#a lot has been said about the recovery from abuse and trauma etc. etc.

[gigglebug]

.

#sherrif rambles #a lot has been said about the recovery from abuse and trauma etc. etc. #but like. to me none of it really means anything or even compares to actually going through that experience #because holy shit #therapist and I pinpointed an issue which basically boils down to childhood emotional neglect that STILL affects me #and just. it sucks man. #realizing some of your RL relationships have just been... chasing a carrot for a scrap of affection #and then not even getting either the carrot or the affection #setting aside time to hang out or do something and then they're busy every time #and my first instinct is to question myself if I'm being too needy because they didn't show #no! I'm allowed to want stuff and be mad or disappointed when it doesn't happen! #but recovering from emotional neglect is so freaking difficult #that I just keep doing it. keep letting it happen because maybe 'it's all in my head' and 'overreacting' #I'm exhausted. I want it to end. I want people who like spending time with me that I won't have to beg and struggle to get it! #it just. hurts. #I don't want to do this anymore. #I don't want to pretend anymore. #I just want to love and be loved and not get punished for either #I'm tired of waiting around for people to stop complaining about their day and ask me about mine for once #let me exist and be vibrant!! and encourage it dammit!! #somewhat related I think I have seasonal depression #but recovering from emotional neglect makes that so much worse lmao #and all the results for coping deal with the winter SAD types #I need less sun and cold actually thanks #*sigh*

[autistichalsin]

Okay, I’ve been a bit scared because I’ve been observing from the sidelines, but I do want you to know this isn’t a hateful or troll ask, I’m genuinely asking for clarification.

In my experience, “pro-shipping” has always meant ‘problematic shipping’, and all of the people I’ve talked to about this have said the same thing.

Am I the one who’s misconstrued? I really don’t get it.

Being called “pro-harassment” or “pro-censorship” is hurtful and confusing as all hell.

I don’t harass people for what they create. I don’t care to do that. I block and move on, and warn people if I know they could be upset by the content.

But I also don’t understand how certain things are justified.

I am personally not bothered by much, but I have watched friends and acquaintances go through visceral traumatic reactions because people have decided to air out their coping by sharing it with the public. (I.E, people who write romantic incestual fics, etc)

I don’t give a shit what people write. I really don’t. But it feels harmful to use the excuse of coping when you, in turn, could be hurting dozens of others.

Like I said, I genuinely am not trying to be hateful here. I’m confused, and still distraught that all of this is happening. I don’t think anyone deserves to be harassed. I just also don’t get the logic here.

Pro-shipping never once meant problematic shipping. It meant opposite of "anti" because antis would come and invade the tags and asks, calling them all kinds of names if they found their ships distasteful.

Sorry that being indirectly accused of supporting harassment hurt your feelings. Imagine how I felt, being DIRECTLY accused of supporting rape in real life because of my taste in fiction. You are throwing in your lot with people who can't distinguish fantasy and reality.

I don't like incest fics either, anon. They are triggering for me. So you know what I do? I don't read fics tagged as incest. For that reason, I have never been triggered by an incest fic. I suppose I would be if I read an incest fic that wasn't tagged as much, but you will never find a single pro-shipper who defends posting such content without a tag. You are responsible for your own experience online; it is your job to curate the content.

If it was just seeing that the fic exists that triggered the response, then I'm sorry to say they're still in the wrong. As a survivor, learning that triggers exist and how to navigate those triggers is on you. We are responsible for how we deal with our trauma. Your friends didn't deserve their traumas, and they deserve kindness and support, but requesting that people never be allowed to write distasteful fiction so that they don't have to be upset by the idea that someone somewhere shipped incest is not reasonable. Their feelings are valid; it's totally reasonable to be triggered, to strictly curate your online experience. It's reasonable to block everyone who ships the upsetting incest ships, to put an "incest shippers DNI" on your page, all of it. It's not reasonable to call them supporters of IRL incest or to accuse them of causing your trauma. It isn't hard at all on AO3 or Tumblr; they even give you the option to blacklist/filter out certain tags so you can avoid it without blocking users. There's easily half a dozen safeguards that already exist that are a lot less radical, a lot less likely to be weaponized against queer users, and a lot easier to enforce than trying to remove them.

Me writing fics, such as a character using kink to cope, can only harm a user who doesn't curate their feed (and who reads fics they know will trigger them, which I can only assume would then be a purposeful form of self-harm). Denying other survivors their coping mechanism, though, IS a direct form of harm. Stigmatizing recovery by saying that survivors are in any way akin to abusers for creating fiction is a direct form of harm.

It sounds to me like you've absorbed some very harmful and very narrow ideas of what recovery should and should not look like, and what is and isn't a good/valid survivor. You might want to reflect on why you're turning your attention to policing what survivors do to cope so much.

#proship #proshipper #discourse

[system-of-a-feather]

Okay though, Imma say this and risk having their attentions turned on us or whatever, but one of the things I see on r/fakedisordercringe and similar subreddits is the idea that actually acknowledging parts as parts and not forcibly trying to convince yourself that they are "all parts of you" is the healthy way to heal and have DID and everything else is malingering, roleplaying, or harmful at best and just like...

I know the followers on here don't need me to say this but as someone whose been in treatment for 4+ years, been diagnosed and had that diagnosis validated two other times, but.... no???

Like I get where that perspective comes from, from an outsider less experienced person it is easy to assume that people with DID are just delusional and just think they are different people to keep themselves in denial and they just need to "grow up and stop thinking that and embrace all the trauma and heal" and I know a lot of psychiatrists (derogatory, at least in America they are people who are more doctors than mental health professionals and rarely know about non-medical treatment beyond surface level afaik and ime) think that as I've had psychiatrists suggest that and I have to kindly be like "Oh don't worry we have considered that and me and my therapist find that this works better".

I GET why someone might come to that conclusion, but its just NOT how it works. A lot of healing comes from learning to understand, empathize, and communicate with the other parts - and by doing that, learning to accept them for who they are and as they are, and by doing that, being more comfortable co-existing with those parts. Whether or not that results in fusion is case by case and to the individual, but you don't break the intense discomfort, rejection, and fear that CAUSES dissociative barriers and the dissociation of identity, self, etc by just repeating "that is me I don't remember, relate, or understand anything about this but I have to accept that is me" because... no?

A lot of the time when you have DID - especially in early recovery - memory is very splotchy at best. The feeling of othering from parts stems from a discontinuity of experiences, understanding, and feelings of control over behavior, memories, thoughts, and experiences. A lot of knowledge of these differences comes often from word of mouth of those around them, and sometimes through foggy mirrors and windows of things you don't feel like you'd ever do even though you "were there for" but hardly connect or remember.

To look at that and expect someone to insist and fully internally, logically, and emotionally understand that all of that is them, does really nothing more than get them logically on board and emotionally confused as fuck. And I'm sorry to tell you this, but being logically on board does little to nothing in terms of lessening dissociative barriers.

On TOP of that, you are asking someone who had gone through chronic and complex childhood trauma to just accept and trust what other people are reporting on their behavior (their actions they might not remember) and take it on good faith, when said person probably has been abused, manipulated, lied to, and/or may still be in an abusive, manipulative and dangerous environment. Is that not both a heavy ask for someone who likely has massive trust issues as is and honestly a dangerous thing to shove as "the only healthy way"?

The best way to actually heal and make progress is to learn to deeply understand the parts and their subjective experiences and accept what those parts are saying / experiencing / reporting / feeling at a face value and with all the goods and bads that come with it, because the healthier way to heal is to foster independence, love, and strength internally rather than externally.

And how are you to understand and listen to those parts with a genuine and empathetic and understanding ear, if everytime you look at their experiences, reports, feelings, and comments and shout "YOU ARE ME. YOU ARE ME. WE ARENT SEPERATE WE ARE ONE". Yes, of course we are parts of a whole, but a lot of the time, especially in early healing, that factoid does little in actually understanding the individual parts.

Now, this is where its more opinionated, but I don't see it being particularly easy to genuinely understand those parts if you don't allow for a moderate degree of separation and freedom for said parts to express as they like as to properly understand them and what they feel and experience. By letting those parts express themselves as they naturally do and communicating with them (may that be in journal, internally, discord servers, etc) you can learn to understand "where they come from" and why they are the way they are and genuinely understand and accept that part and their existence on an emotional level.

And with that in mind I really look at that "well have you tried insisting and repeating to yourself that these are parts of you?" and go "?????????? Yes and it doesn't work?????????????"

Anyways, thats just a ramble / vent but tldr, its a stupid claim.

#alter: riku #actuallydid #dissociative identity disorder #fakedisordercringe tw #rant #vent #vent tw #rant tw #ok to reblog

[sleepy-shutin]

my thoughts on spoctor’s video about “system tiktok”

just watched the spoctor video i’ve seen everyone bitching about today. i have a lot of thoughts about it, and a lot of people probably aren’t going to like them.

i actually *really* liked that video. it wasn’t 100% accurate in how it described everything, and was in general a simplified understanding of DID to help people without it understand it, but i really enjoyed it. the video went really in depth into how, whether you have DID or not, publicizing your mental illness for followers online is unhealthy as hell, how people are faking DID, consciously or not, to fit in with others and how some are convincing their friends/others that they have DID when they don’t.

this video did a lot to validate and humanize people with DID, *as well as* people who are faking/confused about having it or even just exaggerating the symptoms of their pre-existing DID. it also doesn’t ignore or downplay these problems and the effects it’s had on the community.

many have considered this video “fakeclaim-y” or have shit on spoctor for being a “singlet” (when as far as i know, he’s never stated whether he has DID or not), when if you actually look at the clinical context of DID, spoctor is correct on many things, and has clearly done his research, or at the very least, a lot more than some of the people in the community claiming to have DID have done.

spoctor said some things about introjects that i don’t think are entirely true, namely questioning the trauma that specific introjects could hold, such as an introject of angel dust, when i find that there could be a myriad of things that a person who likes angel dust, as a character who is a drug addicted sex worker that also has sexual trauma, could latch onto, whether you like the character personally or not, (i.e. relating to his struggles with drugs, relating to his struggles with what could be a form of sex addiction or hypersexuality, relating to his hypersexuality in conjunction with his sexual trauma, relating to having been a sex worker and the trauma that can/often does come with being a sex worker, etc)--not that angel dust is a /sympathetic/ and /informed/ portrayal of these experiences, however i can see an edgy kid being consistently sexually abused and using drugs to cope heavily relating to even a character like angel dust.

as well as the fact that i do firmly believe that someone could introject a youtuber while experiencing a lot of trauma if they’re using that youtuber for comfort pretty consistently through the trauma, though i’d consider it more likely for this to happen with TV shows and books than youtubers personally.

but also he is 100% correct that introjects outside of abusers and caretakers and fictional characters (even these are mostly going to be characters from childhood) are *rare*. statistically speaking, introject-heavy systems are *rare*, and many of the people that claim to be introject heavy systems are not, because they’re either confused on how many alters/introjects they actually have, (due to the community hyping up the idea of introjects, with people feeling the need to fit in and accidentally inflating their alter count with alters they don’t have), or because they outright don’t have DID in the first place.

and even then, that’s only *part* of the video. most of the people complaining about this one thing in the beginning haven’t even touched on the actual *meat* of the video, because they’re so fixated on this one part. god dammit, it’s a 30 minute video. what about the rest of it?

the rest of the video explains how DID is formed, explains dissociation and amnesia, as well as trauma and PTSD, and also goes into how publicizing your mental health issues, whether you actually have them or not, is dangerous. as he puts it, when you frame your mental health problems on the wall, one day you may not want to take them down. that is dangerous, because it is anti-recovery. it doesn’t help you get better from your mental health issues, it encourages you to get worse so that you can keep the social media cycle going for yourself, whether it’s for money or attention or fame or friends or what.

the video talks about how many people will reflect each other’s behaviors and personalities to fit in, because humans are very social creatures, and how this can translate into people mistakenly identifying with DID when they don’t actually have it, just to fit in, or how other people could (intentionally or not) manipulate others into believing that they have DID when they don’t actually have it because they want their friends and the people around them to be like them. even when this is genuinely well-intentioned, misinformation on DID is what causes this to happen in the first place. when you don’t understand that people are naturally complex and multifaceted and nuanced, and have parts similar to those with DID without having the amnesia/dissociative barriers, then you start to believe that a lot more people have DID than they actually do.

this misinformation and misunderstanding of the singlet experience vs. the DID experience, and misunderstandings of amnesia, alters, dissociation, etc, are a plague. and these are things that happen that a lot of the DID community tends to brush under the rug in favor of aggressive validation of every experience relating to DID, which only contributes to mistaken (self) diagnosis and misinformation on how the disorder actually works.

don’t get me wrong, i know why people are afraid of recognizing that people fake DID, because they believe it will lead to a slippery slope of people just suddenly fakeclaiming every experience under the sun just for the fun of it. the thing is, this doesn’t happen when everyone in the community actually understands how DID works, when the community is actually working together to spread the most accurate possible information on DID that we currently have, which the community largely has not been these past few years. the DID community has not been committed to presenting an accurate and well-informed understanding of DID to anyone, including itself, for a while. it’s people like subsystems, circular, justanothersyscourse, traumascumathena, myself, and various other bloggers in the community that are actively trying to mitigate the spread of misinformation about DID within the community.

i liked this video because it displays exactly the uncomfortable information that some of the DID community really needs to hear. that people fake DID. that some people are misinformed about having DID, or how alters actually work. that not everyone who claims to have DID is an expert on it, that they can inflate their alter count accidentally or on purpose. that they can exaggerate their symptoms for social media attention, or because they feel like they have to for any reason. that they can portray an inaccurate idea of how DID works, either on purpose or accidentally. that people can mis-self diagnose with DID and not know it. that people can mis-diagnose others with DID and not know it, or even do it purposefully. that people can accidentally imitate what their friends are doing to fit in. that DID and mental health, right now, are legitimately a trend that people are denying is a trend. that misinformation is prevalent, and people refuse to believe that others will lie or misinform others on the internet either intentionally or even accidentally.

a lot of people in the DID community are so misinformed, yet seem to call themselves educators or think that they’re experts on the disorder who are qualified to say what is and isn’t possible in DID, despite having no background in DID treatment and education, and haven’t even read a book about the subject. a lot of these people in the community also tend to have only known about their DID for a few months, meanwhile people who have known about their DID for several years are struggling to combat the misinformation of the newcomers that somehow only become more and more popular, and drunk on the influence they have.

this is what contributes to the creations of incredibly misinformed and sourceless carrds, tiktoks, twitter threads, etc, that have done so much damage over time. people here can’t link sources because they haven’t read them, and the ones they do link are simplified explanations of simplified explanations, and are about as far as they’ve actually read into the disorder. it’s not information of any kind of substance, and at best, serves as a basic understanding of the disorder and nothing more.

i liked this video a lot, because it said a lot of things that i and many other people have been trying to say for a long time, and just haven’t been loud enough for others to hear.

overall, this is a *good* video. it is a great simplified explanation of how DID and dissociation work, as well as explaining some of the trend that DID has become on places like tiktok. and believe it or not, it takes an incredibly kind approach to people who mistakenly believe they have DID, or those who (intentionally or accidentally) exaggerate their symptoms online because of social media.

this video is not mean, this video is not ill-intentioned, and most of all, the people that are criticizing the video just because spoctor didn’t say anything about whether or not he had DID, and are calling him a singlet over criticizing the way the DID community has become on tiktok and other social media platforms, are completely missing the *actual* message of the video.

if you’ve found yourself disliking this video, think really hard about what specifically you dislike the most about it, and why, because you need to find out if it’s a problem worth criticizing, or if it’s actually just a *you* problem.

this post is not about endogenics. if you don’t have DID/OSDD-1 and/or aren’t a dissociative system, then this post is not about you. your experiences are left out of the post on purpose because the post and the video in question are about DID.

#part zero #syscourse #spoctor

[autistic-shaiapouf]

Delete this if it's weird but your post about naming your blog after one of the royals guards from hxh reminded me of something. So I am part of a DID system and some of the alters have many traits/appearance of my abusers, including some with the same names. They'd do things that were harmful as a way of keeping everyone safe. Anyways, recently our host watched hxh and one of those parts really connected with Neferpitou going from this absolutely inhumane monster of sorts to slowly learning how empathy and compassion works and has now changed their name from their original name of our abuser they're based off to Pitou instead now. Anyways I'm happy for them and just wanted to share that with ya

I held onto this ask for a while bc I was debating how detailed I wanted my response to be, but I think this is a story I've been wanting to tell for a while and if there was ever a time to fully discuss this, it would be here; the naming and themeing extends to myself as well as my blog - I do go by the name Shai irl, though I'm a little picky with where I choose to use it over the name I've had for longer (Rigel). Before I go into any more detail, I want to congratulate you for that development! It sounds like a moment of positive growth, and I'm glad you got to experience that.

The short answer is that I've basically taken my experiences with dissociation and something that may be multiplicity and fully redirected it all into a sense of spirituality. My therapist had encouraged me to not pathologize it; I was just hammering at my own personal experiences and being fixated on feeling like something was wrong with me and needed to be fixed - normal people don't experience thoughts and feelings that don't belong to them. With that being said, a large part of my recovery work was/is with acceptance; I was forced to mask a lot of things while growing up (autism, physical disability, queerness, etc) and there was a huge push from my family to seem as "normal" as possible, and now I'm actively undoing that and my work with being in the otherkin community is a massive cornerstone of that work. I identified very heavily with shaiapouf and my therapist actually watched hxh so we could use pouf as a therapy tool for me. Me naming myself after him is a huge gesture of the love I was able to give myself via my coping process - recognizing him in my trauma, and working with him to recover.

The longer answer is that I've experienced dissociation that leans towards multiplicity for a number of years now, with aforementioned thoughts and feelings included. I never had any memory loss, and the experience of another person being with me wasn't well developed enough for the definition of an alter, so I felt stuck with an experience I had no words for and no way of relating to other people with similar experiences. I remember describing it as feeling possessed, like there was suddenly another consciousness present with my own. These experiences are a lot less intense now, and I attribute that to my acceptance of them instead of pushing them away in fear. It was a while before I said anything to my therapist and was genuinely mortified because it felt like something was very seriously wrong with me and I had to fix it at all costs (with the idea of needing to "fix" things that were "wrong" with me or my life being a repeating theme as well).

Over time, as I stopped pushing everything away, I was able to start seeing where the emotions and thoughts that came with the episodes (not necessarily triggering them) were coming from, but still struggled to accept them as my own when they felt so foreign. Acceptance has brought me a long way and we've now teased out that this is a massive way for me to process not just my trauma, but the grief accompanying it.

My therapist was the one who had initially suggested I take a spiritual approach to this, and I found that in the otherkin community, where, upon actually looking at the original contexts of some of the words used in the community, found things I'd been describing to my therapist over a year ago. I'd prior been fond of the idea of reincarnation and fully embraced it in this process. My first (and so far only) tattoo is of his wings, I'll carry him with me for the rest of my life; I derived one of my names from his own. This character has been highly influential in my life and I've fully embraced him for it. He means a lot of things to me - reflection of my own trauma, the power and rage I wish I could have demonstrated while in the process of being traumatized, the delicate masculinity I wish to have as a trans man, and much more I'm sure. A lot of my episodes seem to happen when helplessness kicks in, like something to help distance myself from my pain; I feel him in righteous fury when I know I deserve better. Not all of it is bad though, I had one while I was looking at Christmas lights a few months ago and felt like I was looking at the world for the first time, simple delight as if holding someone else's hand and showing them.

All in all, I thank you for sharing your story and for giving me a place to share some of mine.

#this got a little rambley but i think ive been wanting to talk about this for a while. this isn't a 100% complete account but #it does cover the major points #this doesnt feel like an answer but the ask wasn't necessarily a question now was it? #i think this is the first time ive ever genuinely uttered the word ''multiplicity'' on this blog #i feel fully at peace with this now however! the experiences dont distress me and finding a community where people #have had experiences quite similar to my own makes me feel very good; especially since it shows just how subjective experience really is #i stopped seeing this as an issue when i asked myself why it would be so pertinent for me to stop having this #like my autism it's merely another way to experience the world; not necessarily something that needs to be corrected #yes the fact that this is trauma based is awful but what i have gotten from everything ive talked about is something #i wouldn't trade for the world #haha whoops got VERY genuine and emotional for a minute 🤫 anyways thank you for the message it did make me smile #asks #🦋 tag

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Tw: Grooming, Emotional Abuse, Physical?

I’m looking for comfort and support please

I remember as a kid speaking to various men and women on the phone: talking about our deepest sexual fantasies, what we’d do to each other when we met, etc. I was just 13, and I thought I was hiding it so well. One day getting picked up from school, I open the door to my mother in the drivers seat, holding my ipod, just shaking. My heart dropped and my stomach sank. She knew. The ride home was quiet even as my siblings chatted away and when we went to her room to talk I cold feel my skin crawl with anxiety. She shut the door and for a moment things were calm before she grabbed me by the hair and shook me around, cursing me out for how stupid I’d been. I was horrified and swore I’d stop.

Years passed and I of course did it again, not really knowing why, I felt loved and desired when speaking to these people. And now at 20, with my younger sisters I talk to them about the dangers, and have shared small experiences of my own and my mother says “Anon use to talk to weird guys on the internet so she knows what she’s talking about”. For some reason her saying that rubbed me wrong but I didn’t know why.

Now, a year later as I’m realizing the ugly extent of what happened to me, I’m filled with rage. She knew; Knew I was being groomed, knew I was being sexually manipulated and abused. For years I was taken advantage of, I didn’t even realize what it actually was until this year. And…for my whole life, she never once brought it up again? Never thought maybe I needed help? That I was just fine and could move on? I can barley hug her comfortably and I remember one day she said “something happened to you, and I don’t know what it is but I think that’s why you’re so scared to touch me” LIKE HELLO THE ANSWER IS IN YOUR FACE, YOU KNEW. This whole time and now what, you’re gonna use my trauma as a learning point for my younger siblings when I haven’t even resolved it myself? I just, I’m so angry. I’m so angry god why. I’m not a parent, I’m not a strong person, I’m weak and I’m allowed to be weak why couldn’t she have protected me or comforted me why. I was a kid. You say I’m so mature but why, why do you praise me for that, I don’t want to be. I want to be allowed to not be ok.

Hi anon,

I'm so sorry to hear about what happened.

Your feelings towards your mother are valid and justified. You've been through a lot and it hasn't been adequately addressed by your mom, a vital piece in all of this. She has disrespected your experience on multiple levels, from victim blaming you to cluelessly wondering why you're scared of her. You have plenty of reason to be angry.

I think sitting with that anger and allowing yourself to feel it could potentially help in digesting your experiences. Trauma recovery can mimic the stages of grief. This can involve anger and the elements of your trauma that invoke it, such as your mother's inaction. It's important to acknowledge those things as you recover at your own pace.

I hope you're doing okay and that I could help. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

#mod bun #trauma talks #trauma details #abuse #child abuse #emotional abuse #nccsa

[autisticcassandracain]

The issue with Tara goes beyond victim blaming. It's even more fundamental than that. Even if Wolfman and Perez had written Tara "correctly" as an irredeemable, evil character, *they still would have failed*. As Marvel failed with Captain "Hail Hydra" America. As DC failed with Azrael as PunisherBatman. I could go on all day. Some tropes should not *be* subverted. Even if you do it "right", you're still wrong. Heroes have been deconstructed and subverted to the point of absurdity.

In general, I agree with you some tropes don't work subverted, but a) the post you're referring to was not intending to discuss whether a trope should be subverted, but meet the comic where it wants to be met and state how it fundamentally failed to achieve its goals, and b) I don't actually think the trope Tara was intended to subvert is un-subvertable. At its base level, Tara is just 'what if the teen girl hero was Actually Evil'. There are ways to do that that don't suck. I do agree that Tara's character concept fundamentally wouldn't have worked, but that is because Tara's concept was deep as a puddle and did nothing but subvert the trope directly. It didn't make any statements on the nature of evil or appearances (other than the base 'some ppl are Just Evil' and 'appearances can be deceiving'), something a good subversion of this trope would've done.

For example: a Tara who was intended to be a tragedy, who was once a good kid who became embittered by the world, and who was too scared, too stuck in her ways to allow herself to be saved, ultimately betraying the Titans and dying, could've been a good character. It could've been an opportunity to ask what makes someone evil, explore trauma and trauma recovery, whether it's possible to help people who don't want to be helped, etc. The narrative would be a depressing one, and likely still controversial, since a lot has been written on refusing trauma survivors and abuse victims closure and recovery in narratives. But personally, while I agree that there is a trend of demonizing abuse survivors in media, I also think it's possible to do an arc where a traumatized person spirals deeper into negativity until it dooms them without innately demonizing their trauma. You simply have to be compassionate and delicate about it. And this arc would've still subverted the trope; it would've just also been interesting about it. (To my memory, this is essentially what the Teen Titans cartoon did with Tara, and it worked very well.)

Furthermore, while I understand Tara was intended to subvert the Kitty Pryde archetype specificially, the idea of 'little girl is evil actually' is not exactly an un-doable one. There's been tons of variations on it, to the point where it's a trope by now. But it's important to remember that The Judas Contract was written in the 80s, when this kind of trope subversion, especially Tara's specific variant, had been significantly less explored. Part of the reason the Judas Contract is seen as such a staple is because this was one of the first major arcs to subvert the trope. Yes, nowadays, 'this little girl is evil actually!' is a huge cliché, but it wasn't nearly as much of one back then. The Bad Seed, the quintessential 'what if the little girl was evil' example, doesn't hold up for modern audiences, who can see the twist coming from a mile away (and who will likely take issue with its firm stance on the nature vs nurture debate), but critiquing the book for being cliché doesn't work when it invented the cliché. The same applies here.

Also, I don't read Marvel, and have no more than cursory knowledge on Azrael's Murder Batman. But I will say, from everything I heard, that the issue with Captain "Hail Hydra" America wasn't 'trope subversion', but the usage of a character created by Jewish writers under a time of extreme murderous antisemitism/nazism specifically to oppose said antisemitism/nazism, and then turning him into a Nazi. The issue here isn't that they subverted the trope of the righteous patriotic hero; the issue is that they were completely tonedeaf and antisemitic about it. In fact, the righteous patriotic hero archetype is one that (like the innocent girl archetype) appears in its subverted form more often than not, nowadays. It'd be far weirder to create a hero called Captain American Patriot and have him not be a jingoistic bigot. What worked and was progressive in the 1940s is not necessarily progressive today. Tropes and archetypes have shifted to reflect that. The issue with Captain "Hail Hydra" America was the failure to take a character's history into account when shallowly attempting to shock, not necessarily the subversion of the patriotic hero trope itself.

And lastly: while yes, superhero subversions have at this point been practically done to death, that doesn't mean they can't be done right. The issue with most subversions is the failure to engage with what made a trope compelling to begin with. In the case of the teen girl hero, that is the innate innocence of children, the need people have to protect and care for them, as well as the automatic tendency to underestimate them. Playing on this instinct to create a narrative that challenges the knee-jerk response does not have to end up accidentally implying that it's bad to care about kids, or whatever. You can also subvert it by crafting a character the audience will want to protect so badly, while setting them up for tragedy, asking what happens when they can't protect the children. Or you could raise questions on what innocence really is, by creating a character with stereotypical 'un-innocent' traits who is still innocent. Or you could create a character that merely looks like a little girl while not actually being one, of course, which opens up a whole range of possibilities. A Tara who was not actually a teen girl but actually, I don't know, a robot, could've worked just fine as a trope subversion while sidestepping just about any controversial or outright bad takes on trauma. This variation of the trope subversion doesn't even have to touch on how to best care for and protect children, or on questions of innocence; it can instead play on the 'automatic underestimation' angle and exploit that part of the response.

In the case of superhero trope subversions, the issue with them is an unwillingness to engage with that made the heroes good in the first place. The Murder Batman Archetype doesn't suck because subverting superheroes is innately bad, but because 'Batman is the bad guy actually because who lets a guy go around beating people without being held accountable' is a shit take on the Batman archetype. So is 'what if your favourite hero but evil'. Subversions should have interesting insights into the original trope, or at the very least, utilize the original trope in a new, interesting way. Simply flipping it on its head without doing anything else is narratively shallow and can often lead to unfortunate implications, such as implying that the teen girl is bad because she *checks notes* has self destructive behaviours, was taken advantage of by an adult man, and likes wearing make-up.

You, personally, are well within your rights to never want to see another superhero or innocent girl trope subversion ever again. I personally strongly dislike almost all iterations of superhero subversions because I tend to enjoy the fantasy that superheroes provide more than the questions a subversion may raise, and find those questions raised to be typically shallow anyway. And I would've strongly preferred a redeemed Tara over any iteration of tragedy Tara, or even secret robot Tara. But that doesn't mean these trope subversions are, inherently, a literary dead end that no-one should be allowed to explore. And it especially doesn't mean that nobody should've been allowed to try subverting the tropes forty years ago.

#My posts #Infodumping #Tara markov #Asks #Csa // #Abuse //

[babyjakes]

forever and a day | 40. i believe you.

〈 disclaimer: this blog posts content not suitable for individuals under the age of 18. minors are strictly prohibited from viewing, sharing, or interacting with this blog. for more information on this blog's commitment to protecting minors, read our full statement here. 〉

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summary | a story in which america’s favorite captain gives a new life and family to a five-year-old girl who has suffered well beyond her years at the hands of hydra.

characters | dad!steve rogers, girl/willa rogers (original character)

warnings | AU similar enough to OU to include spoilers to many Marvel movies (Age of Ultron and beyond). action and fight scenes with violence and killing. injuries/mild gore. mature themes related to and semi-graphic depictions of child abuse/neglect, past CSA and CSM, and their aftermath (emaciation, wounds, scarring, etc). medical abuse and experimentation. ptsd/trauma symptoms in a child (developmental discrepancies, de-humanized behavior, detachment, extreme fears). medical treatment of CSM and other aftermath of abuse.trauma-informed therapeutic treatment of ECT. minor mentions of disordered eating. themes relating to abuse of power/authority and immoral interrogation tactics including SA (with brief depictions.) evil!Tony Stark.

[Steve]

“Alright Cap, as much as I’d love to stay up longer and keep talking… I’m pretty beat,” Bruce admits from across the table. Glancing down at my watch, I see that it’s nearing 11:30pm. Willa was put to bed a while ago; after she went down I decided to venture back out into the rest of the group. The overall mood throughout the evening has been positive. More than anything, it just feels good to be back with all of my friends. Tony and I haven’t shared a single word, but for now, I’m okay with that. Being the first night back, he probably figured both Bucky and I would want some space. I still don’t know how I’m going to approach him about what happened to Willa at the airport. Something needs to be done, of course; I’m just not sure what yet.

For about a half-hour or so now, it’s just been the doctor and I, as everyone else has retired to bed. Our conversation has mostly been about Willa. Bruce was able to pop in before I put her to bed to check over her. In talking with him, he’s gone over some options we have in regards to treating her burns. He said that she got very lucky, and that he was fairly sure she had a good chance at a full recovery. This news has been a huge relief. Really, the whole conversation has meant a lot to me. It’s clear that he’s been worried about Willa ever since we left, and now that we’re back, I’m glad that I can place so much trust in the man in charge of her medical care.

“Yeah, it’s getting pretty late, huh?” I nod understandingly. Bruce rises from his chair and smiles at me, his eyes softening as they meet mine.

“We’re glad to have you back, Cap. You and the little one were greatly missed,” he speaks genuinely.

“Thank you, Bruce. It’s great to be back,” I say, returning the smile. He nods at me, then turns and heads for the hallway, leaving me alone in the large open living space.

Taking a moment to close my eyes, I draw in a long breath through my nose, allowing my muscles to relax. It’s been quite a long day. I can’t wait to climb into my own bed and get some much-needed sleep. But before I can do that, there’s still one more thing I need to take care of…

Opening my eyes again, I stand, pushing my chair under the table. I make my way over to the kitchen and pull out a pot, filling it with water in the sink. Setting it down on the stove, I turn the burner on medium, watching as tiny bubbles begin to form at the bottom of the metal pot. Going into the spices cabinet, I rummage around until I find the small green tin I’m looking for, all the way at the back. Carefully, I open up the old rusted box and pull out a packet. Lavender. I remember on Wanda’s first night at the tower, she asked for a cup of lavender tea. “It helps when I’m anxious,” she had told us. Ever since, I’ve made sure to keep a fresh stock on hand.

Pulling out a second packet for myself, I close and return the tin to the cabinet. When I come back to the pot, the water’s boiling steadily, and I flick off the burner, grabbing two maroon mugs and pouring them each full with the water. Tearing open the paper envelopes, I drop a pouch in each mug, the strings dangling over the sides delicately. With a mug in each hand, I return to the table, setting one down at the head seat and one at the chair beside it. Taking a moment, I sigh, running a hand through my hair. I just hope she’ll open up to me. When she snapped out of her panicked state earlier, she was trying so hard to act like she was fine. But it’s painfully obvious that she’s not. And I don’t know how to help her if I don’t know what’s wrong.

Taking another deep breath, I make my way over to the hallway, walking quietly across the wooden floor until I reach the teen’s door. A faint glow shines out from underneath it, telling me that her lamp is still on. Knocking lightly against the wood a few times, I call in softly, “Wanda? It’s Steve. You still up?”

Soft shuffling can be heard from behind the door; soon, it opens in front of me to reveal the teen. From the looks of it, she’s changed since I saw her earlier. She’s pulled her hair up into a messy bun and wrapped herself up in a white blanket. With the hallway lights now hitting her face, I can really see how sick she’s truly become. She’s much skinnier than she was the last time I saw her, and the bags under her eyes are deep and dark. the girl glances up at me, and I try to keep my heartbreak from seeping onto my face.

“Hey kiddo,” I breathe, momentarily at a loss for words. Up until today, I’ve always seen Wanda as just one of us adults. Of course I’ve known that she’s a teenager, but she’s just always held herself to such a high standard of presentation that it’s been hard to tell her apart from the others. Peter’s obviously the baby of the team, and I honestly would usually forget that he and Wanda were similar in age. But now, looking at the broken girl in front of me, it’s really sinking in how young she is, and maybe how wrong it’s been of me to treat her like something she’s not. “I made us some tea,” I say finally. “Will you come sit with me?” A look of great hesitancy flashes in her eyes. “I just wanna talk.”

“Nothing to talk about,” she mumbles quietly.

I raise my eyebrows gently at her, trying to hold onto her gaze. I know that’s not true, I want to say, but I don’t want to push her into anything, especially not right here in the hallway. “It’s lavender tea. Please? I’ve missed you,” I try. Wanda sighs, her eyes dropping to the floor.

“Fine,” she gives in. Smiling at her gratefully, I lead the way back through the hallway and out into the common space.

The girl follows slowly behind me, her feet dragging painfully beneath her. A warm, rich lavender scent hits us as we enter the room, and she looks up for a moment, a softness forming on her face. Walking her over to the table, I pull out the chair at the head for her. Carefully and slowly, she lowers herself down. I take a seat next to her, wrapping a hand around my mug.

The teen peers down at her own and brings her shaking hands up to clasp it on both sides. The mug rattles slightly against the table from her quivering, and I’m concerned to find that tears have built up in her eyes. “Wanda,” I begin sadly. “Hey-”

“Sorry,” she mumbles, bringing a shaking hand up and wiping at her eyes harshly. “Thank you, Steve. You- you didn’t have to do this.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I murmur softly, “and of course; I just hope it helps, even a little.” Wanda raises the mug to her lips and takes a swallow, her tears spilling over and running down her cheeks as she blinks. Setting her mug down, she dabs at her face with the blanket. Her eyes stay low, unable to face me. “Wanda,” I say again, wrapped up in so much sadness and worry for the poor girl. “Can you look at me?”

“I’m sorry,” she replies again, shaking her head. “I’m just- I’ll stop. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” I reassure her quickly, “it’s okay to cry. I won’t judge you for that.”

“I’m fine, I-I promise. I-” She chokes on her words, hiccuping as another round of tears hit. “-I-I’m fine, Steve.”

“Wanda,” I breathe, wishing so badly I knew what was troubling the kid. “Please. Tell me what’s going on.” Her head hangs low, her gaze locked on the table beneath her as she continues to cry, not even attempting to wipe away the evidence anymore. Her tears drip down onto the surface, forming a puddle next to her mug. “I promise, no matter what it is, it’s safe to tell me. I just wanna help you, kiddo.”

“D-don’t call me that,” she snaps coldly, the edge to her voice taking me aback. “Please,” she continues after a moment of silence, softer this time, “just don’t. I-I’m not a kid. Not yours, or anyone else’s,” she says coldly, her voice laced with a thick venom of hurt. “I’m not a child. I need to stop acting like one.”

“No. Wanda, stop,” I beg, hating how hard she is on herself. “You’re still a kid, to me and to everyone else. I know we don’t act like it, and we should. I’m sorry, Wanda. We put way too much pressure on you. You have an old soul, and wisdom well beyond your years. But in the end, you’re still a kid. And we don’t take care of you like we should.”

“I don’t need taking care of,” the girl shakes her head. “I’m not Willa, or Peter, or- or…”

“But you’re you, Wanda,” I tell her softly, and her eyes finally find their way up to meet with mine. “And you deserve to be cared for too, just like Willa and Peter.” A fresh round of tears build up in her eyes as she keeps her gaze locked on mine, a sense of overwhelming longing appearing on her face. Her bottom lip begins to tremble and I lean in closer to her, asking her gently, “Please, Wanda. Will you let me take care of you?”

She blinks, a stray tear trailing down her cheek and off her chin. What she says next sets off a familiar alarm in my mind, her words dripping with vulnerability. “Y-you won’t believe me.”

“I know you think that, and I don’t know how I could convince you otherwise, but I promise you, Wanda, I promise you: I will believe you. I know you wouldn’t lie to me. I know you’re scared; you’re terrified, and that’s okay. I’m right here for you, I just need you to let me in.”

The teen takes in a shaky breath, closing her eyes for a few seconds as if to collect herself. When she opens them again, she looks back over at me, fear lingering in her gaze. “I-I didn’t want it,” she stammers. “I promise, I-I didn’t.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, not understanding.

“I tried to stop them- I tried, but they h-had my hands wrapped up and- and th-they were stronger than me, and I-I-”

“Woah, okay. Slow down. Deep breaths,” I murmur, not wanting the girl to work herself up into a panic attack. “Who was this? Was it when you were back in captivity?” Wanda nods, her fragile frame shaking against her chair. “Do you know who it was?”

“Th-they came every day to question us… there were three of them. Th-they didn’t give their names.”

“Okay, and you said they had your hands wrapped up? So you couldn’t use your powers?” She nods again in confirmation. “Okay. And they brought you to an interrogation room?” Another nod. “What did they do to you in there?”

Her head falls and she chokes back a sob, her hands squeezing into fists as they rest against the table. “I swear, Steve, I didn’t want it, I-I tried to make them stop, b-begged them to stop,” she stutters. “I screamed ‘no’ over and over… th-they just taped my mouth shut when they got sick of it… or th-they, th-they shoved their…”

My heart drops into the pit of my stomach as my worst fears are confirmed. “Oh my god. Wanda,” I breathe, shaking my head in shock.

“Please,” she whimpers, her eyes still squeezed shut as tears pour down her face. “I-I’ll show you the bruises, I-I’ll let you see the memories, please, Steve, please believe me.” And as I continue to watch my friend sob quietly in her seat, an overwhelming urge washes over me to just hold her, to somehow show her that the information she’s shared is safe with me.

Rising slowly from my seat, I approach the crying girl, reaching out my arms and wrapping them gently around her. At the contact, she only sobs harder, leaning her face against my shoulder. With little difficulty, I lift her up and carry her over to the couch, sitting down and placing her on top of my lap. Even though she’s always been a small girl, the lack of weight I feel on top of me is highly concerning.

I take a soothing hand and begin running it over her hair, talking softly to her as she cries. “I believe you, Wanda. I believe you,” I promise her.

“I-I’m s-s-sorry,” she sobs into my shoulder, and I shush her gently, shaking my head.

“No, no sorry’s,” I coo. “You were so brave to tell me. I’m so proud of you, kiddo.” The girl only clings to me and continues to cry, and I keep my hand running over her hair, rocking her slightly back and forth, hoping the movements won’t be too obvious but still enough to somewhat soothe her.

“D-do you hate me now?” she asks through her tears, her head pulling back to look me in the eyes. My heart breaks all over when I see they’re filled with fear.

“No, of course not. I could never hate you, Wanda. What those men- those monsters- did to you says nothing about you as a person. You’re still good. You’re still so incredibly good, all the way down to your bones.” A slight hint of relief appears on her face, but she remains mostly wary. Brushing back her stray bangs out of her face, I lock eyes with hers. “Look at me, Wanda.” She does, her eyes filling with tears once more. “You are good. Still as good as you’ve ever been. They didn’t take that from you.”

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#faad #faad: i believe you #eun's writing #steve rogers #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers series #steve rogers au #steve rogers angst #steve rogers fluff #hurt/comfort #steve rogers x child!oc #dad!steve rogers #the avengers #avengers fanfiction #mcu #mcu fanfiction #captain america #captain america fanfiction

[gothhabiba]

hi! i've really valued advice you've given other anons & wondered if i could ask for some? i get it if not bc i know reading & thinking abt these take energy! i'm 26, and just starting uni & having career aspirations. i spent my teens & early-mid 20s v v volatile after surviving abuse in childhood, so didn't achieve anything rly except surviving & becoming stable. do you have any thoughts at all on dealing with shame/worthlessness/comparison-anxiety/etc abt starting life late, please?

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while because this is very much going to be a case of me needing to take my own advice, lmao. But:

It is not “everyone else, who seamlessly conforms to an ideal of progress over specific periods of time,” versus “you.” Rather it is “an ideal of progress over specific periods of time” versus “everyone who actually exists and the particularities of all of their lives, which are too complex to be fit into any impersonal and general ideal.” The entire thing with an “ideal” is that it is not commensurate with actual lived experience—it is in fact defined by its isolation from it.

This means, firstly, that there are a lot of things that lead people to differ from this ideal to a greater or lesser extent. LGBT people often speak about having a second adolescence in their 20s or 40s or 60s. Many people upon getting out of abusive relationships later in life have the experience of first learning about what love can be like in second or third marriages / long-term partnerships. Being disabled eradicates a timeline towards “career” and “independence” completely—makes it stall, jump around, reverse. This doesn’t mean that any of these people are failing to live their lives properly... the only life that anyone needs to be leading is their own.

This also means, secondly, that this ideal doesn’t work for anyone, including people who seem on first blush to adhere to it. The idea of “teenager”-hood in at least U.S. popular culture is very bizarre, for example—adults are meant to reminisce about specific defining “teenage” experiences, feel that they’ve “lost” something since their adolescent days, idealise a vision of what it means to “be a teenager”... even as actual teenagers often don’t receive much in the way of respect or autonomy. So “adolescence” is defined by a, like, Platonic ideal of specific experiences occurring in a specific order, rather than by... the actual experiences of actual people of a certain age range. Again, it’s specific lives that actually matter, not a rarefied idea of a type of “life” that is simultaneously longed for, nostalgia-tinged, romanticised, commodified, and derided in a culture that has an obsession with youth.

I assume you already know that these ideals are capitalist nonsense in the first place, and that nothing about human minds and bodies is actually described by them. This is easier said than internalised, but still worth repeating. These are not ideals that it is worth comparing yourself to. Other people’s lives—people who may seem to fit the pattern, but perhaps don’t in ways that aren’t always visible to you—are not worth comparing yourself to. Their lives are not yours. Value the specific over the general.

You also say you “didn’t achieve anything except surviving & becoming stable.” Any model that sees surviving and becoming stable as not being “really” an achievement is an absurd model! This is an immense achievement that you ought to be proud of. Childhood abuse impacts people more than many realise. It is not even like abuse in adulthood, where there is a sense of healthy relationships or a sense of self that has been formed prior to trauma and “recovery” can be (perhaps wrongly, but still) conceptualised as “return.” Victims of childhood abuse, upon reaching adulthood, are building from nothing. Building from worse than nothing, really, because there are not just things you need to know that you never learnt, but also habits that used to help you survive that need to be jettisoned. If rebuilding your entire concept of self and reorganising everything about how you relate to the world isn’t an “achievement,” what on Earth is? A “career”? No 😂

Basically, “what would have happened” / “where would I be if” isn’t a question that is worth dwelling on. By all means, take the time to mourn what you’ve lost or what could have been. But the point comes where it isn’t useful or productive or telling you anything new. All of your experiences have worked to shape who you are now, and you should be proud of who you are now. So why regret things? The person who would have been doing x y and z by now is a different person. This I what I mean when I say to value the particularities of your own life over a generic ideal that can only ever be devoid of life.

#questions #long post / #abuse

[zen-garden-gnome]

Long post about whiteness

I’m seeing a lot of false-start questions based on a narrow understanding of whiteness. Whiteness (and recovery from whiteness) can be tricky to unpack because it has a lot of layers that have been added over the years. So you’ll run into a layer and may be tempted to stop there, but it goes deeper.

1) Racial identity was a vague belief before it was officially named, but it’s not as old as many think it is. Prior to European Expansionism, travelers and merchants and militaries alike have generally referred to people based on their place of origin or their language. The idea of vaguely lumping hundreds of ethnicities together based on a handful of physical attributes started to kick up when Portugal began capturing and enslaving huge numbers of sub-Saharan Africans in the mid-1400s. As slave traders and “explorers” brought shiploads of captured, multi-ethnic Africans to Portuguese auction blocks to be traded all over Europe, what set these enslaved people apart from anyone else there (including other enslaved people) was a) the fact that they were to some degree darker than the Portuguese despite displaying a wide range of skin tones, b) were from Africa at the time, and c) were enslaved. When Christian militant and royal biographer Gomes de Zurara was hired in 1453 to write about the life and “accomplishments” of Portugal’s most famous slave trader, Infante Henrique aka Prince Henry the Navigator, he officiated, in writing, the idea that all these newly enslaved people were their own class of people with no differentiation between them. Here, race is a burgeoning social narrative invented to praise European slave traders, and this racial concept is defined in relation to slavery, African origins, and skin tone. Racial concepts appeared in tandem with racist concepts, because races began to be envisioned in order to excuse the abuse of others. The ideas of whiteness and blackness were birthed simultaneously, specifically around slavery, and they became deeply entrenched beliefs before they were ever officially named.

2. “Negro” became the first major racial term before “white” was widely used, binding the development of racial concepts even more securely with the practice of European slavery. In fact, race and racism became encoded in colonial-American law in 1640, when African servant John Punch ran away from his European buyers along with two European servants. He was eventually recaptured, as were his Dutch and Scottish companions. However, the colonial judicial system sentenced Punch to a lifetime of slavery, while the two Europeans had an extra year added to their initial servitude. This marks the first record of a Euro/American legal precedence for lifetime sentencing of enslavement based openly on race. John Punch’s African lineage and the other servants’ European lineage were the differences between their sentencing. Here, European origin was what freed a person from being of the “negro race” and therefore severely reduced one’s likelihood to enslavement. It was also the requirement for incoming settlers who wanted to be able to buy land. Only white people were allowed to develop inter-generational wealth, at a time when this continent was being carved up by land speculators for massive profits.

3. The concept of whiteness was officially named by Carl Linnaeus in order to rank Europeans as superior among other conceptual categories of people. It involved grouping hundreds of ethnic groups together to form white, yellow, red, and black races in he text “System Naturale" (1735). While primarily an introduction to our current taxonomy system, it included these racial categories. It was highly regarded by Europeans eager to cast themselves as superior because it a) created a popular “scientific” framework for excusing the most obscene (and profitable) crimes against humanity, b) officially outlined/invented the white race and identified it with everything good and the black race as everything bad, and then c) clearly defined Europeans as the basis of whiteness, “Homo sapiens europaeus.” Here, whiteness is coined to describe European ancestry, particularly in relation to “grotesque” non-whites.

4. An individual’s personal ideas of whiteness fluctuates with time and circumstances. As governments, social institutions, literature, etc all work to redefine history and clean up their image, people have different/less information to work with, but the effects are the same. The popular spoken definition of whiteness is often simply a reference to a relatively pale skin tone caused by European ancestry. Obviously there are pale people in other places around the world who aren’t European and weren’t related to the slavery of European Expansionism, so pale skin isn’t enough. The relation to Europe’s capitalistic global expansion is key. But what about European countries who didn’t go expanding this way, or whose involvement is harder to pinpoint? After all, most of the trading of enslaved indigenous peoples from Africa and North & South America were carried out by the Portuguese, Genoese, Dutch, French, British, Spanish, and Americans. Well, the rapid enrichment and development of the rest of Europe for centuries to come was specifically made possible by all the labor, resources, and capital brought in by this period of the European slave trade. European ancestry links every white person to privileges and developments born on the backs of black and indigenous enslaved peoples. Furthermore, simply being white makes one safer from these kinds of exploits, and today it also makes one safer from the effects of generations of racial prejudices and resource extraction on the global scene. Which brings me to...

5. Whiteness tends to involve one’s relative freedom. Freedom of movement, both physical and social, without immediate threat of policing. Freedom to explore one’s ancestral history without being blocked by 500 years of forced removal, renaming, forced childbirth, etc. Freedom to exist without having to actually know or respond to one’s racial identity. This one’s really important. Whiteness involves not having to think about being white, usually in relation to living in a country/region whose laws and norms are defined and enforced almost exclusively by other white people. Since whiteness and blackness arose mutually around the European slave trade, blackness is inherently tied to a lack of rights/freedoms and whiteness is inherently tied to an abundance of them. That doesn’t mean that every white person experiences these equally, and there will always be exceptions to the rule. But the exceptions don’t make the rule, and after centuries of globalized white supremacy, whiteness has become a subconscious signifier of power for people all over the place.

The big take-away is this: whiteness is inherently toxic. There is nothing positive to defend in whiteness. It was born out of ugliness and it is ugly to its core. That’s why it feels so bad. It’s why “white pride” is always ugly. However, the solution is not to disconnect from our ancestry. All that does is leave us trapped here, in an ugly set of circumstances, with no concept of who we are except what we’re living in, now. The real work to be done is to connect with our ancestry before whiteness, with the ancestors who related to the land as a living entity, before the land was limited in social memory to a source of private capital, servitude, and empire-building. This land, this Earth, is the backdrop against which all our relativity is measured. From this place of relative security, understanding, and development of the spirit, we can withstand the reality of our more recent ancestors, and finally heal from the last 1000 to 2000 years of trauma.

I know I’ve said this before, but now that I have this huge post, I’ll repeat it: Dr. Daniel Foor’s Ancestral Medicine is a really helpful book and/or course for this whole process. It’s not the end-all be-all resource, but it’s a great start! I’m also always down to talk about this stuff. Hit me up. I need to be able to talk about it, too.

(I should add, while blackness was created by white people and therefore was born out of the racism of whiteness, blackness was forced on people, while whiteness was claimed by the takers. It’s no white person’s place to have an opinion about "black identity.” White people started race, so white people are responsible for deconstructing our own race--no one else’s. We cannot be “post-racial” while everyone else is still living the violent reality of racism.)

#whiteness #race #ancestry

[travoltacustom]

The Presentation of Hifumi’s Trauma

I’ve been thinking on how Hifumi’s trauma has been presented for years now, and with the release of Bad Ass Temple VS Matenro, I feel like now’s as good a time as any to give my thoughts on this.

Note: This is in no way a defense of KR for the presentation of Hifumi’s trauma, but it is an analysis of such. I’m open to discussion on this and you’re free to disagree with me at any point on this. Most of this was also written BEFORE the release of the album, save for the last section.

CW: Mentions of abuse, trauma and rape + spoilers of the MTR dramatrack

I hear a lot that the presentation of Hifumi’s trauma is a ‘poor attempt at humour’, but I don’t exactly think it’s that simple. It is still a presentation of trauma, but it’s not portrayed as humorous in comparison to the rest of the humour of the series.

NARRATIVE

Hifumi panics when he sees women. He is unable to do anything until women are removed from the scene - but these instances are hardly ever the focus of the scene. It’s mostly used as a scene cutter to progress the story. When Chuo enters, Hifumi’s panic cuts off the situation and the focus shifts straight to the women. When the women find Hifumi, Doppo, Gentaro and Dice, Hifumi’s jacket is taken away to shift focus off of the women and to have Gentaro and Dice speak. Rather, Hifumi’s panic at these times are plot movers and not the focal point of the scene. Sadly, they can be seen as plot devices, but it’s not supposed to be seen as humour.

In addition to this, the ‘hysterical’ screaming (for lack of a better word) in the presence of women is limited to the dramatracks. In the manga and the anime, Hifumi runs away/removes himself from the presence of women. The purpose of Hifumi’s hysteria in the dramatracks is for visualisation purposes as there’s no visual aids - the reactions to women are toned down in the anime and manga. With this, it’s easier to believe that the anime and manga is the ‘intended’ portrayal of his reactions as the dramatrack has to make up for what isn’t seen.

PRESENTATION

The narrative is very aware that Hifumi’s trauma affects him badly. It’s a panic response. But it’s not the same as a panic attack. We know how awful the presentation of such can be, and it’s definitely something triggering for a lot of people. Personally, I would feel horrible to see him have a panic attack every time he saw a woman. KR doesn’t want to make his discomfort the focus of the scene either. Simply put, I think his trauma response is a part of the scene, but has less plot purpose than what is going on around it. 

Trauma can be presented in different ways, but it’s more controlled to see only a glimpse of how trauma has affected Hifumi. There are other ways of showing this trauma and how it’s affected Hifumi that HPMI has already covered: Hifumi being unable to take off his suit jacket, behavioural change when wearing the jacket, his extremely warped perception of danger when his life is threatened etc. He’s spent 10 years adapting to the trauma and is in a stage of recovery as he’s going to confront his said abuser. If we were compounding this plot point with an idea of a Hifumi that is always having panic attacks, then we would have a Hifumi that is clearly not ready to deal with what he wants.

COMPARISON

We know the writers can portray trauma as such from Jyushi’s backstory. If we remember the fandom response, there were people who were legitimately triggered to varying degrees by what happened to Jyushi’s grandmother and the severe bullying he suffered. Really, I believe that Hifumi’s trauma hasn’t been the forefront of scenes because narratively it’s not the time for this to happen yet.

There seems to be a ‘trauma-porn’ narrative around the need to have Hifumi’s trauma played out ‘correctly. Trauma porn is media that showcases a group’s pain and trauma in excessive amounts for the sake of entertainment. There’s no need right now to show the extent of how badly Hifumi has been affected, because his trauma isn’t the focal point of the story or his character. His past is about to be shown, but it shouldn’t be what defines Hifumi as a character. And even more importantly so, there’s no ‘right’ version of trauma to portray.

HONOBONO

[ This section is written post Bad Ass Temple VS Matenro’s dramatrack.]

There are no redeeming qualities to Honobono, the source of Hifumi’s trauma. She’s despised by Chuohku and kept around for her ‘usefulness’, and Doppo was unsure of Hifumi going to confront his own abuser. However, in the recent dramatrack, Hifumi’s power is taken away from him in Honobono forcing herself into his space. This is the first time we’ve ever seen Hifumi have an explosion of emotions; ‘a typical image of a panic attack’. It is an audibly uncomfortable scene, just as Jyushi’s backstory was to read. There are different levels to trauma responses that HPMI has shown us with the 1st season’s Hifumi with short moments, but this instance is long and drawn out with guttural screaming.

HPMI was always perfectly capable of showing trauma, but for a listener, to hear this sort of occurrence every time around a woman would be potentially harmful. At this moment, Hifumi was nearly completely paralysed, suffering a breakdown of his identity by switching pronouns and screaming (similar to Gentaro’s breakdown at the insult of his clothes). It is difficult to listen to this. I don’t believe you would’ve wanted to hear this every time Hifumi was reminded of Honobono. We’ve even learned that the abuse might not have been dealt directly to Hifumi but to his family - we see Hifumi’s love for his family here in being so torn by her actions, and how trauma does not have to deal with someone directly either.  However, the first instances of Hifumi’s trauma were more ‘digestible’ for a viewer, and they set us up for this moment. It was good that Hifumi’s panic responses were less heavy than the blow we’ve been dealt with this dramatrack.

In meeting Hifumi, Honobono greets her with “Hi-Fu-Mi”, just like how Hifumi says his own name in songs. It is most likely that Honobono said his name like this when they were in highschool; for Hifumi to use it in his songs now can be seen as a reclamation of his identity, as now Honobono can’t use his own name against him. Hifumi has spent years recovering from her, and seeing small hints of how he’s trying to move on from that time is a legitimately good way to understand the recovery from trauma.

WHAT IS IT?

The HPMI fandom seemed to have an ‘obsession’ with what exactly traumatised Hifumi up until this point. Most believed that it would have been sexual abuse/rape, given that he fears the opposite gender, and it wouldn’t have been the first time sexual themes have appeared in HPMI (the trafficked women at the start of BB/MTC’s manga). However, to think that ‘there is only one sort of trauma that can cause Hifumi’s pain’ is a dangerous idea. Almost anything can be traumatising, and almost anything can be a trigger. 

There’s no need to theorise ‘what is good enough’ to be a trauma for him. To fear women, it can simply be that a woman has done something bad to him - which we see is Honobono. When we hear women fearing men because a man did something bad to them, we don’t theorise what exactly happened to her. There’s the automatic assumption that gendered fear is the result of sexual abuse, when in reality, it can be any manner of abuse that has caused this.

OPINIONS

So I don’t think KR is portraying Hifumi’s trauma as humorous. It’s definitely awkward, but the narrative has constantly made it clear that he’s in a state of discomfort that stems from trauma and Doppo and Jakurai always do their best to move him out of those situations without drawing too much attention. Nobody in the story laughs at him, save for Asunaro, who’s an ill-mannered child without sensitivity towards both Doppo and Hifumi, and Honobono, the source of his trauma. Those who don’t understand Hifumi in the adult cast however only find confusion in him. 

There’s no ‘best’ portrayal of trauma in any media. But it’s clear that HPMI isn’t trying to be malicious or poke fun at any sort of trauma at all. If anything, I think the portrayal of it so far has been relatively ‘easy’ on common audiences that don’t explore such media, helping people to realise how trauma can manifest without forcing others who do have trauma to realise their pained experience in this media. Hifumi has been painted as someone relatable to those with trauma because he’s still a man who’s capable of doing his best while still stumbling along his way to recovery. Traumatised shouldn’t be the descriptor of Hifumi, but he is a character that has been traumatised.

While Honobono and her abuse is an integral part of Hifumi’s backstory, she does not define him as a person. To portray Hifumi as a strong character, despite moments of trauma responses, was a suitable choice in treating him respectably. 

#hypnosis mic #hypmic #hifumi izanami #analysis

[its-our-paris]

Adding on to the previous anon, it seems the problem a lot of people have is that he’s not the ‘perfect victim’ which is absolutely bullshit. Just because he said some gross stuff in private, abused drugs and drank alcohol, wasn’t completely meek or subservient or bent to her every whim without ever standing up to her, doesn’t mean he’s not a victim or that he doesn’t deserve justice. (See: people seeing the video of him yelling and slamming cabinets after learning his mother had died and his managers had stolen millions of his money or hearing that he punched a whiteboard and immediately going ‘see he’s a violent woman beater!’) and this applies to addicts too. It’s all ‘addiction is a disease, addicts need our support’ until they relapse or display self destructive behaviour or the recovery process isn’t 100% smooth sailing.

Her lawyers and a lot of people seem to hone in on his addiction and equate it with ‘abuser’ and that is extremely problematic. People who struggle with substance abuse aren’t necessarily abusers for fuck’s sake. And I know her lawyers keep beating this dead horse because they have close to nothing. He was self medicating with opiates since he experienced DV as a child and multiple people said his behaviour is largely the same no matter sober or under influence.

Obviously he has some unhealthy coping mechanisms and unresolved traumas that have influenced how he behaves and functions in life and in relationships. He did say he ‘married his (abusive) mother’. He’s conflict avoidant and likes to escape altercation which directly set her off bc her greatest fear is him leaving her and she equates him ‘splitting’ to him not caring about her or the relationship and ‘not fighting for her’ (she also experienced DV as a child). Not excusing her actions ofc, she’s a massive narcissistic manipulator like anon said but yeah this relationship is extremely toxic.

However so far from the info that’s been made public, Johnny Depp seems self aware and mostly harmful to himself and tries hard to not let his problems negatively affect other people in his life.

TLDR; no one needs to fit whomever’s ‘perfect victim’ profile to be listened to and believed. Victims are allowed to be flawed humans and still deserve our compassion and help.

Here's the thing. I'm really not going to argue that Johnny doesn't seem like a pretty difficult, traumatised person to begin with. He sure does, traumatic childhood to match and everything. And equally, Amber also clearly is not very okay in a lot of ways. Unfortunately, people who are struggling with past trauma are usually the ones more likely to fall into toxic relationships. Few people with a completely healthy, strong sense of self-worth and the ability to form secure bonds will find themselves in abusive relationships, will find themselves becoming abusive in relationships, etc.

However, like you say, just the fact that somebody has issues, that somebody is addicted to drugs or alcohol, does not automatically make that person an abuser.

The fact is that what I'm getting from the audios, is predominantly Johnny trying to get away from her, physically, and Amber escalating fights physically. That makes him the more self-aware, reasonable person here. "I will try to get myself away from you because a) I don't feel safe and b) I don't want to do something I will regret" is the most sane thing to do in a situation where your partner is becoming physically violent, especially in the case of a man who is aware he has the physical strength to hurt his female partner easily, if he wanted to. She just does come across - I mean some of the things she says even, apart from the physical assault, about him as a father and his children, as a parent, that's... that is low, you just do not - she comes across as somebody who provokes a lot. Somebody who tries to convince her partner that her version of events is true, and his is false, in spite of what he knows to be true (gaslighting, hello) a lot.

So, yes. Her image, on the outside, is far cleaner. He's kind of a messed up guy. Not a "perfect victim", likely not even always the victim at all in every fight they had. But this trial is about the fact that she ruined his reputation by depicting herself as 100% the victim, and as far as I'm seeing, that is not even remotely true.

#ask response #Johnny Depp #Amber Heard

[lily-orchard-gossip-blog]

I certainly won’t say anything against any of the abuse/trauma that Lily claims to have faced in her own life, but as somebody who is both on the outside of her life looking in AND has had a lot of experience with trauma survivors that I KNOW that I can trust. Lily… …just does not seem like she has lived through, or at the very least even BEGUN to process (let alone “survive through”), the trauma that she may have. Her extremely selfish and hyperaggressive/often abusive behavior, the way she talks about mental health and more often than not grooming her fans into trusting her more than even their OWN fucking therapists that they are seeing IN REAL LIFE, her dismissal of the VERY much real cycle of abuse that I have had to work very carefully in order to keep the trauma survivors that I have talked to from falling into it themselves, her hatred of forgiveness and sociopathic bloodlust for violence even against FUCKING. CHILDREN., etc.. All of that bullcrap is just not the fucking behavior of ANYBODY who has dealt with their trauma in healthy way. So the way I see it, in regards to Lily’s love of always using her alleged trauma as a shield from any and all criticisms that she may face, there are two options here. Option number one is that Lily is just fucking lying about all of this, which (and again I just want to stress that I am NOT SAYING that this option is true, this is JUST what I have seen and MY OWN thoughts on the matter) seems to have a lot of evidence backing it up. Considering how Lily‘s stories of how she became traumatized are always extremely contradictory and DEEPLY suspiciously different from the information that people are actually able to find OUTSIDE of just what Lily says about the events that traumatized her. And also, as I just said, seeing as how Lily acts NOTHING like a lot of trauma victims typically act like, even early on in their recoveries. And is typically the behavior rather found in people that CAUSE trauma, I.E. the abusers. Which Lily has also shown a GREAT deal of extremely abusive and grooming behavior towards most people around her, NO MATTER how close it is that they are.

Or we have option number two. And that option is that Lily has, for some unknown fucking reason, refused to get any and all treatment for the extreme narcissistic personality disorder and the dangerously hyperaggressive, violent fantasies that have been brought on by her psychopathy that somehow her trauma from abuse ended up causing her for, wait for it, some unknown fucking reason. And those highly debilitative mental disabilities have been slowly eating her fucking alive for the past Few. Fucking. DECADES. Let’s just saying that if this option is true Lily is approaching even MORE extremely self—destructive and bizarre/creepy behavior that will make her creating fucking pie charts and graphing out all of her relationships in some desperate attempt to convince herself that she’s wasn’t an horrifically abusive, obsessively fucking controlling, vile partner in them seem like something fucking sane to do. However, while (again) I DO NOT want to say that Lily has never experienced trauma or abuse in her entire fucking life and has been just making it the fuck up to feed her own extreme, self—destructive narcissism out of twisted, fucked up sense of self—preservation. I do feel the need to say that (again) as somebody who has worked with trauma survivors MYSELF, it is extremely unlikely and I would go so far as to say exceedingly RARE even, for a person who has been an actual victim of abuse or trauma to exhibit the behavior that Lily has been doing. 

And that‘s exactly why I think that Lily‘s videos in which she discusses trauma and mental health to be so horrifically toxic and dangerous. Because, whether she has actually experienced trauma/abuse or not, whether it is option one or option two. It is all too VERY fucking clear to me that Lily is a deeply disturbed and unwell person to say the least. And somebody like that, somebody who just refuses to get the help and treatment that they so OBVIOUSLY fucking need for their completely (for lack of a better term) FRAGMENTED fucking mind, should NOT be claiming to be in an experienced position on giving advice about how best to deal with mental health and the best ways to recover from one’s trauma, let alone an fucking AUTHORITATIVE one!!!

Submitted by Anonymous

#submission

[our-reb00t-boi]

ugh I finished RE8 I'm late and going for a second round just coz I didn't find collectibles enough

HOWEVER I must make a theory (in case this was already theorized somewhere by someone I didn't know also link me I just wanna talk... 🤓)

This is my long TLDR theory of the post-Mold, or how the nature of the Mold is like in their hosts in relation to trauma and recovery. Please strap yourselves in and apologies it's on mobile....

Anyway there's already been hints that Ethan (and Mia AND Zoe) are going to have traces of the E-series mold no matter how they got 'cleaned'.

The best clue we ever have about the nature of the Mold and being clean from it is from

Lucas Baker.

This guy had monitored and 'taken cared' of Eveline for the last 3 years she (and Mia) are in the Baker residence, as well as being heavily monitored by that provided underground lab in the abandoned mine. Lucas had been in contact with the Connections for that long!

On top of that, he had been provided a 'vaccine' of sorts so he wouldn't be under Eveline's control anymore. However, nothing from the effects of the 'vaccine' (as far as I can tell and as far as was provided) makes it clear Lucas went back to normal. He's simply immune from Eveline.

However, it's undeniable he retains the nature of this E-series Mold. He sustained multiple, MULTIPLE injuries in RE7, including implications of being harmed by his "father" under Eveline's control before Ethan showed up/events of RE7. The infamous arm chop in the Dinner Scene reveals Lucas saying "... Not again!" which highly concludes Lucas is harmed like that by his own family.

When Ethan faces Lucas, Lucas is gleeful and self-mutilates himself in front of a camera, WITH HIS ARMS intact again, and pulling his own nails to reveal regenerative abilities to Ethan. It's also in this scene that Lucas has been pulling strings behind the Baker residence for 3 years, even with Eveline around. He's in charge and just pretends while Eveline plays dollhouse.

However, and it feels like a stretch, but there seems to be a time limit on how long the post-Mold (that's just how I'll call Ethan, Lucas, etc.) keeps their body intact and "human". I also think, depending on how unhealthy the body is, the strength of the Mold inside will degenerate over time, or in case of physical trauma, mutate.

In both RE7 and RE8, there's both a 3 year gap. Mia is infected with the E-series Mold in 2014 and 3 years later is finally 'cleaned' of it in 2017. The same can be said of Zoe Baker, who only received treatment after the events (End of Zoe).

Lucas got his serum/vaccine in January 2015 from the Connections. That puts him earlier, although not as early as Ethan and, to my theory, Uncle Joe Baker, who both got treated if they have the mutamycete almost immediately.

These two guys got immersed in the Baker residence for one night only, but the infectioness of the Mold is high (hence the area being cordoned by Blue Umbrella/BSAA) and Ethan was technically already infected by just going in the Baker residence, on top of being in contact with Mia again, having been 'chosen' by Eveline to be part of her family and up to the final part where he hallucinates a mutant Mia back in the guest house.

Despite being treated, I think the treatment degraded the Mold inside, but never fully went away. They're 'vaccinated', which is the best term I can come up with, and their bodies will react negatively depending on how much they got harmed.

Ethan and Lucas are both harmed a lot. Lucas is tormented by his brainwashed family and self-mutilates. In his final moments, he was finally fatally shot by Chris and Lucas transforms, triggering his Mold mutation. This part is heavily reminiscent to Lady Dimitrescu's Cadou mutation, as she is fatally harmed by one specific item (Death Flower Dagger) and triggered the Mold Cadou. (With Dimitrescu, we may attribute the dagger being closely related to Dimitrescu's genetic illness, but that's another theory for another time...)

Mia, Joe and Zoe are definitely also harmed, although the gravity of how they were physically harmed and/or how fit/healthy they are is up there.

I can only assume that Mia, having been the first Eveline has infected with the E-series and has been in captive for 3 years, has a LOT on her plate. She's also knowledgeable enough, just like Lucas, regarding the E-series Mold, as she was the Connections' operative. From the next 3 years moving to RE8, we were given proof of Mia's medications in the new house. So she's been recovering from the abuse and infection, and she doubled down when she had been pregnant! (Which is a miracle! Also, Mia has also a triggered mutation, that horrifying intro to RE7!! Who knows how she would've ended up if she let her mutation got worse or Eveline ordered her to mutate further!!!)

With Zoe, it's a little sketchy. We can assume she had been harmed by her family but she has kept herself isolated from them most of the time. In her notes, she does describe how she feels and the continuing degradation of her parents' minds and likely their bodies. From here, it's not physical trauma that's harming her but their degrading health. With Zoe being the only one who likely eats as normally as she can (if she has reserves of normal food [and from the clues in the house there seems to be a stash of some though supplies are low]), she's definitely running out of time. She had also calcified for a short moment, according to the Canon ending and in End Of Zoe DLC. With that, I can assume that the Mold was supposed to kill her, as ordered by Eveline but she pulled through because of whatever treatment BSAA/Blue Umbrella has.

Joe is definitely infected for a short time as well, and him punching/being in close contact with these Molded and the final Jack Baker Mold doesn't help his case being not infected. He definitely also sustained injuries trying to save Zoe.

With Lucas and Mia, they succumbed to their mutation (Mia, as ordered by Eveline, and Lucas through a fatal shot). Joe and Zoe never did, likely because Joe was infected in a short time and Zoe kept herself isolated as much as she could from Eveline.

Ethan is definitely a special case. He, Mia, Zoe and Joe are post-Mold, but Ethan is re-exposed to Miranda, disguised as Mia, and enters the Village likely infested with little amounts of the Mold. The watermill is under Moreau's dominance, which means the water flowing across has been tampered for so long. The Cadou pollen has likely travelled during spring season, and from the notes of that guitar maker, there were some people coming in and out of Beneviento's estate (before disappearing). And the main Mold itself, the Megamycete! That's been growing underneath the Village for God knows how long....

Ethan has been re-exposed and physically traumatized MULTIPLE times! Despite a stable body that got injured/mutilated so many times, Ethan was degrading during those intense moments of injuries/mutilations in RE8.

And never, never once did he mutate at all!! No triggering, nothing!! He, Lucas and Heisenberg have some similarities, in that they have a stable physique. Ethan's stability has been passed on to Rosemary, coupled with post-Mold Mia being her mother, which made her even more special!

(However, I will say, if Ethan's heart hadn't been pulled out of his body, he may have had a mutation. But Miranda took no chance and went for a vital organ. Come to think of it, a Mold hosting inside a living or corpse need to be intact as much as possible. This is further supported by the RE8 notes from Dimitrescu, Moreau, Heisenberg and Miranda... 😲)

#resident evil 8 #resident evil village #village resident evil #resident evil #ethan winter #mia winters #lucas baker #zoe baker #jack baker #margaruite baker #lady dimitrescu #resident evil donna #donna beneviento #sir Moreau #salvador moreau #lord heisenberg #karl heisenberg #long post #didn't read #a game theory #ethan winters #reaident evil 7 #biohazard 7

[not-poignant]

I feel like every human alive should be required to read FFS because I think empathy and healing to that level just doesn't exist in most books or other entertainment. Thank you, Pia!

<333

Thank you so much anon.

Honestly, I do understand why even folks who like some of my other stuff can't read Falling Falling Stars. A fair few people drawn to my trauma recovery stories have themselves been sexually assaulted, or harrassed, or abused, and Efnisien has been - to some of them - a villain of the worst order for almost 9 years across many different stories. And for some of those people, nothing about his fictional present will ever undo his fictional past.

At the same time, I am someone who has experienced sexual assault, harrassment, and abuse. I've been through it all multiple times, with multiple people, since I was a child. It's one of the reasons I'm drawn to repeatedly writing different kinds of trauma recovery narratives in the first place, actually, because I've been living my own since I was formally diagnosed with PTSD in 1997. So for some of us, we're drawn to these kinds of narratives instead of being repelled by them. But it's a fine line between 'all of this is acceptable but this one story rubs me the wrong way.'

I don't know if I'd want to read a story like Falling Falling Stars if it was written by another author who I didn't trust, or who wrote in a way I didn't click with. And not everyone (not the vast majority of people) clicks with my writing. It doesn't speak to them. It leaves them cold. They don't like my characterisation. They don't like my narrative voice. They have no reason to trust that they'd get anything out of a story like Falling Falling Stars, because they don't feel much at all from the rest of my writing even on a good day. Or have only one story that they like and the rest they're like 'meh' about. That's also you know, absolutely normal in the world of consuming creative works.

I'm very, very lucky to have found people who do click with my writing, like yourself, anon! That makes me so happy. :)

All of that being said, I think Falling Falling Stars is one of the best things I've ever written in regards to themes relating to humanity, self-forgiveness, self-compassion, second chances and recovery from abuse and brainwashing. I agree that stories like this aren't out there in very visible ways in the world, or if they are, they're heavily diluted (like, say, the redemption of Augus-who-is-a-manipulative-blackmailing-rapist in SOTS - much easier to swallow overall - and even that's a huge turn off for a lot of readers).

The fact is, a lot of people don't even want to read my other works because they feature sympathetic or redemptive narrative arcs of characters who are rapists, killers, murderers and more. There are people who will still never read Game Theory because Augus is in it.

But I also 100% get why people don't want to read FFS, or don't want to try reading it, or frankly just don't have the energy to stop hating a character they've already hated, or don't want to stop enjoying hating a character, or don't want to hate-read, or don't want to hate him more because he's getting good things and he 'doesn't deserve it' (which created the awkward experience of one person trying to argue with me about that, like...I was going to change the entire trajectory of the story or something based on that one argument when the whole point of the story is that everybody deserves second chances if they're trying) etc. etc.

There's lots of reasons to not like FFS that are valid. And antis could think of a billion more (but fuck antis).

I'm kind of glad it's not required reading anywhere (which isn't to say that I'm not extremely flattered and humbled by you saying that, because I really am). I think I'd get way more hate and harrassment, and I'd like to not receive anymore (I haven't gotten much, thankfully! But let's not make it more!) But I also think it's too...I mean it's a very...I mean Efnisien is basically woobified in this story and a lot of people hate those stories on principle. I like 'em. Frankly I think there's a lot to be said for the trope.

But the fact that you think it should be required reading, and that you've gotten so much out of it? Like, that's... I mean, you, and folks like you, are who I'm writing this story for. (Well, and me, because I'm self-indulgent that way). I'm so glad you're getting something out of it, and I hope you continue to! This will 100% be the longest single volume work I've ever written, and will probably be the longest work I'll ever write. Never thought it'd be this story, never thought it'd be Efnisien.

So glad I have good company with me along the ride. :)

#asks and answers #falling falling stars #fae tales AU #fae tales #efnisien ap wledig #i was going to put this in the queue but i'm going to put this straight up #this ended up a really long reply #i can never escape the awareness that a lot of people really hate or don't like this story #because people have firstly told me to my face lmao #but secondly i knew it would be when i started writing it #anyway #the people who love it do a really great job of letting me know they love it #and i am an extremely fortunate person #that y'all are happy for me to write this character study #and are finding something meaningful in it

[highfaelucien]

I completely agree with how you feel towards azriel. Thinking about azriel’s character now vs how I used to view him during acomaf times is just... sad and so so so much more complex. Part of me still wants to love him for the character that was presented to us in acomaf and other small good moments, like his friendship with nesta. And then the other part of me is disgusted, disappointed, and honestly kind of terrified of who he may become if sjm allows him to continue acting predatorily/toxic. The whole mor/az situation really fucked me up. As someone who is also a lesbian and an abuse survivor, it broke my heart to watch the situation unfold in acowar. It still hurts seeing many readers (and sometimes even sjm) take az’s side and paint mor as some sort of liar/two faced character that is playing everyone. I kept thinking that things would be fixed in future books, but instead az has grown worse and mor was, once again, sidelined and written out as a character. And honestly... as much as I love the idea of gwyn x azriel ... I think his books would need a lot more focus on his own recovery/growth and not center on a romantic relationship. If anything, I hope it’s written as friends to lovers so az has a better way of interacting and forming relationships with women. Because right now... well, that shit is borderline predatory and isn’t coming across well. And I really really do not want that for him. Basically, azriel deserves a better arc than what has been written for him. I miss him :( he used to be a character that made me feel safe and now :/ idk anymore

I'm going to quote parts of this/chop it up and reply to them a chunk at a time. because there's a lot going on here and I want to try and reply to as much as I can because I resonate with.....all of it. Please forgive me for the length of this.

I completely agree with how you feel towards azriel. Thinking about azriel’s character now vs how I used to view him during acomaf times is just... sad and so so so much more complex.

He feels like a different character? There was always an anger simmering under the calm surface, we knew that. But it was an anger born of love, deep down, and the desire to protect his family, and his court, at the expense of himself. Az was always the first to volunteer himself for dangerous missions, to spare the others.

Now that anger is directed at his family, and at the world, for not giving him what he feels he 'deserves'. That has NEVER been Azriel. Azriel's deepest issues and insecurities have always stemmed from the feeling of being unworthy, and undeserving of anything.

She's just made him into......Every other dude in this series tbh. Snarling, and possessive, and wanting to fuck anything in a skirt that moves.

Azriel was actually somewhat of an original, complex character initially. It's unusual that we see trauma affect men in the way it did Az. Usually it makes them angry, and vengeful, and eager to prove they are the alpha etc. Seeing them withdraw, and think less of themselves/that they're unworthy is something not explored often enough. But bye bye nuance hello #Drama.

Part of me still wants to love him for the character that was presented to us in acomaf and other small good moments, like his friendship with nesta.

I feel this. I found a lot of comfort in Az's character. Particularly the way he reacted with Mor. I was a big fan of their relationship, and I wrote a few 'missing scenes' style fics in the gap between ACOMAF and ACOWAR. One of them was where Az went to her when she had pushed everyone else away, including Cassian, and comforted and calmed her.

I hate that Maas took that away from Mor. I hate that Az no longer does that for her. I hate that Az was the one to betray her along with Rhys and bring her abuser into her safe space behind her back. I hate that he is no longer a symbol of calm, stable, dependable comfort and support for Mor, but is instead a threat. I HATE it.

Every now and then Az has lovely, gentle moments - his friendship with Nesta is a good example, and something I hoped we'd see. But also quieter times with Rhys, and their similarities being explored. And I adored the flying lessons with Feyre in ACOWAR, and the training he did with Cassian and the others in ACOFS.

But then she goes and twists him and does something else that just makes me want to fucking scream. Like the High Lord scene where he 'frightened' Mor. And his entire POV chapter which is frankly fucking gross.

And then the other part of me is disgusted, disappointed, and honestly kind of terrified of who he may become if sjm allows him to continue acting predatorily/toxic.

I agree.

I don't know how she can write a series that explores the effects of emotional abuse so well with Feyre and Tamlin...And then write what she did with Az?

The possession to a traumatised, still impressionable and desperate young woman, who likely finds the same comfort and safety in him that Mor did. Before that got shot to fucking pieces.

He sounds like a whiny toddler 'Cassian has a mate, and Rhys has a mate, where is mine!?!?!?!?' I DESERVE Elain, because I'm your brother and you guys have her sisters and what the FUCK. Who let that shit get published holy mother of god.

It's just...It's so unhealthy? Like, not even talking ship wars here (which I'm aware are rampant, and which I'm trying my best to stay away from). But that just.

How can that ever be a healthy foundation for a relationship? A man who thinks that he deserves, not only to be in a relationship with her, but to be bonded to her. Not because of HER, not because of who she is, or how she makes him feel. No. Purely because her sisters are mated to his brothers?

The whole thing made me feel so uncomfortable. It's predatory and toxic, just as you said. It's not right, it's not fair. Forget alliances and Lucien, even if none of that was a factor, that sort of thinking is still not right. And it's completely unfair to Elain.

But it also just. It didn't read like Azriel. The first part, where he struggles to sleep, and pushes himself until he passes out, and the insight that his shadows are basically hovering beside him screaming SELF CARE YOU DUMB BITCH at all times was very pleasing.

And the part where he goes to Clotho and leaves an anonymous gift for Gwyn. No fanfair. No audience. No pressure on either of them to react/perform. That felt like Az, too.

But everything in the middle. Everything with Elain, was just...Gross and out of character. And this is not because I dislike E/riel as a ship. I could get on board with it, tbh, if it wasn't written the way it was.

But it's not about ships, for me. It's just. Everything felt out of character. The predatory way he was with her. The fact he lies awake and gets himself off to fantasies of her. How apparently quickly he was aroused by putting a necklace on her. Idk, maybe it's my ace ignorance, but that doesn't sound normal/healthy to me.

Nor does him having to leave a room because he can scent her mating bond with Lucien. Or not being able to control himself to sit and eat dinner with her?

This is the same dude who has, apparently, been in love with Mor for 500 solid years, and who never did a damned thing about it. Who always kept himself in check. Even while she's had other lovers. But he can't control himself through one dinner with Elain?

It just. It doesn't feel like him. It feels like...Honestly not even Cassian. It feels like Tamlin on horny, predatory steroids. And that's not something I ever wanted to see from Azriel's POVs.

She could have explored a darker side to him without making it sexual? And misogynistic. And having him treating Elain as little more than a fucking object that he feels entitled to because 'everyone else got one, where's mine?'. What the FUCK???

The more I write it the more angry I get.

Because SJM has consistently put Az in the position of saving women when they were in danger? He was the one who found Mor near death at Autumn. He was the one who rescued Gwyn from her attackers during the war. He was the one to retrieve Elain when she was taken.

She always puts him in this position and, for better or worse, presents him as a safety figure for these women. The first person who they saw come for them, and fight for them, and protect them.

And on the inside she makes him this vile, predatory monster who just thinks constantly about fucking them? Who isn't actually safe at all?? It's sad. And it's infuriating. Because this isn't about ships anymore. This is about female survivors who have an apparent safe person who's presented as almost as dangerous as the people who attacked them in the first place. And that makes me feel so sick and sad that we've gotten here.

It still hurts seeing many readers (and sometimes even sjm) take az’s side and paint mor as some sort of liar/two faced character that is playing everyone. I kept thinking that things would be fixed in future books, but instead az has grown worse and mor was, once again, sidelined and written out as a character.

This is yet another vile thing SJM has done to queer readers with this whole fiasco. Because it puts me in a position where I want to call out her shitty writing, and what she's done to Mor - sidelining her as soon as she became queer. Undermining her power and her strength. Undermining her role as the survivor to look up to. Saying her power is truth but then making her seem like a liar. Which is all shitty, shitty, shitting writing.

But I'm also a queer person. And I will always always ALWAYS want to defend a queer person's right to remain closeted. Regardless of their reasons for doing so. But in this case it's a concern for their safety/a fear of how those around them will react. And I will NEVER condemn that. I will never say Az is suffering more than Mor for her being closeted. I will never call Mor a liar/a manipulator/two-faced when all she's doing is trying to survive.

I WILL condemn SJM for making this a scenario. For putting homophobia in her world purely to cause pain for queer characters, and drama for her straight ones. And for sidelining Mor as soon as she can't write graphic scenes with her fucking men because now she's a lesbian so we best get her off the page so the guys can get their cocks out some more.

And honestly... as much as I love the idea of gwyn x azriel ... I think his books would need a lot more focus on his own recovery/growth and not center on a romantic relationship. If anything, I hope it’s written as friends to lovers so az has a better way of interacting and forming relationships with women. Because right now... well, that shit is borderline predatory and isn’t coming across well. And I really really do not want that for him.

This is going to sound sarcastic but I actually mean it fully and completely genuinely: 95% of the drama inducing problems in this series could be fixed with some fucking therapy.

But I agree with you. I think it's high time Azriel worked on his own issues. Even if they've apparently made a complete 180 from what they were in ACOMAF.

I...Like the concept of Gwyn/Azriel, but I'm not sold on the ship. Not with the way Maas has been writing Azriel lately. That kind of man shouldn't be with any woman right now. But especially not a rape survivor who sees him as one of the first men she's been able to trust in a long time.

Basically, azriel deserves a better arc than what has been written for him. I miss him :( he used to be a character that made me feel safe and now :/ idk anymore

"he used to be a character that made me feel safe" - This shit hit me like a tonne of bricks because this is EXACTLY how I feel about Az, too. You just managed to say it in a few words instead of 12 pages of rambling, like I do.

And I think this was intention. Azriel was presented as a very dependable character. He rescued Mor, and was respectful enough to keep his distance, despite his feelings, for 500 fucking years. Because he didn't think she was ready/interested.

He had a very calm, and calming air about him. Always in control of himself. Without the expected bursts of aggression and temper we'd seen from...Every other male character in this series. He was stable, and solid, and that was comforting. An anchor. And someone who would quietly, and without fuss, seek out Mor/others when they needed someone to talk to or comfort him.

That was a very soothing, reassuring presence in the book, I felt. And now she's made him seem...volatile, and unstable. With this dangerous anger that he can't control, that he uses not to protect, but to intimidate, and to fuel his entitlement and desires.

it's just sad. It's sad that she's taken this away from Mor, but also from other survivors who found comfort and safety in Az. Because I'm sure we weren't alone in that regard.

I miss him. And I mourn the character he was, and feel anger for the character he should have been. but instead he's become yet another possessive, entitled, snarling cardboard cutout dude like...everyone else.

And I ache for the Az/Mor dynamic that we had in ACOMAF. Even without it becoming romantic, there was no reason for that to be destroyed/ruined.

She could have written it that Az is the only one who knows about her sexuality, and that he pretends he's still in love with her as a shield/buffer, so no one looks too closely/to protect her and make her feel comfortable.

Instead she turned it into a soap opera style drama. And wrote it almost as though her sexuality was her cheating on him? Denying him what he deserved. And now she's just...just pussyfooting around it. And apparently he's just. Just moved on. Without them having any kind of conversation or closure at all. He just wanks off to the thought of Elain instead of Mor, now, problem solved /s

I miss what they were. I miss what he was to Mor. I miss when she had that support system, and that safety net. I miss when he protected her. And looked out for her. And understood her in a way that no one else, not even Rhys, did.

Mor deserved that. Azriel deserved that. WE deserved that. And she nuked it for some fucking twisted drama that punishes a lesbian because a man is thirsting after her. it's a fucking disgrace. I'm so fucking done with SJM, y'all. So fucking done.

#azriel acotar #azriel #morrigan actoar #elain archeron #acomaf #acosf #acotar series #anti sjm #anti acotar #i feel like i should have two separate tags for az #acomaf az #and everything else az #because he's a totally different character #even elriel shippers have to admit that? #he's not the same man he was presented to us as #maybe i'll just #just write a fix it fic #that just #just fucking takes everything post ACOMAF and fixes everything she's done dirty to the side characters #i won't actually do that #because it would destroy literally all of my fucking sanity #but i might write fix it/fuck canon Az/Mor dynamic #because i miss them #and i crave to explore the concept of platonic mates #which they do very well #anyway #anonymous #taryn answers #long post #acotar meta