Hanahaki Disease

It’s probably because Wednesday “I hate Tyler” Addams mentions him every three minutes throughout the season.

“Hate is a feeling, Miss Addams. Along with fear, contempt, concern and love.”

Your feelings are this beautiful garden of flora inside of your chest. When you express how you feel honestly, you allow for it to grow freely. But when you hide how you feel out of fear of rejection, and try to make it smaller and smaller, the flowers become cramped inside of you, until you choke on your own feelings. Every flower you cough up is something you’ve felt, but refused to say.

The whole “dying” thing is intended to be more symbolic especially. You’re killing off bits and pieces of yourself and how you feel, because you’re afraid to express yourself.

It’s not really supposed to be, “The one I love doesn’t love me back, and I’m dying from it.” Rather, it’s more along the lines of, “Repressing your emotions is bad for you, and it’s better and healthier to express them freely, even when it’s scary.”

Which is to say that, one, the cure for the disease should be telling the person that you are in love with how you feel. How the other person feels about the person afflicted should have nothing to do with it, as the trope is meant to be about feeling your emotions unapologetically.

And that, two, it’s not an inherently romantic trope. Obviously, it has romantic applications, but it can be written for any situation where a character is hiding how they truly feel. This can include a refusal to address a specific trauma, a desire to indulge in something that they’re ashamed of, and even really practical things, like wanting to ask one’s boss for a higher position.

Although (as an aromantic person myself) I don’t agree with this conclusion about the trope, this application would also avoid people calling it arophobic. When the thing killing the character is a refusal to be honest with themselves, rather than an unrequited love, it’s on nobody’s hands but their own to save their life.

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For the person who made a 200+ slide powerpoint about Neon Genesis Evangelion for a presentation party… Also for those who attend presentation parties…

The Archive Undying by @emcandon

For all former and current theater kids (affectionate)...

Will Do Magic for Small Change by Andrea Hairston

For the reader who prefers their off-the-wall science fiction tempered with social commentary, or enjoys social commentary in a space opera font…

The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

For the friend with the SHUDDER account…

Piñata: A Novel by Leopoldo Gout

For the burned-out chosen one who’s so, so tired…

The Saint of Bright Doors by @adamantine

For the tumblr mutual that fell down the wuxia cdrama hole…

The Water Outlaws by S. L. Huang

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

For the gamer who fondly remembers their confrontation with Rayquaza atop the Sky Pillar…

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

For the “smash first, questions later” friend in your life…

Ebony Gate by Julia Vee & Ken Bebelle

For a tragic superwholockian in dire need of restorative sapphic fiction…

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

For the reader who wished Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was actually Jonathan Strange/Mr Norrell…

The Last Binding trilogy by @fahye, including: 

● A Marvellous Light

● A Restless Truth

● A Power Unbound

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

I love how the show is focusing more on the cruel manners of the gods and how they view "family" especially how that bleeds over into the demigods feeling they must earn love and care

like, annabeth has had to earn care from everyone in her life except luke (and probably Grover cause my mans wouldn't do that)

everyone in camp is so used to it that the motive for going on a quest isn't to save those you care about, to do it because you have to, or for an adventure, it's specifically to gain glory so that your parent and the kids at camp might respect you.

from what little we have seen of camp the kids there are messed up in the head about what they think of love and family, it's genuinely so sad

then in comes Percy who has a great relationship with his mom, who believes people shouldn't have to earn love and care, and he's so bewildered by everybody's attitude and everyone at camp keeps telling him that that's the way it is and he needs to get used to it and our boy is just like "not on my watch" I'll pry child support from the father's cold dead hands if I have to

what path is mine? : on tula, viola, and sisterhood

Surprise! So I had the honor of doing the M9 pre-show trivia art again, and here they are close-up! ^_^

The world is so much more beautiful in all the shades of colors.

+Bonus

Apart from the fact that they're the unlikeliest of friends, ditto they're actual sworn enemies who have very little in common from the beginning (that's the whole premise of their rivalry), perhaps what's more fascinating is not how they kinda grew to have more in common and actually found they relate to each other a lot as they got older but also how much effort they put into creating and maintaining this relationship that they could've easily done without.

If I realised anything recently, especially after their retirement (or soon-to-come retirement) from professional sport, it's a bond that is nurtured as much as it is naturally grown and for no discernible logical reason. It's arguably good PR of course, two big rivals getting along when they're still competing and certainly plays a lot in landing the 'nice guy' image for both, but conflict and troubles are equally if not more, great PR as well, just look at Michael Jordan and his rivals. Or perhaps it was simply the 'gentlemanlike' nature of tennis that wouldn't tolerate this kind of behaviour and they're aware of this, or perhaps it's a simpler answer.

What's interesting is they seem to almost subject themselves willingly to this situation of friendliness and cordial relationship that they couldn't easily get out of, it's evident in the very beginning of their relationship for instance. It's true that after 2017 they did grow closer seemingly more naturally (with Federer experiencing injuries as Nadal has felt many times before, and them relating more to each other near the end of their careers), but before that? It was a remarkable effort. Nobody ever forced them to get along but they went out of their way to do it, and it's not as if it was ever 'easy'.

They did get good things about it in the media of course, like always having each other to rely on for their foundations' charity matches, etc., but it's also very precarious, as is expected. It's obvious that they've had fallouts, 2011 is one, perhaps no little frustration nor jealousy, and disagreement over the sports' politics. This is on top of facing each other in their favourite tournament finals every year. The truth is, they could, simply not bother - tennis is their world but it's not centred just around them. 2011 to 2020 at least, is a four-edged sword between the big 4, but you don't really see both of them making this much effort with Novak, Andy, or any of their big rivals.

Nadal and Federer obviously talked it out and made up their differences over the 2011 dispute in private, or else they would not have agreed to rejoin the players' council together. Nadal even apologised for making this disagreement too public. Federer could easily not come to Nadal's academy inauguration, and Nadal could simply rejected the Match in Africa and Laver Cup proposals (which he tried his best to fit into his busy schedule despite protests from his team). Novak, for instance, approached this rivalry he had with both of them in a much more detached way, always very respectful, occassionally friendly, but never really truly bordering on personal lines. He even admitted recently that he could never imagine Federer and Nadal as his friends.

I used to think that with two such complements in the world, somehow the universe would work its way to make it either blow up in pieces or come together naturally. But I realised I was wrong. The point is, it's not easy. It never has been. It's not natural nor is it inevitable closeness through time (like Nadal did with his Davis Cup teammates or Federer did with Wawrinka). They have absolutely no incentive to be friends. Federer did not have to come and open Nadal's academy, nor send congratulatory messages every year to the new graduates, Nadal did not have to leave his family to play in Federer's last match or fly all the way to South Africa. But that's why it's one of the greatest achievements in sports- that two of its biggest rivals absolutely did not have to get along, yet they did it anyway. It's a testament to their character, their sportsmanship, but above all, their immense respect for one another.

And what comes out of effort is trust. Both of them have repeatedly said that they trust each other more than anyone, Nadal said he could be open with Federer about anything including his injuries even when he's still playing, and Federer said he allowed himself to be vulnerable when he told Nadal first before everyone else about his retirement. It's very easy to find people you care about but very difficult to find one you wholly trust.

It's a valuable and meaningful bond of their own making and I can understand more now why Federer said he knew he'd still be in touch with Nadal after retirement out of all his tennis friends. Nadal's similar, now nearly completely out of the tour, he seems to not bother with anyone else in the field anymore but Federer. It's them calling each other still when there is no more tennis to discuss, no council matters to agree over. It's Federer saying "It happens, Rafa is like that" when saying their communications dwindle down every time Nadal is injured but clearly not worried about the durability of their friendship. Now, it's the effortlessness that comes after so many years of trying, it's "I know how he must've felt", it's absolute trust without complicated demands, it's being understood without having to say anything, it's the familiarity of an old friend, it's missing the old days and realising the world is moving on without them, it's accepting the present and not regretting the past, it's growing old together.