'when people call you a freak they mean well' i GENUINELY thought that was parody for a second. how come choosing to engage in roleplay or reading stuff is retraumatizing but getting harassed by strangers isn't?
I try not to ask myself questions like “How did people come to believe this kind of behaviour could plausibly called ‘kind’ or ‘loving’?” because I end up thinking about the kind of adults who would teach a child such a thing and then I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Short answer: It’s a deeply abusive worldview in which obedience to power structures is far more important than the rights or feelings of actual people.
sorry i didn’t do this when i was drunk last night but i couldn’t... stop thinking about “howl = charm offensive / party face, sophie = the one who gets shit done, calcifer = getaway driver”
JONMICHAELS! i love them. local human doesn't want to be monster, local monster DOESN'T want to be human.
:D i’m glad there are others out there lmaooo. we’re developing our Ships essentially in spoiler-isolation, beyond “Jon/Elias good” and “Peter/Martin interesting because everyone who calls Jon/Elias immoral and wrong tends to group them together”
liiike (feelings)
local monster doesn’t want to be human, has emotions for human which may very well stabilize him further into having a “self” capable of experiencing emotions
(”emotions” which do not necessarily have to be positive. :V local monster very much resents human’s employers, is existentially antithetical to human’s patron, could very well hate human for making him feel things, and has come very close to killing human without too many qualms. and above everything, he is unpredictable as hell.
so what i’m saying is, Jon basically always has to ask himself, “so, is Michael gonna be really affectionate and doting today or is he going to be mildly homicidal and scary? and what exactly can i do about that either way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”
i am just. interested. Serpent also has some particular Interests™ here and is even batting around some ideas, but we want to uhhh y’know, catch up entirely first.)
(also, it’s not that i dislike Helen or anything, but like… Michael specifically is this particular ball of creepy laughter and self-hate (meaning both “hate at Michael Shelley, that gullible failure who fucked up the Twisting” and “hate at having a self to speak of” :D!) and how do you not love that.)
I love cats who are like, dumb and clever at the same time? can open a door but couldn't find their food if it was under their nose. I love cats that join you for naps, who want to cuddle you and sleep next to you when possible, and who want to talk to you about their days, and wait near the door when they hear you coming in, and I basically just described my cats because I love them So Much
birbteeths replied to your post “hoo boy, just saw explicitly “all avatars had some sort of Trauma –...”
I'VE RUN INTO THIS ALSO and i HATE IT
1. as if he didn’t practice that evil monologue to sound as cool as possible. yes you have to tell the truth in a statement but truth is subjective we’ve been over this, and you don’t have to give the full story, and he *very clearly didn’t*
2. *legally blonde voice* happy people just don’t end the world, they just don’t
i don’t think we’re done with jonah’s story and i think that it is possible for him to be having a great time cackling and scheming and also to have Some Issues! i am SICK of this take. fuck you. also simon fairchild rights.
Hahah we’re glad it’s not just us being weirdly sensitive about the way people talk about trauma and tragic backstories! :’)
I’m just “Ugggh” about it because it overlaps with this weird growing hatred of giving villains reasons, it feels like? Like saying “X did bad things because Y” means you’re excusing the bad things and think X was in the right lmao. Especially if it’s because of something like Trauma, because clearly anything that anyone does for Trauma reasons must be good and defensible, and the only reason a writer would give a character Trauma is to make them sympathetic and redeemable </sarcasm>.
I suppose we haven’t explicitly seen someone say it’s a good writing decision more than just “lol oh my god Jonah” for him to (ostensibly) have not have a tragic backstory. If that ever happens, I demand to be shown it. :’)
Also I love the idea of Elias trying to Sound Cool for the monologue lmfao. I mean, he’s the guy who had “((stepping out of the shadows)) Where they’ve always been, watching over my Institute” just like... ready to say. Did he write out a version of 160 where he’s just gushing over how amazing Jon has been and talking about all his very personal reasons for Evil in unsexily emotional ways, then go “Hm no let’s try that again” and burn it.
Like.. he doesn’t exactly talk about himself much in that statement -- just what he did not why -- so it’s weird seeing people so goddamn certain that those why’s don’t exist, especially in a series so fixated on how and why people make Choices in awful circumstances.
Simon is just having a good goddamn time and would probably laugh at you for thinking he would even care about some tiny trauma or period of childhood. :V
re: perle and cacau's first meeting, perle is shouting 'i don't have legs!' in a bragging way and cacau shows up out of nowhere like 'ME EITHER' and then they high-five
THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS 8D (Except all the dialogue is in interpretive dance because I just remembered that Perle and Cacau don’t speak the same language...)
