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astro-syd · 3 years

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Jimin’s Duality (From an Astrological Perspective)

Jimin has become quite famous for the dual nature of his personality, so today I’m here to give a bit of astrological insight into this phenomenon! Jimin easily transitions between his sweet, adorable, mochi self and his passionate, intense stage persona. Neither of these “personas” are an acting stunt of any kind. They’re true aspects of Jimin’s personality! He simply knows which moments are the most appropriate and effective for channeling each side of himself, and all of these sides show up clearly within his natal chart. Let’s take a look!

Cancer Ascendant: child of the moon

Jimin’s Ascendant falls within Cancer, a cardinal water sign ruled by the moon. This also means that the moon is Jimin’s chart ruler! It holds a lot of significance in his natal chart.

Because Cancer rules over your home, family life, childhood and foundations, people with their Sun or Ascendant in this sign tend to have a very sweet, innocent, even childish nature about them. They tend to keep in touch with their inner child as they grow older, and might have something of a mischievous nature because of this too!

Cancer and the Moon often rule the mother in astrology, so people with this ascendant can easily take on a very motherly, nurturing quality. Jimin has been known to keep a close eye on the other members and he’s often the first one rushing to comfort them if need be.

This also somewhat stems from his emotional intelligence and sensitivity. Those with a Moon ruler tend to be very sensitive to emotions and mood swings, and Jimin is no exception. He’s highly empathetic, and with his Libra Sun & Mercury in his 4th house (ruled by Cancer), one of his natural gifts revolves around bringing balance to others’ emotional states. Others will feel magnetically drawn to him for healing.

Cancer is a common Ascendant to see in people within performing arts careers. This is because of their emotional availability and talent for expressing feelings. There’s something about Jimin’s vulnerability which makes people empathize with him, understand him on a very human level, and even want to protect him, much like you would a small child. It definitely contributes to his very “cute” and “sweet” vibe, even if he is a fully grown adult who’s capable of handling himself, haha.

Cancer rising people are very sensitive to their environment. When Jimin is put on unfamiliar ground, he will tend to withdraw or act shy until he feels more comfortable. He’s also likely to become flustered easily, especially when he’s in public and knows he’s got many eyes/cameras on him. His overarching moods and personality take on a very changeable quality, much like ocean tides. The ways in which he chooses to present himself are often highly based upon his immediate environment.

The Ascendant also holds a lot of weight over someone’s physical appearance. Cancer rising people can have a round, moon-like face shape and cute apple cheeks, especially when they smile. They’re known for a very large, bright smile, and large, puffy lips. Cancer natives often possess tiny hands and feet, and might even have something of a frail appearance.

They usually are quite soft-spoken, and with Jimin’s Moon residing in Gemini, this sign will have a lot of influence over his tone of voice. It definitely contributes to his light, “angelic” tone and the emotional quality of his singing. The Gemini influence here also appears in his sloping jawline and more pointed chin.

Moon in Gemini: messenger of emotion

Within Jimin’s chart ruler residing in communicative Gemini, he definitely knows how to put his feelings, memories, and experiences into words. Even if he doesn’t like to talk about his feelings too often, they’ll naturally bleed into his speech, his writing, and his art.

His emotions are easily influenced by others’ words as well, and this is especially true of his family and the people he loves. ARMY has picked up on the fact that our Jiminnie loves praise, but he’s not really using it as an ego boost. His feeling states are genuinely affected by the words of those around him. Watch the way his whole face lights up when the members compliment him and you’ll see what I mean. This also makes him more sensitive to negative feedback though, so he has to be a little careful about the opinions he chooses to expose himself to.

One of his greatest life lessons is to learn how to articulate his own inner feelings and experiences, as well as encouraging others to do the same. Allowing himself to be vulnerable and emotional is not only extremely healthy for him (even more so than the average person), but it also helps others to feel more comfortable and healed when doing the same.

In his childhood, his family members probably spent a lot of time talking about their feelings, but they might have struggled to actually feel them and discuss these emotions from a genuinely vulnerable standpoint. This is part of Jimin’s ancestral lesson to carry out in this lifetime!

His moon resides in his 12th house, which is a highly intuitive and spiritual placement. The 12th rules all things unseen, including spirits, dreams, secrets, hidden enemies, and religion. It’s a very foggy, mystical house. A lot of his feelings and mood swings are at least somewhat subconscious, which is also why it’s very healthy for him to speak about them. Communication will help to draw his emotions out of this hazy house and into the light of day where he can then process and make sense of what he’s feeling.

The 12th also rules the collective unconscious, so Jimin unfortunately also has a very good understanding of all of the underlying pains, traumas, and wounds of our societies. He’s very good at understanding human nature and human suffering, which makes him a great artist and an incredible healer, but it’s also a heavy burden to bear. Much of his empathy stems from this awareness which he’s possessed from a very young age. It’s possible that he even has psychic or empathic abilities of some kind, regardless of whether or not he’s in touch with them.

He’s a very trustworthy confidant. Jimin is a great listener, and because the 12th house rules secrets, he’s fantastic about protecting people in this way. He can be trusted with just about any information and will genuinely take these secrets to the grave. He enjoys the process of healing and supporting others, and protecting their most sensitive memories, experiences, and information is just another way for him to nurture those around him. This is another part of his appeal as a celebrity- he simply feels trustworthy, especially when he’s speaking from the heart and caring for those around him. He’d also make a great therapist, haha!

Libra Sun & Mercury: creator of harmony

Jimin has both his Sun and Mercury residing within fair and balanced Libra. It’s a sign which enjoys showing a polite, friendly, peaceful, and harmonious attitude, especially in public. Jimin is very much aware that there’s a time and a place for all aspects of his personality, and he knows when to utilize each side in order to achieve the best response from the public. He knows how to play an audience very well while still coming from a very genuine place within himself.

Because Libra is ruled by Venus and rules over the house of partnerships, these people tend to be natural flirts- and Jimin is definitely no exception. Flirting with others and generally being a huge tease is very fun for him, in fact he sees it as something of a game (more on that in the next section). He likes to charm others and be received well in the eyes of the public as much as possible.

Libra is a very non-confrontational sign which dislikes conflict, and Jimin can act as a peacemaker within their group whenever disputes or misunderstandings occur (though all BTS members share this energy to some extent). When appearing in public or voicing his opinion in interviews, he often has a very well put-together, diplomatic vibe about him.

Scorpio Venus, Mars, & Pluto: the playful devil

So, we’ve discussed our charming, diplomatic prince Park Jimin, as well as our cute and loving mochi, but where on earth does that stage persona come from?! Let me introduce you to Jimin’s most deadly placements: His Venus, Mars, and Pluto all within his 5th house in Scorpio.

Venus and Mars are both planets which deal with romantic relationships. Venus in astrology tells us about the sorts of people, things, and experiences we’re attracted to, as well as the kind of person we’ll be within a romantic relationship. It rules over the arts, fashion, partnerships, and commitments. Mars, on the other hand, is a lot more masculine and aggressive. It rules over our anger, our motivations, and our drive. It can indicate how we’ll chase after the people, goals, and experiences we desire in life.

Jimin has both of these romantic, charismatic planets in his 5th house, which rules performance, the arts and creativity, fun and games, parties, lighthearted romance, and children. It’s very common to see actors and performers with strong planetary placements within this house, but Jimin certainly has quite the combo working for him here.

The emphasis around his intense, passionate, and charismatic stage persona comes from the sign we’re in: Scorpio. It’s ruled by Pluto, the Underworld planet, and rules over all things dark, mysterious, and taboo in society. Secrets, mystery, the occult, psychology, sexuality, and power all fall within this planet’s reign.

People within strong Scorpio placements like to dive deep into their relationships and experiences. They like a little mystery, but the appeal comes from the act of uncovering these secrets. They often make great detectives or psychologists because they’re fantastic at understanding human nature and getting to the bottom of a situation.

This is the reason behind Jimin’s intense stare. Many Scorpios are known for having really intimidating eyes, and it’s because they almost seem to peer straight into the depths of your soul. It can feel as if they’ve exposed all of the things you wish to keep hidden simply by watching you- and with their keen observational skills, maybe they have.

That said, the lure of the dark and mysterious catches the eyes of many- and Jimin uses these placements to his advantage when performing. Scorpio is a fixed water sign, so you can think of it like the depths of the deep ocean. His art, movements, and power are all influenced by this energy. His movements are fluid but powerful, his art is deep, emotional, and moving but still mysterious and somewhat guarded, and even just this side of his personality seems unique and captivating when compared to his usual off-stage personality.

This is also a sign which is prone to obsession. Jimin’s work ethic and attention to detail has been praised time and time again, and it likely stems from the careful attention he gives to every aspect of his work until it meets the image he wishes to portray. He knows what the audience wants to see and how best to meet their expectations. He lets you glimpse into his power, his depth, and his sexuality through his performances, but never exposes more than he wants to.

Remember that those Libra placements love to tease, and in the 5th house here, he plays his movements like a game. His performances become a place where he can momentarily flaunt the darker Underworld energies within his personality, knowing that the audience will respond well when it’s within the right context. The sides of himself which are deep, obsessive, jealous, intense, and passionate find an outlet on the stage, and he needs this outlet to avoid taking these energies out on either himself or others in more destructive ways.

His Mars conjuncts his Pluto here, which is a wildly powerful placement. Pluto is the planet of death and rebirth, destruction and transformation, and in joining with the God of War in a chart, these two become a major force to be reckoned with. You can see it in his confidence on stage, his presence, and the ways in which he influences a crowd. He’s magnetic and attractive, and he can command attention without hardly lifting a finger.

In any other sign, this combination of planets has the power to become incredibly destructive (and in fact, it can be the worst in Scorpio if not handled properly), but Jimin’s grasp on this force he embodies is admirably strong. Remember when the other members said that he’s the scariest when angry? You wouldn’t want to see this placement out of control. The same forces which can give the strongest ability to understand, uncover, and heal others’ hidden wounds also has the potential to use them for harm.

Jimin, however, understands his power and channels the most intense sides of his personality into his art. When he steps onto a stage, he knows exactly what he’s there to do. He has rehearsed tirelessly, he knows what he wants to portray and how to achieve it, and he has a great sense of how the public will respond to his every move.

His chart is water dominant, and he’s a constant reminder that the water element is not just sensitive and emotional. Jimin’s Moon ruler pushes and pulls at ocean tides in the same way he influences our emotions. The same waters which flow through Jimin’s heart and psyche also have the power to create new life or flood entire cities. He’s a great example of how our charts become what we make of them. He’s successful and powerful while still retaining his humility, he’s sensitive and emotional without being too fearful or avoidant, and he’s understanding and manipulative but uses these forces for healing. An angel, perhaps?

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prettyboysdontlookatexplosions · 4 years

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4, 7, 12, 18

4 - answered!

7. Which part of writing do you struggle with most?

Actual Plot, that cannot be summarized as “feelings happen and then other feelings happen”... my bugbear... my white whale... i also have a bad habit historically of perfectionisting myself out of finishing things, which is a bad habit generally but particularly stupid to carry over to fanfiction lmao... i’ve been feeling extra stupid about this lately because i’ve been looking back and realizing that close to every single time in my life i have nutted up and actually finished a piece of writing (other than like for school etc) i’ve looked back and seen how it taught me something, which like big duh but for some reason it has only recently clicked for me. trying to be tougher about sticking with it even when the sentences are ugly and the emotions are incoherent in the belief that i will find what i need to get me to the other side.

12. Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to?

someone else asked this and i’m going to answer it there bc SURPRISE the next part of this answer got stupid long!

18. What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.

i’m gonna go with this, from the last scene of wreck my days—

He thought about what you understood when you came from a place where the nights were still dark enough to see a sky that looked like a galaxy: the cosmic alchemy through which ancient light and empty space came together to create something real enough to guide sailors home. He thought about the ruins on the mountain, and the grass amid the ruins. What shaped the land once and always, and what later there learned how to grow. New life reaching for the sun.

—because it ties together many of the major recurring images and ideas, and because it summarizes what this story is really about, which is: eliot is afraid that he will only ever be the person his father made him, and he realizes that isn’t true.

the first part, the milky way, that comes back to star-gazing on the roof, this visual connection to his childhood which he chose to follow and share instead of hide from because he’s using what he’s learned from loving margo - the care and intimacy that comes from revealing the things you’re scared to show - to rebuild his relationship with quentin, grounded in something real. it leads him to express this fear that everything good about him is fake. this is something that has sort of been simmering beneath the surface since the beginning with uncertainty about how to construct himself now. eliot’s in a rough spot here, and although quentin is the focal point the deeper fear extends beyond their relationship to this anxiety that his reinvention is never gonna matter (which is why he echoes what he says to mike about being his own creative project, but dismissively, like that was a stupid thing to believe) — that the real eliot waugh is always and ever just the abused farm kid hiding from his dad.

of course quentin gives him this gift (which, like eliot’s confession, is very deliberately an echo of what eliot remembers margo telling him after the secrets trial - eliot and quentin learned about love from their BFFs first) of saying, i know you; and he doesn’t explain what that means because it’s not about you are X or you are Y, it’s not about eliot is a drunk or eliot is kind, eliot is fucked up or eliot is fashionable. it’s about — eliot is a whole person, and quentin sees him holistically. the fuck-ups, the things that scare him, the shit he didn’t ask for or want, that’s eliot — but so is the person who cooks for quentin even when he thinks quentin hates him. quentin sees the scared, lonely kid, and he also sees the adult who’s choosing to be brave.

the idea expressed early on about the false dichotomy of “authenticity” vs. “performance” is a key concept of mine, and in a story where eliot struggles with his self-presentation, it was really important to me NOT to write a story about how eliot learns to be more “real” by being less “fake.” the moral here could not be, “quentin loves eliot so eliot can calm down about his hair,” or “eliot’s vests are bad because they represent him Running From His Past.” there are healthy and unhealthy ways to do most forms of human activity, and eliot clearly takes real pleasure out of considering his appearance — you can become the guy who doesn’t care about repeating shirts with your boyfriend while still wanting to look good. (eliot’s feelings about music are a projection of his defensiveness about his constructed self, but also a microcosm of this idea - ugliness is not the only form of honesty.)

that’s why the joy of the sex scene comes in large part from his newly rediscovered sense that he can be anyone he wants to be for quentin, and that’s why his imagined future in the end involves shopping with margo — i wanted to return to him that joy of self-creation which is such a lovely part of him in the show. he does need to have that moment where he chooses to be raw and messy and unvarnished — he needs to accept that part of him, and he needs to have that moment of courage where he shows quentin what he fears, to cement that he’s committed to having an honest relationship even as friends, and to overwrite for himself the moment where he hid from quentin and regretted it. but the point of that is not to learn that all construction is bad. by opening to let his darkest self in, he makes more room for his brightest self. he’s more free to choose, precisely because he doesn’t need to use his choices as a shield to keep his fears as bay; he can do it out of pure desire.

so this line for me serves as a kind of hinge between those ideas - the sky we see bears very little resemblance to the sky as it “is,” but it has real value. the milky way is an illusion and a map, fake and real, empty space and human concept. eliot is vast swaths of nothingness and also a beautiful swirl that shows people where they are. and i like framing this understanding as something he has because of where he comes from; i like the idea that his past was awful but he managed to mine it for the lessons that would save him. no one else needed to teach him this. he figured it out on his own.

so that’s... one sentence lmao. AS TO THE OTHER...

this whole story is about eliot thinking of himself as fundamentally ruined, tainted, rotten, etc. the idea of the thing that shapes you once and always appears first when he’s walking around the ruins on the mountain, which depress him because they express visibly this horror of a permanent injury, the deformation that makes it impossible to go back to the whole, living, unwounded self. i feel like it’s pretty obvious is eliot projecting there onto burned concrete, but that connection is made explicit later when he’s stoned and thinking of himself as a series of ruins compared other people who are houses. he marks this house/ruins distinction (which is also connected to things like his hatred of red hook, because red hook seems so house-y i.e. normal and he feels so not) partly by the ways houses have places they can be entered or left and windows that can let things in or out as needed. that’s kind of me playing around with the idea that trauma leaves you feeling both isolated from the world and trapped in your own isolation— you can’t leave or let anyone in — and of course also a riff on the door in 4x05. this is partly why when he’s remembering the mosaic by the fire he thinks that he looks at quentin and feels “a room with a door that hadn’t existed before,” because quentin opened that way out for him, and eliot in this story feels like he shut it out of fear and lost his chance forever to escape.

the thing that shapes you once and always comes back in the scene on the roof, where eliot reaches inside himself to show quentin something real and in doing so comes face to face with what the reader already knows, which is that it’s his father, not any of his own wrongdoing, that sets this foundation of brokenness, being built wrong, etc. his fear is that his father’s abuse will always be the most important part of him (an idea mirrored when he fears that only the worst of his relationship with q was real enough to have survived), and as discussed above the catharsis of the scene comes from his ability to feel viscerally that it’s not — that he can be and feel and do all these other things.

eliot’s dream in this last scene about his father is based on a real dream i had - i used to get occasional nightmares about seeing my father somewhere and either immediately waking up in a jolt of terror or being rendered immobile, trapped in my own body; then one day in my mid twenties i had a dream about him and it was irritating but it wasn’t a nightmare, and it went a lot like eliot’s dream here: i was stuck in a car with him, he was on his old bullshit, i was annoyed — and then very suddenly i realized i actually didn’t have to listen to him. i could just get out of the fucking car. i thought about that dream a lot, in the months after i had it. i’ve dreamed of him since, but never quite like it used to be.

for eliot, this dream recaptures the arc of the whole story in miniature: he thinks he’s trapped in this space defined by his foundational wound, and then he realizes he isn’t. he can make the choice to leave. and for him i wanted to close specifically on “eliot opened the door and stepped out of the car” to bring back one more time the door motif, since it’s so lovely and moving in 4x05. (that’s also why the second to last sentence of the story, the last bit of his imagined future, is “windows open to let in the clean soft breeze” - that was the very last edit i made and the story wasn’t done without it! - i needed to bring into his optimism the idea of the window because now eliot can see that he is a house.)

anyway. so this line quoted 9000 paragraphs earlier comes after eliot has been brave enough to open his heart and look at his past and name his fears, after quentin has accepted him and reignited their relationship and started to name for him some of the pieces eliot has trouble seeing in himself (”you made dinner”), after he’s shifted his perspective so that he no longer feels haunted by his own past, after he’s had this dream where he realizes he can just get out of the fucking car. and the thing is... the ruins are still there, you know? they’re always going to be there. he wasn’t wrong about that. you can’t erase the ruins, but you can shift your perspective. you can say, look at how fire and concrete choked the land to something pathetic and small; or you can say, look how after a catastrophe, life managed to find a way. eliot is the mountain, permanently scarred, and he’s the grass, permanently growing.

which, i feel like this is the idea i come back to again and again, probably because it’s the idea i need to learn for myself again and again, one of those things i don’t think you ever really finish learning, but when i’m writing about trauma i’m always on some level writing about this, and one of the reasons i like this story so much is because i think it’s the most fully i’ve managed to capture it thus far — you are always ruined, you are always growing. you are always reliving the past, you are always building the future. you can’t choose what to erase, you can choose what to become. it matters what the world made you, it matters what you make yourself, and you do make yourself, every single day. what shapes you once shapes you always, and every day you shape yourself. you are never healed, you are always healing. over and over and over and over and over again you wind up back in a cab that’s stuck in traffic going nowhere, and over and over and over and over and over again you realize that you can just get out of the fucking car.

#bless u 4 distracting me in my time of woe!!!!#this got... TRULY DERANGEDLY LONG but in my defense..... this is t b h cool shit #when i said that i was proud of this story because i felt like i did a lot of things i'd never done before #i mean like... this. like all of this #i've never thought about my own writing like this! at all! i rly didn't know i could!#so i'm still tickled about iit #askbox #fic memes

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claudiaindarkness · 3 years

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Your Muse’s Backstory

Tagged by: @rosefisherlioncourt

Tagging: YOU

1. Where were they born? What is the story behind their birth, if any?

Claudia was born to the world of humans in 1790 in The united states, New Orleans, Louisiana, but she was born into darkness on September 21, 1795. Her human birth is a bit of a mystery due to her young age but much more can be said about her immortal birth. Louis de Point du Lac was filled with depression and in a poor state from lack of proper feeding. He stumbled upon crying Claudia who was clutching her mother who was dead from the pledge. In the prosses of comforting her his hunger got the best of him and he fed from her. That was when his maker Lestat de Lioncourt found him. Ridden with gilt from feeding on an innocent child, Louis ran away. Lestat and Louis were on rocky terms in there relationship so Lestat scooped up Claudia as a plan popped into his mind. Bringing her back home to where he was staying with Louis, Lestat offered her to Louis as a present. Lestat gave Claudia the DarkGift and they became a family.

2. Has their living situation changed from when they were born?

When Claudia was born into darkness she lived with Lestat and Louis. It was like that for many years until she manipulated Louis into leaving Lest to just living with Louis. They left New Orleans and traveled around the world for more vampires. They went to Paris, France and were separated. Claudia now lives by herself.

3. What occupations did their parents have when they were born? Did this job influence your muse in any form?

Information on her human parents are unknown. As for Lestat and Louis, they were and are mysteriously wealthy. Lestat’s blood lust definitely infused Claudia’s love for hunting, something very separate form Louis. Yet, she fell in love with a lot of their other hobbies. Books, art, knowledge, theater.

4. Did they have any childhood enemies? Any friends? Enemies that became friends?

Claudia was around a very small amount of people which makes it very difficult to have enemies or friends. There was only every Lestat and Louis.

5. What sort of religion was practiced in their home? Did religion play a role in their upbringing?

Lestat and Louis didn’t practice any type of religion with her, so it wasn’t a role in her upbringing.

6. How many siblings did they have? What was their relationship like? Were they an only child who wished for siblings?

Louis gave the gift to a couple people: Madeleine, Merrick, and Lestat a few more: Nicolas, Antoine, David, Gabrielle, Mona, Rose, and God knows who else. Mist of this happened after Claudia had separated from them so she doesn’t really have a relationship with any of them. Claudia likes having other’s full attention so siblings were never really a thought to her. As she met a few of them her thoughts were mostly curiosity and indifference.

7. What is their fondest memory?

Her fondest memory is one of her earliest ones. Waking in the blood and finding herself as the daughter of Louis and Lestat. Back then ignorance was bliss. She was just happy to have two men that loved her. Back then, it was enough.

8. If they could name the worst moment of their life, what would it be? Did this change them as a person or change how they perceived the world, themselves, and others?

The worst moment would be that night in the theatre. The night she was separated from Louis, Madeleine died, she came extremely close to death, and left to survive on her own. That moment left her believing Louis had abandoned her and she had no one. It left her traumatized and showed her what it was like to exist with nothing but her will to live. It changed her in worse ways than it helped her.

9. If they were to make a timeline with their life events, which ones would they list? Which would they leave out?

1794- born into darkness.

1860- comes to terms that she will never age and attempts to kill Lestat. Begins traveling the world with Louis.

Early 1862- discovers the mindless monster like vampires while traveling the world.

Late 1862- finds Armand in Paris. Louis gives Madeleine the DarkGift. Is separated from Louis, Madeleine meets the sun, and Claudia escapes death.

1863- leaves france.

1900- possess enough money to not be struggling for survival anymore.

*In AdultClaudia verse*

2000- acquired an Adult body.

10. What was the hardest lesson they had to learn as they got older?

It's not a sign of weakness to ask for help. This is something she still struggles with everyday. She's too proud to ask for help but sometimes it's the only way to get something done, no matter how hard she tries to be self sufficient.

11. What occupation did your character want to have growing up? Is this the same as what they wish to be, or are in, now?

Growing up Claudia had money to buy whatever she wanted. Because of this wealth she had no desire to work. Perhaps when she was very little there were thoughts of being an actress in the plays she loved to see. After that it was obvious that she would never 'grow up' so her only other desire was to find a way to acquire an adult body. After that's achieved she's had thoughts of being ruler. Queen Claudia. It's a stretch but the thought is all in fun.

12. Did they face any kind of bullying or abuse growing up?

Bullying, of course. She's a grown woman trapped in a child's body. She's easy prey for bullying.

13. Are there any moments of their past they keep secret?

100% and it wouldn't be a secret if she told someone.

14. Did they live near extended family in the past? How did this shape their environment? Are any of their relatives near their age? What are their feelings towards extended family in general?

She's only every lives with Lestat and Louis. Benji has the youngest human body next to hers but with his relationship to Armand she's not sure how they would get along. Because she tried to kill Lestat she's not sure how Gabrielle would feel about her as a granddaughter. She's indifferent to extended family.

15. Would they rather go back and relive their childhood? Why or why not?

No. Everything she has done she did for a reason and would do it all again if she could. She regrets nothing. Reliving it all would only cause more trauma.

#headcanon #sorry this took forever #i had to work hard to answer some of these

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lisettefoix · 4 years

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INSIDE LISETTE DU POITIERS MIND - task 40 psyche.

tw misscarrige, tw childhood trauma, tw child abuse.

Lisette, as much of a wanderer as she’s always been, as a few places in her mind she dares not cross. Closed gates with roseless thorns growing around them closing in, or perhaps keeping others out, all that she would rather forget. While she will over think minuscule moments of her life down to the smallest gesture she dares not recall her time at the hospital when she was 22 and no longer pregnant or her father's handprint on her face the one time she dared to talk back to him.

Lisette’s early life was made of rules and closed-off spaces. While most royal and noble children had paths laid out for them from an early age, Lis and her brother had little more than a room. There was no room for growth in the du Poitiers house - there was simply the right way to do things. And consequences for those that did them wrong. This lead to an unhealthy focus on appearances for the young girl, and a need to be perfect in every way.

As young children they were often left alone, the only other person in the house other than their parents (in the few instances they were there) was the cook, Mrs. Carmèle, who doubled as the nanny, for Saint Croix had long blown through the family money. Mrs. Carmèle was a smiling short figure, who had to be about 70 by the time they were born and could do little else around the house other than cook. But her family had lived on the farm surrounding Château de Gudanes for as long back as anyone cared to look, generations of fathers as steward and mothers as cooks, daughters as maids or nannies and sons as valets or horseman, along with dozens of other people serving her family.

But those times were long gone, even her father barely remembering them from his own childhood. Mr. Marien, Mrs Carmèle late husband, had died when Lisette and Alphonse had barely begun school and hadn’t worked in the house since the time they learned to crawl. And so only Mrs. Carmèle lasted, singing in the early morning as she baked bread, and telling stories in the afternoon as she knitted. The children weren't happy, but those short moments - of sitting at the old wooden kitchen eating warm bread with butter weren’t the only moments Lisette and Alphonse were ever truly children. She’s the reason Lisette ever learned kindness and empathy for others, even if these layers are often masked by more prominent family traits.

The only time they were ever all four in the same place was Sunday mass. The one time they were the perfect family. For all his peculiarities Saint Croix feared god more than most mortal men. And Florence had been brought up a devout catholic so she amused her husband in this one quirk. No matter what was happening in the house they were a family on Sunday morning. Her mother’s episodes lifted, her father’s anger subsided and her and Alphonse were expected to do just the same. You left problems at the door of the church. For God sees all and will punish you for any wrong thought.

The rest of the time was filled with tutors, for no matter how poor Saint Croix got he would rather die than send his children to school. Not only for the embracement of mingling with those so far beneath them but lest it put ideas in their minds. Once they were past the basics, reading and writing and math and music, the twins were separated. Different roles called for different classes. Alphonse learned history and politics and all he needed to one day become the head of a duchy. Lisette was trusted into etiquette and learned just enough of everything to make a pleasant conversation fit for a lady. This left them both lacking terribly well into their adult years and still affects Lis to this day. She has trouble looking at facts as part of a whole instead of simply different pieces of information. Can make a coercive long term plan. Lives life on a decision by decision basis. Alphonse had a horrible time in connecting to others on a personal level analyzing every situation, no matter how close to him, as if from a stranger's perspective. While charismatic in his own way he was an awful conversationalist in everyday matters and dealt horribly with plans being changed on him. This lead to a lot of their future misunderstandings.

Their childhood was also populated by a third force, their mother. Often lasting for days, Florence would get in depressive fits that would leave her locked in her room without eating or talking to anyone, followed by short highs where she would drink herself sick. The children were not only observers to this their whole life but often active participants. Either targets of their mother's rage or little nurses, taking her to bed when she passed out drunk in the stairway, or holding her hair back as she threw up in the tub. Lisette and Alphonse would often tag team staying awake during the worst nights to make sure she didn’t stop breathing or would have to force her medication on her when she refused.

Mrs. Carmèle lasted in the house until around their 11th birthday, by then to old to be of much help. The house was still cleaned, by the faceless maids who came and went in a van and treated them like they couldn’t be touched. Perfect porcelain children. By this age they had been almost fully shaped into the adults their parents wanted them to be - one at the image of their father and one of their mother.

Despite her father's best efforts thought - Lis learns patriotism and loyalty not from his forced lessons but from her cousins in Paris. Her and Alphonse are quite a bit younger than all of them - Giselle being the closest with a 6-year difference - making it easy to idolize them. Arnauld is charismatic and smart and a gentlemen or knight of the old stories in her eyes. Benoit kind and affectionate and as she grows older a close companion. Giselle fearless with a wit to her Lis dared not imitate at home. Her sense of loyalty is still forged to that childhood sense of wonder - she will find people who exhibit traits she’s been told are valuable and hang on to them. It’s very hard to come out of Lisette’s good graces once you entered it.

Her time in Hungary leads to two things - her general happy demeanor in life & the complicated relationship with her brother. Alphonse never quite forgave her for choosing to stay in Hungary almost full time past their 15th birthday. Yet Lisette there learned to be more relaxed and carefree. She was still the perfect lady when others were looking. But to have even the short-lived conversation with Levente where she could laugh out loud or be a somewhat normal teenage girl with Fanni were worth lifetimes to Lis. The closest thing she had ever had to it where the couple of times she had visited her cousins in Belgium, Louise a greatly welcomed friend in her youth.

The times she came home Alphonse was every time further and further from the boy she knew. At the time Lisette saw it has him becoming their father, cold and distance focused simply on himself and his ever so important work, the only difference was is distaste for women. Yet as Lisette grew older and further away from her house she understood that had simply been his way to escape their childhood. She had left. He had hidden in himself.

Her marriage at first feels like a small win. She had never tried to get closer to Akos, despite her time in Hungary being dependent on it, to focused on finally having the small freedoms she was allowed. Yet she created an image of him in her mind, the perfect husband from the few not conversations they had in their “courtship”. Married life, however, proved rough from the start. Ever great at holding her fantasies Lisette couldn’t help but be thrust into real-life at every point. He was no longer charming and mysterious - they simply knew nothing of each other, and her inability to voice her concerns or wishes lead her into the depressive states she had criticized her mother for her whole life.

Her mood only lifted when she feel pregnant. Lisette thrived in the idea of motherhood. To undo all her own childhood with a new life - in her young mind just another thing to get perfect. This just made her losing the baby a bigger blow. Still incredibly religious by this point in her life the loss of her baby felt like a curse, a punishment from god himself for her sins. That’s perhaps the biggest contributor to her running away. Not only is she unable to face others as a failure (for what’s a women's job at court but to give her husband’s family children) but for a genuine belief, she’s cursed. The news she’s later to find she’s infertile don’t help this vision of herself and to this day while she’s long past seeing it as her defining feature or a curse from God, she can’t help but feel less than other women for it.

Her time in Italy gives her a small taste of confidence and opens up old memories she never dared glace over before then. Mrs. Carmèle granddaughter Sophie who was just an year older than Lisette but laughed like the song of birds was in her throat, with long gold curls down her back. She used to fancy Alphonse but Lisette would blush every time she got close to whisper secrets at her ear in the afternoon sun. Or the pretty Hungarian she had pecked one during her first year there, a game late at night with giggling girls who had yet to find consequences. A child's kiss but one Lisette could feel in her lips for days after.

Gaia was her first love, perhaps the first person who truly saw her for all but her name. Her time with the Italian is short but marks her terribly. She’s unsure to this day if she would have survived that moment in her life without it and came out the other side not being just a broken shell, like her mother.

Her travels are where she learns who herself is, without the constraints of family or consequence. She’s now truly able to find her own way in life and explore the world to the fullest. She learns how to deal with emotions - instead of simply shutting them down and how to deal with conflict instead of simply running away or pretending it doesn’t affect her. It’s not instantaneous and there are setbacks. She’s not a perfect lover nor a perfect friend and she there’s a few relationships along the way that she could never fix - her brother being one of them. But during those years does one thing she was never allowed. She tries and fails and tries once more.

Meeting Stella, and the consequent relationship she gets out of it is a breath of fresh air simply because Lis gets to experiment with it. They don’t have anything concrete for a long time but there’s an air of eternal to their connection. Their encounters at first, the spontaneity of them, make it so they don’t squash Lisette’s slowly growing spirit. Anything to fast would have sent the girl she was running at the first sight of trouble. But, whether Stella realizes it or not, the year between their first meeting and their first official date make it not only founder in Lisette’s mind but make it so she’s actually ready for that type of commitment in her life. The reason she has trouble letting go of Stella now, is because Stella was never a constant before either. Lisette had to work on bettering herself to even have a chance at happiness with another person, and that didn’t come easy so she’s incredibly attached.

Alphonse’s death drops Lis off the edge she’d been climbing once more. She’s back at square one, and closing in on herself day by day. She’s more closed off once again, yet the free spirit hangs dormant beneath. She’s more willing to trust others than she would have been in her childhood but still has trouble creating deep connections with people outside the small circle of those she trusts.

#hshqtask039 #//i didn't proof read this nor will i #if i look at it for longer it will never get posted #not tagged but if you're character is closed to lis they're probably mentioned

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nationaldvam · 5 years

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Our favorite childhood stories tend to stick with us. For me, rabbits seemed to be prominent characters in the books I loved – from Uncle Wiggily to Watership Down, Peter Rabbit and Alice in Wonderland. And more than the adventures of the bunnies, I remember the way the stories made me feel, and the lessons I still carry with me. There were lessons of survival, persistence, curiosity, risk-taking, and problem-solving that reinforced values of leadership, compassion, community, respect, and kindness. These rabbits live on in my subconscious, holding power and space having shaped my understanding of the world and all of its love and pain. Now, as a parent, I’ve come to know just how critical these choices are for my own children, and just how much power a simple picture book can hold.

Enhancing Social Justice Literacy

In 2015, Tanya Nixon-Silberg and Francie Latour, two Black mothers, authors, and community activists, drew on their own parenting practices – especially their use of children’s books to disrupt dominant narratives with their kids – to launch Wee the People (WTP) in Boston. WTP is a social justice project for children aged 4-12 that explores activism, resistance, and social action through the visual and performing arts. As part of their work, WTP hosts Social Justice Storytime at the Boston Public Library for their “Little Voices, Big Changes” initiative, built on the belief that if kids can understand fairness they can understand justice. Tanya and Francie work to builds parents’ capacity to confront topics like racism, deportation, gentrification, misogyny, islamophobia, and homophobia.

Innosanto Nagara, a Southeast Asian immigrant father, author/illustrator, and graphic designer creates new-wave board books that inspire conversations about social justice and encourage children’s passion and action around social causes like environmental issues, LGBTQ rights, and civil rights. With titles like A is for Activist, Counting on Community, and The Wedding Portrait, Innosanto explores themes of activism, free speech, political progress, civil disobedience, and artistic defiance. Innosanto is on the editorial team of M is for Movement, a site dedicated to exploring social justice and activism in children’s literature. The contributors to M is for Movement are children’s writers, illustrators, and book creators who are long-time activists and advocates who “come from and stand with marginalized communities living at intersections of identity, experience, race, class, gender, religion, sexuality, and ability.”

At the 2018 Facing Race National Conference in Detroit organized by Race Forward, Wee the People co-founder Tanya Nixon-Silberg and author/illustrator Innosanto Nagara presented a workshop together on racial literacy for children. They stressed the importance of racial literacy from an early age in the process of dismantling racist systems and structures.

Through their work, Tanya, Francie, and Innosanto are invested in inspiring social action through the arts, and have found that children’s books offer a powerful medium for moving new generations of people towards justice. Louise Derman-Sparks from Social Justice Books (a project of Teaching for Change) agrees:

“Children’s books continue to be an invaluable source of information and values. They reflect the attitudes in our society about diversity, power relationships among different groups of people, and various social identities (e.g., racial, ethnic, gender, economic class, sexual orientation, and disability). The visual and verbal messages young children absorb from books (and other media) heavily influence their ideas about themselves and others. Depending on the quality of the book, they can reinforce (or undermine) children’s affirmative self-concept, teach accurate (or misleading) information about people of various identities, and foster positive (or negative) attitudes about diversity. Children’s books teach children about who is important, who matters, who is even visible” (Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children’s Books, 2013).

Social Justice Literacy as a Prevention Strategy

Social justice literacy is an effective gender-based violence prevention strategy – a proactive effort to stop violence and abuse from happening in the first place by interrupting the cultural rules, norms, and constructs that support it. Several projects highlighted in the PreventIPV Tools Inventory demonstrate the effectiveness of social justice literacy in creating a more peaceful and just world. For example, Teaching for Change is a project that strives to build a more equitable, multicultural society by promoting social justice activism in the classroom. Their strategies center on leadership development and civic engagement for students, parents, and teachers that draw on real world current events. Teaching a People’s History offers classroom materials that emphasize the role of working people, women, people of color, and organized social movements in shaping history. And Rethinking Schools focuses on strengthening public education through social justice teaching and education activism with a specific focus on promoting equity and racial justice in the classroom. These approaches focus on impacting the outermost layers of the social ecology to shift our cultural norms and values.

Priya Vulchi and Winona Guo, youth activists and creators of The Classroom Index, a textbook on racial literacy, identified two gaps in racial education:

The heart gap: “An inability to understand each of our experiences, to fiercely and unapologetically be compassionate beyond lip service,” and

The mind gap: “An inability to understand the larger, systemic ways in which racism operates.”

TED Talk: What It Takes to be Racially Literate by Priya Vulchi and Winona Guo

Children’s literature is one way to bridge these gaps by inspiring, educating, and engaging readers of all ages in a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of all people, families, and communities in our wide and vibrant world. But the fact is that marginalized people and communities are outrageously underrepresented in books available to children in mainstream American classrooms, libraries, and catalogues – in terms of both those authoring the books, and characters represented inside them. The Cooperative Children’s Book Center found that in all children’s picture books published in 2015, you are more likely to find non-human characters like bunnies (12.5%) than African Americans (7.6%) and Latinx (2.6%) combined. White characters are primarily depicted in the vast majority (73.3%) of these books.

Illustration: Diversity in Children's Books 2015 by David Huyck, in consultation with Sarah Park Dahlen and Molly Beth Griffin

Social Justice Books serves to identify, vet, and promote multicultural and social justice children’s books, building on the tradition of the Council on Interracial Books for Children which offered a social justice lens to reviews of children’s literature. They also help parents and children develop critical literacy skills and promote activism around diverse representation in libraries. One example is their #StepUpScholastic campaign urging Scholastic to “publish and distribute children’s books that reflect and affirm the identity, history, and lives of ALL children in our schools.” Engaging children in proactive efforts to both notice and address the underrepresentation of people of color in literature, as illustrated above, builds their social justice literacy.

Books that Promote Justice and Peace

For those looking for books that promote justice and peace, resources like Social Justice Books offer vetted booklists on a variety of topics, as do Raising Luminaries: Books for Littles and Little Feminist: Books for raising conscious kids. Topics include:

Learning about family structures

Talking to kids about violence

Books for tomorrow’s leaders

Honoring single mothers

Promoting healthy fatherhood

Fostering social and emotional health, compassion, and independence

Helping kids recognize privilege

Cultivating healthy sexual boundaries

Preventing sexual violence

Bullying, civil disobedience, and disrupting injustice

Seek out books by authors of color like Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Honor receipient Kwame Alexander. Additionally, several anti-violence organizations offer book lists specific to addressing trauma. For example, The Child Witness to Violence Project offers books about trauma and violence for young children.

As M is for Movement explains, “Children’s literature—both fiction and nonfiction—is full of inspiration and examples of children and adults who stand up for themselves and others. Whether it’s ducks organizing animals to oppose unfair farm rules, a student listening to her classmates’ concerns when running for student council, or a boy joining his first march, young people’s literature can demonstrate how individuals and communities have the power to act as agents for social change.”

Through children’s books, we can teach justice and peace across generations. By engaging a child in a book with a strong message that fills the heart and the head, we can help build their understanding, compassion, and confidence to impact social change in ways that are meaningful and important to them. And these lessons and values will likely stick with them their whole life long

Images:

The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld

Counting on Community by Innosanto Nagara

Illustration: Diversity in Children's Books 2015 by David Huyck, in consultation with Sarah Park Dahlen and Molly Beth Griffin

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astrolofiles · 6 years

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Reading (best Ive had yet)

With Sun in 7th sesquiquadrate Saturn in 3rd, you may have a tendency toward self-censorship due to being punished by an authority figure for speaking or expressing yourself at some point in life, and this could take a toll on your self-esteem and you could underestimate your intelligence and competence. Time, growth and experience will prove the truth to you that you are a remarkable person in the world (especially with this Mercury-Uranus trine I see, among 4 other harmonious aspects formed from Mercury). You are naturally obliging and demure and like to build up your loved ones and people in general. Your gentle approach will work harmoniously toward your life purpose, but your North Node will impel you to reach groups through speech or writing regarding your passion or cause of choice. This is heightened by your Leo midheaven: confidence and the courage to be outgoing will move you toward your goals, and you'll be able to reach others and make a difference when you learn healthy pride is nothing to be ashamed of.

Your cause of choice could possibly involve healing, coaching or mentoring others. This is due to 5 harmonious aspects formed by Chiron (you use your personal experience which likely involved trauma or danger in your childhood home to reach out to others who are striving to cope with similar experiences and move forward in life); and 7 harmonious aspects formed by the moon (you'll use your voice to uplift others, validate their emotions, and nurture them somehow.)

Mars (5th) opposite moon (10th) and sesqui-square Mercury (6th) indicates especially high intelligence and possibly the unwillingness to sympathize with certain people, toward whom you may not wish to spare their feelings and sometimes have difficulty with forgiveness or handling situations where you are provoked: this especially might be true when your personal space and sanctuary feels "invaded".

You might prefer to keep to yourself in hopes that others follow your example, and you might feel uninterested in making friends at times because people test your patience (this is emphasized by your Mercury-Pluto opposition, as well as Pluto sesquiquadrate Mars and Square midheaven).

Pluto in the 12th house could bring challenges, along with Chiron in Cancer/8th (possible abuse from family) and Sun sesquiquadrate Saturn: alone, you might carry some burdens, painful memories, high anxiety, and existential ideas which loom greatly (overwhelmingly at times?) and your depth and intensity is perceived by others and possibly commented on with Pluto so close to the ascendant. Ascendant conjunct Pluto should bring power to your voice when you find your calling in how you wish to help evolve society or serve as a positive intervening force in the lives of individuals. This aspect should bring credibility and integrity to your message, and within the impression you make in general.

Hard aspects from Mars can be overcome with patience, the development of healthy confidence and a realistic self-concept (finding relief in rationality) as well as focusing on goals. A square between Uranus and Mars indicates that building a stable foundation for yourself (as far as your adult home and income) could be a trial and error process with some mistakes. When you settle into a stable job and living situation, keep it high priority to maintain (this may not be an issue as this orb is 8 degrees, or you may have already learned and outgrown this lesson).

With your South Node in Leo in the 9th, ideology might keep you secluded. You will reach your full potential when you practice analytical/secular thinking, and come to conclusions when they are backed by a persuasive amount of empirical evidence. Getting out of the safety of your trusted circle is impelled by your North Node, and with enough positive interpersonal experience accrued after time and some failures you'll find it was worth it and you grew for the effort.

Jupiter trine Pluto and the ascendant support your luck in outgoing endeavors (although you may evolve into this personality over time). With Jupiter conjunct Chiron, abuse may not have come directly from you family (it looks like you may have had a loving and supportive mom due to Chiron quintile your moon) but you were exposed to someone dangerous through moves of residence, etc. Neptune opposite Chiron could indicate religious persecution, or suffering from an oppressively religious culture in childhood (it could alternatively represent drug/alcohol abuse or mental illness in the home) and Uranus opposite Chiron could indicate instability in the home, possible separation from family members and the need to relocate. Your childhood pain builds a strong presence which never fails to appreciate the good and drives you in the right direction as you make choices which shape your future (these things indicated by Chiron trine Pluto and ascendant).

With Mercury near the descendant, you are obliging and like to live with a partner by your side to go through life with. Venus square Saturn suggests it may be a struggle to find your permanent partner, but when you get there you are supported by 5 harmonious aspects formed by Venus. With Venus in the 6th house trine midheaven, you might meet your long-term partner at work or simply enjoy companionship, camaraderie, and harmless flirtation within your career.

Lilith in the first house: high sex appeal. Square Midheaven: be careful of accidentally accruing too much admiration for your looks or charm at work. Lilith sextile Saturn and Moon: You might prefer older men and within your relationship, it could meet your emotional needs to be the rebellious sex goddess with your partner, it could boost your ego a bit and he will be happy to reassure your anxious Virgo/6th house placements that you are beautiful and desirable.

#my placements #my personality #my persona

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anxietysimplified · 3 years

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3 Solutions to Manage Social Anxiety

What is Anxiety costing you? More Than You Think.

Podcast (Audio Only)A help guide learning new skills and adopting a different outlook if you feel socially awkward

3 Solutions to manage Social Anxiety

In this episode Joanne Williams, LCSW discusses solutions forsocial anxiety and how it starts, it is not your fault.What is anxiety costing you? A relationship, fun and excitement that promotion you were overlooked for? We humans are very social creatures; other people are important to us. As we all know from personal experience, human relationships can deeply affect us, emotionally; they can either enrich or complicate our lives.Not surprisingly, the roots of our anxiety may lie largely in our childhood: Our early childhood experiences shape our later relationships, romantic and otherwise.As infants, we develop an "attachment style" that reflects how we relate to our early caregiver(s), reflected in a "secure", "anxious avoidant" or "anxious ambivalent" (either "resistant" or "passive") style.Those who have a responsive caregiver who meets the infant's needs tend to develop a "secure" attachment style (happy at caregiver's appearance, upset at his/her departure, empowered to explore the world and connect with caregiver).Those who have a responsive caregiver who fails to meet the infant's needs can develop an "anxious avoidant" style (indifferent to caregiver appearance, unreactive to departure, detached- little exploration or connection with caregiver).Those who caregiver isn't reliably present can become "anxious ambivalent". If the infant feels is unable to influence the caregiver, then can become "resistant" (showing anger at caregiver's appearance); if not, they can become "passive" (helpless).

Relationships can be the cause of a great deal of anxiety.

Conversely, healthy and personally-satisfying relationships can work wonders in reducing anxiety caused by many life-challenges.Adults with Secure attachment tend to be high achievers who enjoy exploring and don’t overly fear failure. They have good relationship skills (communication, conflict resolution, etc., and don't long tolerate unsatisfying relationships.Secure adults tend to partner with other secure adults. (In relationships, one Secure partner is enough to stabilize a relationship.) They see sex and intimacy as a single thing, and they share initiation and enjoyment of sex.Anxious-Preoccupied adults seek high levels of intimacy and approval, and can become overly dependent on partners. They have low trust in self and others, are emotionally expressive and impulsive, and are sensitive to separation.Anxious-Preoccupied adults can overreact and can read too much into situations, resulting in self-sabotage. They often partner with Dismissive-Avoidant partners.Dismissive-Avoidant adults are highly independent, and seem to avoid attachment and commitment. They see themselves as self-sufficient, often distancing from others, and suppressing their feelings.Dismissive-Avoidant individuals often feel good about themselves, while distrusting others. They prefer low-intimacy sex, and don't seem to much enjoy physical contact.Fearful-Avoidant adults desire close relationships, but they are often uncomfortable with intimacy. They tend to mistrust their partners, seeing themselves as unworthy of love. They suppress their feelings and avoid intimacy.Attachment anxiety can produce specific behaviors in the course of developing a romantic relationship: seeking closeness, seeking comfort and support ("safe haven"), seeking security in exploring. It's normal to feel some attachment anxiety in the course of developing a romantic relationship.

How our relationships can affect our level of anxiety:

Close relationships with family, friends and romantic partners affect the onset, course and treatment of anxiety disorders.Having no close friends is significantly associated with GAD, social anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, and specific phobia.Dissatisfaction with familial or marital relationships is associated with GAD and some phobias.One's relationship status (single, married, divorced) plays into how the quality of one's relationships with family, friends and romantic partners affects potential anxiety disorders:For single or divorced individuals, poor relationships with family or friends is associated with generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia and agoraphobia.Married people with anxiety disorders tend to have higher divorce rates, and are more likely to be single. Adults with anxiety disorders are less likely to be married, and more likely to divorce.For married people, poor relationships with family or romantic partners is associated with generalized anxiety disorder and PTSD.Marital distress may be causally related with anxiety disorders (GAD, social anxiety disorder, PTSD).Wives with anxiety disorders perceive their husbands as having a role in their anxiety, and vice versa.For young adults, friends can provide more emotional supports than do parents, and parents can produce more conflict than friends.High anxiety can cause a person to seek safety and support from others, which can strain the relationship with those others.How we (mentally) "see" the world can affect our anxiety:Peoples' cognitive style (way of interpreting past occurrences and projected future consequences) can provoke emotional disorders.Perceiving a threat can cause exaggerated focus on possible signs of a threat, causing anxiety. Negative life-events can exacerbate this anxiety.Many early-life negative interpersonal experiences (e.g. parental separation, discord, unavailability, or trauma) can predispose one to anxiety.Negative perceptions of romantic relationships can cause anxiety.How our social connections can affect our anxiety:Exclusion from social groups can have many adverse effects.People seek out inclusion in important or valued social groups, motivating much of social behavior.Exclusion from social groups can induce social anxiety, jealousy, loneliness, shyness and depression, often in concert.Social anxiety is more common in those with low self-esteem or insecurities.For adolescents, high social status, solid friendships and dating relationships can protect them against social anxiety.Conversely, exclusion or aggression or troubled best-friend relationships promote social anxiety.Adolescents may offer useful lessons for adults:Belonging to high-status groups can boost self-esteem and reduce loneliness.Victimization by peers (exclusion, aggression) can increase anxiety.High-quality friendships can reduce the impact of low peer acceptance.Positive close friendships can reduce social anxiety, while negative friendship interactions can increase anxiety.Positive romantic relationships can reduce social anxiety, while negative romantic relationships can increase anxiety The #1 challenge I found from a survey I did to anxiety, was in social situations. If this is you, You are not alone, The CDC is reporting that depression, anxiety is increasing to nearly 50%. of the population right now.Without tools or skills to bounce back better with resilience, this is going to be another very long year and we have been socially isolated too long and my have lost our social edge. The definition of Social Anxiety is if you feel uncomfortable or anxious being in one or more social situations, where you feel exposed to people looking at you or expecting something from you and you fear you will say the wrong thing and be embarrassed or feel unwanted by others and this provokes anxiety. So you avoid situations or feel the need to just endure it.If this is you….The good news is, these are skills you were meant to learn in your family and you can learn them at anytime in your life. I am going to give you some tools to learn some skills that you missed out on. But, will you dare to use them?? Or will your excuses keep speaking louder than your will to learn some skills and enjoy more of life.You could look at social anxiety like you are supporting your own anxiety habit? An anxiety thought habit. Because you spend so much time thinking about ways to avoid feeling insecure, it has become a habit to avoid the feeling of insecurity.Like changing any habit, the best way is to replace it with a new one. And the replacement is learning the skills needed to feel confident. How does anyone learn how to be socially confident? They just do it and practice it until they feel comfortable doing it and find success and satisfaction from doing it.For extroverts who are 75% of the population, it is easier because they get energy from being around people. Where an introvert has energy sucked out of them being around people. But, there are way to manage this.You could save so much more energy, if you can flip this habit around to reassuring thoughts instead of negative catastrophic ones. Like…I hate that, or I will die to face them. Change it into, I will check it out and promise to stay for 15 minutes, and leave, if I don’t find the people interesting. But, I can have a good time, if I choose to.I did a survey with my clients and there were 3 anxiety situation that were the most challenging that I want to offer solutions for.They were #1 anxiety was in Social Situations, …sleep issues with ruminating thoughts that interfere with getting to sleep and anxiety interfering with achieving goals were the others, I will go into those at a later time. Today we will focus on Social situations.Generally, one of the reasons that you have anxiety is because You are looking at situation, through a lens of I can’t or I will be embarrassed if or What if this happens or don’t know what to say. Does that sound about right, then here are some things to look at.Do you care to much about how you look to other, or if you will be accepted or liked and are overthinking this situation. Learning confidence skills can lower that need, because you do feel confident. Start to like the person you are and care less what others are thinking since you can only control one of these situations.Learn emotional skills Or Emotional Intelligence, to keep up with the many changes happening in the world will help you be ready for changes, in many different situations, at work, in relationships or socially. Emotions are your friends once you know how to use them, they are actually telling you what is needed. But, I think everyone can get up to speed with the emotional intelligence needed with a few skills that you need to master with practice.So, I want to ask you again, what is anxiety costing you? Have you thought of it as a real cost? It might be larger than you think, because of your insecurities, lasting friendships or more? The worst thing I hear from clients is they have just give up and giving in to the anxiety and just say no thanks to friends asking them to do things and avoid doing things that would make their lives better?If this is you, You are not alone, The CDC is reporting that depression, anxiety is increasing to nearly 50%. of the population right now.Without tools or skills to bounce back better with resilience, this is going to be another very long year.So, I will offer 3 skills for solutions to Social anxiety to put this under your control.What I want to offer first is just a simple mind set shift that you can practice. Know that eight out of 10 participants in a study felt some level of insecurities, going into a meeting or a new social situation. They’re checking their teeth for spinach. They are seeing if their hair is okay. So, know that almost everyone is feeling some level of insecurity, so you are not alone. It is normal. Start to look at this differently. You are fine the way you are.First-Start to notice what you are thinking about before going into the social situation. Check in with yourself and see how you are feeling about yourself do you feel like you look good, prepared and looking forward to it? .Check your attitude about the situations. Are you feeling confident or insecure before going into it? If not, then get prepared and make sure you look good and are feeling strong. Are your shoulders back, is your head up high, or are you kind of slouching into the situation? Know that 50% of your communications is body language. All of these things are broadcasting to everyone how you are feeling, without being aware of it. As you come into this meeting, are you open and interested and saying hello, or are you just being quiet and staying back. All of these can be the difference between insecure and secure. Have you noticed as some people enter, they light up the room with their energy and people are drawn to them right away or the opposite, have you noticed that some people come in like a black cloud is following them and people are moving away from them.This is your attitude conveyed with your personal energy entering a room. This is something that you can control and project Confidence with practice.Start today by preparing your energy, by holding your head high, shoulders back, Put a smile on our face that shows genuine interest in going to the meeting, it shows I'm interested in you and what you have to say. This can be fun to play with to see the different reactions.You can build a plan before you go to a social situation. Start to Notice the kinds of thoughts that are ruminating around in your head, they are usually worry thoughts. You can put them behind imaginary doors and say later to them.Then can start to look at some new habits of letting go of the What if’s, what if I would have said that or the ruminations of the thoughts that are going around and around, by learning to stand up for your self with a good come back that can will show respect for yourselfor tells the other person to stand down, to feel more confidence. I wish parents would teach these to the shy kids so they don’t freeze up and instead stand up for themselves.Like, Clearly you’ve got problems…I thought you were better than this..Do you have many friends if you are treating me this way.You really need to get some help, you are Out of control.

Clearly this is not about me…

- Start a daily practice of meditation. Proven to lower blood pressure and create better letting go and calming skills. letting go the worry, instead of holding on to the stress will help in the long run. Because you are either building up or accumulating tension or releasing it. these are skills that pay a huge benefit to shift these rumination to a more peaceful place when you learn letting go skills.. - Is it worth it to make these changes? Sometimes when you really want something, you will make the changes. One study showed that you could be losing $105K, per year, with lost promotions, or not being to speak up for a rent reduction, or getting a better price buying a car. or What is fear costing you if it is getting in the way of a relationships that you really want. So they may need more exploration and practice to address them.This is something I see consistently with my clients, they are more focused on what they don’t want, instead of what they do want. What I hear is….I don't like the way he does this, I would never be with that type of person. I don’t like… And then more complaining about not getting what they want to have?Think clearly about the kind of person you do want to meet, what are the qualities you are looking for, not what you don’t want? What would that new job look like? Your focus on your goal is critical to getting to it.It is Like driving a car looking backwards, but expecting it to take you where you want to go, and then being mad at yourself, for not getting there. Maybe you haven’t taken the time to truly think that through.So there is much more that I would love to be able to offer you around this and Cut your losses of what anxiety is costing you with my professional abilities. I feel with my 30 years’ experience, to help you to get to your goals, to have better sleep, feel more confident in social situations in my private sessions.Find more Way to Challenge negative, unhelpful thoughts that trigger and fuel social anxiety, replacing them with more focused re assuring thoughts.Learn how to safely Face social situations with increased confidence over self-doubt.Remember to practice the skills we shared today to feel more joys in your life.You can contact us at anxietysimplified.net or find out more how to get an Emotional Support animal for housing or a Certified Psychiatric Service dog to go anywhere with to feel the calm. By for now.Our next podcast: Vagus Nerve- the secret calming chemicalSee other podcasts atAnxietySimplified.net Load More Read the full article

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megansaber · 3 years

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What Are Your Romantic Partners Teaching You?

February 10, 2021.

Two months into 2021 and we all had high hopes for a better year. Don’t get me wrong, 2020 was one of my best years to date, but this isn’t to discount anyone’s negative or terrible experiences that came with a shit year. But two months into the new year, and it’s really just an extended version of 2020.

Personally, 2020 was a year full of growth, excitement, adventure, friends, consistently getting out of my comfort zone, and a new relationship where I had feelings for someone as intense as I did, and do, for the first time since 2012.

All good things come to an end though, right? In all situations, I try to find the lesson. I absolutely believe that we cannot truly appreciate the good in our lives without also experiencing the bad. Imagine if life was only good; it’d get boring and we wouldn’t be happy about anything cause we’d just come to expect it all the time. Bad experiences help maintain balance in life. Negative experiences help support finding healthier outlets, and they may just wake up a real fuckin’ demon that’s inside of you. Regardless of the experience, there is a lesson, and it’s up to you to figure out what that life experience is teaching you.

When it comes to romantic partners, there is always a lesson to be learned. I was watching a friend’s YouTube channel today of him pulling tarot cards and the two readings I watched couldn’t be more accurate to current life. Whether you’re a believer or not, I swear tarot cards really help waken your intuition up and kick it into high gear.

Imagine a situation that you’re in with someone you care about deeply, and there’s just ONE thing keeping you from forming a bond that could grow. The magic word that can, and does, resolve most things in life...you guessed it, communication. Without this one, all-encompassing word, we, as humans, cannot grow. We hold ourselves back. We hold our potential selves back. We hold love back. We hold growth back. And we hold relationships that could very well blossom into something really beautiful back. It’s really sad.

I think in life there are situations that shape who we are. Childhood trauma shapes how we act in our adult lives, and it really shows in relationships. It’s never anyone else’s job to fix anyone in another person, but it sure is helpful to have a strong support system that allows room, support, and space for that growth to be done. Sure, it could be seen as high expectations, but at the end of the day, the basic need for love, support, and kindness is something that we all deserve, and it’s important to shape our world with people that provide this for not only us, but for everyone else in their world, too.

A “failed” relationship has taught me to keep loving as hard as I do. To know that I will never be too much for the right person. It has taught me that kindness shouldn’t be earned, and it sure as hell shouldn’t be inconsistent. It has taught me that certain responses can trigger really negative reactions-reactions that I have worked so hard to change through years of talk therapy and sobriety. It has taught me that loving someone unconditionally does not mean having to be in their presence. It has taught me that loving someone sometimes means doing the hardest thing, which is making the heartbreaking decision to walk away from a situation that isn’t currently serving you, nor them. How do you look someone in the eyes, tell them you love them, and watch them walk away and drive off for the last time? I don’t fuckin’ know, and it’s painful, and sometimes it’s confusing knowing that your body can actually produce so.many.tears, but at the end of the day, it’s what’s ultimately right.

All I know is that we’ve all gone through intense experiences, and we’ve all come out on the other side still kicking. We find other hobbies, adventures, and people that bring joy into our lives. We understand that the hardest part is now over, and it’s time to move forward knowing that growth is ahead of us. When you’re at rock bottom with something, the only way to go is up.

I had a dream last night that I was bitten on the hand by a zombie (watching too much Walking Dead lately). The option was to cut my hand off and survive, albeit experiencing something extremely painful, or to stay as is, and die. I woke up before I could make that decision.

#relationships #dating #breakups #breakingup #lessons #love #heartbreak

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amorremanet · 6 years

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In celebration of @blackpaladinweek — some Twinganes (i.e., Shiro and his twin brother Ryou) headcanons from the punk band/university/modern setting hot mess AU of But boys spring infernal (as of now: Mature, ~300k, 17 of 21 chapters; main ship is Keith/Shiro, with several past ships & side-ships; this AU’s previous Ryou + Twinganes post) (also dedicated to Saki @bishiro ):

Q: Which one of the Shirogane twins loves Legally Blonde more? / A: Trick question, they love Legally Blonde more or less equally

That said, Ryou doesn’t love Mean Girls as much as Shiro does. Or very much at all, really

It’s not that Ryou minds the movie? But he’s tired of it, and too many Mean Girls references at once will make Ryou want to scream

Shiro may never let Ryou live down his t(w)eenage celebrity crush on Christina Aguilera, but to be fair, Ryou isn’t going to let Kashi live down his still very much alive celebrity crush on Sir Ian McKellan, either

Unlike Ryou, who took some time to arrive at his Bi Awakening, Shiro has known that he’s gay since they were about eight and he got a kiddie-crush on a boy in his class.

Their Mom heard about this when she asked if they had any special Valentines in mind in their class, and while Ryou just said the name of the first girl in class who he thought of as a friend but was mostly non-committal about it, Shiro was very into Cameron Levesque.

Mom and Dad Shirogane talked to Shiro about this first, basically explaining that they love him no matter what and there is nothing wrong with him being gay, but that he needs to be careful because there are, unfortunately, several people in the world who disagree and could try to hurt him

Ryou’s nine-year-old opinion on this was, “Well, if Kashi is gay, then duh, obviously there’s nothing wrong with anybody being gay. How could there be? My brother is the best and anyone who says otherwise is probably just jealous, I will fight them if they try to say that he’s wrong for wanting to kiss other boys”

Excluding snowball fights, Ryou has been in five physical fights in his entire life. Four somehow involved the desire to stand up for his brother. The fifth one, on the other hand, involved Ryou standing up to said brother, and it ended in him and Shiro hugging each other while crying.

From the age of eleven until they were almost 24, Ryou and Shiro had an ongoing debate about which fictional aliens would be the most fun to get abducted by. After Shiro’s time “living with” (read: being effectively held hostage by) Sendak and Haxus, though, that whole discussion stopped being one that he could find any humor in.

Like, if Earth made first contact with the Vulcans tomorrow and Shiro was offered passage back to their home-world, he’d have a hard time saying, “No”? But he’s really lost his taste for, “abducted by aliens” fantasies

One of the biggest disappointments of their childhood was that their Mom and Dad never let them get a cat, but in fairness? Tiny Ryou could be kind of a space cadet sometimes (in that he gets absorbed in things very easily and sometimes needs to be reminded that the rest of the world exists), while Tiny Kashi was either trying way too hard to be Perfect or a mischievous, rambunctious handful who fancied himself a prankster, with very little middle-ground between those two options

—so any cats they adopted likely would’ve been loved by the twins but cared for by their parents or grandparents, instead of functioning as a Lesson in Responsibility That Is Shaped Like A Pet for the twins

One of Ryou’s current disappointments is that he is a financially stable adult who could totally adopt a cat…… but he isn’t sure how Slav and a cat would get along with each other, and as troublesome as Slav can be, Ryou does love his friend/roommate, and he wants a cat? But not enough to risk a situation that could be Not Good for Slav

Ryou is responsible for turning Shiro on to Steven Universe, and Hunk is responsible for introducing the show to Ryou.

The character Ryou most identifies with is Connie (and Shiro can see it but would also peg Ryou as having a lot in common with Sadie).

The characters Shiro most identifies with are Pearl and Lapis Lazuli — and Ryou agrees kinda but he doesn’t like it, especially because:

1. he knows that the episode “Lost At Sea” is a big reason why Shiro loves Lapis as much as he does, and considering that episode really isn’t subtle in portraying Lapis’s fusion with Jasper as an abusive relationship, Ryou’s Protective Brother Instincts get pricked up hardcore;

and 2. Ryou can’t help but be suspicious and concerned about how Pearl and Lapis have character designs that emphasize thinness and physical delicacy, given that Shiro has an eating disorder and body image issues

(which okay, Shiro understands where Ryou’s coming from here, but this is sort of a sticking point because Shiro isn’t sure how he can put Ryou’s mind at ease without risk of accidentally sounding like he’s devaluing his problems

—also, he knows from experience that, apparently, “Duly noted, but I never wanted to be that kind of skinny and that isn’t the real problem with me anyway” is not the right answer)

Neither twin will argue that Hunk is the resident Steven Quartz Universe, like…… They don’t see a case to the contrary, really. And Hunk is totally cool with that.

When they were sixteen, Shiro passed his driver’s test on the first time out while Ryou failed it twice before finally getting it right. These days, though, Ryou is the twin who actually has a car and ever drives it. If you ask Shiro why he’s so averse to driving, he will tell you, “Trying to drive a car in Chicago after barely having my license for six months” and leave it at that.

Anyone who tries to tell you that either Shiro or Ryou is the, “calm, level-headed twin” while the other is the, “temperamental, reckless twin”? ……Yeah, either they’ve only just met the twins or they are lying to you.

Like, it’s fair(-ish) to join Shiro in saying that he is the, “genius twin” while Ryou is, “the twin with common sense” — in D&D stats terms: Shiro has more Intelligence than Wisdom, while Ryou is about even on both but isn’t as off-the-charts in Intelligence as Shiro is

—but… ahaha, no, both of them can be either the, “calm, level-headed twin” or the, “temperamental, reckless twin” at different points and in different ways. Both of them are easily outraged by abuses of power and/or on behalf of other people, but even that, they do differently.

A lot (though not all) of Shiro’s outrage could be summed up as, “People who have power don’t use it responsibly and it hurts the people who have less power, or who rely on them, or similar, and Shiro has no idea why he has to explain that you should care about other people, but he is angry and offended that some people think this is optional, what the Hell, how do you just not care about other people”

However: for all Shiro will (usually) let himself be openly angry about other people’s abuse, pain, suffering, etc., he usually tries to deny, repress, or ignore the anger he feels about things that hurt him. He’s getting better while working on all this with Ulaz, but he has a history of letting that anger build up until he snaps, or only come out in his music and/or when he’s angry on someone else’s behalf.

His typical interactions with Slav aren’t even an exception that prove the rule here. It’s an easy mistake to make, given how short Shiro’s temper is with Slav… but fact is, he simply hits his breaking point with Slav faster than he does with most people.

In the opinions of several people, Shiro’s pronounced bleeding-heart tendencies might very easily be the death of him someday if he doesn’t learn to get better at managing them. Like, most people agree that his compassion, his level of concern for other people, and his desire to help people are at least some degree of admirable — but Shiro has a problem of giving too much of himself to other people.

He also has a problem of getting angry about things that he can’t really do anything about (sometimes genuinely and sometimes because he doesn’t really want to deal with any of the things he can affect any meaningful change over because they’re messy and tangled and being Complicated at him, especially when they’re emotionally complicated)

On top of those problems, Shiro also has the problem where he has trouble with insisting on some of his boundaries and asking people to respect them — and he can sometimes be really, really bad at remembering where his boundaries are when he’s faced with people who need help, or issues that he cares about (though Shiro fixates more on the people affected by those issues than on the issues themselves), or the pain and suffering of other people in general

—Because Shiro wants to help. Shiro wants to make people’s lives better. Shiro is the sort of person who endures horrible pain and trauma and comes out the other end of it, wanting to be the sort of person who would’ve helped his past-self when he was in deep shit (and one of his biggest motivations as an artist/songwriter is wanting to make music that really reaches people and affects them somehow, even if it’s “just” reminding them that they aren’t alone). Which is all great?

……But when it comes to helping people, Shiro has all the chill of a broken freezer (which is to say, “none whatsoever”), and he often shoves his own problems down or to the side in the name of trying to help other people instead, despite how this has gotten him into trouble so many times before

The list of people who have expressed concern about these tendencies of Shiro at one point or another includes but is not limited to:

Ryou

Keith

Lance

Pidge

Hunk kinda sorta, he waffles about it

Matt

Ulaz sometimes

Iverson despite the fact that he also admires Shiro’s capacity for hope and compassion

Shiro’s old roommate Mark and their friend Trevor

Shiro’s old friend Laura (whom he fake-dated when they were in high school so her parents wouldn’t find out that she’s a lesbian)

Acxa (including one incident where she was like, “Look, Lotor is my best friend and has been since we were nine — but he’s a disaster, you two are not working out together, and I know that you want to help him…… but you are probably going to kill yourself if you keep trying so hard to help him”)

Ezor

Zethrid

Narti (through the conduit of Ezor because she didn’t feel like talking to Shiro for herself)

Shiro and Ryou’s Mom

Shiro and Ryou’s Dad

Grandfather Shirogane

Grandmother Shirogane

Sendak (but he meant this less out of real concern and more as a way of going, “Why don’t you give in and just come revel in being a monster with me”)

Slav (but he expressed the sentiment to Ryou because he felt like Shiro wasn’t listening to him, which was accurate)

Shiro’s A.A./N.A. sponsor Robin

David And Miranda From Group

and Lotor, even though he has directly benefited from Shiro’s bleeding-heart tendencies more than pretty much anyone else in Shiro’s life except for maybe Sendak

—Allura only hasn’t expressed concerns like this yet because she only just met Shiro recently

So……… yeah. This is a Thing. People become aware of it pretty quickly, when dealing with Shiro.

Ryou, on the other hand, has some trouble admitting that he’s angry on his own behalf but nowhere near as much as Shiro. In general, he’s far more likely than Shiro to acknowledge that he is angry and then either try to push it aside because “there is something more important to deal with right now,” or start giving people the cold shoulder

(—this happens even if he isn’t angry with them or anyone in particular: Ryou is very much a person who feels a need to tinker with or work on something when he gets angry. He also tends to want space from other people, and unless someone is comfortable enough with him to know better, his cranky tinkering tends to look like he’s shutting people out)

When Ryou gets outraged for other people, it tends to be in a way that’s focused on their boundaries or sense of agency, or things that were taken from them. While Shiro’s outrage tends to be more centered on the pain and suffering and wanting to find some way to alleviate it (usually by doing something and finding some kind of silver lining or a purpose to dedicate oneself to), Ryou’s outrage is about the specifics of what was done unto other people and how it tried to take away their sense of power in their own lives, and then what to do about moving forward (with an occasional side of vengeance and a serious vindictive streak once roused)

He’s also much more likely to get angry about people whom or issues that he cares about personally, rather than emotionally bleeding over everything he doesn’t really enjoy about the world — like, yes, he can get upset about injustices that he has no personal relation to or stake in, and it bothers him that many people in positions of power are manipulative assholes who care more about themselves and their own security than about the people beneath them on the different hierarchical ladders?

But unlike Shiro, Ryou looks at those things and goes, “I don’t like them, but there largely doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to directly change them, and as much as they upset me, I have other issues and troubles that I need to focus on because I actually can do something about them. I’m only human, I only have so much energy and so many resources, and I care about those things? But I have no idea how to affect any meaningful change, so I’m going to go put more energy into something that I can actually do anything about”

Basically, just…… Ryou and Shiro can both be temperamental and they can both be reckless. They can also both be totally calm and level-headed. It depends on the context, since they can get upset about different things, and

True, there are other factors in play as well, but Shiro’s mental health is the biggest reason why Ryou has a longer list of times when he’s gone, “Kashi, NO” than Shiro’s list of incidents requiring a, “Ryou, NO.”

Specifically, Ryou has had to go, “Kashi, NO” more often than Shiro’s done the opposite…… because Shiro has a history of disregarding his own well-being or outright not caring about it, whether this meant, “trying to climb a precarious-looking tree to save his friend Laura’s cat when they were all about ten” or, “mixing up a ‘cocktail’ that is equal parts tequila and cherry-flavored liquid Vicodin, then chugging six of them on an empty stomach”

(disclaimer: please, for the love of god, DO NOT DO THIS. it is a miracle that Shiro lived through doing that to himself, so please, please, please do not do this thing.)

Shiro doesn’t get what Ryou’s deal is about Sven. None of them gets why people think Sven looks so similar to the twins, but Shiro’s bigger sticking point is, “Seriously, why do you act like Sven is such a life-ruiner? He’s a decent guy, just kind of a goofball, and apparently he sounds like the Swedish Chef in bed? Which is a mental image you can thank Lance for, but??? Come on, are you really that jealous of Slav having another friend”

(to answer Shiro’s question: ……well, yes, Ryou is jealous? But it’s more that he thinks that Slav may have oversold this friendship and that Sven thinks of him as a work friend only and doesn’t really care about his problems… but in fairness, Ryou gets to that conclusion by conveniently ignoring certain pieces of evidence about Sven and Slav’s relationship that he doesn’t want to acknowledge because he is jealous of Sven, so……… yup.)

At this point, whenever the twins show off any old childhood photos, they make the jokes comparing themselves to the Sprouse miscreants before anyone else can. They’ve heard it so many times, and it’s always some kind of variant on the same thing — “Wow, you guys looked practically the same until you were about twelve, then Ryou started getting fat and Shiro didn’t” — and they’re fricking tired of it

While the brothers enjoy both Star Trek and Star Wars, there are some party lines here. Ryou infinitely prefers Star Wars (and he will fight people over both the validity of the prequels and whether or not the different Expanded Universe stories are still canon in light of the new trilogy)

Shiro meanwhile thinks that Star Trek is the superior sci-fi franchise (and he will fight people who think he should’ve dressed up as Kirk or Picard or anyone but Uhura for his past Trek-themed Halloween costumes. Because…… what. He wanted to wear TOS!Uhura’s red mini-dress and Mirrorverse!Uhura’s outfit, so he did, what is your point)

That said, there are some photos of the Mirror!Uhura outfit that Shiro would rather not be reminded of. They’re old selfies from around Halloween 2012, he was dangerously unhealthy, and and he sent them to Ryou and Laura for opinions without even thinking about the possibility that their reactions might focus less on how he looked in the costume and more on the fact that: 1. Shiro had amended the costume in certain suspicious ways; and 2. he looked like he was going to pass out at any minute

“Certain suspicious ways” here means: Shiro tried to cite the fact that it was a chilly October as a reason for putting a long-sleeved black t-shirt under the red-and-gold-trimmed bra part…… except Ryou and Laura both called bullshit, because Shiro had worn the proper costume in colder weather before without caring, and they had reason to suspect that he was trying to hide something

Ryou zeroed in on the possibility that Shiro might’ve been trying to hide injuries from Sendak. Laura focused, instead, on the fact that Shiro looked particularly thin and thought that he might’ve been trying to throw people off from noticing this. Both of them were right.

Two weeks after those selfies, Shiro had a fainting spell at work — which would eventually become a huge sticking point for Keith, because he thought said fainting spell made Shiro take his well-being more seriously and made him give more of a fuck about how much his self-abuse and relationship with Sendak were wrecking him…… but Keith was other than right.

I mean, the fainting spell scared Shiro, and it briefly made him take things more seriously…… but that didn’t last

Aside from Ryou and Laura, the only people who’ve seen those selfies are: Sendak (poking through Shiro’s phone without his consent); Ulaz (specifically asked to see them for therapeutic reasons); Lotor (didn’t believe that Shiro had ever worn said outfit for any reason and unfortunately, Shiro realized too late that the first pics he’d found were those ones); and Lance (walked in on Shiro low-key moping and obsessing over those selfies after he’d shown them to Lotor and endured the ensuing awkward conversation*)

*: said conversation was largely awkward because Lotor was concerned and did want to help, but unfortunately, he has very little idea what to do with genuine emotions, which out of a lot of things in his life

—but the biggest cause is the fact that Lotor was raised by a frigid, cruel, emotionally abusive, high-functioning alcoholic chemistry professor and her ill-tempered, bigoted enabler, who is every bit as emotionally abusive as his wife (who is the only person in the universe who he loves, including their son), constantly acts like a character from a Greek tragedy, and high-key hates the fact that certain major social and political events of the twentieth century stripped his family of their ruling position in the territory formerly known as Daibazaal, which means he will never be the King or Emperor of anything

Shiro feels like he would also show the pictures to Keith, Hunk, Pidge, Matt, and maybe Allura, but only if he knew that they were in emotionally okay enough places and if he felt stable enough to deal with how they might react

If Ryou ever challenges you to a snowball fight, you probably shouldn’t accept. He plays to win and he plays dirty. Shiro pretty much only goes along with this because he doesn’t mind when Ryou plays dirty; he thinks it’s adorable and endearing.

“For the love of God, Kashi, just tell him that you like being the little spoon and let him cuddle you. It’s literally that simple. You will feel so much better if you let yourself have this bit of comfort already” — Ancient Ryou Shirogane Proverb.

A lot of Shiro’s inability to keep his cool around Slav has to do with the fact that Shiro is a very compassionate person and tries so hard to understand Slav’s perspective, only for Slav to (generally) refuse any and all attempts at compromise.

A lot it has to do with how Slav has a tendency to treat Shiro’s known stressors and triggers as buttons he can push just to see what happens.

(The usual answer to this is some variation on, “Shiro realizes what Slav is doing, grumpily calls him out on it, and then gets upset because Ryou has asked Slav not to do shit like this and Shiro has opened up to Slav in ways that made him feel deeply uncomfortable, all in the hopes that helping Slav to understand some of Shiro’s problems and struggles might get him to stop pulling stunts like this

“—and yet, Slav continues to do these things and ignore simple requests like, ‘Can you please not kick Shiro in his eating disorder just to see what happens and/or make some kind of point to him, no matter how important you think that point might be”)

And still more of Shiro’s dislike of Slav has to do with how Slav reminds Shiro of himself in ways that Shiro does not particularly enjoy (especially because both of them have some pretty huge and difficult to manage issues with control).

All up, it’s probably a miracle (or possibly a testament to how much he loves Ryou) that Shiro hasn’t given in to his petty impulse to call Slav by his full, given name because well hey, Slav insistently calls Shiro, “Takashi” when he wasn’t given permission to do so (and the only reason he doesn’t use any of the overly familiar abbreviations like, “Taka” or, “Kashi” is that he thinks they sound silly)

—so, if he’s going to do that, then in Shiro’s humble (albeit very biased) opinion, it’s only fair that he gets to call Ryou’s best friend, “Miroslav” even though he knows damn well that Slav hates being addressed by that name and only hasn’t done away with it legally because the paperwork sounds very tedious and Slav doesn’t feel like it

Ryou desperately wishes that his brother and his best friend could get along, but he also understands why they don’t and since Shiro has made an effort while Slav doesn’t get how nothing he’s done constitutes, “making an effort,” well…… Ryou’s solution is to just do what he can to minimize the amount of time Slav and Shiro have to spend around each other

This is going to make Christmas 2017 mildly complicated because Ryou is bringing Slav with him to the Shirogane family Christmas out in California (because he visited Slav’s family last year, and…… uh, no, Ryou is not sending his best friend back to deal with that, especially not alone, and Slav can’t go to Norway with Sven due to a recent failure to renew his damn passport)

But, uh…… at least Slav will have more targets than Shiro?

Also, he will be more tolerable after dropping acid, but that just raises the question of why he thought it was a good idea to bring LSD to Christmas (and Slav’s answer is pretty much, “……Well, I wanted to do it, so I did”)

Another thing that Shiro will not let Ryou live down, ever: the time when they were kids and went to Disneyland with their parents and cousins, and Ryou asked where Anastasia was and come on why had he seen every princess but her.

Shiro is still kind of Not Over the fact that Ryou is a Pottermore-Sorted Slytherin, because Shiro was totally expecting both of them to end up put into Ravenclaw (in fairness, it was close for Ryou. Not so much for Shiro, but Ryou was a Ravenclaw/Slytherin hat-stall).

On the other hand, Ryou is still kind of Not Over the fact that, when he made Kashi get a Pottermore account, Shiro didn’t see his own Sorting into Hufflepuff coming from a mile off (—and okay, Ryou will totally admit that he likes Harry Potter more than Shiro does, but still, Kashi. Come on. How did you think you would ever be Sorted into Ravenclaw).

As much as Ryou means that question rhetorically, he does suspect that there is an actual answer to it and frankly, he doesn’t like it Mostly because he suspects that the answer involves Shiro defining himself as a list of academic and/or creative accomplishments instead of working harder on applying that pesky little, “You need to have a more holistic view of yourself and appreciate who you are as a complete person instead of zeroing in on tiny pieces of yourself as if they alone define you” idea to himself

In fairness to Shiro here: most people do not think, “Slytherin” when they think of Ryou. He’s most often misidentified as a Ravenclaw (whether they get thrown off by the fact that Ryou is an obvious nerd who has a Physics PhD, went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his undergrad, and always did well in school, or by the fact that Ryou genuinely loves learning), or maybe as a Hufflepuff like his brother (Lance is one of the people who thought so).

The list of people who have correctly guessed that Ryou is a Slytherin is: Hunk (but he’d been thinking Hufflepuff until Ryou heard about a then-recent disagreement Hunk had had with Shiro and went, “Ugh, don’t listen to Kashi, go get Pidge and slash the tires on Lotor’s Maserati, I’ll keep my stupid genius brother distracted and you can go give his pet asshole exactly what’s coming to him”)

Ezor (Ryou’s ex-girlfriend, herself a Slytherin, who most loved the moments when Ryou joined her in being all kinds of petty, judgmental, vindictive, spiteful, grudge-holding, snarky at the expense of people they disliked, and openly frustrated with the things that exasperate them — but who was also like, “But why are you objecting to some of my behaviors so? I don’t think it’s mean to tell this other local band that I think their music sounds like a funeral dirge sung by a chorus of sick cats aspirating on their own vomit. Their music does sound like that. If anything, those pathetic idiot hipsters should be thanking me for messing with their equipment before their set. I made them sound better”)

Slav (who actually doesn’t really care about Harry Potter and only picked Slytherin for Ryou because he knows that Ryou’s favorite color is green)

and Pidge (literally the only member of Galaxy Garrison who guessed Slytherin within a few minutes of meeting Ryou)

Neither of the twins cusses that much, largely as a result of their parents and grandparents raising them not to. Shiro does so more than Ryou, but it’s still not a very common occurrence and more often than not, Shiro is either quoting someone else or using some variant of, “fuck” as a way to differentiate between different approaches to sexual intercourse

That said: Ryou is more comfortable talking about sex than Shiro. To be fair, Shiro can discuss sex perfectly fine when he has some kind of emotional distance with it (like when it was casual sex that didn’t mean that much to him or when he’s giving Lotor recommendations on which weird niche-interest erotica to get Zethrid for her birthday)…… but he gets flustered very easily as soon as he’s emotionally invested in the sex

Ryou, on the other hand? Just doesn’t?? see??? the point???? of that kind of attitude????? Like, if you ask him, sex is best when people are on the same page, and it’s easier to get there if you don’t waste any time on shame and tell people what you like, what you don’t, what you want, and so on

Shiro would like to point out that it’s not an issue of shame, to him?? It’s an issue of, “Feelings are complicated and difficult and often messy, and when sex with someone is important to Shiro or happening in the context of a relationship that is important to Shiro, he puts a lot of pressure on himself not to screw it up”

Sexual shame largely enters the picture whenever Shiro talks about Sendak, but those discussions are messy for reasons that include but also go beyond the sex, and Shiro’s sense of shame there doesn’t really from the sex itself or from the role that BDSM played in his and Sendak’s relationship. It comes more from things like, “Sendak was abusive, and Shiro knows this, but part of him still loves Sendak and he hates this and he feels like he never should’ve loved Sendak to begin with, so yeah, the fact that part of him still loves his abuser is something Shiro is very deeply ashamed of”

This is another of the points where Ryou and Ezor worked really well together, to the surprise of… pretty much everyone but Shiro, Acxa, Zethrid, and Narti. Because neither of them has that much of a sense of shame about sex, both of them were comfortable just telling each other what they wanted or didn’t, and neither of them got embarrassed over things like accidentally knocking something over or awkward about laughing at each other during sex

Lotor was left off of that list for a reason. He really didn’t get what Ezor saw in Ryou at all, much in the same way that Ryou didn’t see what Shiro saw in Lotor. For the most part, Ezor was fine with letting Lotor fail to get it and then periodically vent his feelings about things by being some degree of petty and obnoxious about Ryou

—until the time when Lotor was coming off an argument with his Mother and went, “Honestly, I know that incompatible orientations are an issue for you and Shiro, but how can you even stand dating the objectively less attractive twin? Never mind the boring twin since that is a subjective matter, but why would you settle for the twin who is clearly nowhere near as good-looking as his brother? I don’t get it, does he give you the best cunnilingus that you’ve ever had in your life???”

Yeeeeah, that incident ended with Lotor being held in a very painful headlock until he apologized and promised to back the Hell off and just let Ezor be happy

He was very displeased that Shiro and Zethrid ignored his cries for help, but Shiro was just like, “I’ve told you that I’m done bailing you out when you insult my brother and Ezor has asked you to stop. You earned this”

while Zethrid’s opinion was, “*shrug* She told you to stop. You didn’t. You dug your way in so you can dig your own way out. Plus, watching you struggle was funny :)”

The last conversation that Shiro had with his Grandfather Namesake was before he left for school on the day Grandfather Shirogane died of an unexpected stroke. Grandfather Shirogane’s central point boiled down to, “I know that I have not always made it as clear as I should have, but I do love you, I am proud of you, and it kills me to see you pretending to be someone you are not so that you will earn the approval of your ignorant so-called friends. Your brother, his girlfriend, Laura, and Keith are the only peers of yours I have seen treat you as friends are meant to treat each other. Always remember who you are, and remember who truly matters in your life.”

The last conversation that Ryou had with Grandfather Shirogane was shortly after Shiro’s. Their Grandfather stopped Ryou on his way out the door and the gist of what he had to say was, “Yes, the older brother is usually supposed to look out for the younger one, but… Keep looking out for Kashi. If that boy doesn’t slow down and take stock of his priorities, he is going to destroy himself over the opinions of people who do not matter.”

Neither of the twins particularly enjoys reminiscing about their last conversations with their Grandfather. They have some mixed-but-loving-even-though-they-also-criticize-him feelings about the man in general, but those last chats with Grandfather Shirogane have stuck with them.

It’s been almost 12 years since he passed, and his grandsons still periodically think about those conversations, sometimes rather off-handedly and sometimes in ways that are fairly emotionally intense because maybe they’ve grieved for Grandfather Shirogane more or less healthily, but they haven’t completely made their respective peaces with those last Talks, especially because their Grandfather Shirogane’s points have become recurring themes in their lives

Another thing that Ryou is never going to let Shiro live down: when they were kids and their Dad first introduced them to Star Wars on VHS? ……Yeah, Shiro thought that Han/Leia was just a middle-of-the-story distraction romance before Leia eventually got with Luke, then got his little five-year-old mind completely blown when they got to Return of the Jedi and George Lucas dropped the, “FYI, they are twins” reveal on everybody. Shiro refused to acknowledge ROTJ for three years because he didn’t want Luke and Leia to be twins, he wanted them to get married

Ryou has (half-jokingly) threatened to include this story in his best man speech whenever Shiro finally finds his Prince Charming and gets hitched

About four weeks before Shiro finally got away from Sendak (August 2013), Shiro attempted suicide by taking too much Vicodin with tequila. He survived because Sendak happened to come home early and Haxus, being a doctor, had taught him how to administer naloxone in the event of Sendak’s sweet boy ever overdosing (since Shiro’s drugs of choice were alcohol and opiates, and naloxone would counteract the opiates at least).

Before Shiro swallowed the pills, he called Ryou, hoping that Ryou would have something to say and could talk him out of it. When Ryou missed the call, Shiro took it as a sign and left Ryou what was essentially a suicide note in the form of a voicemail.

Before that incident, Ryou was already worried, but that message scared him more than anything else he’d ever encountered. The next little while of calling and texting Shiro without a reply — the only other time in Ryou’s life that comes close to being a horrible as that was hearing that his parents were dead. He held it together remarkably well while waiting to hear from his Kashi, then cried in relief when Shiro called him back again

—and then the relief turned into more fear and frustration and pain because Sendak was breathing down the back of Shiro’s neck while he called Ryou, and between how Shiro forced himself to keep his voice controlled (and still sounded like he was about to shatter into a million pieces) and the way that Shiro was talking about what happened, Ryou could tell, but it felt like there was nothing he could do to help his brother, the person who Ryou loves most in this world

Ryou hasn’t told Shiro so, but he still has the voicemail. He has saved it despite upgrading his phone a few times since then; any time he gets a new phone, he makes sure to never lose that one. There’s a lot of other stuff on his phone that he doesn’t want to lose, but Ryou’s biggest priority is saving that voicemail

If anyone asked him why, he wouldn’t even be able to tell them. He just feels like that voicemail might be important for reasons other than, “reminding him to keep looking out for his brother.” Ryou isn’t sure when or how or why it’s going to prove to be important, but he is completely certain that someday, he is going to need to have that voicemail

Even though Shiro is in a much better place now than he has been and even though most of the unknown numbers that call Ryou end up being spam, Ryou still freezes a bit whenever he sees one come up on his phone because he’s terrified that someone’s calling him to tell him that something terrible happened to his Kashi

Iverson is a member of the physics faculty at Kaltenecker University, and he so did not intend to become a father figure to a set of loser nerd twins…… and yet, here he is, usually seeing Shiro at least once a week (at their Tuesday night A.A. meetings) and seeing Ryou pretty regularly, despite the fact that Ryou finished and defended his dissertation already, isn’t Iverson’s student anymore, and isn’t working on any projects that fall into Iverson’s area of expertise.

Ryou isn’t yet used to the fact that he has Iverson’s permission to call him, “Mitch” now, despite how he’s had said permission for a little over a year. It still makes him get a bit giddy and giggly, like a twelve-year-old looking up cuss words in the dictionary, because alsjskshsk, this feels so special and borderline taboo.

Shiro, on the other hand, constantly forgets that most of the other characters who know Iverson do not call him, “Mitch” because they don’t use surnames at A.A., so Shiro has literally never called Iverson anything but, “Mitch.” Shiro didn’t even think that his Mitch could be the same guy as Ryou’s, “Dr. Iverson” until Ryou wanted to introduce them and the twins went, “Wait, you already know the cool older guy I respect and admire?”

Iverson, for his part, just kind of sighed and facepalmed and has himself some coffee while the twins got their head around this, because he figured out that the new “Shiro” guy at meetings was the same as Ryou’s troubled but beloved brother Takashi…… the very first time that Shiro came to one of the Tuesday night meetings at the LGBTQ community center.

Shiro and Ryou agree that there is something about Iverson that reminds them of their Grandfather Shirogane (the one after whom Shiro was personal-named), but they have different opinions on what, exactly, that something is.

Ryou, personally, thinks it’s the way that Iverson is blunt and to-the-point but it generally comes from a well-meaning place (if not always a place of concern).

Shiro, on the other hand, can never quite pin down what his answer is because it ends up changing pretty regularly, but either way, he thinks it’s more important for him to remember that Mitch is his own person, not Grandfather Shirogane 2.0

Generally speaking, Ryou feels like he has a pretty good sense of humor, and he isn’t wrong. But he gets pretty sensitive to the “jokes” that his Kashi sometimes makes about death and dying, or that even remotely sound like Shiro devaluing himself, or that feel “too morbid.” Considering Shiro’s struggles with mental health, Ryou is far from the only person who takes some degree of issue with these “jokes,” but he’s one of the people who’s had the most success in going, “This makes me uncomfortable, I know that it’s one of your coping mechanisms, but it’s frankly a pretty concerning one, whether you mean for it to be or not”

At this point, Ryou is the only one of the Shiro-Ryou-Sven triad who Lance has never done anything physical with. Lance has platonically made out with Shiro and has had sex with Sven, and although realizing how in love with Hunk he is has largely helped Lance on from his desire to do something with all three of them, “For Science,” Lance is still kind of annoyed that Ryou never made out with him, “for science.”

Which is totally fine with Ryou, Lance. You can be as annoyed as you damn well please, because Ryou is annoyed that you ignored him telling you, “No” and kept asking until Shiro told you to back off and let it go.

The fight where Shiro and Ryou actually got physical with each other happened in early October 2015. Shiro had stayed clean for six months that time, and getting there had been an Ordeal for him — and then Lotor’s parents wanted to meet their son’s boyfriend. It had taken enough time to get Lotor to listen and accept that, “I am an addict and an alcoholic, for the love of god, my sobriety is important to me”

—and then Zarkon and Honerva offered Shiro a crash course on where Lotor had learned most of his incorrect attitudes about substance about and addiction. They did not listen when Lotor tried to go, “Please stop offering my boyfriend nunvil, I know that it is a cultural thing with Mother’s side of the family but he is an alcoholic” or when Shiro said similarly. Zarkon intimidated and terrified Shiro until he accepted two glasses of the stuff, and Shiro thought that he could have that one forced slip and then keep things under control afterward

Except that things did not shake out that way. He held it together for about a day-and-a-half before he got overtaken by the feelings like, “What does it even matter, I already slipped up, everything’s easier and it hurts so much less when I’m drunk anyway, who even cares” and so on. He ran down his phone’s battery on purpose, playing Candy Crush while out at a bar — which is where Lotor found him

Despite the mutual distaste between Lotor and most of the other people in Shiro’s life, they collaborated on trying to find him. Lotor, Lance, Acxa, Zethrid, and Matt went out searching, Hunk, Ezor, and Ryou were waiting at the Shiro-Hunk-Lance apartment, Narti was waiting at the Lotor + Gal Pals’ house in case Shiro went there, and Pidge was checking her phone for updates all through that week’s meeting of the Neurodiverse Student Union

So, when Lotor got Shiro back to his, Hunk, and Lance’s place, he, Hunk, and Ezor got asked to please clear out so Ryou could Have A Talk with his brother (—which they mostly did, but “mostly” means that they awkwardly waited in the hallway outside of the apartment, in case the “Talk” started sounding like it might need intervention)

Yes, Shiro was drunk, but he wasn’t completely off his own head just yet, and he assumed that this Talk was going to be Ryou being Disappointed in him for slipping up, which made him preemptively frustrated, and he started projecting his own feelings onto Ryou as if they were actually what Ryou was feeling and what he wanted to discuss

—but Shiro was so completely off-base that he might as well have been playing a different game entirely

See, Ryou didn’t like that Shiro had slipped up, but what he really wanted to call his brother out about that night was, “Where the Hell do you get off letting your phone die like that? You always have a charger in your bag. You have one of those spare battery jackets for it. Your phone’s battery doesn’t die like that unless you let it get that low on purpose, so what in the Hell were you thinking, Kashi”

—which Shiro really didn’t want to talk about, so he threw out a mostly bullshit answer about how he genuinely just didn’t notice now excuse him, he’s going to go shower until he quits feeling like such a failure or drowns himself, whichever happens first

Ryou only meant to hold onto him to keep Shiro from going… but he yanked too hard and Shiro took it the wrong way… Being drunk is the biggest reason why he shoved at Ryou but didn’t actually hit back… The physical part didn’t really last that long, given that Shiro was drunk and Ryou was trying to restrain him rather than hurt him

—but both of them wound up on the floor and managed to land a few hits on each other before Ryou successfully pinned Shiro’s wrists and shouted at him that they were talking about this NOW, Kashi, so tell Ryou what the Hell you were even thinking

Voice cracking and eyes tearing up, Shiro snapped back, “What does it matter, what d’you even care, you have a class to teach in the morning, go do that—”

“No! I am doing this, you’re more important than Iverson’s bunch of undergrads—”

“No, I’m not! That’s your life, Ryou, quit throwing it out and over nothing—”

“Says you! How can you of all people right now tell me anything about throwing your own life out!”

“Yours is worth something—”

“So is YOURS!”

“Stop lying!”

“Why would I lie about that, Kashi!”

“You’d be better off without me, Ryou, we both know it! Your life’d be perfect if you didn’t have to take care of your hopeless, fuck-up big brother—”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, you idiot! My life would be miserable without you! I have no idea what I’d do without my brother, no matter what you’re dealing with—”

“……Let me go, Ryou.”

“No! I’m not letting you up until you understand that I love you and I care what happens to you! Even if you don’t give half-a-damn what happens to you, I do! You’re my brother, Kashi. My only brother. I will pin you to this floor until the others pull us apart, I will fight them off to pin you down again, I will keep us here until you get it through your stupid, genius head that I. am not. letting you. fall. the Hell. apart!”

“But why, why keep putting yourself through this when you could have it so much better, and don’t say we don’t both know that—”

“None of that so-called better can replace you, Kashi! Do you get me yet!”

—which was where things very quickly devolved into crying (which turned into ugly crying almost as soon as it started) and incredibly clingy hugging, and Shiro lost most of his capacity to do anything with words for a while. Once he got it back, it was mostly in the form of choking out apologies while sobbing on Ryou’s shoulder

—after Shiro accepted some water and went to take a shower, Ryou called Iverson (for both of them, since Ryou’s idea was to call in sick for the next day and although Iverson isn’t actually Shiro’s sponsor, he is one of the strongest relationships that Shiro has forged with anybody else at meetings).

Once Shiro got out of the shower, he flopped on the kitchen table and talked to Iverson about what had happened while Ryou put the kettle on. Then, Ryou slept over (and swallowed his Sven-related pride to ask him to please go make sure Slav was okay and not trying to burn anything down)

—and that’s the story of the one real physical fight that Shiro and Ryou ever had

One of the many ways that Shiro might have reconnected with Keith a lot sooner than they do in the fic itself: If Ryou had been the TA for Keith’s section of Iverson’s intro physics lecture, then he would’ve recognized Keith and gone, “Kashi, what is your Keith’s last name” (which Ryou has never remembered without prodding; sorry, Keith), and then debated how much he wanted to tell Shiro that his One Who Got Away is the freshman who’s being an unholy terror for Ryou and Iverson both.

Additionally, Keith would have recognized Ryou’s name — because he only knows one Ryou Shirogane, and he’s pretty sure that it’s not the most common name to find in Massachusetts — and tried to corner him after class to go, “What happened to your brother, is he okay, what’s going on, where is he”

Instead, Iverson didn’t have Ryou manning any classes during Keith’s freshman year, so Ryou only heard horror stories from his fellow TAs, about the nightmarish prodigy who doesn’t actually give a fuck about physics (despite being in the intro lecture for STEM majors, not the intro lecture for humanities and social sciences majors) and has apparently developed a personal vendetta against Dr. Iverson

That worked out okay at the time, because it meant Ryou didn’t have to miss a week-and-a-half of teaching at the start of a new semester while he went out to Minnesota to meet Shiro and his old roommate from Chicago, helped talk Shiro into going to an inpatient rehab clinic for a while, and then went with him for the admission because he (correctly) suspected that Shiro might be something of a little shit while checking in

(—and because Shiro wasn’t saying, “Having you there with me would make that process easier,” but mostly because he already felt like a burden. He was definitely feeling that loudly, and getting him to admit that he needed help was enough of a big deal that Ryou was fine with not pushing his brother on the, “Admit to your feelings and admit that you want me to be there with you” point)

……But at the same time, it’s probably better that Shiro and Keith haven’t made this connection yet? Because they already know of enough points where they missed each other instead of reconnecting again, and obsessing over that is really, really not good for either of them

Also, as far as Sendak is concerned, Ryou was teaching freshmen at that time, rather than periodically offering advice when some of them asked for it but mostly handling things like photocopies, mail, proofreading proposals and drafts (which Ryou took to mean, “also please offer constructive criticism,” which Iverson hadn’t meant but was willing to put up with, since Ryou usually asked questions and made points that were actually helpful), and talking to people who Iverson didn’t want to deal with himself

Not that this necessarily matters, because at present, Sendak is out of the picture. But Shiro and Ryou collaborated on a bit of truth-stretching in the bit of time leading up to Shiro getting out of Sendak and Haxus’s place, and according to the not-quite-lies they spun, Ryou was teaching freshmen

Said truth-stretching was necessitated (if you asked the twins) by the fact that Sendak would read Shiro’s texts and emails over breakfast most mornings, and listen to new voicemails if he had any.

The twins figured that if they switched to only talking over calls (and only when Shiro wasn’t in the house, because he was terrified of Sendak potentially putting bugs or monitors around the house), then there were two likeliest outcomes: 1. Sendak looks at the call-log and wonders why Shiro is talking to Ryou only during certain times, and possibly concludes that Shiro is Up To Something;

or 2. Sendak doesn’t look at Shiro’s call-log and it seems like the twins have stopped talking altogether — which would’ve definitely seemed like a sign that something was up, whether he took it to mean that the brothers had had a falling-out or a fight (which Sendak would’ve had mixed feelings about), or that Shiro is very possibly Up To Something and he might well have gotten his brother in on it (which could’ve meant that Ryou had ideas about Sendak and Haxus that could’ve gotten the two of them into the trouble they deserved to be in)

—either way, it would’ve been suspicious for Shiro and Ryou to seemingly stop texting each other. But they also couldn’t text about anything that might’ve tipped Sendak off to the fact that they were definitely Up To Something (namely, planning the eventual escape with their Aunt Satomi and Mark, Shiro’s old roommate)

……so, one of the things that they fake-texted about was the freshmen that Ryou was allegedly teaching

Still another thing that Shiro isn’t going to let Ryou live down: when they were nine, he spent six weeks convinced that John Mellencamp and John Cougar Mellencamp were completely different people

Another HP thing that Ryou has made Shiro consider: the shape that a Boggart would take when facing him. Both of them go back and forth a bit on their answers, but there are some recurring themes.

Shiro’s different hypothetical boggarts generally involve any of the people he love (especially Ryou, their Mom, and Keith) denouncing him as a broken, irreparable monster, someone who’s even worse than Sendak because he tricks people into thinking that he’s a good person when he isn’t, utterly incapable of doing anything good for anybody else ever in his life, and undeserving of love or community or companionship — and well, everyone would be so much better off without you, Shiro

Ryou’s hypothetical boggarts, on the other hand, tend to be more based on things that he’s actually seen or heard: Shiro, looking the way he did right before he checked into rehab, all sick and painfully thinned out and physically wrecked; Shiro, looking how he did the night that they had their full-on fight; Shiro, drunk and soaked through and ugly-crying, like the night when he first slipped off the wagon after rehab; Shiro, looking like he does now but then he opens his mouth to speak and Ryou has to hear the suicide note voicemail that Shiro left him all over again — and then, because this isn’t enough, there’s at least a tacit accusation that this happened to Shiro because Ryou somehow failed him

Yet another thing that Ryou isn’t going to let Shiro live down literally ever: after they first saw the Peter Jackson movie adaptation of The Two Towers when they were twelve-going-on-thirteen, Shiro’s teenage crush on Elijah Wood really kicked into high-gear, and he spent six weeks making a collage out of all the ElWood pictures Laura would let him have from the teenage girl-aimed magazines she was done reading

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squirrelly831 · 4 years

Text

B.A.P Wives’ Personalities

Stephanie has mention of murder, but not details. Miranda has miscarriages and abuse, so trigger warning~

Stephanie was a happy child until she witnessed her mom’s murder when she was 8. Her world flipped upside down after that as she had to testify against her father in a court about the murder. She would go to counselors and therapists for the trauma, but she would have nightmares and flashbacks constantly while living in Germany with her aunt and uncle. They were worried about her well-being as she grew up. She isolated herself not trusting anyone and so they moved from Germany to Philadelphia for a fresh start.

The fresh start did her wanders. She made friends, actively participated in counseling, and was happier. Stephanie did get memories of her mom periodically and the murder never left her mind, but she was able to move on with life. She knew her mom was a great mom as she had some memories from their past together. She would end up changing her name in memory of her mom. She’s very outspoken and her friends would call her the mother of the group as she would only every raise her voice at them if they were doing something that would or could hurt them. She was protective by nature.

After high school, Stephanie attended university for early childhood education and development. She had lived alone for two years when she got a call from her aunt that her father had gotten out of prison early. Stephanie was devastated as well as terrified that he would come looking for her. However, her aunt swore she’d be fine as she had a protective order against the man. Stephanie didn’t take a chance and joined up in karate and self defense classes too keep herself safe. She never dated in fear of a man becoming just like her father. After she graduated, in fear of running into him on the streets of Philadelphia, she went to Busan to teach before moving up closer to Seoul where she eventually met Yongguk.

As a mom, she is fierce. She is a mama bear protecting her cub. Stephanie will not hesitate to take someone out if she felt they were a threat to her daughter. Her daughter is her world. Though Yongguk was upset with her, Stephanie had once brought down a man at an amusement park in New Jersey after she noticed he had tried to touch her four year old daughter inappropriately while she was on a merry go round. The police took him, but Yongguk was upset she put herself in danger. Stephanie didn’t care. No one fucked with her daughter and got away with hit.

Miranda was a carefree and bucket of sunshine. She was the person who would help anyone without being told. She was raised with her three older brothers and was their world. They were protective of her and would make sure she was happy. Her smile was something that everyone loved. It just held something that made people end up smiling back even if they were upset. It was a quality that Jiho ended up loving the most about her. She was the one who could smile earnestly at someone while telling them to fuck off in the same instant. She wasn’t afraid to voice herself to people and make sure they knew when they had crossed her. At least that was how she was until high school.

In high school, she began to date a boy her age and at first it was a great relationship. Then one day in an argument, he hit her. She had a nasty bruise under her jaw and she ended it with him immediately. However, after begging and groveling for days, Miranda regretfully took him back. No one knew about the hit as she covered the bruise with concealer. Through high school, she stayed with the boy and he would get violent with her if she did anything to piss him off. She went from speaking her mind to never voicing herself. She didn’t break up with him and when she ended up pregnant her junior year, Miranda knew she couldn’t leave him. She thought it would get better with her being pregnant, but he beat her and pushed her downstairs in his home that would lead to a miscarriage. He didn’t want a child by her and when she got pregnant a second time, he beat her within an inch of her life. Her older brother was the one who witnessed the assault and he attacked her boyfriend. It was after the second miscarriage that Miranda broke to her family about the reoccurring abuse she endured and her parents pressed charges as well as got a protective order.

After the ordeal, Miranda was the same as before. She had a hard time expressing herself for years to follow. She had maintained her love of humanity and would help anyone in need, but she was also cautious of who she let close. However, she would eventually find her own voice while studying fashion and journalism in university. She would be able to hold her own in arguments, but if she argued with someone she loved she would break into tears.

As a mom, she is love. Miranda is the definition of love. An angel who was sent from the heavens to be their mom. Her kids were sure if they looked up love in a dictionary, their mom’s picture would be there. She opens her heart to anyone and everyone. She accepts everyone and will help people even if they didn’t ask. Miranda is the one who would help the elderly cross the street, which her kids would end up subconsciously pick up her habit. Miranda taught her kids to have an open heart, but not to be naive. It was a hard lesson she had learned growing up and she didn’t want her kids to have to go through the pain she did. Her willingness to love and accept everyone did make it easier for her son to come out as bisexual. Jiho and her both accepted their children for who they are with open hearts. Miranda is an emotional mom, she will not raise her voice, but she would cry if she is hurt or disappointed by her kids which would make them feel like assholes.

Amber was a free spirit. Living in her house as a child was hard. She had always been a free spirit and her ways would clash with her father’s strict military ways. She was to dress a certain way, her hair a certain way, and act a certain way. Not that she wouldn’t do it, she respected and loved her father and mother. However, she felt like a doll on display at a museum. Something that other people could move and shape in their own ways. It didn’t really start to get to her until she got to middle school.

When she stared wearing jeans, her father almost had a heart attack. Her mom and him had raised her on nothing but skirts and dresses and to see her in jeans was unacceptable. However, her mother stepped in and told him to let it go. It started with something small like jeans to things like dying her hair or just chopping her hair. Though her father didn’t approve of it, her mother always insisted that it could be worse. She could have been into drugs or sneaking out and that was enough to let her father relinquish his tight hold over her.

She wasn’t the greatest at school, a C average at best, but she killed it in the fine arts department. Her father bought her a camera for her birthday in high school and it was something she kept even as an adult. She got into photography then and even though she knew her dad didn’t agree with her half the time, he still let her experiment with things. Amber would not leave the house without her camera in hand and it brought her father a smile to see his daughter enjoying herself.

As a mom, she is free expression not good first impressions. She isn’t one for strict upbringings when it came to her kids. Her house isn’t the cleanest, but by no means is it dirty. She just had a creative environment. Amber painted murals in her kids nurseries before they were born and she used to paint on the walls around the house. She wants her kids to be able to express themselves at home and maintained that all their lives. She wouldn’t get upset when one of their kids drew on the wall as it was something that could be cleaned. What she cared about was what they drew. Everything in art had meaning and it was something she always looked at with her kids. She’s the mom that everyone thought was the cool mom and other parents assumed the worse about her outside of her friends. Though she is open to her kids expression, if they did something illegal or something Daehyun or she would not like (sneaking out after being told no), they would get punished with hard labor and forced to work at Charity’s cafe or Mia’s bookstore as community service for a month or they could take a month grounding.

Allison was a scientist at heart. From a young age, she loved science. Her father didn’t care for her interest and wanted her to focus on the farm, but her mother wanted to help grow her daughter’s interest. It was a conflict between the two for years before her mother took her brother and her to Chicago after serving her husband with divorce papers. Allison wasn’t outspoken, but she wasn’t above telling someone where to go and how fast to get there either.

Once in Chicago, Allison was given the opportunity to flourish in science and when her mom fell ill with a terminal cancer, Allison wanted to find a cure. She was determined to go into medicine after she graduated high school with a dream that she could save her mom. However, only days after graduating high school, Allison’s mom died of her cancer and it devastated her. She went through immense pain and guilt of not being able to save her mom even though her cancer was one that had no cure. Not wanting to go through the pain of losing another person through illness, she thought of becoming a biotechnology research scientist, but she decided instead to get her PhramD [Doctors of Pharmacy Degree] and a PhD in Biotechnology.

She went from hospitals in Chicago to a research facility in Seoul and worked under scientist to help develop new medicines and technology to fight illnesses.

As a mom, she is healing. After having her first child, Allison balanced raising her with her husband and the stresses of her job. She hated that she missed out on a lot of bonding the first year of her daughter’s life and when she was pregnant the second time, Allison left her job. She had planned to be a stay at home, but she was someone who worked. She needed to do something and when she was offered the chance to be a Pharmacist at a clinic she didn’t hesitate to take it. Her priority in life is her children and husband and their health. When one of her kids fell sick, she immediately switched to nurse mode and would diagnose and find medicine to help them. If they scraped themselves, she would bandage them up and put a sticker on them for a job well done. Her children looked up to their mom and ultimately her son would aspire to be a doctor to help people like his mom.

Maddy was never afraid to get her hands dirty. She grew up on her family farm and when she was two, she had already started helping out with getting the eggs from the chickens or feeding the pigs. Her life had always been around her farm animals and crops. She was the second youngest of five and she worked hard along side her older brothers and younger sister. Her family farm was one popular in their rural town as well as with a small grocery store that would sell their products for a pretty penny. She knew everyone in her town and everyone knew her. She was little Madeline from the Hill Family Farm and their delivery girl.

Though Maddy loved her family farm, she never wanted to take over the farm. She only knew she wanted to be a stay at home mom just like her mother, but her mom would scold her for it. Her mom wanted her to have goals… to have dreams. As she grew up, Maddy found an interest in painting, calligraphy, pyrography, and other crafts. So when she graduated high school, she decided to pursue art in an university.

Going from the rural town of Paris, Texas to a giant city like Austin was a culture shock. She rarely left her hometown. She didn’t travel as the farm was her family’s life. However, she joined a sorority in her second year of college and traveled to other states for conferences and meet ups with other chapters. It changed her in a way. She was already a huge social butterfly, but she was able to travel and experience cities and states she had only dreamed of going to. Her first out of state travel was to Barcelona with a small group of her sorority sisters who wanted a summer of adventure. The travels only made her crave traveling.

As a mom, she is responsible. Being raised on a farm, Maddy knew from a young age to be responsible and to be in charge of something at home. She taught her daughters how to cook, clean, and how to take care of themselves. When she took the girls to the farm, they would help out their grandparents with the animals and crops. At home, she had her own craft store online where she created and sold artwork. Her daughters learned by experience how hardworking and responsible their mom by watching her work from home.

Kiara was always the quiet one. She was the person behind the scenes to make everything come to motion. Her mom used to say she was in a superhero movie, she’d be the unstoppable super villain who would be the mastermind behind pettier ones. She was a silent but deadly person. If someone hurt her, she wasn’t one to strike immediately. She was like a killer snake, she struck when her prey least expected it. Kiara was the one who could fly under the radar at school, keep out of drama, and still maintain a small group of friends.

One place Kiara loved growing up was the ocean. She was her parent’s little mermaid. No depth scared her. She’d go out as far as she could with her dad and grandfather when she was younger. She loved the fish at her legs and she had once got a starfish that hit her in a wave, but she let it go. Even after experiencing a hurricane in South Carolina and getting rescued when her house flooded, she still loved the ocean. It was a force to be reckoned with something that she could relate to. If it wasn’t for Deja getting her to go to the same technical school in high school, Kiara may have gone into marine biology, but she enjoyed bringing smiles to people when she did their hair and nails.

As a mom, she is expressive. Kiara may try to be the one who doesn’t show her real emotions, but she fails miserably. If she’s stressed, her family will notice the creases in her brow or how her make up is just a little off and messed up. If she’s happy, they see how confident she is in whatever she wears and does. Unlike her cousin, Deja, she’s not the one to hit first then ask questions, she’s the one who wouldn’t spank her kids and as they got older it was easy for them to walk on her. However, that doesn’t mean she hasn’t taken a comb to their heads whenever they tried to fight her when it came time to doing their hair.

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miraclejin1204 · 7 years

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Mandatory bughead post #2: My thoughts on Bughead and why it is important.

I’m aware that the words ‘bughead’ & ‘important’ in the same sentence seem like a misfit but there is a good reason why I’ve chosen to write it so. This thought came to my mind whilst trawling through the morass of ‘ships’ & ‘ship-wrecks’ on tumblr & twitter about Riverdale.

Now, I’m not someone who watches a lot of TV shows ,however, Riverdale was a serendipitous discovery that happened to me two weeks ago.

I have been a fan of Archie comics since I was little & my two favourite characters were Jughead & Betty, in that order. Watching Riverdale was a revelation as it brought me back to the Archie’s world and I saw it in a new light. I went into it without expectations.

What I was not prepared for was how Bughead would gently creep up on me and reign over my entire existence in such a short span of time.

You see, I have had a few ships, some fleeting and some enduring,some canon and some fantasy, however nothing as rabid or as intense that’d induce an “I’m SHOOK” moment. Until bughead happened.

When I used to read the comic books, I had wanted Archie to one day wake up & realize that Betty was the one for her, because I could so relate to her as a kind & sweet girl, being taken for granted every time and with a history of unrequited love. I’m 30 now and life-experiences, especially of the bitter kind has certainly changed my perspective about these things, especially about romantic relationships. No more suffering fairy-tale princesses for me.

In the comics, although Jughead and Betty were my favourites and they always were good to each other, the thought of them as a potential match had never crossed my mind. I was intrigued and amused by Jughead’s woman-hating stance and had imagined that one day an extraordinary woman worthy of him would come and sweep him off his feet.I had no concept of sexuality and its associated complications that we see today, it was only a pure and innocent fantasy in my mind.

I had only been familiar with the ‘classic’ and humorous golden age Archie comic digests and was unaware of the modern reboots and the various universes. Therefore, when I started watching Riverdale, I was immediately hooked to its modern,quirky & dark narrative and had my assumptions broken down bit by bit with each episode. When I started with the show, five episodes were already in so I binge watched them in a single night, which left me with little time to process the minute details and subtleties, which is why I missed noticing the growing chemistry Betty and Jughead.

It was only when I began exploring the show on the internet and understood the whole narrative and tone of the show,re-watched the episodes, saw the interviews, trawled Tumblr & youtube and accidentally saw the leaked bughead kiss is when it hit me like slap on the face and a swift kick in the ovaries. It nearly felt like enlightenment!

Once I had seen and felt it, there was no going back. It was a like a virus firmly implanted in my psyche. I resurrected my dormant and inactive tumblr and twitter accounts only to ship bughead. I’m sure fellow bughead fans know the drill of our coming undone so I won’t go into much detail.

Coming to the next part. Riverdale or rather Bughead has come into my life as a breath of fresh air when I am going through a very dark and stressful phase. I have been going through a very difficult divorce from a man, who caused mental abuse and cheated my family of money & absconded and left me to deal with the consequences and legal battles, triggering my anxiety,fear and depression. A man whom I had trusted with my everything and was completely vulnerable to, used me and left me with a deep fear and mistrust of relationships, trauma and some very hard learnt lessons. I’m an eternal romantic but a part of me has become cynical about it.

Riverdale is a unique show as is evident in its excellent writing,for those who care to notice the nuances and characterisations. The symbolism, fore-shadowing, word-play, subtle body-language cues of the characters, parallelism and of course, a quality mystery is the gold-standard of writing. Can we also talk about the wonderful and talented cast who have given life to the characters? The show is a slow burn and not for those with a shallow mind who are looking for popcorn entertainment with a lot of mindless drama and illogical and unstable romantic pairings based on lust and superficial chemistry,

Bughead is not just a run of the mill ship that people are fangirling over. It is beautiful union which tells you the story of two woefully young and tender yet jaded individuals, thrown together by a tragic fate, who are battling the darkness within and without, fighting for something that’s bigger than them and their personal problems. They are fighting for justice, light and hope. In spite of their struggle with their personal demons. Can you imagine what they are going through? For any child, parents are the safe space when the world around them crumbles, but both Betty and Jughead’s parents let them down with lies, manipulation and broken promises and the possibility that their families could be the perpetrators of murder. Under such horrible circumstances, they find the safe space with each other.

They both are mature beyond their years, insightful, righteous, kind, compassionate, supportive and caring and there for each other without being asked. They communicate with their heart and eyes (sometimes with heart eyes too ;) ) It is not a connection based on lust and hormonal surges. Something very old-fashioned and real in the era of hook-ups. An oasis in a desert.

People who keep harping on about how there is no chemistry at all between Jughead and Betty and that it was rushed and illogical, then I’m sorry that you’re oblivious to everything that is going on in the show. They have been friends since childhood.

I think we do not give the writers enough credit for writing something so profound and refreshing in spite of it being a teen drama. A homeless, abandoned, rudderless boy, an outcast who is bullied, selflessly helps a girl find her sister and uncover the truth, not because he wants to get into her pants. A stifled, lonely yet nurturing and loving girl giving strength, support and courage to a lost and scared boy failed by his father and society. They are each other’s guardian angels.

So I ask this to all the haters..can’t you see this? Are you so blinded by your superficial hate and violent desire to stuff your ship down everyone’s throats because it gives you some sort of false sense of control over others that you have lost the ability to objectively see what the show is striving for through this beautiful narrative within the confines of what is ostensibly a teen drama? Can we not rise above our pettiness of mindless and hostile shipping to learn from it? Everyone is free to ship whomever and whatever they want but it is another thing to be so vitriolic and spiteful towards the others to have your way. Isn’t shipping supposed to be all about love anyway? Bughead is so much above all this petty drama, it is transcendental.

There’s so much that all of us, teens and even adults can learn from this ideal of a super healthy relationship that both television and our lives need. We need to move away from toxicity both in entertainment and our lives. Can we not be inspired to work on ourselves and build supportive, organic and nurturing relationships? This should give so much inspiration to the teens of today. With Betty & Veronica, the show strives to re-build the idea of strong, female friendships which seems to have become an alien concept in the world of ‘frenemy’ culture. Why can’t two girls be healthy best friends without the assumption that there is something sexual between them? People are hating on Bughead also for a fact that they are a heterosexual couple. As I see it, love is love in any shape or form.

Also, I do agree that all sorts of representation must have a place in popular culture and thankfully it is happening. However, those who are unhappy with Bughead saying that it erases Jughead’s asexuality, I disagree. Are you saying that Asexual people can’t fall in love? That they don’t deserve an intimate bond with another?

Now, in the larger Archie comicverse, Jughead was never portrayed as being an asexual, he simply was smarter and wiser and had other priorities compared to his hormone crazed pals. He was always the voice of reason. I’m sure that there are people like that, not everyone who doesn’t choose to be a crazy, horned dog is asexual. Besides, Jughead is shown to be asexual in only one version of the comics. There can be multiple variations of characteristics in the larger universe. Riverdale chooses its own narrative and characters as it sees fit for the context of the show. Therefore, in this version, Jughead isn’t asexual or aromantic. There is no erasure of any kind. Even if he were asexual, I’m sure that Bughead still can have a loving and healthy relationship.

It is my personal opinion and I am not trying to belittle anyone or trivialising the serious issue of representation in anyway. However, I do feel that in today’s world where there is so much hate and strife, showing love and companionship in its true and purest form is the most important issue here, first and foremost. It doesn’t really matter whatever is the sexuality or orientation of the characters in question. So, let us all keep our differences aside and show our love and support to something is for the greater good. Love is universal and not restricted to a specific type or form. Besides, it is fiction,let’s remember that.

I also think that we must avoid pressuring or attacking the creative team, actors and show runners into bullying them to change their vision for the show. That truly doesn’t serve any purpose other than being detrimental to the quality of the show and making the team de-motivated. Let’s all appreciate the hard work and love everyone has put in to present to us something that is so beloved and cherished by all.

Why is showing a healthy, supportive, wholesome and stable relationship necessary? I can tell you why, because I have suffered greatly in an unsupportive, toxic and abusive relationship that was all about selfishness and greed with no regard or love for the feelings of the other person. Where one person only gave and gave and the other only took everything. I was left drained and battered and I’m still bearing the burden of its ruins.

So, when Bughead came along, it was catharsis and relief. It was about having the hope of bright sunshine in the pitch black darkness. It was about selflessness and having high standards and working for the greater good, something that is bigger than us. It was about women not wallowing and pining after some boy who had little value or regard for them and not allowing a man decide the course of their lives .It was about unconditional love and support without labels. It was pure beauty and art, like a perfect symphony.

Bughead isn’t merely escapism. It is the light of goodness that illuminates our hearts and fills us with compassion and hope for something beautiful. It is the delicate flower that grows in the parched desert of hopelessness and deceit.

Let us protect it all costs.

#bughead #riverdale #jughead jones #betty cooper #betty x jughead #archie #archie comics #i ship it #fanfic #fandom #rant

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autisticadventurer · 7 years

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My History

CW: emotional, sexual, and financial abuse, suicide, drugs and alcohol, conversion therapy, divorce, homelessness, seriously... you name it.

For the very young among my readers, and for those who simply weren’t aware of what was happening in the queer community in the 90′s, let me tell you a little more about my family.

My dad is from a city. His family later moved to a more rural environment, but he also grew up with a cosmopolitan experience. His mom’s parents were filthy rich and disinherited her for eloping with my grandpa but my dad still got to do rich people things when he was a kid. He has funny memories of his grandma nearly killing them because she was too drunk to drive but he also remembers doing farm labor as a teenager. He was a math whiz and played varsity football his sophomore year but had to quit after a car accident when the doctors discovered that one of his kidneys is totally non functional and the other is under developed. When he joined the Air Force, he was training to be a helicopter flight mechanic but there is something wrong with his depth perception so he was recycled and ended up with the far less glamorous but still noble position of cooking. Cooking runs in our blood.

My mom is from a very small town, 1000 people or so. The only diversity she ever really knew was Lutheran or Catholic and because of her heritage on her biological dad’s side, she may have been the only Jewish person in town. She was raised Catholic, though, by her mom and step dad. Her stories of childhood have a much different tone than my dad’s do. She was constantly angry at her mom for being too stupid. She earned average grades in all subjects and helped in the family store from the time she started high school. She played basketball for a few years in school, but most of her time was spent getting drunk probably because she had no framework to understand her attraction to other women. When she joined the Air Force, she did so as a diet tech.

My parents met in a kitchen on an Air Force base thousands of miles from their home states. My dad told me that it was love at first sight. My mom has never talked about it. Their marriage was unhappy. They produced two children and then divorced a few years later. My dad was depressed for years and my mom openly shamed his depression to us kids. I have heard so many versions of why he left the Air Force but he was the primary parent when I was a kid. After the divorce, he struggled to find suitable work.

My mom convinced us kids not to visit my dad more than once and even forbade us from visiting him on other occasions. I remember being coerced into signing a contract that we would not visit him at all when I was eleven. I figured out that my mom was gay when I was seven. Luckily, I had not been exposed to other culture stories about homosexuality before this so for me it was just data. We had to keep it a secret from the Air Force. In the 90′s being queer could cost you your job, especially in the military. This secrecy was used to convince us to keep our mouths shut about all the abuse that was happening in the home. “If you tell anyone about this, I’ll be investigated and lose my job.”

Ironically, my mom preached tolerance while perpetrating all kinds of conversion therapy on me that would have left me traumatized for life if I had not taken matters into my own hands as an adult. It was on a nearly daily basis that she openly declared my sibling the favorite and called me Number Two. I think that may have something to do with why I make so many poop jokes. I tried to earn her love and respect by doing well in school but my straight A’s did nothing but only further enrage her. When my IQ was tested at the age of 8, she denied the score because scores in that range almost always point to autism and she was working her ass off to deny that part of me. She even hid my fidget, my teddy bear, from me as a prank on more than one occasion. Imagine what it is like to have a mother who makes fun of you as a rule and will only show you love if you act right, and you never act right because you’re not right.

You can imagine that I lived with my dad as often as I could. My dad is strange though. He would only want both of us to live with him. He was also very poor but I didn’t care because being able to breathe freely was a luxury that I didn’t have when living with mom. (I actually had to see a specialist at one point because my stress was preventing me from being able to breathe. The muscles in my neck were locking up but this only lead to being teased about putting less strain on my vocal chords. She didn’t love me at all.) Living with my dad wasn’t perfect. I was unable to continue the swim team into high school because my dad was fearful of me riding in a car to get to practice (unresolved trauma from his past) and his work schedule prevented him from taking me. But I was allowed to be in the IB Program and I begged my way into a few summer camps at the university. During my Junior year, my mom and dad got into a stupid fight and my dad lost it. I can’t say I blame him now because as an adult, I understand my mom’s power to provoke and pick at emotional wounds... but at the time, all I could think was, “what the fuck?” and I had that thought for years.

We ended up back with mom who wanted me to drop out of IB and get a job which also derailed my plans to attempt to get into MIT and they had been scouting me since I took my PSAT. Why did I do what my mom wanted me to do? I guess I trusted her, I still saw her only as my mommy and not as the manipulative, abusive person that she is. Staying in the IB Program would’ve led to my finding a suitable job but you have to remember, she hated the idea of having a genius child because that meant having an aspergers/autistic child and she retained her small town mentality for fear and shame of difference. In a weird way, not becoming an engineer has worked out for me and if she hadn’t treated me like so much dog shit for 25 years, we’d probably still have a relationship. My relationship with my dad was later repaired because he apologized for what had happened as a result of the fight.

During my twenties, I was chronically homeless. Although I did well in school, because I was taught, but nobody ever taught me how to live in this world. I struggled to find work because I am strange, I cannot work full time because of the intensity of my sensory processing disorder, and the paychecks I earned were never enough to even cover rent, let alone food or a phone bill or student loan payments. I tried living with family, which meant my mom, and this only lead to my second suicide attempt at the age of 25. (My first was at age 12, also while living with my mom.) My sibling found me and I woke up in the psych ward a couple days later. It was after this that I lived in a home called a Board and Lodge. About a third of us were autistic but requiring less staff than a traditional group home. There were also people with physical injuries, drug addiction, prison re-entries, and one guy with schizophrenia. It was not a safe place to live because there was a great deal of abuse amongst the residents and staff due to what I think was a social power struggle. It was so bad that some of the staff wouldn’t even perform their jobs appropriately and I reported it when I moved out.

I’m leaving a lot out: my years in college, my marriage and divorce, my time in a cult, being taken advantage of financially, the sexual assault, and other things. Being unable to recognize danger does not magically help an autistic person recognize danger. I have a lot to thank my therapist for because she has mentored me to help me recognize danger and to help me see the world as it is. She has helped me to build life skills and self care skills so that I can live independently and not be at the mercy of people who don’t understand autism and think they’re doing me a favor by trying to abuse me into being normal. I am hoping against hope that I can find a part time job in this state that will be understanding of my autism and accommodate me in the way the law requires them to. I have a lot to give but I cannot give what I do not have.

Everyone you know has a hidden past that has been molded and shaped by the hidden past of their parents and grandparents. Try to put a hold on judgements and assumptions, if you can. It will help to foster tolerance and acceptance without having know things that are none of your business. It is an important lesson to learn that nobody owes you an explanation for who they are and nobody is obligated to share what they consider private.

#long post #family history #actually autistic

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mastcomm · 4 years

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Their Story Wrote Itself – The New York Times

Cynthia LaFave had a word of warning when she first met T Kira Madden in 2015.

“She said, ‘If you hurt my daughter, I’ll kill you,’” Ms. Madden recalled.

And that, by Ms. Madden’s reckoning, was a fair enough thing for her to say about her relationship with Hannah Beresford. Years earlier, Ms. Beresford had fought an episode of depression so crippling she required hospitalization.

Ms. Madden was no stranger to pain, either: Her 2019 memoir, “Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls,” outlines her trauma-filled coming-of-age as the queer, biracial daughter of a pair of well-to-do addicts in South Florida. That Ms. Madden’s pain may have affected Ms. Beresford was a reasonable concern for her mother.

It proved unwarranted. “Their relationship has brought so much peace to them both that, as it stands now, if anyone tries to hurt Kira, I’ll kill them, too,” Ms. LaFave said.

Ms. Madden and Ms. Beresford, both 31 and now living in Beacon, N.Y., first saw each other in 2012 at the Jamaica Bay Riding Academy in Brooklyn. Ms. Beresford, a former professional equestrian, worked there as a trainer and coach for the nonprofit Metropolitan Equestrian team. Ms. Madden was shepherding the half-dozen homeless veterans she drove there through therapeutic interaction with the horses. It was part of her job as a teacher and counselor at the Doe Fund shelter in Harlem, which also housed formerly incarcerated men, many of them addicts.

Ms. Madden had just received a master’s degree in fine arts from Sarah Lawrence College, where she is now a professor in the M.F.A. writing program. A career in social services wasn’t in her future, but the shelter job attracted her for its proximity to a population that felt familiar. “My parents were pretty severe addicts,” she said. By the time she moved to New York at 17 for college at Parsons School of Design, both were in recovery from drug and alcohol abuse. Then, “we had this second sort of beautiful life together,” she said. “They were sober and we had these happy adult relationships. My parents always loved me. They weren’t bad people.”

Just complicated ones. Ms. Madden’s Hawaiian-Chinese mother, Sherrie Lokelani Madden, lives in Atlantic Beach, a part of Hempstead, N.Y., and is the general manager of the Dop Dop Salon in SoHo. Her father, John Laurence Madden, was Jewish and, after a career as stockbroker, headed his brother Steve Madden’s international fashion accessories business; Mr. Madden died in 2015 of complications from lung disease. In addition to their addictions, they had secrets. Ms. Madden found out as a child she had two half brothers on her father’s side from a marriage that her parents’ affair broke up. As an adult, she learned about another half sister on her mother’s side and a brother, whom her parents had placed for adoption. Still, her childhood in Boca Raton, Fla., had a shiny exterior. She grew up winning equestrian ribbons and attended an exclusive high school, North Broward Preparatory School, in Coconut Creek, Fla.

Fridays at the stable with the Doe shelter residents were an opportunity for her to be around horses again and, on occasions when volunteers ushered her charges through their riding and grooming lessons, to read books.

“Hannah noticed me first,” Ms. Madden said. “She remembers me reading at the picnic table, a Joy Williams book called ‘Escapes’.” In 2013, before Ms. Beresford and Ms. Madden found a chance to be properly introduced, the shelter’s horse program ended. But Ms. Madden’s love of horses lingered. She returned to the stable to ask the barn manager if there was someone who could give her lessons.

She was reconnected with Ms. Beresford, whose job at the stable overlapped with her graduate studies in poetry at N.Y.U.

Ms. Beresford earned her master’s degree from N.Y.U. in 2014 and now teaches poetry at Drew University in Madison, N.J. She grew up in rural Voorheesville, N.Y. Her parents, Ms. LaFave, a trial lawyer from Albany, and Jon Beresford of Cañon City, Colo., the owner of Beresford Remodeling, divorced when she was 5.

At 4, she had started horseback riding. “It became pretty consuming,” she said. In 2007, Oklahoma State University recruited her for its N.C.A.A. Division 1 equestrian team. But by then, after years on the road touring, distractions from her athletic career were mounting.

“I had struggled most of my teen years with anxiety and depression, and it all piled up,” she said. In 2008, she hit what she called rock bottom. “I was hospitalized for a while, and in the hospital, I came out,” she said. She called friends and family to tell them she was gay. “As they say, it got better.”

Credit belonged partially to a college poetry class. “Though I’d hate to suggest that depression can be treated with anything less than intensive therapy by a medical professional, that became something I could look forward to, where I could see a future.”

At Ms. Madden’s first riding lesson in Brooklyn in 2013, Ms. Beresford set a professional tone. “We connected on a lot of different levels,” Ms. Beresford said, especially riding and writing. “But I didn’t know how Kira identified. It didn’t cross my mind that she might be gay. I think coming out in Oklahoma, spending my formative years there, made me assume no one else in the world was gay.”

Ms. Madden noted “that we both were in relationships at the time. But right after that lesson I texted my friend, ‘This lesbian in breeches is so hot!’ I felt very crushy toward Hannah.” Not so much, though, that she was willing to break up with her girlfriend and ask Ms. Beresford out.

Instead, life got in the way, she said, and after six months she stopped taking lessons. More than a year passed. “But I always thought of Hannah, how I wished I could be her friend.” In late 2014, she scoured Yelp for the names of Jamaica Bay Riding Academy instructors, hoping to find Ms. Beresford’s last name and contact info.

Eventually, she reached Ms. Beresford through Facebook. “I was like, ‘Hey, remember me?’” Ms. Madden said. Both were nearing the ends of their relationships; Ms. Beresford, who considers herself more a country than a city person, was about to move to Austin, Texas.

But after exchanging and reading some work each had written (Ms. Beresford a manuscript in progress and Ms. Madden short stories and part of a novel), they decided to meet for a first date in February 2015 at the Stonewall Inn.

“In the back of our heads we were thinking, this could be really painful, because I was moving in a matter of weeks,” Ms. Beresford said. But their book swap had already connected them. “When you’re reading something autobiographical, you not only learn the facts of the person’s life but the lens through which they see the world,” Ms. Madden said.

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At the Stonewall Inn, they talked and kissed until closing time. “We got kicked out,” Ms. Madden said. “It felt like love.”

As the Chinese New Year began on Feb. 19, Ms. Madden, who embraces her Hawaiian-Chinese heritage, and Ms. Beresford celebrated together.

Weeks later, Ms. Beresford rented a U-Haul for her move to Texas. Ms. Madden told her, “You can’t move to Austin without me taking you.” They drove together. Ms. Madden returned to her Williamsburg, Brooklyn, apartment alone. Then, in the fall, her father fell into a coma.

“My father was my person — I was really close to him,” Ms. Madden said. Ms. Beresford booked a flight and planned to stay in New York until Mr. Madden recovered. When he died, she comforted Ms. Madden through her grief. They wouldn’t return to Texas to pack Ms. Beresford’s things for a full year.

By then, they had become experienced road trippers. “Hannah and I always joke that we spent most of our relationship in a car,” Ms. Madden said. In addition to the U-Haul trip, by the end of 2016 they had driven to Buffalo for a horse show and to Kansas to visit friends of Ms. Beresford’s; they also drove to upstate New York regularly to ride horses and spend time with Ms. LaFave.

Ms. Madden’s mother had also become a fixture in their lives, through regular visits to the home in SoHo she shared with Mr. Madden before he died, and later to Long Island. Ms. Lokelani Madden felt close to Ms. Beresford immediately. “Hannah really grounds Kira,” she said. “She has this soothing effect. I admire so much how they bring out the best in each other.”

In 2017, Ms. Madden and Ms. Beresford moved to Provincetown, Mass., where Ms. Beresford had accepted a yearlong residency at the Fine Arts Work Center. The next year they moved to Inwood in Manhattan, spending the bulk of their time teaching, writing and editing the literary journal Ms. Madden founded, “No Tokens.” They had already traveled to 30 states when, in July 2018, Ms. Beresford planned a surprise 30th birthday trip for Ms. Madden.

“We went up the California coast through the Pacific Northwest and stopped in Powell, Wyo., to ride horses at this campsite ranch near Heart Mountain,” Ms. Madden said. On the evening of July 12, they climbed back in their rented Toyota to watch a meteor shower.

“There were so many mosquitoes we turned the lights out in the car. Hannah started talking to me about how she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me. It was corny in a great way.”

She spoke Ms. Madden’s whole name — T Kira Mahealani Ching Madden — before saying, “Will you marry me?” After Ms. Madden said a tearful yes, Ms. Beresford opened her car door and found her way to Ms. Madden’s side in pitch blackness to present a ring. They counted down from three before turning on the car lights so Ms. Madden could see it: A teardrop-shaped opal surrounded watermelon tourmalines and gray diamonds, designed collaboratively by Ms. Beresford and Misa Jewelry, a Hawaiian designer.

“It was typical Hannah, being the most thoughtful person in the world,” Ms. Madden said. “Years ago, when I was feeling very lonely, I had bought a watermelon tourmaline engagement ring to remind myself to always commit to my well-being first.”

On Jan. 7 at Kualoa Nature Reserve in Kaneohe, Hawaii, Ms. Madden and Ms. Beresford committed to each other’s well-being for life. At a wedding attended by 72 guests, Ms. Madden, wearing a marigold dress designed by Zac Posen before he closed his business in November, walked with her mother down an outdoor aisle strewn with multicolor rose petals. Ms. Beresford wore an aubergine suit by Bindle & Keep, a Brooklyn company that specializes in suits for queer and gender nonconforming people.

N. Michelle AuBuchon, a friend and fellow writer who was ordained by the American Marriage Ministries, officiated during a 30-minute ceremony celebrating their devotion to each other.

“To know T Kira and Hannah is to know how fiercely they love, with no boundaries, barriers or divisions,” she said. A dozen attendants, including Justine Champine, who the couple called “dyke of honor,” stood by the couple as they exchanged handwritten vows. “You and I have dedicated our lives to words and the arrangements of those words, but it’s these moments, our moments of silence and understanding without explanation that matter most to me,” Ms. Madden said. Ms. Beresford was characteristically poetic: “The universe may be limitless, but I can count my life in moments of seeing you, of hearing your voice, of disbelieving in scale,” she said.

Yards away from the water’s edge, with coconut trees swaying and the majestic Ko’olau mountains in the background, Ms. AuBuchon pronounced them married.

On This Day

When Jan. 7, 2020

Where Kualoa Nature Reserve in Kaneohe, Hawaii

Tradition During the ceremony, Ms. AuBuchon led a traditional exchange of flower leis between the families.

Time for a Tour At a cocktail hour, guests were taken in two separate boats on a short tour of the Molii Fishpond. The 125-acre fishpond is a form of sustainable fishery management, which dates back 800 years.

Grass Skirts A band, accompanied by a trio of hula dancers, played traditional Hawaiian music during a dinner that featured short ribs and sea bass.

Kalani Takase contributed reporting from Kaneohe, Hawaii.

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