmao i’m just a bit sassy for some reason)

tommy’s belief that he should get rid of dream comes from a mix of paranoia resulting from his trauma and the hero complex that was instilled in him since forever. he’s looking through an extremely muddled and biased lens. he’s convinced dream is going to break out when in reality, dream is fucking powerless! he may be unhinged and he may be dangerous, but he can’t do shit in the prison. he has no one to use the revival knowledge on, and they have stated time and time again that it is literally impossible for him to break out without assistance. and if any of y’all start to mention enderboo, let me remind you that the theory of enderboo being manipulated by dream isn’t canon. even if it was, you would think that he would have gotten out by now because really, dream would want to get out asap, yet he’s been in there for three months now.

and about what i said about dream not being able to get out unless with help? it’s actually quite possible that, in entering pandora’s vault, tommy might accidentally let him out.

(there are wilbur parallels here! would you look at that! hey remember the last time wilbur gave in to his paranoia and ended up hurting a lot of people? hope that doesn’t happen again ahahah-)

also, doesn’t tommy realize that he’s deteriorating his own mental health in trying to achieve this? i mean that should be obvious the moment he tried exposure therapy. he always thinks he has to confront dream to make things even when he really doesn’t. like he reaaaallly doesn’t. he’s trying to keep up his hero complex even when it fucks him over. remember the last time he tried confronting dream? that didn’t work out so well now did it?

not to mention, tommy is just giving dream power but stubbornly facing him over and over again. because he keeps getting beat up! he keeps giving dream something to play with! and that’s been the case the entire time!! there’s a reason dream only ever targets tommy, and only tommy.

riffing off that, tommy thinks dream will hurt everyone on the server when that’s kind of misguided as well?? dream’s main priority has always been keeping tommy in line. anytime he targets anything else, it’s because he sees them as extensions of tommy. l’manburg, the discs, tubbo. even if dream does get out, even if he resurrects wilbur, it’ll just be because he’ll be after tommy. which, yeah that’s terrible for tommy, but he’s not endangering the entirety of the server.

“so what do you suggest we do about dream?” nothing! you can do nothing!! i mean quackity’s already doing a pretty damn good job of beating him up (even though he really shouldn’t) or you can give him some therapy perhaps?? someone unbiased to talk to?? just don’t send in the clearly traumatized 16-year-old to do the work himself!! he’s in no position to kill anyone, much less face his abuser.

also there’s the argument that killing anyone no matter what is unlawful but for some reason y’all don’t seem to take that as seriously as the other points. which, fine, i’m not going to try convincing y’all otherwise, i’m just going to say that there’s a weird dissonance in saying tommy’s murder isn’t justifiable while dream’s possible one is, when both are results of trauma build-up, muddled points of view and a strong belief that the victim is the cause of all their problems. but one is more correct than the other ig (/s).

also can we stop. othering abusers and treating them as irredeemable? there’s a good post that explains this in depth but basically targeting abusers doesn’t help anything because it’s not actually tackling the root of the problem, that is, the system that molded them into abusers, and so just by punishing the abusers themselves and making them worse that doesn’t help to prevent other abusers and dehumanizes them.

now i’m not saying it’s not understandable why tommy thinks these things. it is! as i said, it’s a result of his upbringing thinking that violence is the only solution to your problems as well as the hero complex forced upon him. plus the obvious trauma caused by dream and co. i’m just saying that he’s making a big mistake by targeting dream when he’s posing no threat at the moment. also murder is problematic.

now the only reason why i would like for tommy to confront dream and attempt to murder him is that it would be an interesting storyline, and it would be extremely intriguing to see tommy’s train of thought while he executes his plan. but in-lore, i don’t think it’s going to be a positive experience in any way shape or form. he’s just endangering himself and dream rather than protecting everyone else. and i wouldn’t want dream to die from a meta standpoint; i feel like that’d be a waste of his character, that we weren’t able to see his pov before he gets ousted out of the storyline for good. especially since he’s the one who started the server.

TL;DR tommy shouldn’t murder dream, not only is it not supposed to be justifiable but facing him would probably have serious consequences on his mental health.

#tommyinnit #dreamwastaken #dream smp #mcyt #dream smp analysis #dsmp analysis #dsmp #c!tommy critical #unintelligible rants #long post #cursing #tommy apologists come @ me i dare you #but be gentle also im fragile #murder mention tw #abuse mention tw

64 notes · View notes

backofthebookshelf · 4 years

Text

One of the nice things about the way the TMA fandom has reached full large-fandom levels of toxicity is that I no longer care if people get mad at me for my opinions on characters! So, some Georgie meta.

(Because fandom is and always has been Like That, I do feel the need to clarify here that I love Georgie, she's one of my favorite characters, characters are more interesting because of their flaws, and I have no investment in the idea that women or female characters are inherently better or more emotionally competent than men or male characters. If I talk a lot about her relationship with Jon, it's because Jon is our point of view character and also the person she interacts with the most. Also, this rambles, sorry.)

I've been thinking about the Season 4 Jon Trauma post and how much I liked the way it talked about Georgie, and it's convinced me that if Georgie could feel fear, she's the one who'd be most afraid of Jon out of all of them. She's the one protagonist we have whose only interaction with the powers has been as a direct victim of them. She doesn't know what they feel like from the inside, like Jon and Melanie; she doesn't know what they're like when they're someone you love, like Basira; she doesn't even know what they're like as petty middle management, like Martin and Tim. What she knows is that one time a monster ate her (only) friend and traumatized her so badly she spent a year in a suicidal depression.

And now her ex - and yes, Jon and Georgie have a remarkably comfortable relationship in the beginning of season three, but they're still exes and they broke up for reasons, even if we don't know exactly what they are - has turned up on her doorstep, shaking and possibly bloody, with nowhere else to go and no access to his home. He's clearly lying about what's going on. He repeatedly violates her house rules. And then he tells her that he's turning into one of those same kinds of monsters that traumatized her and ate her friend. It's clearly enough to override any remaining affection she had for him, and by any definition he has now positioned himself as a trigger.

(Through no fault of his own: the only real response he has to Georgie's statement is "I can't believe you didn't tell me." She's the one who assumes that he Knew, somehow, that she also had a statement; she's the one who suggests he had alternatives. Both suggestions are plausible but we don't actually know for certain that either are true.)

But Georgie isn't afraid of Jon because Georgie can't be afraid -at least, according to her. I'm not sure how much I believe this in the grand scheme of things; it seems like an extremely unlikely mechanism for one of the fears to have. It seems much more likely to me that she's just never met anything as terrifying as that encounter was, and her subjective sense of fear has been massively recalibrated. In which case not only meeting but having hosted in your home another monster who self-describes as similar to the one that was so terrifying that literal threats to your life are no longer distressing would...probably ping. But she's conceptualized herself as a person who doesn't feel fear; it's even possible that was part of her recovery, identifying this as a possible benefit of what would otherwise have been a universally terrible, soul-breaking experience. She looked existential terror in the face and survived, and came out of it a person who cannot be afraid of anything left on this earth. That's kind of a superhero origin story, and I can't blame her for it. I think anyone with a mental illness has at least tried to find ways in which their suffering has made them a better, stronger person.

But whether she's suppressing and rationalizing away any fear she feels or she genuinely doesn't feel any of it, she does frequently behave as though her lack of fear gives her a more objective view of the situation than anyone else. I don't believe she actually uses the word "just," but it drips from her every interaction with Jon after Dead Woman Walking. Why doesn't he just stop reading the statements? Why doesn't he just quit? And, in Zombie, I honestly can't interpret her reaction to Jon when he wakes up from his coma as anything other than, Why doesn't he just die? If he hates being this so much, if he really doesn't want to be a monster, why doesn't he just die?

I really would like to think that it goes without saying that this is, at the very least, a massive failure of empathy, but she's so explicit about it and fandom spent so much time basically agreeing with her that apparently it doesn't. Not only is Georgie not afraid of the situation, but (and this is the part that makes me wonder if she's not rationalizing, rather than being supernaturally unable to feel fear) she can't possibly fathom how afraid everyone else is, and she never tries. She persists in treating the whole awful situation, as @findingfeather's post says, like this is a mundane problem with people who are refusing to help themselves, rather than a supernatural trap that has been specifically built to be inescapable.

Now, let me be clear, even if she were talking to, say, a drug addict who nearly killed themselves because they were in denial about how much of a problem they had, her attitude would be unforgivable. But in this case Jon had no choice in whether or not to become addicted to statements; it was done to him in such a way that he didn't notice it was happening until withdrawal was already incapacitating. He also didn't have the option to leave, as Tim's extended vacation made clear. And, on top of all of that, the whole reason he was in a coma in the first place was that he was trying to save the world. (Neither he nor she knows at this point that he was doing nothing of the kind, so that's really not relevant.) And - look, when Jon came to her after the end of season two, he was asking for help. When he rejected the kind of help that she offered it was because he knew it didn't apply to the problems he actually had, but she treats that like it's his problem, which is something like offering a leg splint to a person bleeding out from a gunshot wound and getting offended when they tell you that won't work. He was very clear that what was happening scared him and he didn't know what to do about it, and her only suggestion was "walk away," which he literally could not do, for multiple reasons.

She's lucky Jon has pretty much precisely zero self-worth at this point, because anyone else would have cut her off completely for behaving like a fucking asshole.

I say "she's lucky" because frankly, even though she says that she wants nothing more to do with him, she turns up at least twice in the Institute after that, with the excuse that she's picking up Melanie to take her to therapy. I don't know about you, but I have never once gone to someone's workplace to pick them up and gone snooping around inside, and no matter how fascinatingly weird that workplace is, I definitely can't imagine doing so when I know that workplace also contains a person I have definitely decided I never want to speak to again. She goes into the Archives, for Christ's sake, and she listens outside Jon's office door for long enough to catch a bit of the recording before letting herself in (so it's very clear she knows who's in there).

Now I'm not trying to paint her as a monster here; Georgie would hardly be the first person to have second thoughts about cutting off someone they still care about, or to break that boundary that they set themselves when they realize they do still want to know how that person is doing. But the fact is that she positions herself as having the moral high ground in every single discussion they have and that's just not true. She is not literally a supernatural monster, true, but if season four did anything with the concept of monsters it was breaking down the difference between "supernaturally driven no-longer-human" and "person capable of caring and empathy." (That's a whole different meta, though, one that I will get around to someday.) Not that Jon is any better, in that encounter specifically, at dealing with a complicated and contentious relationship - he deliberately goads her, even if he doesn't use compulsion. But that's the thing, they're both exes who have had a falling out and aren't handling it very well. Neither of them is in the right.

All of which makes me really wonder what her relationship with Melanie is actually like. We don't actually see hardly any of it directly, and of what we do, well, Melanie sounds like she's still high on painkillers, so it's hard to take that as an indication of anything. But given that people (who are not intentionally trying to manipulate those around them) tend to, y'know, be fundamentally the same person in their various relationships, though it may manifest in different ways, we can probably make some guesses.

I have always been bothered by, and I really can't ignore, the fact that they were getting together at the same time that Melanie was doing what Georgie has been demanding of Jon since season three: she did whatever it took to get out. I have to wonder if Georgie knows about the nonconsensual surgery part of Melanie's process of getting out, and if she does, if she understands how vital it was. I certainly wouldn't be surprised, if she does know, that she's managed to compartmentalize it: Jon inflicted this terrible trauma on Melanie, Melanie escaped the entity that took her over. (Subconscious implication: Jon is a monster; Melanie is better than him.) I would be very surprised if Georgie is interested at all in the fine distinctions between entities; she's shown no interest in learning what is actually happening to anyone in this situation beyond "it's bad and they should get out of it." But it's relevant, because by the time Melanie makes the decision to blind herself, she's in a much different position than Jon, enslaved by an entity but not consumed by one. She herself admitted to Jon that she would never have voluntarily escaped from the Slaughter.

And given how difficult Melanie finds it to talk about any of this - you can hear her dragging the words out from behind her teeth in her conversation with Jon in Flesh, truly incredible acting by Lydia Nicholas, my god - if Georgie doesn't want to hear it? I can't imagine Melanie insisting. Yes, Melanie is going to therapy, but let me tell you, I've been going to therapy for twelve years now and I have yet to have several of the important conversations my therapists have insisted I have. That shit is hard. But I can imagine a scenario where, having been told by her therapist (who, remember, doesn't have the first idea what Melanie is actually going through, because Melanie isn't telling her about the supernatural so she has to leave out a lot of really relevant details) that she ought to tell her friend/potential girlfriend/new girlfriend about these things, Melanie attempts to bring it up, Georgie says kind and reassuring things and refuses to let her clarify any of the details, and Melanie gives up in relief, thinking, well, I tried. Super valid all around, but it doesn't mean that Georgie has any clearer picture of what Melanie's traumas actually look like, never mind Jon's. There's no world in which I can imagine Georgie actually internalizing the idea that Melanie loved the Slaughter when it had her, and she would gladly have stayed with it if Jon and Basira hadn't intervened.

In Georgie's eyes, Melanie is being a Good Victim. She was hurt but she was strong; she fought it until she won; now she's going to therapy and setting boundaries and trying to heal. She got away.

(Except, of course, she didn't, because as of The Eye Opens no one has gotten away, because this is the entire world now. We have no idea how this has affected Melanie. Presumably she's out of reach of the Eye, given that Jon can't see her or Georgie (and there's some evidence on the side of Georgie's encounter genuinely having stripped her of fear, if she's also invisible to the Eye), but she spent a long time under the influence of the Slaughter. It had her firmly enough that her attacking Jon was enough to give him his Slaughter scar. If nothing else, Melanie certainly hasn't had her fear removed, and talk about a situation bound to retraumatize someone who had such a visceral revulsion to being trapped that Elias chose it as his mechanism of control over her. Melanie probably doesn't look like a Good Victim any more, and I'd bet her relationship with Georgie is suffering some serious strain because of it.)

We don't know when exactly Melanie and Georgie got together; the last time one of them mentions the other is, I'm pretty sure, when Georgie tells Jon that Melanie is back from India. So we know that Georgie and Melanie were friends; that's good, that's a good foundation for a romantic relationship. At the very least they know each other, they have some idea of what to expect. I'd be surprised if they were dating during that season 3/4 hiatus period, though, or frankly any time before Melanie's surgery, just because Melanie seems much too consumed with rage to have room for any other emotions, and I can't imagine Georgie putting up with that.

What seems way more likely to me is this: Melanie comes back from India, arranges to meet Georgie for drinks. Probably they don't talk about anything serious; possibly they talk about Jon, honestly, since we know Melanie was looking for him and Georgie talked to him about Melanie, but very likely in the same "stuck-up pompous ass" way that Melanie talks about Jon in early seasons. (I bet Melanie's roasts are amazing.) Shortly after that Melanie joins the Magnus Institute and then, very likely, either she never tells Georgie about it and therefore they don't talk much or she does tell Georgie about it and Georgie tells her that place is bad news and she won't have anything to do with it and they don't talk at all, until, whichever way that went, the Unknowing happens and Tim dies and Jon winds up in a coma and everything goes to shit. We know Georgie visits Jon in the hospital; we don't know if Melanie does, but frankly it seems unlikely. If they did cross paths during this time, it was probably very brief and superficial. Then: the surgery, and Melanie's recovery.

I'll be honest, I have a hard time imagining Melanie deciding on her own that she should go to therapy. It's possible Basira suggested it, but it really does sound like a Georgie thing to do. So I picture something like this: from the way Basira talks it sounds like they've all been pretty much living in the Archives for a while, and on top of that everyone in the Archives has just badly violated Melanie's trust, so Melanie pulls up her Facebook DMs and talks to the only other person she has. You were right, she says, this place is terrible, I can't handle it, there's no one here I can trust and I'm so alone. And Georgie, who is generous with help and advice (so long as it's accepted) and (like anyone) weak to being told she was right about something, starts talking to her. We know Georgie's got good boundaries, and we know she doesn't want to hear details about what's going on in the Institute, so I can see her saying, I can talk to you, I would love to talk to you, but not about this. For that you need a therapist.

So Melanie gets a therapist, and the prospect of going out amongst the monsters they know are stalking the Institute without that protective shield of rage (never mind the emotional vulnerability of going to therapy in the first place) makes public transit an unthinkable option, so she asks Georgie to take her, and she does, and she keeps taking her to therapy, which is, as far as we know, the only time Melanie leaves the Archives in season four, until she blinds herself and escapes it completely.

And so they have this relationship that's built up almost entirely around Melanie's trauma - with a foundation of friendship, certainly, so I do think that if they are willing to work through it they could make it a working, healthy relationship, but (and again this isn't stated in canon but is my speculation based on what we know about these characters) it is a romantic relationship that's built around the process of Melanie recovering from multiple traumas. Ones that we know that Georgie a) doesn't know many details about, and b) more importantly, refuses to know any details about. Now, I have no experience with romantic relationships and serious trauma; I might be wildly off base here. But. I know that boundaries are important and I know that trust is also important. And if Georgie is holding similar boundaries with Melanie that she has with Jon (and, as I went into excruciating detail about earlier, she has very solid emotional reasons to protect herself with those boundaries), that's drawing a hard line around what's basically the past two to three years of Melanie's life, and undeniably both the worst and most important things that have ever happened to her. That seems...difficult to manage in the long term.

(This is a bit more of a stretch, more of the germ of a fic idea than an argument I'm prepared to defend, but I also would not be surprised if Georgie told Melanie that she wouldn't date her while she was still working at the Institute. That's a very reasonable boundary, and it's good motivation - and probably healthy motivation, I do like the idea that Melanie had something to reach toward in escaping the Institute, not just the desperate flight from - but it's also something of an ultimatum. Which is not inherently bad, but it is the kind of thing that can fester, given other problems.)

Now it's entirely possible that Georgie isn't that internally consistent. People aren't! (See: Basira's attitude toward Daisy vs her attitude toward Jon in season four.) Maybe she's more flexible about being willing to listen to Melanie, maybe she's starting to understand some of what was happening and how genuinely impossible a situation it really was. But that has to be a struggle for her, too; it's not a perfect, sweet, unconditionally good situation that teaches you that you've been unfair to the point of cruelty to someone you used to care about. And by the time the apocalypse rolls around, Melanie is, if she's lucky, just barely able to say she's healed from the plain physical trauma of blinding, never mind all the other baggage. They've got to be having a rough fucking time of it, at the very least, even if you assume that they're suddenly both the kind of people who will sit still and listen supportively and talk honestly about their own messy and complicated emotions, when neither of them have been that kind of person before.

(Another disclaimer because Fandom Is Like That: This is in no way a condemnation of or argument against fluffy What the Girlfriends fic; fic is for making fluffy things that you want to happen to your faves, or building fluffy content that you desperately need for whatever reason. Gods know there are plenty of unhealthy parts of Jon and Martin's relationship that I ignore in most of my fluffy fic. This is me attempting to work through my thoughts and feelings about the relationship I see in canon in the hopes of actually being able to write some fic about these girls myself someday, because I personally can't write fic until I understand canon, and so much of them happens offscreen because they're not main characters, and they're written with such depth and complexity that you can't just slap a stereotype on them and call it good. Which is awesome! But it means I gotta do the work, and I post it because a) it's work, and this is fandom, and I want validation; and b) I'm hoping other people have insights that might also help me clarify my thinking.)

#the magnus archives #tma #georgie barker #jonathan sims #melanie king #long post #real fuckin' long post #sorry #it's a meta party #cw suicide #cw addiction

580 notes · View notes

alwaysthinkingoutloud · 3 years

Text

Hannibal Episode-by-Episode Meta/Analysis: Episode 1, Season 1 (Apéritif)

The series start with Will Graham in a crime scene doing what he does, which is resurrecting crime scenes for further evidence and possible insight into the criminal’s mind and motives. What is interesting about this first scene is that for a first-time viewer, for the first a few minutes, it is not clear if what we are watching is a possible reenactment or it is actually a memory. That doubt gets cleared in a minute but until then, we don’t know if he is imagining or is he remembering. Is he a guy with a powerful imagination helping FBI who literally puts himself into the killer’s shoes or is he the killer itself, hiding in plain sight? To my thinking, the very first opening to the story does say a lot about the end of it all as well.

“This is my design”

Why not say plan, but design instead? Planning is something mechanical, strategical. It is the result of motive and effort of a rational brain rather than an acted-on urge. There is no much room for subjectivity or creativity since efficiency is the ultimate goal. However, design has a more artistical ring to it. It is like, its prior aim is not to be useful, but to be beautiful. Designing is done when aesthetics is of concern. We would say, Michelangelo designed David, plan would not look right there. It would be accurate as for explaining the mathematical part of it, the disciplined and patient hours that has been put into it, but it would not do justice to the inspiration, passion, and desperate need of the artist for his creation to materialize. A planner would not adore his work, but a designer would. And Will understands the difference a bit too well.

Later, talking with Jack Crawford, we learn that Will finds the name of Evil Minds Research Museum “hammy”. I do not think there is anything hammy about the name, it’s quite literal. It is not an ennobler name but why does Will find it so though? Does creativity and originality need to be perceived as abhorrent just because it was given birth by someone evil? This all-cautious way of approaching and overthinking things is a reflection of something dark within. Afterall, what is seen has at least a little to do with the seeing eyes, if not more.

Jack exhibits a disturbingly dominant way of communication with Will. He corrects Will’s eyeglasses, the guy who he knows is not comfortable with any kind of interpersonal interaction, within the minutes of their chat and holds down his bag to slow down his moving on. He is trying to make sure that Will feels Jack is the alpha and also that deep down, Will does not have the option to not cooperate. And more Will gets convinced to help for one step, stronger Jack drags Will into it for one more.

The first time we see Will interacting with any victim-related people, it is confusing. Being an empath and claiming that he can not only relate to narcissists and sociopaths but anyone, he does not seem to empathize much with the victim’s parents, cutting into the conversation about parents’ doubts on their daughter’s likelihood of being alive with a non-emotional, case related question. It almost makes you question if his ability to emphathize is just stronger with the dark side of the force than it is with the light one. Yes, the primer focus is to catch the killer and stop whatever malice is going on but after all, Jack came to Will with the need of help, so Jack must care about the case resolving more than he does. Yet, Jack seems more understanding of the parents’ feelings than Will, although Will is an ultimate empath. We even see Jack’s disapproval when Will cuts into the conversation. It is a brow mover.

Next, we get more insight about Will as he meets Winston. He finds him on the road roaming, tries to get close to him but cannot, so he drives all the way to his home to get something to lure him with and comes back to the dog. He is willing to go lengths to add a new dog to his pack, to his ‘family’, to his ‘social circle’. Something he is not willing nor comfortable to do for a person. Will's preferring an animal's company to a person's may say more than obvious. Afterall, he chooses Hannibal over Jack too, doesn't he?

Will who has already started to get traumatized by the case, is ambushed in the bathroom by Jack with an unforgiving mobbing, forcing ideas out of Will and stirring him up in the expense of his stability. Later on in his little chat with Alana, Jack’s intentions and priorities are further put into perspective. The way he talks about Will shows that for him, Will is more of a means to an end than an actual colleague. His insistence about “putting Will out there” despite Alana’s warnings and his admission of not being absolutely capable of protecting Will’s mental health just crowns that he does not genuinely care about Will. In fact, he even knows the risk of what he is doing, and he is trying to draw Dr. Bloom in to share, if not all together blame it on, the responsibility if something may go wrong.

We finally meet Hannibal in his office in a therapy session with his patient. The look Dr. Lecter throws when Franklyn blows his nose and places the dirty napkin onto the table… Up to this scene, we were not given any clue to suggest that Hannibal Lecter is a killer but after all, we do know who he is. And him being the first actual predator in the series we meet, we do not see him acting on brute violence or inelegant butchering. His first reaction depicted is unrest against rudeness. So the audience is welcomed into the mind of Lecter with an easily apprehensible act that can be shared by almost anyone. Almost to suggest that, this act of Franklyn’s may be enough to justify a wrath that may come upon him.

Jack shows up in Hannibal’s office unannounced and mistakes Franklyn with Hannibal. Hannibal, of course slightly annoyed, tells Jack to wait in the waiting room and invites him in with his own timing. Being a bossy and dominant guy he is, this takes Jack by surprise and it also tells us that there is an even stronger alpha here. So Jack realizes he cannot dominate Hannibal into his will like he did with Will. He may have to try something else. As Jack asks questions that are getting more specific and personal as they come, we see Hannibal getting cautious. Taking his scalpel into his hand and eyes widening. He lowers his guard only when he learns that he was referred to Jack by Dr. Bloom, his eyes visibly getting smaller, which are almost the only window to his thoughts anyway. So after seeing the sophisticated aura leaking not only out of Hannibal but everything around him, Jack chooses to sweet talk him into cooperation.

When Jack, Hannibal and Will first come together in a room, it is the first time in the show where Will makes such a long, non-blinked eye contact with someone, that being Hannibal. And we see mixed emotions and thoughts on Hannibal’s face. He is amused, intrigued and curious at the same time with the way Will thinks. He makes a quick analyze of Will which results in making him fling out of the room. Being the controlled, non-impulsive, strategic guy he is; even Hannibal himself is a little surprised with the sudden blurbing of his perception of Will. So maybe this first scene having Will and Hannibal together is another kind of first as well with both men doing something not typically them.

Hannibal, telling Jack that “he may help Will see the cannibal’s face”, he copies the crime of Minnesota Shrike. At the first look, this looks like an attempt of toying with the FBI and confusing them. But considering Hannibal’s last conversation with Jack, this feels more like a tribute, a helping hand for Will. Hannibal knows that Will would know that this is not the same killer the second he sees the crime scene. As Will later says to Hannibal, this was done to show Will a negative so that he could see the positive. So, we see from this point on that Hannibal’s wit does not focus on FBI, it does on Will. We see Hannibal eating and smiling, joyous of the fact that he now has an object of interest. Will imagining of a stag right after this, as stag will be the subconscious symbol of the Chesapeake Ripper / Copycat Killer before Will knows who he is and later when he does, of Hannibal; it shows that Hannibal literally entered his life and mind in more than one way.

Hannibal shows up in Will’s house very early and obviously very impatiently. So he does not only plan to interfere Will with being the Copycat Killer but through his ‘person suit’ as well. Feeding Will the meat of the girl he killed is also exciting for Hannibal as this manipulation game he has set to play with Will gets to be sicker for a normal human perception.

The breakfast scene is also the first time where Hannibal is looking for some ill-intent or killing inclination in Will, while Will denies having so. He wonders how much being able to empathize with killers say about Will’s own potential to do so. Hannibal suggests that Jack is treating Will as he is “a fragile little teacup, only used for special guests”. And that he himself sees him as “a mongoose that he would want under the house when snakes slither by”. He suggests that Will is not a pray that should be afraid to get hurt, that he is the predator. By that Hannibal does not only encourage the destructiveness Will may be trying hard to keep buried to come alive, but also the false perception that Will’s mind is strong enough to take any challenge Jack may throw his way.

Hannibal warning Garret Jacob Hobbs is literally setting the pieces in position of his will to get Will where and how he wants. He does not know what will be waiting in Hobbs’ house for Will but in the end, it does not matter so much since he just wants to see what happens.

When they arrive at the house, seeing Hobbs leaving his wife on the threshold her throat cut, Hannibal stands still. Is it because he is so confident that Will will be too frantic to ever look back and notice that, or is it because deep down he just does not feel like putting his person suit on in front of Will? I think both. When Will shots Hobbs and tries to tend Abigail on the floor, Hannibal walks in and sees Will caring hard for the girl. Hannibal’s face looks curious about what is going on but more than that, again, his focus is on Will more than it is on anything else. He sees all these humane emotions that Hannibal himself has always been somewhat stranger too on Will, those emotions that he thought, cannot come in a package with all the destructive ones. But maybe they can. And those emotions may even look nice. Because it almost does on Will. Although how the events would turn out Hannibal did not know, it was certain that the way he pushed things, there would be blood and there would be Will doing something that will change him one way or the other. After all, they have undergone a traumatic (for Will) and exciting (for Hannibal) circumstance together and it is a known fact that people who experience a significant situation together tend to develop emotional bonds. Maybe this was the least of what Hannibal hoped for. If that was the case, he got more than he wished. Will got to kill someone even if it was for a just reason and there happened to be an orphaned girl that Will desperately bonded the moment he killed her father, who maybe a manipulative tool for Hannibal in his game. The last scene where Will finds Hannibal holding Abigail’s hand in the hospital room highlights this perfectly. Now, Hannibal and Will has a mutual asset that Hannibal may use to draw Will closer to himself despite of Will’s initial reservations to do so.

#hannibal #hannibal lecter #will #will graham #hannigram #brian fuller #nbc hannibal #hannibal meta #hannibal analysis #hannibal and will #mads mikkelsen #hugh dancy #murder husbands #will and hannibal #jack crawford #hannibal loves will #will loves hannibal #aperitif

40 notes · View notes

gakkubi · 2 years

Text

Hey everyone, I wanted to make some updates. I'll put them below the cut because I don't like wall-of-texts between my drawings unless it's meta content 😂

Also, comissions update: I planned on opening comissions now, but with this arm flare up and me moving cities in a couple weeks, I'll open them around midway April. Look out for it! 👀💞

Those of you who have been following me for a while may know that I suffer from arm pains - manageable most of the time, but sometimes they get bad. ✍️ My whole arm started flaring up last week again, so I went to another doctor (after the first one said "I had nothing" and dismissed me despite of me being in pain), and this good doctor grabbed the ultrasound machine and scanned my shoulder until finally he found issues. Long story short we found some inflammation and other strange stuff, which may or may not explain why, along with the pain, my whole arm goes stiff and heavy and I lose some of my coordination (which affects both my drawing and writing). My wrist seems fine thankfully!

(By the way, physical therapy has been helping, even if I don't know exactly what the problem is. My body can take so much more than it used to, and I'm actually proud of how much work my arm took before flaring up again, compared to a few months ago. Exercise does help, especially therapy like this).

The reason why I'm sharing this is not to cause pity or anything like that; I mention this arm issues from time to time, but since it takes such a huge part of my life, it feels a bit strange not talking honestly about it. I feel like you guys should know. Drawing is not the main cause of this (my abusive college is), but my art is definetely most affected - and I guess I want you all to know that yes, it happens often and feels bad, but it will be so good when I get to come here and tell you that "I'm healded!" :)

And I'm so grateful to all of you who follow me, like my art and/or read my fanfictions, because when the pain eases off and I get to draw/write freely, I feel so immensely happy. I only draw when I'm not in pain, and I do it with so much love. I guess this post is another one of those 'thank you' messages, because all of your support also give me motivation to push extra hard on therapy.

There will come a day when I'll have huge ass strong arms and nothing will stop me from drawing yahikona smooching. (┛✧Д✧))┛

Soon I'll be going to another shoulder doctor to find a treatment that will make me heal. Fingers crossed 🤞💗

#I won't stop posting drawings btw 😂 I have finished stuff that I'm very excited to share!#txt #This flare up started last week. Currently I'm at the worst stage which means it will ease off by the end of this week #don't worry :^) <3 #I try to be careful but college is a bitch!!!!!!!#I may take long to reply to fanfic comments now because of this as well

2 notes · View notes

sanoiro · 4 years

Text

Lucifer Meta - Celestial Powers

Celestial Powers have occupied a lot of our time in this fandom. What do they mean and how they are controlled? Perhaps the answer is in this self-actualisation all angels seem to possess.

Back in S2 Lucifer told Linda that all angels were born with their gifts and when she asked him if that was it, he seemed baffled from that question.

What we know so far is that

Lucifer draws out desires

Michael draws out fears

Amenadiel can slow down or even stop time

Remiel can sense the creation of new Celestials

Uriel could see patterns of action and results

And then we have Azrael. Azrael is the Angel of Death but what is really known about her gift? Very little. She can transfer souls? But how does she know where to go and when? Does she senses death? Finality so why did she need a sword that could enforce that finality to everyone?

By looking back a theory was formed one that may be supported by some lines throughout the seasons.

Celestial powers are not gifts. They are defence/coping mechanisms, coping mechanisms, customised for every Angel as if when they were created Mum and Dad gave them what they needed to feel safe, to be safe. So in a way a gift but did they made the same mistake Lilith did? Instead of making them untouchable each and every one barricaded behind their insecurities.

Let me explain this.

Amenadiel in S5 told Chloe that humans saw their desires reflected on Lucifer. That is why they were drawn by him. Lucifer hid behind -let’s call it- a celestial mirror that kept everyone out but made him likeable. If Michael was correct then Lucifer biggest fear was to be unworthy.

That is supported by Lucifer’s own words in the end of 3x11. Lucifer waited for aeons his Father’s forgiveness and after a lot of time he got disappointed so his vacation started. I do wonder sometimes if that case in 3x11 started by Michael. Was Aiden (the fighter) confronted by Gil (the boxing coach) out of fear and that led to the murder? Was it a celestial influencing murder? It’s probable.

Let’s not forget that Lucifer fought back when he was called Evil by Amenadiel that’s what urged his decision to throw the towel on ruling Hell and start his vacation. But back to the Celestial powers.

Now let’s leave Lucifer for a bit and move to Michael. Michael as very well Lucifer and Amenadiel said essentially reflected fears back to others, in an attempt to conceal his own fears of inadequacy. It is interesting how similar Lucifer and Michael are cognitively.

Amenadiel’s powers were brought forward at his talk with Remiel in 4x07.

“My powers, they kept me at a distance, kept me disconnected from humanity. And I think that's why they're gone now. Because I don't want that anymore.”

When Amenadiel had to confront his son’s humanity all his fears and insecurities came back thus his powers returned not in a loss of control but in order to protect him. They acted like an armour.

Here I would like to say that whether Charlie or not is a Celestial is an interesting question. He is half so it is plausible to get sick or even grow old, it is normal to have human attributes but also he remains a Celestial as Remiel recognised him as one before his birth.

Now add to that the fact that Michael may have manipulated the ‘evidence’. We have seen that some Celestial powers work on other Celestials like with fear and desire or even tracking down a Celestial as we saw with Remiel. So I wouldn’t be surprised if as Charlie comes from Amenadiel’s genetic code he can be controlled by him in that way. Or because Amenadiel was feeling threatened by his son’s humanity his powers lashed out to Charlie thus immobilising him.

As Lucifer noted in 508:

“You stopped time to prevent all these from happening.”

And here is the sweet spot. I do believe to an extent subconsciously that’s what was happening with Charlie. Amenadiel made sure to extend the effect of his power to Charlie, to stop time and protect his child.

It didn’t mean that Charlie was necessarily too human or not a Celestial but that the desire to protect the one that Amenadiel loved meant to stop time. And as you may have guessed something similar happened to Lucifer and Chloe in 507.

When it comes to Lucifer and Chloe we know that he is vulnerable around her and that she cannot be affected by his mojo.

Let’s start with his mojo.

If we assume that his mojo is a defence/coping mechanism, surrendering to her emotionally and carnally in 506 led to an effect similar to what happened with Charlie.

There is no reason why Lucifer would not have been able to trust Chloe in 1x01 in order for his mojo to not work. So we should assume something is there but what we are interested here is how Lucifer’s mojo passed to Chloe.

What Charlie is for Amenadiel, it’s Chloe for Lucifer. The person that they love most and are ready to do anything for them, even change, they can expand their powers and that’s what I believe happened with Chloe.

Aside from what she may be aside from mere Miracle, and thus can be receptive to the mojo transfer (like a magnet that needs the right metals in order for a pull to exist), I believe that Lucifer passed to Chloe his mojo as a way to protect her.

His power shield was given to the person he cared most and wanted safe. It is only natural for us to give everything to make sure our loved ones will be safe. The expression if I could give you my heart, moon etc imagine it being possible for Lucifer when he gives her a part of him unconsciously.

But when does he get it back?

As some fans have noted on Twitter and on Tumblr did the injection triggered him on being invulnerable again around Chloe?

I believe that yes. Lucifer has spent all his being on protecting her, she knows she can take care of herself but for the first time, he was near on losing her because he couldn’t act.

Let’s assume that the gun had not been tampered with or anything else. Let’s assume that while Dan was unconscious between his flights with Michael, Michael did not get the opportunity to somehow make the shooting realistic for everyone.

At this point, I want to say that speculation is still lit within me. Otherwise, Dan’s actions don’t make any sense.

It would make sense for Lucifer to miraculously regain his invulnerability and fro Michael to play easily with Chloe’s fears in the caves. He even seemed to know that Chloe would be rescued. Was he the one who manipulated Dad into finally coming to Earth? That will be known in P2 I guess but if all the above is not somewhat true then Michael’s plan has no value whilst he seems to always know exactly where the next pawn will land.

My opinion? Michael takes after Dad…. Go figure… Which I’ll explore in the Second Act as I believe it is related on how Lucifer transfers his mojo and loses his invulnerability.

As you remember Lucifer’s mojo returns in 507 as Lucifer draws out the guard’s desire to be a dancer in order to get a lead on Chloe. So Lucifer’s mojo returns when he needs to protect Chloe again and she cannot do it herself.

If we now assume that Lucifer’s vulnerability has nothing to do with Michael then it’s similar to his mojo coming and going and yes connected to the shock of not being able to protect Chloe.

Chloe in 505 tells him that according to Amenadiel’s theory Lucifer is vulnerable around her because he chooses to, and as we have said before in other meta, he trusts her. That discussion between them took place in 1x04 and after that, we know the rest.

In a recent interview with Ildy Modrovich and Joe Henderson they confirmed (at 2:43) that Lucifer is vulnerable around Chloe because he chooses to be.

Ildy said: ‘He wasn’t evolved mentally so his body laid the stepping stones for him’

Additionally that:

‘ He decides to make himself vulnerable and because his brain is kind of behind, his body does it for him. That’s why angels self-actualize and have the powers they have, be they good or bad. They are trying to tell them something that they need to learn.’

That’s a realisation he has after Chloe tells him Amenadiel’s theory in 505 so we can assume that cognitively can now albeit again unconsciously stop that from happening. Therefore he regains his invulnerability when there is an imminent danger around Chloe like her ex cradling a gun and pointing it at him.

Finally what we also need to explore is why Chloe loses suddenly the mojo in 507. She asks the desires of two suspects and then in their third one is gone.

Between those two events three things happen.

Lucifer’s fears and annoyance over Chloe surpassing him after talking to Mario intensify.

He is willing to use intimacy as a means to get back his mojo

Goes to couple therapy with Chloe but here is the thing that’s the one thing that I believe turned the tables.

While at couples therapy some revelations do happen but mainly for Chloe.

As Linda said they do not know everything about celestial powers so nothing is ridiculous not even power transference through sex, an emotional surrender or as Linda says it having sex with someone you care about requires surrendering control, giving up power.

Lucifer with the parallel of Chloe losing her power through the loss of her gun and part of her identity decides to of course get a gun and use the Diablo Lt. Detective badge prop he stole from set in 503.

Fast forward we go to Los Angeles Theatre where they question the barytone and there Lucifer has a gun and a badge. He reclaims power in the form of what gives power & a part of her identity to Chloe. He feels secure and also feels like he can protect himself and Chloe.

If the theory of the powers being a defence/coping mechanism then by getting a placebo in the form of a gun it means that Chloe no longer needs his mojo as she is safe with him while he has control of a deadly weapon but also that effect is so strong that he does not manifest - not retrieves - manifests his mojo again.

That of course is lost when while having the gun on him he gets immobilised, he can no longer protect himself nor Chloe and thus the barricades are all back up. Both his mojo which he uses to find/protect Chloe but also his invulnerability around her again in order to keep both of them safe.

I would like now to close this meta with the idea that Chloe also had a role in this as I do believe that losing the mojo involved her understanding of Lucifer’s powerlessness and therefore she once again surrendered emotional control to him and thus allowed the mojo to leave her, so Lucifer is not the only one who controls that give and take but on a degree, no matter how small, Chloe does as well.

#lucifer season 5 #lucifer spoilers #lucifer speculation #lucifer meta

52 notes · View notes

jedi-order-apologist · 4 years

Note

Hello there! Could you maybe put together small SW novels recommendation list? You reference books often and I assume you can suggest a few good ones that shed light/give more insight into the Jedi culture. Thank you for your blog and have a good day 💗

Thank you! I hope you have a good day too.

I actually haven’t read that many Star Wars books, all things considered - there are a lot, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of the prequel era stuff, let alone the rest of the franchise. I only recently started getting into the books, and there’s probably a lot more really good ones out there that I just haven’t had the chance to get to yet.

What I could do is go through what I have read and give my opinions on those. So far, in no particular order, I’ve read:

- The novelizations for the prequels and some of the original novelizations for the OT. More on my thoughts on those here (and specifically for the ROTS novelization here), but in summary: TPM novelization is a bit weak, AOTC novelization is decent and really helped sell the romance to me in a way the film fell flat for me, ROTS novelization is nothing short of phenomenal, ROTJ novelization is also pretty good, I don’t remember the ESB novelization enough to say anything on it, and I never read the ANH (or technically just Star Wars) novelization. I’d say they’re worth checking out at least once.

- Shatterpoint. I really like this one, it deals a lot with Mace struggling with the dark side, and it captures the idea of falling to the dark side as something rooted in defeatism, which really resonates with my interpretation. There’s quite a bit of discussion of Jedi philosophy and why they do and believe the things they do (or at least how Mace Windu sees it) - I’ve cited it before in my meta because I think it lays out pretty well why they resist the dark side. It also deals a lot with the costs of war - especially psychologically. There’s also a decent element of Jedi as family through the father-daughter relationship of Mace and Depa. On top of all of that, it’s very well written (same author as the ROTS novelization). I strongly recommend this one, though be warned that it is a very heavy, brutal book - oh, it’s not completely bleak, and it has it’s moments of humor, but it is not a happy story. It ends in victory, both in the immediate situation, and with Mace coming to terms with some of what he’d been struggling with, but I wouldn’t call it a happy ending, more that…well, as Mace says, he’s the last one standing.

- Yoda: Dark Rendezvous. I read this one most recently, and I made a long post on why I absolutely loved it. It’s not perfect but I think it’s the best portrayal of the Jedi in the books that I’ve come across so far - this book really goes hard on the “Jedi as family” idea, which I love, and there are really good conversations on (and inspiring examples of resisting) the dark side, and working through but not giving into grief. Everyone should read this book, it shows the Jedi as an inspiring people with so much tenacity and compassion, doing their best. And it eviscerates every bit of nonsense about the Jedi (and especially Yoda) being “emotionless” or “loveless”- it’s full of amazing passages that are absolutely perfect responses to these notions, direct refutations of them even (as well as refutations about the idea of the dark side having any kind of merit at all) because they get slung around in the story by a lot of the characters. If I could only pick one Star Wars book to suggest someone read, it would be this one, absolutely.

- Kenobi. Do you like Westerns and a sad Obi-Wan with a chronic hero syndrome that doesn’t help him with the whole ‘staying under the radar’ thing? If yes, you will probably like this book. It doesn’t really get much into Jedi culture, since…well, they’re dead, and most of the book is written from an outside perspective, not Obi-Wan’s. I think that was a good choice, because while he’s understandably going to be very sad during this time (it takes place during his very early days on Tatooine), constant exposure to that, in my opinion, would overdo it and wear out the audience. So the outside perspective of how sad and weird he is, where the characters don’t understand the context behind his behavior, but the audience does, works really well. I have some issues with it - for instance, while it’s kind of hilarious how much everyone wants to jump his bones in this book, I do wish that they’d kept the chemistry between Obi-Wan and Annileen strictly platonic (and the language around romance in this book rubs me the wrong way). And how people find out his last name is a bit contrived. But it’s a decent read that I’d recommend.

- Jedi Apprentice (series). I’d recommend this with the caveat that you have to go into it keeping in mind that it’s written for younger readers. Which absolutely does NOT mean it’s all fluff and sunshine and rainbows, very far from it (I call this series “Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Collection of Childhood Trauma” for some very good reasons, and the fact that he tries to sacrifice himself to suicide-bomb a door open with the slave collar wrapped around his neck before he even gets taken on as a padawan is just one of them), but there’s a lot of stuff that…doesn’t feel like it was explored fully to an adult reader’s satisfaction. It has a lot of the usual kind of fridge logic that often comes into play with kids’ media, and while it was written to be favorable towards the Jedi, that fridge stuff gets taken by fandom as reasons to criticize the Jedi quite often. More on that here.

- Cloak of Deception. This one’s…okay? It does spend quite a bit of time with the Jedi, but it feels pretty surface level. Luceno’s strength is in the fantasy space politics; for whatever reason his character interactions always fall flat for me, though I’m not sure if I can articulate why they’re so unsatisfying to me outside of a handful of good moments. But if you’re looking for a look into the politics leading up to TPM (or at least, Legends take on it), this is (one of) the books to look at. I say one of because I actually read Darth Plagueis first, and there is a bit of overlap.

- The Approaching Storm. This is the lead-in book to AOTC. It does a decent job with a look at the Jedi, I think, with a few snags (Barriss straight-up heals brain damage/mental illness to the point of complete personality changes, which seems way outside Jedi abilities to me, and there’s a bit of “maybe we shouldn’t take people from their families” angle instead of the Jedi as family angle). Also for some reason it refers to Barriss and Luminara as humans. And while the book tells us a lot about how important it is that the Jedi negotiate this conflict, most of their actual obstacles are getting places, with the negotiation itself getting glossed over. But it was a decent read, I think.

- Labyrinth of Evil. This is another Luceno book, this time for leading up to ROTS. The character interactions worked a little better here - or at least they had more of their moments - Anakin basically going “Marriage what marriage I don’t see a marriage” in front of Obi-Wan was pretty damn funny…and everyone knows the “infinite sadness” line that follows off of that. I’ll be curious as to what the current continuity gives us for what set off the invasion of Coruscant, because this (as part of Legends) gave us a pretty good reason for it. I’d recommend it, again, for the examination of the political situation, and there’s some decent action in here too. There’s a few insights into the Jedi but it’s hit or miss whether I agree with them, and they’re not the focus.

- Darth Plagueis. This one’s probably the best of Luceno’s books (that I’ve read), but it’s not Jedi-friendly. Most of that’s because, well…it’s from the Sith’s perspective, so they’re not going to be very pro-Jedi. I’m mostly okay with that because a lot of their criticism of the Jedi is very clearly coming from an obviously bad faith position (”the Jedi let the Republic decay” the Sith say as they devour a man’s heart and talk about how the Sith need to make all the problems of the Republic worse), although there’s one scene at the end that I really don’t like because it appears to really claim that the Jedi would’ve told Anakin to never talk about his mother, which doesn’t match up with, well, AOTC, for one thing, or just my impression of them in general. But what this book does do well is a look at how the Sith influenced the political situation, and a lot of midichlorian lore (seriously, this book feels like a middle finger to prequel hate - “oh you thought the fantasy space politics were boring? You thought midichlorians were stupid? Here’s why you’re wrong”). Luceno’s way of doing character interactions actually serves this book really well, because the Sith are able to be written as the focus characters without making them sympathetic in the least. If you’re looking to get invested in characters, probably not the book for you, but if you’re looking for fantasy space politics, it’s pretty good.

- Rogue Planet. This one has a good interpretation of the Jedi, I think, though you do have to contend with the “written before AOTC” issue of authors not realizing that Jedi weren’t supposed to get married and have children. But I liked the look at how they handled discipline - Anakin gets in trouble, and he’s brought before the Council, and the whole process is about questioning him to get him to realize and admit what he did wrong, not punishment. They then make the decision to redirect his energy into something productive by sending him and Obi-Wan on a mission. Also, Anakin sees a Jedi therapist at the end of this book, so it’s a good one to throw back at anyone who claims that the Jedi never helped him or that the Jedi don’t do therapy. But…plot-wise…it’s a little weak, mostly in that not much is resolved because it’s mostly setting up for stuff that won’t pay off until much, much further down the line (as in, whenever the Yuuzhan-Vong show up). The ship-growing thing was cool though.

- Wild Space. If you’re looking for a ridiculously dramatic Obi-Wan whump fic that’s one step away from sticking Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padmé, and Bail in a foursome, this is the book for you. If you’re looking for things like accurate characterization, an interpretation of the Jedi consistent with the films, believable interpersonal communication, or an actual plot…you will be sorely disappointed by this book.

- Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth. This is the sequel to Wild Space. It has a second part, Clone Wars Gambit: Siege, which I have not been able to bring myself to read, which probably tells you all you need to know about my thoughts on the first one, though you can read more about them here. In short, I strongly do not recommend this book at all, and find it to be pretty terrible characterization (even though it’s played for sympathy) of the Jedi and especially Obi-Wan. Wild Space at least has absurdity going for it. Stealth does not.

And that’s it! That’s all I’ve read so far. I’m sure not everyone will agree with my opinions, but in terms of my personal recommendations/non-recommendations, this is what I have.

#book recommendations #or not recommendations as the case may be #discussion #jedi #on jedi culture #Anonymous

66 notes · View notes

toneelspeelster · 4 years

Text

portraying trauma, a skam and remakes comparison

disclaimer: i’ll start this by saying this meta will be critical of the way wtfock portrayed their version of a traumatic experience (the gay bashing). if you do not want to engage with criticism on this, i’d advise you not to read. this will also discuss only a few versions (skam, druck, skam nl and wtfock) in particular because i didn’t want to make it too long and because i feel these versions deal with trauma in an interesting way.

common reactions

in any case, i’d like to start with common reactions after experiencing a traumatic event, be it a sexual assault, emotional assault, physical assault etc.

1. anxiety and fear 2. re-experiencing of the trauma. 3. increased vigilance 4. avoidance 5. anger 6. guilt/shame 7. grief/depression 8. self image and view of the world is negative, trust is difficult. 9. difficulty with sexual relationships 10. substance abuse (i’d include negative coping mechanisms here too). source

now, i mention this not because i think every remake hits these but rather because i want people to see what commonly happens after traumatic events to people and how wtfock in one instance (robbe/sander) misses the mark completely while in another (zoe) it actually sort of works. and how other remakes have dealt with the subject matter.

first off: skam

to start with even’s traumatic experience and his response. i’m starting with even mostly because it’s the original series, not necessarily bc i think it’s the most elegant portrayal (bc it’s definitely not). but in essence, what it does show is the effect of a traumatic event in the long run. even’s experience at bakka, where he kissed one of his friends he had a crush on; who rejected him; even being in a manic episode; resulting in a suicide attempt and his self inforced isolation from his best friends by going to another school and ignoring their messages - it’s touched upon in his initial season but expanded in season 4. and still at least one year later, still even freezes up in fear immediately after seeing his friends. even is incredibly anxious; it’s clear he’s recalling past memories he’s been trying to avoid for forever; he feels immensely guilty (he wants to see elias, he really does, he just doesn’t know how) and even though i think even’s self image is not necessarily the result of this experience, it does have an even more negative effect on his self-image. even has difficulties liking himself, seeing worth in himself, even in season 4. after reconciling w him (however that even went we don’t know) he appears in one of their vlogs and still you can see how uncomfortable it makes him to talk about it. but, this is what it ends on: you see the strength of even reaching out to those he loves and for them being able to reach out to him too. in the end, it’s healing. it is discussed throughout the season.

then, numbers two: druck and skam nl

i’m combining these two in one entry bc i feel like these two portrayals deal with the repercussions of traumatic experiences to the life of these two very well.

first off, we have david, who came out as transgender at a previous school and was met with intense transphobic reactions; deadnaming, invasive personal questions and just generally awful treatment by people - it resulted in david feeling very unsafe, difficulties sleeping and hiding and running away in the hopes of avoiding these situations. it affects his world view of the world as unkind, and him forcing himself to be okay with being alone bc the only one he trusts is himself. he doesn’t let people too close (wanting to stay anonymous) and when matteo breaks up with sarah he runs bc matteo is getting too close. and then, it happens again. he’s outed on social media in his new school, having difficulties even doing his exams bc his teacher is being a transphobic dick and he’s scared of both him and the kids at school. he then, after staying with his godmother, hides himself away at an unsafe, abandoned pool and even staying there for a night.

then, we have liv. earlier in her life, she’s implied to have had an eating disorder - a traumatic experience in itself. and although she seems very aware of her needing to be careful not to fall into those patterns again, it unfortunately does come to the front again when faced with the fact that she’s been sexually assaulted in her sleep and it’s been filmed without consent. as an eating disorder survivor, i’d say her body is already something she might have difficulties with. to combine that with sexual assault.. it results in liv isolating herself at home, resorting to doing her white(!) laundry multiple times in one week and her stress baking cookies only for her to give them to her roommates. her mum even asks her if she’s eating well - for a mother who seems emotionally and physically distant otherwise, liv must’ve not sounded well. even when she seems a little bit better, engel still comes over to check up on liv and cook for her. engel has similar ed experiences so she knows it’s not something that’s just gone one second to the next.

these portrayals work well bc it is clear that their experiences have become a detriment to their view of the world and result in them resorting to very unhealthy coping mechanisms. they both clearly feel the loss of control, the triggering of (past) experiences; the avoidance and the isolation. liv feels immense shame, david feels immense anger and fear - they both have difficulties trusting people, even the ones they care about the most.

but, in the end?

david does let matteo subtly know where he is, bc he knows matteo will see him and find him. matteo calls him even out on it: you are not a damned vampire who needs to hide away, he says - something that david didn’t even see about himself until matteo told him. he finds support in matteo and all of his friends and his sister. he doesn’t need to be alone anymore.

and liv? she tells her friends about her troubles eventually, and they support her wholeheartedly, telling her it’s not her fault and flashing boobs while doing so. liv finds the strength to confront her attacker and blackmailing him, and eventually her boyfriend tells her she needs to go to the police to report his brother.

these are both david’s season-long storyline and liv’s multiple episode storyline (all her clips for the first week after her experience focus solely on this). it’s healing to see this happen to survivors of these experiences.

as a ender: wtfock

i think it’s important to establish first that this is first and foremost about robbe/sander’s gay bashing. robbe and sander have been dating approximately three days when they are violently and verbally assaulted and seemingly left for dead in antwerp’s streets. the next episode makes a point of robbe and sander being hurt badly with bruises and cuts and black eyes, robbe doesn’t sleep much and is irritated quickly and sander has a very weird reaction to violence in general and doesn’t want to go to the police. later, robbe is scared that sander was put off by the idea of going to the police, that he felt forced. within that same first episode, robbe tells milan the true story and zoe a little off story and they react sympathetically, zoe even offering her doctor. robbe’s mum’s psych also refers him to a therapist and he calls her.

but then the storyline, after episode 6? it ends? milan seems to weirdly reference it sometimes but it doesn’t come to any conclusion in the end. after reconciling sander and robbe have no trouble kissing in front of everyone. there’s no sense of robbe or sander having internalised a different world view after this experience. they even never discuss it ever again after that first week. robbe going to a therapist is not even shown or referenced at all, even with the opportunity being there with social media updates. there’s no real repercussions, except for loss of sleep and sander maybe sort of seeing it as a way of destroying something time and again but that’s more his world view bc of his mental illness i’d say. it’s a storyline for one episode, that’s it. and with how irresponsibly they portrayed it by not immediately showing them being alright or together or taken care off but waiting hours for an update, it triggered a hella lot of audience members instead. as a bisexual woman myself, i felt scared watching that.

zoe’s storyline of having to testify even got more of an appropriate portrayal as she’s scared to testify and also feels pushed by the people who love her the most (milan and senne). her breaking up w senne feels more an actual genuine decision bc of messed up feelings about the whole situation (senne being quite... aggressive with how he approaches her about it sometimes.. it felt like he wanted it for himself mostly, not for her). her not being able to sleep and feeling exhausted, months after the actual traumatic experience happened. it has an effect on her and how she responds and how she makes decisions.

conclusion

experiences like these have repercussions. but apparently in belgium only sexual assault results in trauma. gay bashing doesn’t. it had no true purpose except to educate straight people about the plight of lgbt people being attacked violently. but, as people far more eloquent than i have said, why? homophobes will not watch this series and suddenly turn around. and the world is damned if people just don’t realise that beating up people is bad and shouldn’t happen.

the true purpose of skam is to teach people of all kinds, and to show people of a certain minority, community or with same/different life experiences that there is hope, and a lot more to them than just what they have experienced. now even the good portrayals could have all benefitted from telling the audience that it’s good and okay to go to therapy about this... but at least they didn’t shy away from a storyline that shows how deep this runs for people. they devoted time to it.

and that’s all wtfock really needed to do if wanting to make a point by including this. they didn’t. it’s sensational fodder at best. and i think that the characters as well as the audience?

they deserved better than that.

#skam #wtfock #druck #skam nl #skam meta #wtfock meta #druck meta #skam nl meta #mine

197 notes · View notes

lassieposting · 4 years

Note

Tell us about Lucifer’s depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, and past abuse. I mean I can see the self harm, both the obvious In cutting off his wings and the like as well as the unhealthy self medicating, and the abuse - which honestly comes across as a murky gray area, like some verges on abuse but isn’t quite- but the other things... I need them pointed out to me.

GLADLY, ANON

okay so, to cover my ass: this is just my personal take as someone with trauma & suicidal ideation who self-harms. other people with different trauma and different relationships with self-harm/suicidal ideation might see this whole thing completely differently. This post could be triggering, please pay attention to the triggers in the tags. I am not a professional psychiatrist, and if you are struggling please seek professional help.

i’m gonna break this down into sections bc, surprise surprise, it got rly long

THE ABUSE:

Now, you’re absolutely right that this is kind of a murky grey area, because at this point we really only have one side of the story: Lucifer’s. And obviously, he’s biased.

the family dynamics:

But let’s take a look at the family dynamics we see in-show. We’ve only seen a fraction of Lucifer’s family, but it’s still fairly obvious that the ways they interact with one another are unhealthy and tend towards abusive, especially when aimed at Lucifer.

We have Amenadiel, who:

Is obedient to his Dad on an almost brainwashed level until he falls.

Blames everything - including his own actions/failures (i.e. saying Malcolm killing humans is Lucifer’s fault, even though Amenadiel himself raised Malcolm from Hell) on Lucifer.

Does not know how to respond to affection or praise, even though he clearly appreciates and enjoys them (i.e. when Trixie hugs him and says she thinks he’s good). This is the son who’s in God’s good books. And he still clearly doesn’t receive affection or praise often.

Openly competes with Lucifer for Dad’s attention/love, to the point of rubbing it in his face when he discovers he’s the favourite

Is complicit in Lucifer’s abuse - taking him back to Hell (thereby isolating him), threatening him when he doesn’t want to go, and cutting off any attempt Lucifer makes at reaching out to connect with humanity - for billions of years to try and win his Dad’s approval.

Straight up tries to have Lucifer killed.

Says he’d love to go to war (with Lucifer, and presumably with Hell as a whole).

We have Uriel, who:

Takes it upon himself to enforce what he believes is his Dad’s will; he had no instructions from God when he came to Earth.

Delights in getting the opportunity to beat up Amenadiel, and gloats about it.

Threatens - and harms - the first good thing Lucifer has had in his life in eons as a way of bullying him into doing what Uriel wants.

When Lucifer complies, Uriel decides to kill both Goddess and Chloe, purely out of spite because Lucifer was “being difficult”.

(There is an interesting meta here on Uriel’s potential motivations that I really like, but this is looking purely at his actions.)

And we have Goddess, their mother, easily the most manipulative and emotionally abusive of the lot. She:

Admits to destroying things God cared about - attacking humanity with plagues and floods etc - out of malice and to get his attention.

Happily releases Azrael’s blade into human hands, hoping for widespread human deaths, to get her ex to get back in touch.

Plays Lucifer and Amenadiel off against one another like a pro for her approval.

Only ever touches her children when she’s trying to manipulate them - there’s a good meta on that here. The one exception to this that I personally believe to be a genuine attempt to comfort (both him and herself) is when she hugs Lucifer after he’s just killed Uriel.

Doesn’t actually care about what Lucifer wants - he’s told her outright that Earth is the only place where he feels wanted and respected, and she knows he has a life he enjoys and a woman he’s falling in love with, but she expects him to abandon Earth and go back to the Silver City with her regardless - to the point that she actively tries to dismantle his human life and kill his loved ones to leave him with no ties to Earth.

The picture this paints to me is of two incredibly narcissistic parents who see their children as extensions of themselves rather than as people in their own right. If you compare Lucifer - who’s an asshole, but fundamentally a good man - to his siblings here, you can see that the two who stayed in Heaven have caught fleas from their parents - and part of Amenadiel’s redemption arc is him realising how toxic and damaging his family is, giving himself a damn good flea bath, and doing his best to be a better big brother to Lucifer and a better son to his mom (and, later, a better father to Charlie than his Dad was to him).

angel life cycle

So apparently in canon, angels were created as adults. My personal headcanon is fuck that, baby angels, but we’ll go with the canon explanation for this, because honestly it still lines up with my theory.

Even if you’re “born” with a mature adult body and adult-level speech ability etc, you still won’t have an adult’s wealth of life experience, or maturity, or social skills. You’re still going to have to grow and learn and experience situations to learn how to cope with them.

Now, Tom Ellis has said in the past that he plays Lucifer as essentially having the emotional maturity level of a teenager, which I think is honestly perfect. For an immortal being - or at least a being with a lifespan of many, many billions of years - it’s actually fairly believable that the angels are (depending on the age gap between them) either still in the “adolescent” life stage or emerging into the “young adult” one.

Lucifer says that he’s spent “most of his life” in Hell. If he’s only a young adult now, at ~11 billion years old, that means he’d have been a juvenile (in terms of life experience/emotional development, even if he was “born” with a fully mature adult body) when he was sent to Hell, and the reason he was sent to Hell is because he wanted free will and started “acting out”.

Even if your 12-year-old is the most unpleasant, rebellious little shithead on the planet, you don’t kick him out of the house and spent the next decade sabotaging every attempt he makes to connect with people or improve his life. Because, you know. That’s your kid. You signed up to have him, that’s normal shitty teenager behaviour, and the chances are he’ll improve with age. God and Goddess went scorched earth on Lucifer because he was behaving in a completely normal way for a kid beginning to mature into a grownup.

lasting trauma

Lucifer’s parents’ treatment has left some crazy deep scars.

He uses a neglectful broken home as an analogy for his celestial family. And he does so incredibly smoothly; this is clearly an analogy he’s thought about before. Chances are he’s seen this dynamic on TV and identified very strongly with it.

He talks about his mother abandoning him as his “lowest point”. Not his Fall. Not any of the horrific things he’s seen in Hell. The point where he realised his mom doesn’t love him enough to protect him.

He doesn’t understand what he did wrong. God punished Lucifer harshly for wanting to control his own life, because narcs often see their children’s developing independence as a threat to their own control over their kids’ lives. Obviously He wouldn’t see it like that, but he’s clearly never explained to Lucifer why what he did was “wrong”. This family has a chronic communication problem.

He’s paranoid as fuck. He constantly suspects God of having a hand in the events happening around him, and any time it seems He is involved, Lucifer immediately sees whatever’s happening as an attempted manipulation. It never occurs to him that creating Chloe - someone immune to his powers who can really love him without any kind of supernatural influence - could be an olive branch or an attempt to give him what he actually needs. He doesn’t believe his Dad would ever do something positive to/for him.

He’s so badly traumatized by his childhood that he reacts like this to being called by the name his Dad gave him. And he’s clearly doing well in therapy - he might not know the word for it, but he knows he’s being (unintentionally) gaslit here. He doesn’t handle it well, but he doesn’t put up with it either, refuses to accept being told to see his Dad’s abuse as a sign of love.

He believes he’s unloveable. When Linda gently suggests that maybe Chloe kissed him purely because she likes him, he tells her that’s impossible and reminds her his powers don’t work on Chloe. He doesn’t think there’s any way someone could love him for who he is, unless he’s either giving them something or using his mojo on them. And it’s his family that’s conditioned him to think that way - look at Amenadiel alone, how many times he tells Lucifer he’s evil throughout the show, as casually as if he were telling him that his hair is brown. This is just a fact of the universe in that family: water is wet, leaves are green, Lucifer is irredeemable garbage.

He doesn’t for a second hesitate to believe that his Dad wanted to kill him. Or that he would kill him given the opportunity. He even thinks Chloe is his dad’s attempt to get him killed for a bit.

THE SELF HARM

the wings:

The blatantly obvious one - and the most deliberate - is when he cuts off his wings. Now when Lucifer talks about this, he frames it as him taking back agency over his own life, freeing himself from his Father’s control, and making a statement about his intention to stay on Earth.

But when you look at him, he doesn’t look victorious, or like he’s looking forward to starting a new life. Physical pain aside - and an amateur amputation would be agonizing - he looks almost like he’s grieving, gritting his teeth through something he feels he has no choice but to do.

Someone did a fantastic meta that I thought I’d reblogged at some point that says something like “this isn’t the devil in his moment of triumph against god; this is an abused boy mutilating himself to spite his father”. I wanted to link it, but I haven’t been able to find it again (if anyone finds it, please let me know so I can add a link).

the self-medicating:

I don’t think he realises this is a form of self-harm, and I don’t think he does it to hurt himself deliberately. But he comes to Earth to overindulge in all the things he can’t have in Hell, all the things he’s been cut off from.

Touch and affection, which he gets through sex. Oblivion, which he gets by drinking. Euphoria, which he gets from drugs. Socialisation, which he gets from being surrounded by people at all times and partying it up 24/7.

It doesn’t matter to him that the touch is from a stranger, it doesn’t matter that the affection only lasts one night, it’s something and that’s more than he’s getting in Hell. He buries himself in those things to forget that he has to go back. He can bury himself in the next line or the next shot or the next attractive body and, just for a little bit, he can forget who he is.

Sending Lucifer to Hell in and of itself is cruel. Angels are clearly social creatures, and he’s been in solitary isolation for billions of years - it’s a miracle he hasn’t gone insane. Yes, he has the demons, but they don’t interact with him by choice and he’s not safe with them. Hell denies Lucifer everything a young person needs to grow into a stable, healthy adult.

the self-sabotage:

We also see that he’s got a tendency to sabotage himself when he’s on a downward spiral. This usually comes out one of two ways - either:

He tries to chase away the people who care about him. This comes from being so terrified of being abandoned and rejected again that he’d rather run them off himself than wait for them to inevitably (in his mind) decide that he’s Not Worth It and leave him. For example:

He tries to push Linda away when he’s grieving after killing Uriel.

He punches Dan in the face and gets himself thrown off the case by Chloe - she’s already warned him she would bench him if he didn’t pull himself together.

He throws Chloe’s initial rejection in her face when he’s on his self-hatred bender in S4.

He’s absolutely vicious to Amenadiel in this scene, when Amenadiel is trying to communicate that he loves Luci and wants to support him.

Or he talks shit about himself. You can always tell when he’s having a bad time; he’ll start coming out with shit like, “I’m the devil, remember, I’m evil.” His real view of himself will slip out from under the mask of confidence and vanity. Chloe cuts right to the heart of this in S4; he’s been told so many times that he’s responsible for all evil that he now believes it. He blames himself, even as he vehemently denies having ever made anyone do anything.

THE SUICIDAL IDEATION:

Jesus fuck, it’s a good thing Lucifer is in therapy.

The first time we see him actively attempt suicide is in 1x13 when he’s being framed for shooting the street preacher. It’s a case of “the straw that broke the camel’s back” here - he’s been having a really rough time lately:

Groups of zealots are cornering him in the street accusing him of murders he didn’t commit

Being accused of things he didn’t do is already a trigger for him

His own brother tried to have him assassinated.

His bodyguard and oldest friend betrayed him.

He’s just found out the detective makes him vulnerable.

He knows Dan - and therefore probably other work colleagues as well - think he’s got something to do with the satanic murders.

And now Chloe is turning her gun - and apparently her back - on him. She’s no different from anyone else. He was stupid to ever trust her, etc, etc, and now he’s spiralling.

She was the last rock keeping his head above the ocean at this point, and when she goes to arrest him, he goes under. We see that mania come out very quickly; he starts laughing hysterically and tries to goad an inexperienced uni into shooting him. He pretends to have a gun, knowing the cop will fear for his life and instinctively shoot. Since Chloe’s right there at the time, and he now knows he can be hurt around her, that’s attempted suicide. He wants to die. He even admits to Amenadiel he was trying to achieve “a good death…or at least a nice and messy one.”

No one ever addresses this bloody hell why

And then there’s the case with the shooter in the hospital. Lucifer’s grieving Uriel at this point, and he’s up to his eyeballs in self-loathing. He killed his brother. He really is the monster everyone believes he is. He’s spent the entire episode up to this point trying to make people punish him. He’s riled up Chloe at a crime scene and she’s told him off. He’s punched Dan, and Dan didn’t retaliate. He turned down Linda’s offer of continued therapy in a way that’s almost a challenge; he wants her to snap back at him. And when none of these little punishments are enough for him, he escalates and escalates and eventually he steps in front of the sniper’s intended victim and, again, goads him to shoot. He goes a bit further this time, though; he outright begs the sniper to shoot him, and reams the guy out when he says he didn’t think Lucifer deserved it.

Again, he knows Chloe is there. This is a suicide attempt. He even admits to Chloe that he didn’t care about the intended victim, he was just trying to get himself killed. She doesn’t believe him. And it’s never addressed again, and I’m salty.

Anyway I hope this clarifies some stuff for you anon? and I’m sorry it took so long to finish I rewrote this so many times for Maximum Sensitivity and kept including stuff and taking stuff out and it got SO LONG and i had to condense it and i have A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS OKAY I HAD A LOT TO SAY

#lucifer on netflix #lucifer on fox #netflix lucifer #lucifer morningstar #tw suicidal ideation #tw self harm #tw child abuse #tw narc parents #tw attempted suicide #a+ celestial parenting #celestial family #lucifer meta #i dont think ive covered everything but fuck it im posting anyway bc if i rewrite this again im gonna scream

70 notes · View notes

tonyglowheart · 3 years

Note

This entire thing is a rant, feel free to ignore it, but I saw your post about how destiel fans can’t win in this context, and yeah. So have some rambles.

I’ve been thinking about the fact we (current spn/destiel fans) can’t win all night... I’ve seen so many people talking about how homophobic it is - and while I would very much like to argue, as every point I’ve seen made by a non-spn fan has been wrong so far, if I did everyone inside the fandom would agree and everyone outside would either call me straight or pity me for believing it’s okay.

(Cas wasn’t even sent to hell lmao. He was sent to angel death (the empty), a place he has escaped in the past. Other points, like that meta about spn has been predicting exactly this for months, that Dean ended up sobbing on the floor because he was so upset, like that death means next to nothing on spn, like that there is two episodes left, etc etc. you feel me right? I just don’t want to post wank to other spn blogs atm, we’re getting enough frustration as it is, no need to add to it.

It’s also worth pointing out that the bar is very, very low. Spn is a prominent TV show - not a Netflix show, or indie, or whatever - and it just said “main character in gay love saved the world”. [insert gif of ghostfacers dude saying that gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day here]

I just saw someone saying that spn having Naomi try to brainwash Cas out of loving dean makes spn homophobic (it is a conversion therapy parallel). My first response to that is that Naomi was the villain lmao? I guess we can’t write villains doing anything homophobic because having villains do homophobic things makes, uh - checks notes - villains look homophobic, and clearly we can’t have that.

There certainly are legitimate things to criticise spn about, but this isn’t it lol.

Also now some people are unironically trying to cancel Jensen because “his acting was homophobic, and so he’s clearly homophobic”, nevermind that he’s an actor and his character struggles with understanding his emotions (which I think he played excellently, myself. That scene had a very Dean delayed emotional response), nevermind the support he’s given to us queers in the past. Like. Idek man.

We would have been laughed at if we got no destiel, too.

It would have been worse, had the writers pulled a dumbledore. At this point I also trust the writers not to pull a GoT - they have explicitly criticised that ending in spn’s canon.

Spn’s writers did that by making the main villain of this season, Chuck / God, say GoT had a good ending. To reiterate a previous point I had: villains do bad things because they’re bad. And the bad things they do make them bad. For the people out there not still following, if someone does something in a story and it makes them a villain, that is explicitly telling you the story (and probably the writers) thinks that thing is bad. In this case, Chuck likes to write things for him, and we the audience have been shown and told that is bad.

Apparently thinking a gay confession is good in 2020 makes me straight. Seems unlikely, but whatever. Sorry for the length, I guess I went overboard, I’ve been holding it in lol. Anyway, DESTIEL IS CANON 💚💙 hope you have a good night

Helloo supernatural anon I hope you are living your best life right now. Yeah I’m like..... skeptical and leery myself but having lived through some absolute garbage discourse that is general purity wank, as well as the C/QL greater fandom here and on Twitter I find myself... much more wanting to question the “general wisdom” of things esp in terms of negativity, bc a lot of the time I find.... it’s wrong? Like so wrong. Or at least presents such an incomplete picture of the whole situation and also presents it in such a removed context that words that have meaning and are operationalized in a certain way for a reason, no longer have meaningful usage.

Anyway I don’t... know too much about the specifics of Spn but someone I follow is into it and talks a lot about the Gnostic stuff and that all was very fascinating to me, and I also have been grappling a lot with cultural Christianity bc of cmedia and the way ppl just *clenches fist* unthinkingly or uncritically slap some Christian norms on it and call it a day 😩 help I’m Tired. My thing here being... I actually got tired of the uncritical “superhell”s at some pt bc I am, in fact, incredibly exhausted with cultural Christianity, and because it does seem like, even possibly(?) without the Gnostic stuff it’s different from a “hell” or other Protestant-derived afterlife concept, and also yeah that it wasn’t seeded out of nowhere, it was set up to happen, which then... lends credence to the idea that whatever the current era of Spn is doing, the current showrunners are doing it with purpose.

And idk I just... refuse to believe the concept that ALL of the fans of Spn - esp the ones who have been following it still, or got back into it and are following it currently, are acting under delusion or are fooling themselves into liking it or thinking it’s good or whatever. I personally find that kinda infantilizing and patronizing and playing into issues of dismissing things women and/or other marginalized identities like.

Plus I find the concept that (from what I think I’ve been seeing Spn fans say) that the current era of the show is quite actively grappling with itself, its past, its legacy. to be very interesting and compelling; it hearkens back to like an old lore kind of feeling, of a thing that has grown into a nigh undefeatable monster and realizing that, also realizing that the only way to defeat itself is through grappling with its own nature and transforming and transmuting itself into something else. I personally find that more plausible and compelling than “Supernatural has been actively and continuously queerbaiting for 15 homophobic homophobic years., so right now we’re all very sorry for you because this maybe is no longer queerbaiting but it’s still homophobic and it can never be anything different ever.” I’ve been sort of tangentially aware of Spn thru the years and didn’t we agree, around the time of that in-universe play about Spn and with the lil Destiel shoutout, that Spn has come a ways as far as coming to terms with its fandom and working to treat its fans better? Why the sudden regression into “oh no, Supernatural is and forever will be homophobic and a hate crime”? 🤔

The rest under a cut bc the ask is already long and then my rambling will get longer-

But yeah I mean..... I get that the legacy of Supernatural has been certifiably Rough, but I think people also forget how different of a time 2005 was? Hell, how different of a time 2015 was, even, prior to, say, Obergefell v. Hodges. Now I’m not saying that to blanket-excuse Supernatural, but like, you look at mainstream shows from the era and... there’s a lot of shit lmao. The fact that Supernatural has existed this long seems to me like.... maybe we CAN look at how it’s developed through the years vs just insisting it is what it was 15, 10, hell, 5 years ago. Especially since, to my knowledge, there’s been showrunner changes? Which seems to me like it would... affect things? I mean honestly, I remember back when I got into Spn for a hot second because of Castiel, I remember watching panel, Q&A, etc vids thru the years, and like... I thought we agreed that... it was the fans who were going a bit far pushing the shipping question like literally ALL the time to the actors, who are not in control of the show and.... like at the time.... that could have had personal implications for them? And yes homophobia bad, and people can still be allies despite that, but again like.... I do feel like - from what I’ve seen - that these guys were NOT ready to deal with a lot of that but they’ve (okay Jensen I’m talking about Jensen here) genuinely grown and learned? Also how many years ago was the essay autograph thing that people keep trotting out, like what year was it in and what year of spn was it, and what were the prevailing opinions on LGBT issues and bisexuality then.

I’ve been seeing some murmurings of identity politicsing surrounding ppl who enjoy Supernatural, and I’m sorry that that’s happening to you, it really fucking sucks and it’s also the dumbest way to “make” or “win” an argument because it shouldn’t ever be a final determiner, just factors to consider when considering what life experiences might have informed someone else’s PoV and views as well as maybe how you can better communicate with them. Instead of it being a “weapon” or “tool” to either dismiss someone or de facto validate an argument.

Also yeah I get it that you don’t want to send discourse to spn blogs bc I imagine you guys ARE actively grappling with all the bs rn and it’s a lot. Even just from like, the stuff I see around, I’m like tired of it. I’m genuinely having more fun with ppl who are having a good time with Supernatural than the ppl who are hating on it, even in this sort of backhanded “oh we’re not clowning YOU we’re clowning the writers and showrunners who think you should be satisfied with this,” when... yeah? the people who HAVE been watching the show and therefore... know what’s up.. DO seem to be? And all this based on *fake gasp* context. And that’s where the backhandedness becomes kind of poisonous to me, because it implies that it IS bad, and that you SHOULDN’T be satisfied, but poor little you are but don’t worry, we’re not making fun of YOU for liking garbage, you’re just the hapless victim who is consuming the garbage bc... idk, whatever reasons ppl are coming up with ig.

idk man it’s 2020. Fandom isn’t activism, performative or otherwise, it’s okay to let people enjoy things even if you think they’re “objectively” bad, and like... I don’t know if people can call something bad when they’re not even working with the whole context and instead are dealing with rumor and reputation.

#supernatural cw #I tag this for ppl who I know want nothing to do with spn rn and are blacklisting and so it doesn't end up in main tag #Anonymous #asks answered #long post

5 notes · View notes