Frodo was always corruptible, otherwise, there would really be no drama and it would not be such a tremendous achievement that he resisted for so long- key word resist. So what is he tempted with? The books don't tell us outright, but there are clues.
He has abandonment issues - parents dying, leaving him nothing but a place in the Brandybuck familial home, where he is largely ignored and left to his own devices (and later Bilbo abandons him too.) This also leaves him feeling unimportant and unloved. Please note he doesn't get adopted by Bilbo until nine years after his parents' deaths. He is obviously a troubled youth or he would not have been stealing mushrooms or wandering at night.
At his coming of age, he is friends with mostly younger hobbits, so he also has no friends during this time and no real support, as Bilbo is scarcely around and his future friends are little kids at the time. So some deep seated issues begin to emerge here. He is lonely and coping through avoidance and escapism- long walks, theft/indulgence, stories, pretend play.
His avoidant attachment style becomes more pronounced after Bilbo's disappearance. He does enjoy his time as master of Bag End, which tells me he is employing very successful coping strategies, but also that something in him is fed and content. He is happy being in control of his life and he doesn't give anyone the chance to leave him again. Sam is his employee at this time and he doesn't let him in a friend until after the journey begins. Merry, Pippin, and Fatty are his best friends, and still he keeps them at arm's length. He is protective of people he loves, but doesn't think himself capable of doing anything for them, so this namely shows up in his willingness to sacrifice himself for their benefit.
Jumping far forward, in the aftermath of the Ring, his biggest fear and anxiety is being shunned and isolated and in his dream, he tries to remedy that with a lofty self important air, and this is really important.
This is his shadow side; self important, needing validation from others, thinking he knows what's best/being too sure of his own judgement, possessiveness over people he loves and wanting to be theirs in turn (codependency,) over indulgence/greed.
After the Ring is gone, having seen intimately all these things in himself, Frodo does a lot of overcorrecting and ends up (in my opinion) reenacting his trauma again through abandoning his friends and main support network in a misguided self sacrifice, since this seems correct and good to him as it is the opposite of the possessive greed he is so adamantly avoiding. In the end, he doesn't grow from his experience, but is set back tremendously and harmed deeply.
Small Robby revelation I had on the train that made me happy
Ok a whiiiiile ago I saw a post that made some good points but also rubbed me a little bit the wrong way about Robby’s attitudes toward everyone in the episode where he grabbed Louie a beer and told Dana to smoke and I can’t remember if they explicitly said that Robby believes addicts can’t change but that is def a sentiment I have seen
And while I am in no way acting like Robby does not have a bias against addicts (because he definitely does) I do think that’s not exactly right
Because they tied that notion to like his own depression— he can’t change so addicts can’t, and staying in his suffering is comfortable
And that gets so close to the point but not all the way
the monster
it was not your fault– at first, at least. you can not help being the way you are. and even if you could, would you choose to change? they met you with torches raised and screaming mouths, the only choice you had was to flee. but you will not stay away forever. they whisper your name in fear, and you will make sure you hurt them just as much as they hurt you.
tagged by: @broughtpeace + @drb4ngs
tagging: @solrites (for sol or whomever you'd prefer! @hagiophagy @drjefferson @devilscheck @gobagx @shiftchange @adflorum (for john or jack? or anyone you want!) @leastproblematic @h4thaway + anyone else who wants to! <33
to express your love. you're a kind ghost, but a lonely one. the people in your home are guests, and you don't mean to scare them off. but anything paranormal tends to scare the livings, so they all run away at some point. but it's okay. you'll stay here, caring for your house and the memory of what── or who── used to live inside. you can't move on to the afterlife because you don't want to. you have so much love to give, and you've never had enough time to say it. even now that you're a ghost, there still doesn't seem to be enough time. i hope you find someone who loves you and your house the way you deserve. i hope you're not too scared to let them.
tagged by: @drcyn1c thank you this made me go out of my gOURD
tagging: @cursedbirth, @clawsextended, @shiftchange, @drk1ng, @allevils / @textlinktrue for whomever you want, @lostpr1ncess, @devilscheck, & anyone else who wants to!
extreme tw for child death and child abuse given that em is the daughter of a serial killer and just in keeping with f.na.f lore
-so in my canon, vanessa's mother dies somewhat mysteriously when she's about six years old. i personally don't feel the need to expand upon the, like, where and how of it, but vanessa definitely saw something to incriminate william
-it was definitely something at night, where she was like groggy and confused and for that reason it's very easily written off by teachers, therapists, etc.
-vanessa tries to report what she saw but given that in her canon timeline it was the 1970s (she was born in 1973, making her around 27 at the time of the movie) no one took her very seriously. even in a contemporary timeline, the lack of evidence does her no favors
-things calm down, mainly because william realizes he cut it WAY too close. he also realizes he needs to regain vanessa's trust, especially as she gets older
-we'll say that vanessa was around 10 when freddy fazbear's pizza opened up (which would be a grand opening in 1983), and the murders happened around 1985 (which i believe is like canon to the timeline?? idk man)
-because it was a new business venture (and as vanessa would later learn, a trap) william spent most of his time there, which meant vanessa did too. it became an oasis. her dad seemed happy there, and all the staff liked her and looked out for her. nothing seemed wrong, so to her nothing was wrong
-while she still harbors an underlying fear of her father, he has been working very hard to erase it, and by the time fazbear's is open (i'm not including the diner in my canon bc i simply dont have the bandwidth ahh im sorry) vanessa has largely compartmentalized her fear of her father, considering it just like general teen angst
-but when the 1985 murders happen, vanessa is very, very aware
-i'm undecided on whether she witnessed them because this blog is still in its infancy and i need to do more research on ptsd in general but also like what van's trauma would look like specifically as the child of a murderer, etc
-but either way, vanessa knows about the murders within days of them happening (if not The day of) and william knows she knows
-he then becomes an extremely unstable presence in her life, alternating between manipulation, outright threats, and gaslighting. as a result, vanessa is extremely loyal to him and to freddy's out of sheer fear
-its rare that vanessa is at the pizzeria very late, but she has been there after hours and has encountered the animatronics when they are possessed by william's victims
-vanessa quickly figures out how to communicate with them. like we see in the movie, they aren't really violent unless provoked/under william's influence, especially when it comes to kids.
-it's not the healthiest thing, but vanessa actually develops relationships with the kids, and starts to take solace in them. sometimes, she regards them as siblings.
-the bite of 87 closes the place down right when vanessa is entering high school. she has a weird reputation because of it (she definitely goes from being somewhat popular among classmates just because she like has the hook up to like kind of a pariah just because people are freaked out)
-obviously the murders are never connected to afton but there are very likely rumors and that shit does come down on vanessa in school, especially once the place shuts down
-vanessa has a few outcast friends but again, there is a lot of fear that if she gets to involved william might hurt them too
-once she graduates, she goes to state school (idk if fnaf has a canon location but! i'll pick a state eventually probably) but she is very much under william's thumb the entire time
-william brings her into the fold once she graduates college, as he has learned that it's difficult to keep the security guards alive
-vanessa just straight up is not a cop. she's trained in first aid and knows how to use a gun, but this is all by william's design. all her gear is stolen and/or forged and she has had some close calls
-aside from still being deeply afraid for her life, vanessa is almost entirely dependent on william financially, and he does basically pay her as a full time employee keeping the guards in line, etc.
-vanessa has looked for ways out very frequently but often feels too afraid to pursue them or is otherwise intimidated out of it by her father.
-the events of the film go down in my canon as they go down in the movie
-vanessa eventually Does wake up from the coma, and as william is dead (that's right!! he's dead im not letting that bastard survive lol) the case gets opened up and all that
-im gonna look into whether or not she would go to jail for life lmao. realistically she totally might. even though vanessa is a victim of lifelong abuse and threats against her life she is still an accomplice to a lot of crime so? idk man
-BUT for convenience and rp's sake, vanessa undergoes the trial, faces public ridicule and vitriol, and eventually comes out the other side as emily laughlin. the legal name change doesn't protect her from all of the fallout of the pizzeria, but it does help)
-she becomes a barista and tries to keep her head down. shes dealing with a huge amount of trauma and is just generally all over the place, as she's never been given the opportunity to live her own life before.
-she definitely has a continuing relationship with mike (whether that's romantic or platonic is open to whatever) and of course abby, though they are probably her only links to Being Vanessa. i'm still deciding if the ghost kids remain, but i'm thinking with afton dead, they're able to pass on. which on one hand is beautiful, but it's also another loss for emily.
-all in all, emily is definitely very damaged from her ordeal, but at once is very eager to connect once she feels someone is trustworthy. her relationship with mike definitely has a lot to do with that, as he has proven to her that people Can Be trustworthy
-anyway that's my story and im sticking to it! pls love my baby i care her very much ok bye
