borderline personality disorder (a.k.a. emotionally unstable personality disorder) is a cluster b personality disorder characterized by intense and uncontrollable emotions. borderlines often have a debilitating fear of abandonment, patterns of very intense but brief relationships, and frequent engagement in impulsive and self-destructive behaviours. individuals with bpd are also likely to have episodes of psychosis and/or suidicality.
personality disorders differ from mood disorders in the sense that personality disorders more deeply rooted and they affect a person's worldviews and relationships. mood disorders typically involve disordered energy levels, sleep habits, appetite, emotions, thoughts, and irritability. these symptoms are present in personality disorders as well, since personality disorders tend to be accompanied by emotional dysregulation, but personality disorders are also heavily related to disordered beliefs, behaviours, worldviews, self-image, rigidity, and personality traits such as avoidance or arrogance.
when i was diagnosed with bpd, i was devastated. it was late 2023 to early 2024, immediately after the worst friendship breakup i'd ever been through. i was in shambles, believing that that bpd was a death sentence--especially after seeing the suicide rate for individuals with bpd. i was inconsolable for some time, and nobody could have convinced me that i wasn't totally evil and destined to die alone. hell, nobody could even convince me that i was human anymore. i sincerely believed myself to be a monster.
this is where tinker bell comes in! when i couldn't see any goodness in myself, i saw it in tink. she is impulsive, innovative, explosive, obsessive, arrogant, and loved. she treats her friends terribly at times, and they misunderstand her often, but they never give up on her. tinker bell's friends love her unconditionally, even though tink is someone like me. i started to think of other characters who were like me--who were borderline--and i realized that i already knew and loved so many of them! so i made a list...
jump to: tinker bell | pearl | bokuto
tinker bell
tinker bell is a very famous yet arguably underrated character. she is one of disney's unofficial mascots, as well as the main character in the disney fairies franchise. despite this, not many people can remember her story as vividly as they can remember the stories of the disney princesses. many people only know her from peter pan movies, or from seeing her image used as a mascot.
tinker bell's first appearance was in 1904, in a play titled "peter and wendy." she was featured in many retellings of peter pan after that, and eventually became popular enough to exist as a main charatcer, separate from peter pan. the disney fairies franchise was created in 2006 after tinker bell was rejected from the disney princess franchise because she didn't suit the brand.
there is a lot of inconsistency in tinker bell's (and by extension, pixie hollow's) lore because there are so many incarnations of her, and each storyteller has taken creative liberties in their worldbuilding. in her mascot form and some other promotional content, tink is often shown holding a wand. however, she has never used a wand in any of her animated movies or tv shows. and in the books, wands are considered a very dangerous object reserved for a race of fairies called the great wandies.
the disney fairies animated film series may be considered to take place in a different universe as the disney fairies books. this is due to the great discrepancy in the worldbuilding, inconsistent timelines, as well as there being a different cast of characters. many of the books' main characters are not featured in the movies, and vice versa.
as for my personal relationship to tinker bell and the disney fairies franchise, tinker bell (2008) was easily my favourite movie growing up. i read the books multiple times, and fly to your heart was a song that made me feel like maybe i really could fly if i believed hard enough.
i never stopped loving the disney fairies franchise, but it definitely made a comeback in my life near the end of 2023. i spend much of the year realizing just how deeply i'd been affected by internalized misogyny and compulsory heterosexuality, and i made the conscious effort to pay more attention to female characters, rather than only focusing on male characters and choosing them (as well as m/m ships) as my favourites. so i figured during that time that i should reread the pixie hollow books, which are dominated by women as well as being very familiar and comforting to me. i started with the gail carson levine trilogy, because it was available at my local library, although at that point it was not a series i had ever read before.
i was amazed by how good the trilogy was, and how even as an adult, i'd enjoyed it more than most other novels i have read. the worldbuilding was incredible, and tinker bell was as charming as ever. i especially related to her feelings for (or rather against), peter pan, and i decided to armchair diagnose headcanon tinker bell as having borderline personality disorder, which is something i'd be diagnosed with a few months after falling back in love with tinker bell.
for me, tinker bell became a symbol of all that i can have, and all that i can be: as a child, it meant that i could be magical. i could find who i was, embrace it, and fly. but as an adult, tinker bell taught me that i can be both deeply flawed and deeply loved.
pearl (in progress)
uhh spoiler warning ig?
pearl is easily one of my favourite characters ever written. she's a major character in steven universe, which has always brought me a lot of comfort. it's an animated television series with beautiful designs, loveable characters, great worldbuilding, and a very compelling story. what starts off as a lighthearted kids' show quickly reveals the creators' insights on relationships, change, acceptance, and resilience. i don't hesitate to say that the messages in steven universe are nothing short of profound.
much of steven universe's significance to me lies in its music. singing along with my sister and my friends is a memory that i hold very dear, and on a more serious note, listening to here comes a thought on repeat was the only thing that could bring me some semblance of comfort during my psychotic episodes as a young teen. psychosis is terrifying and extremely isolating, especially when you're too young to have any idea of what's happening to you. here comes a thought grounded me and gave me something to focus my attention on, reminding me to stay in the present moment. i had every aspect of the song memorized, and it played exactly the same way every single time, reminding me that stability, sameness, and repetition were existent and accessible to me.
the first three seasons of steven universe were already out when i started watching, so i caught up on them and waited for more episodes to come out. the main series ended around the same time i graduated high school, and the movie was released right before i started university. i didn't watch the epilogue series, steven universe future, when it came out. i felt very satisfied by the way the story ended, so i felt that there was no need for any type of continuation and i simply wasn't interested in tampering with the story any further.
i didn't really have a favourite character the first time i watched steven universe. i'd say it was garnet if anyone asked, but she wasn't too far above any other character. a couple years after that, i rewatched all of steven universe, including the movie, and then watched steven universe future for the first time. my second watchthrough was when pearl began to become my clear favourite. her story captivated me.
pearl was so much like me that it hurt. she was in love with her best friend to the point of obsession. her loyalty and obedience belonged entirely to rose quartz, and everything she did, she did for rose. rose loved pearl, but not the way pearl loved rose. rose's love for pearl wasn't exclusive, nor was it all-encompassing or obsessive. rose had an identity outside of pearl, a meaning outside of pearl, her own ambitions, her own passions. yet pearl seemed to only exist for, and belong to, rose. her only ambitions were to carry out rose's will, to love rose, and to be loved by rose.
even after being relieved of her duties to pink diamond, and making it official that she belonged to no one, pearl's relationship to rose didn't change. pearl expresses in the lyric, "i was sure she set me free / but in the end i guess i never left her side" that she couldn't have possibly gotten over rose if rose were still alive. it's shown later in the movie just how integral pearl's servitude to rose, and subsequent abandonment by rose, are to her character -- greg needs to physically disappear in order for pearl to grow back into herself. resistance to change is an ongoing theme in pearl's story, and every change she makes (before last one of of beach city, at least) is one that she has been forced into after a period of loss.
if you were to look at pearl and tally up her good and bad deeds, you'll find that she's done more bad than good. she participated in kidnapping steven as a baby and tried to remove his gem, trained connie as a child soldier willing to sacrifice her life, argued with greg and amethyst in front of steven, risked her life and steven's to get to space on a makeshift rocket ship, manipulated garnet into fusing with her, allowed herself to be ruled by her emotions during important missions, and so on. but pearl is generally loved by others, both in the show and in the show's fanbase. hardly anyone uses these things against her, because they're able to see her as a good person who is hurting, who is capable of love, and who sometimes makes bad decisons. maybe these things can all be true for me, as well. if i believe myself to be irredeemably evil, then i won't try to redeem myself -- but the fact that pearl never had a redemption arc tells me that she was never in need of redemption. simply put, pearl was flawed, but not evil. through pearl's story, i can begin to realize that my flaws don't make me evil, either, and i don't need a grand redemption arc. there's just today after today after today. i can gradually remove bad influences from my life (just as rose was removed from pearl's life) and adapt to those losses. pearl's character, and people's reactions to pearl's character, reminds me that nobody is keeping score of my bad deeds. i don't need to rake myself over the coals and punish myself for things that other people have already forgiven me for. i just need to forgive myself and believe that i can grow.
