#then stop

first time drawing rocky and WHAT THE HELL?? this is so evil I love him but why is he so ocmpliccated? idk what he looks like? idk what to add? idk if I've ever seen a rock before and I don't think I can draw one??

more below the cut cause I idk I wanna keep talking but I don't wanna take up too much space

..

.

“Hey.”

.

George perked up. Glancing towards the voice behind him, he found himself staring towards a boy, who seemed to be around his height, but a few inches taller than him. He had icy blue eyes and brown hair, as well as small freckles that decorated his cheeks. 

Though, behind those kind eyes..

“What’s a pretty guy like yourself doing out here waiting in the cold for?”

Great.

Rolling his eyes mentally, George simply crossed his arms, mostly to keep his hands warm as he decided to talk to this dude. 

“Waiting for someone. They should be here soon.” He replied, now turning back off to look towards the street. Though, as if things couldn’t have gotten any worse...

The man somewhat leaned closer towards George, his hand ghosting over his side somewhat. George practically flinched, flashing a very anxious smile as he laughed with nervousness. Yikes... okay. He didn’t like this. Continuing to laugh, George took a step back, holding his hands up somewhat.

“Woah. Wooooah, don’t do that.”

The guy seemed to not even mind what George did. Instead, it seemed that he took that as a good sign to continue, now moving closer to George.

He continued to ramble on about something, but George was too distracted to even focus on it. He wanted to back away from this dude. So he did, turning away somewhat as he tried to laugh off how creepy this was.. but the guy kept going on. He kept trying to advance on George... and it was really starting to get to him. 

“I said stop it. Stop-” George spoke out now, getting a tad bit more annoyed. He turned and grabbed his phone, now walking in the other direction of this guy.. but he still kept following George. 

..

It was obvious, George did NOT like this. So he tried to move away, grabbing his things and walking down the street now. He tried to text.. but the guy kept walking up to him, trying to grab his side... trying to grab, him.

Panic... Panic began to set in and George just wanted to run away... but, finally..

..

The guy let out a shout, being thrown roughly to the ground. 

..

“Back the FUCK off.”

..

George, who was somewhat pressed along the wall towards the side... watched as Dream, his boyfriend, loomed over the man that kept following him. The man was stunned to silence, seeing Dream absolutely seething down to him. There was a tiny crowd watching this unfold... and that seemed to be it for the man. 

Getting back up, the man fled, leaving the scene as fast as he could.

..

“...”

George let out a heavy sigh... feeling warm arms now curling around him, almost protectively.

Well stop it.

Stop purposefully seeking out and ingesting things that you actively don’t like, just so you can find spiteful joy in hating it, or in telling other people why they’re bad for liking it.

Stop this ‘I’m watching this ~mindfully~’ nonsense.

You’re like a stalker keeping up with their ex because they want to see what they’re up to. It’s unhealthy, and frankly, you’re building extremely toxic and awful habits.

If you don’t like a piece of media, stop consuming it on purpose. If you find it problematic but still want to watch it, then shut the fuck up and just watch it and stop being all puritan about it.

Aftg does a great job of demonstrating different effects of trauma and how different people respond to trauma without ever passing moral judgment on the characters over these reactions. But it is far from the epitome of positive representation of mental illness and treatment - ESPECIALLY regarding Andrew's whole situation.

You cannot let yourself read these books without thinking critically of the way mental illness is alluded to and presented. Nora herself has stated that Andrew's medication is not based on any real medication to her knowledge. To try and diagnose a character with a heavily stigmatized mental illness without looking at context (both the context in-story of the characters actions as well as the real-life context of "This is a fictional story and the author made certain unrealistic choices purely for plot reasons") is actually very ableist.

It's one thing to have headcanons or try to analyze a character or project your own experiences and diagnosis on to a character. But its another thing entirely to assert that a character - Andrew in this case - MUST actually be a sociopath or psychotic (two very different things, btw, as pointed out by @sinistercacophony ) solely based on his violent tendencies or potential lack of empathy (which is very debatable in Andrew's case) or any of these traits his biological family might have (??? Eugenics anyone?????)

If youre going to play Fandom Psychologist, please at least do your research. Look at what actually is and is not a diagnosable disorder and don't ever assume that genetics mean shit. You'll probably end up spewing some eugenic dogwhistles at worst, and will probably perpetuate some pretty shitty ableism at best.

Psychology is a study - not a religion. This character's situation is not only very vague and a bit unrealistic (and so concrete and realistic diagnoses will be a poor fit anyway), it also has so many extenuating circumstances and extreme characteristics that - in real life - no decent psychologist would reasonably be throwing around diagnoses the way some people in fandom seem to try to. At least not until they got this boy some proper healing and healthy coping mechanisms and introspection.