I JUST WANTED TO SAY THANK YOU WHOEVER DREW THIS ON MY WHITEBOARD YESTERDAY I WAS CHECKING THE WHITEBOARD OVER TODAY AND SCREAMED IM SORRY I DIDNT FIND IT SOONER
ME WHENEVER PEOPLE DRAW FANART OF MY NICHE AUs
Avoidance is the worst reaction to stress. Oh this thing is giving me anxiety? And it's something I could prepare for by looking at it more or learning things about the topic? No, I will take psychological damage if I look at it directly. I will still be thinking about it and be stressed though.
laurence you little bitch boy if you compromise lilliris i will have your tricolor 2d head i dont care that youre a fictional character
laurence you little bitch boy if you compromise lilliris i will have your tricolor 2d head i dont care that youre a fictional character
SOBBING thinking about this, because when you think about it Iris has felt care to be directly attributed to control his whole life. they are indistinguishable from each other.
love to bring pain, feelings of disdain, to feel looked down on. Madam’s love for him, his love for Lawrence.
There is PANEL, AFTER PANEL AFTER PANEL.
thinking about when he runs away with Lillium, he has his first near-death experience after trusting someone he considered his friend, and he flinches when Heather tries to touch him.
How Iris considers love and acceptance to be a thing to be earned. Being needed over being loved, because love historically brings pain for him. Not only from the person he loves, but as a result of feeling the emotion at all.
but…Lillium is different. He’s refreshing, he doesn’t care to hurt Iris, give him any empty reassurances or go around in psychological circles to not say what he means. He’s blunt, honest, and understanding.
He’s a breath of fresh air, in every way.
Air has learned to have no attachments, to have no physical or emotional home. Lillium is not close with anybody else in the valley, he lives pretty much on the outskirts, and rarely comes home. What’s the point? It’s just a place to sleep and eat, nothing else.
Lillium is absent, as he always has been.
before he realizes that’s not gonna cut it with Iris.
They become proper roommates. Iris wants a home, and he decides giving it shouldn’t be much trouble. But as we discover later, Lillium has his own inner conflict about this new closeness with a person. He may not be PHYSICALLY absent. But remains emotionally distant
Remember that Lillium CANNOT let himself get attached to people, because he loves HARD. He has a big heart, but the last time he had someone he cared deeply for, it was his family…and they died, leaving him with the emotional scars of it. He doesn’t know how to go about this when he doesn’t want it.
this scene strikes me every time I see it because Lillium has already (whether he’s aware or not) begun to see Iris as his family. and he’s still very much not over what happened. he doesn’t even THINK before jumping this guy.
Lillium is scared to be asked to love, but he’s scared to death of LOSING those he loves more. Even more I’d it would be his failure to protect them that gets them harmed.
He says it himself, that he has purposely been keeping distance from Iris when he gets too close to the truth, saying it’s none of his business, and they don’t matter to each other, trying to fall into “Work Companions” or “Chance Acquaintances” roles he’s had in the past, because feeling like he might actually care about someone is scary.
But Iris STILL considers Lillium the only person left in his life that he can trust.
my theory beyond the obvious?
Lillium doesn’t “care” about him. At least— not in the way Iris knows care. He isn’t bossy or fussy, he takes Iris seriously, honestly compliments him without lingering, and makes fun of him lightheartedly. Iris has never had any friendship like this, period.
but over the course of the story, Lillium re-learns what it means to have family, to have someone to protect. And his walls don’t come down as much as they’re…sent crashing down.
he begins to warm up and realize the extent of his care for Iris…it’s already there, he can’t help it, and if he’s going to love someone he is not about to lose them like his mother and sister, he’s going to do this right. He’s not going to run from his own heart anymore.
now, the real tragedy is this.
that Iris has never known care and genuine worry to be separate from manipulation and control. When Lillium tells him that he’s taking too many burdens he shouldn’t, and that it isn’t his responsibility alone, starts trying to keep him out of the action—he’s angry, he’s hurt !
because Lillium was supposed to be the one person who WOULDNT do this to him, who wouldn’t “care”
without knowing that wanting someone to let you hug them, and wanting someone to be under your control, they’re not the same.
so you see it, it makes devastatingly perfect sense for their characters that…
Well….
\\a love letter to Velinxi’s comic which not only has beautiful art, but psychologically beautiful character writing :’) //
gets corrupted and unsaveable like a text file
oh god i hate the coming out scene more with every second. i hate that he came out to his mom at the same time as his science teacher i hate that joyce didnt show any surprise or emotion during her son's full on fucking panic attack i hate that murray was there i hate that none of his friends reacted i hate hes my tammy three episodes after it was established hes been in love with mike since kindergarten i hate that that line outs robin to a bunch of adults she doesnt know right after she said she wanted to come out on her own terms i hate that nobody comments on it or has anything to say i hate that theyre all accepting and theres no complex emotions at all despite it being the 80s i hate the fuckass me toos and that mike is like fifth to go i hate how nothing of substance gets said by anyone other than the kid pouring his heart out to like twenty people i hate that everyone claps at the end and they all move on i hate mike wheeler's complete blank slate of an expression and el's complete lack of emotion for her BROTHER that she remembers sticking by her side in cali when everyone thought SHE was the weird freak i hate 'everyone should know this too' i hate that it was done out of fear and to get it out of the way instead of as any actual emotional resolution to the character arcs theyve been building up for years i hate that everyone sat there in silence and watched this kid almost throw up with tears as he talked i hate that he says 'i dont like girls' instead of 'i like boys' and how it focuses on the negative and something he lacks instead of a source of joy in his life i hate that that line calls back to his and mike's argument in season 3 but in a way that makes it seem like mike was in the right i hate that nobody had anything to say i hate that hopper was there as though he wasnt asking joyce whether her son was a fag in season one i hate the utter lack of complexity or emotions or character i hate it being framed as a confession of secrets that he was going to have to get out the way sooner or later i hate the message it sends to younger viewers about bending over backwards to get accepted for your queerness. about getting over decade old 'crushes' because you dont want to make it weird and telling every single person in your life at once because you 'owe it to them' even though you have no reason to trust half the people in the room with your bleeding heart and about making a point beforehand to remind them that youre exactly the same as they are so youre not a freak and they should really just forget about it as soon as possible because itll be easier to accept if youre just like them even though youre not, youre not the same, it's not just i like girls vs boys, it's the way your entire childhood has been shaped by fear and bullying and being ostracized for things you couldnt control and the constant terror of growing apart from your only friends who you feel safe around and watching everyone around you get girlfriends while you sit at home waiting for them to call but dont worry about that im just like you im not a freak im not a faggot im just like you. will byers take my hand ill lead you out of this stupid fucking show
what part of “i am always going to feel fundamentally empty and hollow” is difficult to grasp