#just very badly traumatized and coping poorly

[ase-trollplays]

The Moves You Didn't Make, and the Mistakes You Did

Thiomi stared up at the ceiling of her hospital room and sighed forlornly. Alternia was a cruel and unkind place, a hard lesson she was once again reminded of the during two weeks she was kidnapped and held prisoner, unsure if she would be allowed to live or ordered to die. The mutilation of her face and arms recorded for her best friend to see was an acrid and tainted icing on the cruelty cake.

However, there was still the occasional kindness of strangers, two such acts leading her to where she was now. The first act came in the form of a long haul trucker who spotted her on the barren road miles from the city who took pity on her. After he dropped her off at his destination in the city, the second act of kindness came from a blue blood with blue-dyed hair and matching blue jacket who escorted her to the hospital after she informed him of her full injuries. Despite her protests and insistence that he needn't waste his wealth on her, he informed the staff he would be paying for all of her medical costs and provided his address so they could mail him the bill.

She could barely thank him through her tears, though part of her was sure this act of charity would blow back on her in a terrible way in the future.

The nurse had asked if he she had quadrants she would like to call. The first one she contacted was her matesprit whose heart she could hear shatter over the phone as he pleaded for her location and told her he was on the way before hastily hanging up. Her second call was to--

"Where's Thiomi Shiaka??! I ain't leavin' outta here b'fore I see she's okay with my own eyes!"

The troll she hoped to take as a moirail. A decision she would very soon come to regret.

Corali stormed into her room and froze like a deer in the headlights when she laid eyes on Thiomi in her bed. The harshness of her arrival was all but forgotten as she walked to her bedside, looked her over with a pained, pitiful expression, and leaned over the side railing to give her a hug so gentle it was if she was afraid of breaking her if she held her too tightly. Thiomi reached up to put her arms around her, but a sudden sharp pain in both limbs forced her to set them back down on the bed. Corali immediately let go and backed away at least three feet with both hands raised.

"S-shit, did I hurtcha??" she sputtered, and Thiomi shook her head with a pained wince.

"No, it's not that. I just... hurt my s-stitches," she answered and looked down at her wrists where the long cuts ended. The rustblood approached again and gently took one of Thiomi's hands in her, then lightly trailed up her arm with her flesh and blood hand. She had stitches nearly all the way up her arm, and she was willing to bet the other arm was in just as bad shape. She then reached up and rubbed a thumb against one of the bandages on Thiomi's face hiding the deep slices in her cheeks. The yellows of Corali's eyes, which were already a light orange, turned umber with a mix of rage and sadness.

"... I'm glad yer okay. I mean, okay as ya can be, considerin'... y'know," she finally said, though part of Thiomi resented her words. "Where's Dan? I'm s'prised he didn't beat me here."

"He's s-still on the way... I don't think the empress herself could do anything to s-stop him," Thiomi answered with a hefty amount of guilt of her own. She never got a chance to explain anything to him before she was taken. The call from her hospital bed was the first time she spoke to him since her abduction, and she knew he was beating himself up for not somehow realizing something was wrong and flying to her aid. Her only relief was that Varoll was blissfully unaware of all of this, and she would stay that way if Thiomi could help it. A child shouldn't have that kind of stress and upset.

The two spent a few moments in silence as Corali took a seat next to the hospital bed and held her head in her hands in frustration. Thiomi stared down at her lap with her brows furrowed and her normally gentle eyes narrowed every so slightly. She clenched the blanket covering her lower body in her fists.

"S-so... when did you relapse?" Thiomi asked, suddenly curt. Corali went wide-eyed and still as words failed her. Thiomi didn't turn to face her, but Corali could feel her judging and critical glare all the same. "You s-smell like a brewery. How many nights did you s-spend drinking? Does Darius know?"

Corali could feel anxiety creeping in. "Is... Is now really the time ta be talkin' about my sobriety? Y'all just survived bein' held hostage an' tortured. I--"

"Was s-she right when s-she s-said you were s-spending every night getting drunk? Did you even try to find me?" she asked with a growing venom in her voice. Corali stared at her in hurt and confusion at where this sudden vitriol was coming from.

"Thiomi, I... Okay, yeah, I relapsed, but-- Fuck, I was fallin' apart at the seams! I didn't know if y'all were alive'r dead, my job got bombed an' I wound up gettin' fired again! An' the whole time I'm bein' taunted by that psychotic bitch! I cracked! I was scared an' mad an' anxious an'--"

"Do you have any idea what it's like to s-spend every night not knowing whether you're going to live to s-see the next one? Do you know how it feels to fully, truly realize how unsafe you are? Have you ever been s-so s-scared that you cried yourself to s-sleep every day praying for your life to be s-spared? Praying that if you are killed, your loved ones won't be targeted next? Do you???"

Thiomi finally looked at her friend with tears and a burning anger in her eyes so intense Corali momentarily felt her blood turn to ice in her veins. Words completely and utterly failed her. She opened her mouth to talk -- She made three attempts -- but no explanation or justification ever formed.

"Th-Thiomi, where's this all comin' fro--"

"You didn't answer me. Did you even try to find me?" Thiomi repeated, her quiet voice doing little to counter the deafening volume of her disappointment and tranquil fury. She knew that, more than likely, Corali never would have found her. Thiomi herself didn't even know where she was kept, but that wasn't the point. Joclyn mockingly told her that Corali wasn't looking for her, that she hadn't even made any attempt, that she was spending all of her nights at hive getting plastered and wallowing. At first she was sad, devastated even. However, as she was carved on camera, that sadness turned into a slow burning anger.

An anger that was finally coming to the surface. This was Corali's fault.

Corali said nothing and bit her lip with enough force to reopen the puncture wounds from the other night. The lack of verbal response was all the confirmation Thiomi needed. Her sympathy well was now barren and dry.

"Her name's Joclyn, and s-she's a jade. S-she hired the troll who kidnapped me. Whoever s-she hired probably doesn't like her s-since they were willing to tell me about her," Thiomi told her dryly and looked away from Corali and back down at her lap. Corali felt like she got whiplash from the sudden change of subject.

"Wha--"

"They were also really cold, like ice, s-so they might be a s-seadweller. If s-she could hire a s-seadweller, s-she probably has or knows s-someone with a lot of money. Probably a highblood."

Corali tried to take in everything Thiomi was saying. However, she wouldn't get the chance to ask any more questions as she was interrupted before she even had the chance to open her mouth.

"Go away."

"Wh... Y'all can't be serious. Yer throwin' me out?"

"No. I'm telling you to leave me alone. S-security will be the ones to throw you out if you don't." Thiomi's tone was like ice: Cold, harsh, and unforgiving. She reached for the button to call for a nurse, but she didn't press it. This was the final warning the rust would be given, a silent threat. Corali furrowed her brow and gritted her teeth before harshly exhaling through her nose and rising to her feet.

"Arright, I'm goin," she acquiesced and walked toward the door. However, she stopped abruptly in the doorway and turned her head to look at the angry, traumatized woman. "An' fer yer information, I know exactly what all that's like. I know all that an' more'n y'all've ever seen. When ya stop bein' pissed at me, ask me about my childhood. I gave y'all the cliffnotes b'fore. Next time, I'm tellin' it all."

And with that, Corali exited the room and stomped toward the elevators to take her back down to the first floor. She kept mentally going over the information Thiomi gave her: A jade named Joclyn with enough money to hire a seadweller to work for her, and Corali at some point hurt one of her quadmates.

She didn't have everything figured out just yet, but she swore that as soon as she found her -- And she would find her -- she was going to make her regret what she put Thiomi through for the rest of her life.

All five minutes of it.

#things to read #Delayed Reaction #Thiomi Shiaka #Corali Primer #Roll With The Punches #angry Thiomi is so rare and I love when she comes out #she's not genuinely angry though #just very badly traumatized and coping poorly

[foxymoxynoona]

Hi, me again 😶

I appreciate the lengthy answer you gave my ask. (I obviously can't read the tone through text, but you didn't seem as annoyed as i thought you might be(?) so that's a lowkey win for me actually explaining why i sent the first ask(?) Lol)

Also yeah, no, i wasn't 'cockblocked'. Amended isn't a fic i go to for that kind of instant gratification :) Out of all four, it was the only one i actually wanted to read at first (only followed by TL, but not soon after) And it wasn't for the sex, I read the tags.

With that out of the way,

I tried thoroughly answering your answer (lol) but I kept running in circles and not being able to properly articulate what I'm thinking, so I'm just going to write a shorter version :)

I think it does eventually come down to what you said about Amended being intended more for readers who personally relate than for those who don't.

While I've obviously had certain negative life experiences, i doubt they can be seen as traumatic. Or if they can, they're nowhere near Isabella's level. I suppose i've also had different coping mechanisms than her so that's probably another one of the reasons I didn't think all of her reactions were justified. It's all a question of whether it made sense to me or not. Did jk's behavior look faultless to me? No. But I could understand jk's p.o.v more than hers, even if he was wrong in some of his assumptions and didn't voice them calmly. Sometimes I wish they could read each other's minds..

I did, however, understand the analogies you made and they did give me a better understanding of why she acts the way she does.

Honestly I was surprised there even was another sex scene in this chapter. Thought they'd talk about it properly before attempting again. But noPe :) I'm rather apprehensive about the date and how Jungkook's.. "plans" are going to go, considering everything..

------------------

I do appreciate you truthfully picturing the process of her overcoming parts of her past trauma and learning that it's okay to trust someone again. It's just quite difficult to grasp the depth and gravity of her trauma from an.. "outsider" 's perspective 😅

-👀

Hello again 👀!

First, I do want to apologize that my joke about being cockblocked sounds like it landed poorly. I had not read your initial comment as being very serious (since it just said you were annoyed with Isabella) so I responded in what I understand the tone to be. I'm sorry I misunderstood that initial ask!

Second of all, I'm not annoyed! I find and hope all these discussions are actually useful for anyone reading. Mental health is a big, huge aspect of life that I just feel like is so poorly represented or discussed. I have had serious anxiety all my life (without even knowing it! I thought that's just how everyone's brain worked!) but when I had my first major depressive episode, I remember after I was out of it being like: holy shit. I did not understand what depression was before this! Even now, it's hard for me to fully recall how utterly potato I was because it seems impossible that I was that way but I was! Our brains map the world and our place in it, and it can be challenging to get into the head of someone whose brain functions very differently than our own. So that's all to say, I think talking about these things is valuable to broaden our own understanding of ourselves and the people around us who navigate the world differently than we may.

One thing I think is worth pointing out in this story too that hasn't actually come up tonight: JK in this story also has trauma. And he also went through a period of deep pain that caused him to isolate himself and hurt the people around him badly. And his traumas still influence how he behaves. Isabella is his first "real" relationship. Remember how hurt Miranda was when he committed to her without committing to her?? And then didn't tell her he'd fucking gotten MARRIED? We just are seeing JK further along in his healing journey because he has been in a safe, loving, supportive place for far longer than Isabella has, and he always had family love and support, even at his worst (in high school when he really hurt Isabella). Isabella didn't have that. She has been alone and is now having to learn how to function without being in survival mode all the time. It may be worth everyone remembering that this isn't a story where JK stumbled into what is definitely a relationship with someone only starting to process intense trauma. He went into this eyes wide open, and with his own experience helping him understand the fear, and the loneliness. He's not actually a saint, he's just been through something similar and he understands (at least a little) and he loves her.

As for coping mechanisms, that's another good point: they're different for everyone and just like love languages, we can most easily understand behavior similar to our own. I love learning more about the way people work, and I hope my stories can help readers learn more beyond their own experiences or patterns as well, like how to recognize other love languages or coping or defense mechanisms.

Jimin actually called JK out on one of his this chapter: "you'll have sex with her before you love her because you're confident about sex." Is it worth thinking how different this story might be if Jungkook had been honest with Isabella at any point in their relationship about the love and guilt and regret he has from how he treated her when they were younger? Maybe not, but maybe!

And finally, as for sex: I had actually expected a lot of people to be upset about them having sex before they'd resolved more, haha. Because it's totally fair to theorize they jumped the gun getting physical! But they did it! Because they're horny for each other! It was a big step forward though before they were really ready to talk about some of the Big Feelings that might come up for either of them. They are a couple that tends to take a big leap and then scramble to figure out wtf they just did

Anyway, hope all this gives some more food for thought!

#👀anon #amended #asks

[ssaalexblake]

the reactions to 13′s Terrible mental health are kind of. Wild. In some places. She is in the middle of a breakdown in s12, she is refusing to talk, which is her right, but it’s also not good for her either at all and is actively contributing to her still deteriorating mental situation, simply because the isolation she’s Actively angry at the whole season is something she has enforced and caused by her own bad coping mechanisms. 

Her in general anger at her own isolation and being misunderstood by the fam is actively used by her at times to be angry at the fam when She’s the one enforcing it, which is Definitely a line crossed.  It is okay to not be okay, but even when you’re not okay you don’t get to do stuff like that (lbr, they’ll never get an apology for baring any of the storm of her moods in s12). 

She’s also not got the spoons to really deal with anybody else’s problems (she can do Epic Hero Saves, but that’s her form of escape, that’s not mentally taxing to her, but she doesn’t have it in her to offer much in any way of mental support),  she’s too wrapped up in her own problems that she lacks constructive ways to process and deal with, let alone anybody else’s. Again, fair, not to be condemned. 

She just. Doesn’t Know how to deal with her problems. And not all of her reactions and actions in s12 were okay, at all. Most of it was unhealthy, which is one thing and a lot of what she gets condemned for is Not fair or okay, but on the flip side, her behavior was, actually, sometimes unacceptable and to say she’s completely innocent and some weird uwu thing is just as poor of a take as the complete condemnation. 

I’m just in general frustrated, she needed help dealing with her trauma, saying that is not bad? She was clearly making her own situation even Worse by her own actions, simply because she lacked the skills to process it. That’s not a thing to condemn her for, but also, ‘she should just work it out herself’ as a take imo has an edge of genuine cruelty to it because like... She’s not going to because as established, she lacked the tools to do so. It is basically the ‘sit and watch somebody suffer’ route. She deserves support. Wanting somebody to give her tools to heal or just in general survive is not controlling or out of line, it’s compassion. 

She is traumatized, unable to heal herself, unwilling to let the fam in but Also taking it out on people around her. Trauma and mental illness is not a free pass to treat people as poorly as you wish. Ever. She may have a good reason for acting as she does, and i could write out a long essay on her reactions and how they make sense for the character, but that’s not an excuse, merely a reason, she should not have treated people around her badly, full stop (like, even the lousy people. She tore Strips out of Kane even Before she knew exactly what she’d done, it was not a logical condemnation of character, she wanted somebody to treat that way and she found one, it was just coincidence she’d zeroed in on a Genuinely shitty person). 

tldr? totally condemning her for her behaviour in s12 is unfair, but not holding her accountable for her own poor behaviour due to trauma is also not right, she Did behave poorly. Wanting her to have help healing is not shitty, it’s basically what the fam were trying to do and i’m very tired of them being condemned for how Well they handled all of this despite their enforced ignorance. Nobody could have Forced her to get help, but the sentiment that people would wish she’d have some is compassionate, not cruel or an attempt at controlling her against her wishes. She was suffering and a big part of that was through her own poor coping mechanisms, wanting that fixed so she’d Not suffer or make the people around her suffer either is merely a compassionate wish, not an effort to Force her be a better person or something?????

Sometimes it just sucks to watch people suffer, and you watch, even when it’s on a tv show, and wish they’d get help so they wouldn’t continue to. See; ‘Can You Hear Me?’. 

#dw shit #it's controversial monday today!!!!!! #last week it was tuesday #but honestly i'm really done with the no shades of grey approach to 13 in s12 #she behaved Badly sometimes #even While she is being condemned unfairly #some of the comments that she needs to fix her own behaviour are very much true #and when your bad coping stretches to taking it out on others you actually Do have an obligation to fix it and she went there but #middle ground and all #i didn't like watching her suffer and would like her to have the tools to Not do that

[wanna-b-poet31]

A (expect a part 5) 4-Part Good Omens Meta Part 4: Crowley’s 5 Harmful Coping Skills + 1 That Heals

So Expect a part 5 maybe tomorrow maybe the next day, and perhaps a part 6. Honestly, the Ineffable Duo has a lot of trauma and abuse issues that deserve more time and energy than my metas, but I hope this helps unpack some??? of their experiences and helps explain their recovery journies. Obligatory apology for somehow turning into a Good Omens blog overnight

So what you missed on these outrageously long metas

Part 1 TLDR:  Crowley’s love for Aziraphale helps heal him from the abuses of Heaven 

Part 2 TLDR:  Aziraphale’s love helps Crowley cope with his trauma and their no-strings-attached relationship enables him to begin healthier healing processes despite the abuses of Heaven and Hell.  

Part 3 TLDR:  Aziraphale’s abuse doesn’t allow him to cope with the fact his bosses and his instincts are telling him to do 2 very different things. He manages to cope but only by using denial and repression...which is hella unhealthy. It is only when he finally puts down his defenses and being honest with himself that he is not in a good place in Heaven, but he is in a good place with Crowley, that he can start working toward recovery.

The Road So Far:

So Where Aziraphale is badly abused and Traumatized by Heaven and the fear of falling,  Crowley lived it, he fell, he lost his sense of self, and he struggles with isolation. In short, it’s much, much worse. While I’ll be arguing his coping mechanisms are not AS toxic as Aziraphale’s (which, let’s be honest that’s a low bar considering how deep in denial Aziraphale is), he still doesn’t cope with his loss in a healthy manner. 

This being said, Crowley IS further along his recovery path than Aziraphale, it is their relationship with the angel that allows him to finally come to terms with his issues and start forming healthy strategies for overcoming, or coping with, his considerable loss.  

CROWLEY (please someone >Aziraphale< give him a hug)

So whereas Aziraphale is drinking some top-shelf quality Repression and Denial, Crowley is not allowed such a luxury. Unlike his angel who will not/ cannot touch his trauma with a 10 and a half meter pole, Crowley is intimately aware that he is fallen, and that that kind of loss (abandonment) does not heal easily.

First, he is shown to believe that he is responsible for all of the bad things that have happened in the world. For example, he takes responsibility for things “humans beat him to”. but we can see (in the book at least) that many of the horrific terrors (like the Spanish Inquisition) caused him so much pain he drank for a week. Also, he frequently says things to the effect of “I am bad” (i.e. I’m not nice), “I am undeserving of love” (i.e. I’m unforgivable), and “no one can be trusted (i.e. the trees have ears). 

Ultimately, this trauma manifests in low self-esteem for the demon, and enforces his reckless, and often destructive, behavior. All of this negative perspective stems from losing supposedly unconditional love, and Hell’s expectations for him as an “evil” demon.  

You can see some of this at work when Aziraphale says “I hope you are forgiven” and Crowley responds “I’m unforgivable”. As noted in Part 2, this interaction demonstrates Crowley’s low approximation of himself. Worse, it also indicates that he has internalized the idea that he, by mere providence of his being a demon, is unworthy of love, forgiveness, and unconditional care. Since Heaven tossed him out, and his genius is unappreciated in Hell, he is isolated from the rest of the divine creatures for his humanity, as he is isolated from humanity by his divinity. He does not see himself as worth forgiveness, attention, or any “positive” emotion. 

Because his self-esteem has been thoroughly broken by God, he fails to properly assign blame. Meaning, when he should be pointing to the key abuser (in this case God) as the reason for his abandonment, he instead blames himself and other demons for falling. 

Let me reiterate again, Crowley is not at fault for being cast out. It was God who, in her abusive “wisdom” chose to cast him out and banish him from his home. In reality, he didn’t “saunter vaguely downwards” or “hung around the wrong crowd” or “simply asked questions”, he was tossed out. Each of his “reasons” for being a demon is not an act of reclaiming his identity. He is not saying “I left because you are an abusive power hungry parent and this needs to stop”. Instead, he’s saying “I’m looking for a reason to justify why I was abandoned”. Each of his responses places the blame on him for his lack of etherial-ness do not directly address the cast-outer as the one at fault.   

Consequently, he constantly has outbursts of anger (see: screaming at plants),  guilt (see: apologizing to Aziraphale for “whatever I said, I didn’t mean it, Look at me I’m apologizing, now get into the car”), and shame (see: his response whenever he talks about falling, because it’s not pride or joy, but fear and sadness producing shame).  He also has a significant about of fear that he won’t be successful, that the earth will end, and that motivates his desires to Run. The. Fuck. Away. 

Although I can not and will not diagnose Crowley with PTSD, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America Crowley demonstrates many worrisome behaviors that come with untreated or poorly treated trauma, causing negative effects to recovery from abuse.    

By and large, Crowley responds to the trauma of falling not by denying and avoiding, but by internalizing all of the negative stereotypes placed onto him. Where many of the other demons revel in their designation, truly trying to kill and undo humanity, Crowley doesn’t do that.  Instead, he finds other, unhealthy outlets for his trauma. 

This is also followed emphasized by his aggressive behavior and irritability towards practically everyone, sentient or not (his plants count).  Along with his reckless and often self-destructive behavior (like speeding, drinking, yelling, saving Aziraphale, and running away to Alpha Centauri).

Like Speeding:

While Crowley’s Bentley is practically his child, and he does love it, he drives recklessly in it. There is something to be said about the miracles he presumably places around it to avoid disaster, Aziraphale’s correct in pointing out that it is, without a doubt, DANGEROUS behavior. 

We see 3 different instances where Crowley is straight out a reckless driver. First, while delivering the anti-christ he is so consumed with his fear for the end of the world that he almost crashes into oncoming traffic. Second, he HITS Anathema on her bike (which under normal circumstances could have resulted in his, Aziraphale’s or Anathema’s death). Third, he drives THROUGH hellfire, and across the English countryside with a car on fire. Yes, I know that he survives because “damn it he’d started in the Bentley, he’d end in the Bentley”. But, as we see with Hathur, the fire is normally deadly (inconveniently discorporated-ly) even to Demons. His desperation is noted, but also dangerous and reckless. 

Each of these reckless instances is in direct response to traumatic triggers. Namely: the fall, rejection, and death. 

Almost hit by a semi-truck? It is likely that the end of the world, the end of humanity, and the celestial war to follow is reminiscent of the first rebellion. I mean, the first war that would have resulted in Crowley’s fall. Being tasked with delivering the very thing what will make the “end times” realized is a hard reminder of the “beginning times”. 

Actually hitting a girl on a bike? He’s talking to Aziraphale about love and as someone who has been rejected (several times at this point) by the said angel, and we can tell based on the 1970′s rejection, that it’s not a healed wound. His relationship with Aziraphale is one of the healthiest in the whole series, as well as, I wager, the most healing ones. But, it doesn’t work if/when Crowley is afraid of rejection or reminded of the 7(ish) times he’d been rejected previously. 

Your car’s on fire?  What’s the “perfect” response to being stuck on the M25 while something that could “kill” you surrounds all of London? Why not drive right through it? No! We, the audience, can tell that’s a terrible idea, but, because Crowley’s self-preservation skills are 0 and Hathur just threatened to kill him (and alluded to the death of Aziraphale again which, we will be getting to) it’s the only response to the threat he can figure out.  It is only by a miracle (perhaps many) that he doesn’t die in the car fire. 

Like Drinking

Although both Aziraphale and Crowley indulge in drinking, with an assumed frequency, Crowley uses it as a coping mechanism when faced with his traumatic triggers. He drinks because it’s the end of the world and needs to not be rejected by Aziraphale. He drinks because he’s scared about what the end of the world means and having nowhere to go. He drinks because Harthur mentions his fall. He drinks because Aziraphale’s bookshop burned down and likely died. 

Yes, you could say that because he’s demonic, and alcohol doesn’t have the “same” impact on him as it might someone else, he uses it as a crutch to process a lot of his fears and trauma. And, regardless of the effect, getting drunk/drinking heavily is not a healthy coping mechanism. We can see this fantastically displayed when he has hit rock bottom and his only support system (all of 1 angel, Aziraphale) up and dies on him. He has no other place to process his trauma except at the bottom of a whiskey bottle.  This is not healthy and does not allow him to process the grief and retraumatization he’s experiencing with the loss of his best friend. It is only Aziraphale who can pull Crowley out of the stupor he’s in, because Aziraphale is the only reliable thing in Crowley’s life, and even he comes with a few triggers. 

Like Yelling

Although I like to think he doesn’t actually destroy his plants for “disappointing him. We can’t know that. We can only know that, with little prompting, he can and does fly off the handle and yell, scream, and yell abuse at his plants. Now, while it sorta seems like his plants are semi-sentient, in general, this coping mechanism isn’t the worst. However, it too does not get at the root of his problem, being cast out of Eden. He needs to address the elephant in the room which is, that he, in this scenario, is taking his anger out on plants which did nothing wrong JUST LIKE God treated him. It can be therapeutic, to enact and confront the issues he's’ dealing with, but without the confrontation part, reenacting his cast-out moment only serves to reinforce that he, not God, is at fault for his fall. Which is decidedly unhealthy. 

Like Saving his angel

I love in Episode 3 we see just how head over heels in love Crowley is for Aziraphale. However, this often comes at >surprise surprise< great personal pain or danger. He cannot walk on consecrated ground without causing himself a great personal injury. However, he can’t stand the death of Aziraphale more. It is clear that when faced with the loss of his one friend/lover/partner, he would walk 500 miles of consecrated ground, and then walk 500 more just to be the one to see Aziraphale happy at his door. 

Normally, Demons are specifically unable to enter holy sites, or else be burned or otherwise injured. Despite this! He does into the church anyway for no other reason than to save Aziraphale. 

Now, I love this. This moment makes me happy and we get to see Aziraphale also recognize how in love Crowley is with him. BUT doing so is reckless and dangerous, and there was a non-zero chance he may have been harmed in a similar manner to Holy Water.  Continuously placing himself in these kinds of dangerous places (like in the 1970′s) is destructive and could even constitute a form of self-harm. Aziraphale certainly thinks so (at least the dangerous part) when he tries to talk Crowley out of the heist. Azi goes out of his way to ensure Crowley won’t go into a church and harm himself again and knows only giving him Holy water will ensure there won’t be another (maybe) self-harm repeat. 

Like Running Away

Crowley doesn’t avoid things like Aziraphale does. But, he does, as a last-ditch effort, use it as his only tool for coping with the prospective loss of Aziraphale from his life. But like with yelling at his plants, it doesn’t cope with the trauma of loss, or rejection, or death. It only puts off the stress and distracts from the events he needs to focus on. He, at this moment, NEEDS to focus on the end of the world, no matter how painful it is. He needs to focus and get Aziraphale out of the pit of denial and repression. He needs to be on his own side, creating a plan to save humanity. But he wants so badly to run away, and live, happily ever after with Aziraphale. Unfortunately, he can’t without working through some of his underlying issues first.

Plus The Like One Healthy Coping Mechanism

Which brings me to my whole reason for this meta. A brief look at the one healthy coping mechanism he has developed in his life. It is only his relationship with Aziraphale that Crowley can healthily begin his recovery journey.  He works so damn hard for his relationship with Aziraphale, and using it to confront his fears and triggers is a healthy approach to an otherwise traumatic life. 

Aziraphale is his support system. He is the person he relies on the most to be honest, true, loving, and appreciative of humanity. Together, they both work to lift each other up, validate their concerns and worries, and ensure that they can focus and tackle the underlying trauma they otherwise can’t cope with. 

When Cowley does not have a support system (read: Aziraphale) he is unable to channel his trauma into a productive way (see part 2 for more details). Moreover, each of his other coping mechanisms does not deal with his significant trust issues which results from the fall. God certainly doesn’t love him, the angels don’t trust him, and many of the demons think he’s “gone native”. But Aziraphale? Aziraphale trusts and loves him like an equal. He talks to him with more care and reverence than anyone else who has ever existed. Together, the two of them work as equals, trying to make sure the world breaks even.  

Which makes his frequent rejections and repressed feeling for Crowley all the more painful. It’s also not that Aziraphale means to hurt Crowley, but where he is in his recovery journey, he simply doesn’t have enough tools to confront his heavenly abuse. And, to be fair, for the most part, Crowley is understanding and patient. Crowley is more than willing to find the speed he needs to go to make Aziraphale comfortable so they can be on the same page.

Crowley already sees the writing on the wall. He knows that he needs someone to love, and that’s his best friend. He knows that through developing healthy, consistent communication and telling the truth (being vulnerable to that rejection and not isolating himself)  is he able to begin overcoming the memory of his fall. However, they both need to see the that they’re their own side for it to go from “a celestial security blanket” to “a healthy and healing relationship”. To get through their trauma, they need both of them are on board and seeing each other as equals.  And Crowley knows that. 

The shift to 100% “healthy coping system” is most easily seen at the end of the series where, after being tortured (I see you, Gabriel, you abusive asshole). While he knows the hellfire won’t kill him, there’s still a trauma inherent in knowing his <lover> would not have. Moreover, there’s trauma inherent in not getting a trial from the supposed “good guys”. While Crowley takes glee in scaring the angels, it’s not an easy space to be in. However, once both Aziraphale-as-Crowley and Crowley-as-Aziraphale make it back to the park, they are able to cope with their joint traumatic experiences together. No secrets. No lies. No “my side won’t like it”. Just the two of them, working through their issues together.

TLDR: The 5 harmful coping mechanism of Anthony J. Crowley, and the 1 that helps him (so long as they’re both aware they’re in this together).

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

#ineffable husbands #crowley and aziraphale #good omens #tw: mentions of abuse #tw: mentions of self harm #recovery #meta #good omens meta #crowley #aziraphale #gabriel #the ineffable plan #these two are in love #I hope someone reads this #tw: trauma #thanks for coming to my tedtalk #please send feedback if you like this series #Anathema #Newt #Adam #good omens spoilers #aziraphale/crowley #crowley/aziraphale #the ineffable husbands #expect a part 5

[dogcopter]

Rose is Lion Liveblog episode 45: Rose’s Scabbard Part One (long)

Rose is Liveblog 2020 Masterlist

(recap/summary: I’m liveblogging every Lion appearance in SU in order to emphasize that he is obviously the heinous, beautiful Rose Quartz in disguise. This episode in particular is a smoking gun like Escapism)

Lion takes center stage opposite Pearl in Rose’s Scabbard. Steven learns a bit about him, and about Rose. This episode, Lion’s revelatory behavior towards Pearl stands out.

Lion looks unhappy to be here. He is unhappy because he is Rose Quartz, and has thousands of years of regrets.

Pearl suggests Steven rob a grave and also that he get Lion obedience training. Lion appears to follow a magic butterfly through the strawberry patch. 

Steven says “We’re making progress. Now he looks at me when I say his name!” and calls to Lion, who ignores him.

Lion digs up Rose’s Scabbard.

Pearl’s jaw drops.

“That’s the scabbard to Rose’s sword!”

She tries to yank it from Lion’s mouth. He’s annoyed, because it was for Steven, not her.

Lore concept: In this episode, it’s made clear that Lion knows Pearl, likes her, and cares about her to some extent. These things are true of Rose Quartz, but new to Lion’s characterization.

Lion resists at first, but is defeated. Pearl shoos him away. 

One of Lion’s most consistent traits thus far is not giving a shit about what anyone around him is doing, but this episode, he’s attentive to Pearl. Why’s he making eye contact with Pearl and reacting personally? IMO that is super obviously Rose Quartz.

Look at this exchange. Lion often has ambiguous expressions, but that looks like a smile. Lol.

Although he “spoke” to Steven in Lion and Lion 2, at this point in the series he has only recently shown real affection toward Steven, in Lion 3. There’s also a whole running gag in almost all of his appearances that he doesn’t care what Steven wants or cares about because he’s a cat. He’s hardly ever attentive to Steven’s requests, with the exception of Rose lore. 

Amethyst hugged him once onscreen, in Ocean Gem, and he and Pearl watched Steven sleep and she spoke at him once. The only other character he’s interacted with at any length onscreen is Connie, and they will become close later in the series because Rose Quartz loves Imagination and Connie is an MG fantasy protagonist. At this point, Connie and Lion had a couple of moments: his interest in her in Lion 2 and cooperating to rescue Steven in Ocean Gem. But aside from how he acted in Lion 2 he really hasn’t been social like this.

Lion snorts in Pearl’s face when she shoos him, annoying her. 

“Mom fought here?” “That’s right! And I fought alongside her.” (said while alongside Lion)

A teary-eyed Pearl recounts the glory of Rose Quartz. 

Garnet tries to keep it real, but Pearl at this point in the series is still coping via Rose Quartz fanfiction, which has been her coping mechanism ever since a clown dressed up as her hot OC 6,000 years ago, so naturally, she associates telling epic RQ stories with inspiring her charge (Steven) in an effort to fill the void...

Anyway she says “Here we made our stand against our Homeworld!” and a half-truth, “We won!” Winning meaning the Earth not being colonized I suppose. 

We don’t get to see Lion’s reaction to this. Probably as he is Rose Quartz he is thinking things like, “At one point listening to a Rose Quartz story GMH but now the lies are too bitter” or “this is almost definitely where I betrayed my best friend and biggest fan, the #1 Crystal Gem, Bismuth. I am a bad person” or maybe “It sucks that approx. 5,300 years ago all these people believed in the cause and now they’re digimons in bubbles in the basement and I feel personally responsible” or maybe just “It’s sad to see Pearl like this.” there are layers. Or maybe he feels nothing at all because Rose is still working on empathy! It’s probably a mix of different things.

Steven is dazzled, ofc, which is what matters.

Next part of the ep lacks Lion but recap: Pearl wants to show Steven a SECRET SECRET Rose place, secret even to Amethyst and Garnet! They travel on foot and she carries him up a cliff without a belay. Steven has already been there via Lion, which breaks Pearl’s fragile hard-light projection heart in two. Then he smashes it to bits under his heel by knowing where Rose’s long-lost sword is.

Reiterating: Lion knew about the cave because he is Rose Quartz. This was a very secret home base for Pearl and Rose’s eyes only. 

Arguably, sure, Rose could have traveled around the world with Lion showing him places, especially places she’d rather forget, but Lion being Rose just fits better when you consider both information (lore) and behavior (personality). 

Steven Universe Future relevant characterization meta sidenote: This LB is about Lion, but by extension it’s also about Rose and Steven. Here’s another formative moment: Steven is really excited to show Pearl he knows where Rose’s sword is. This is an occasion where Steven is trying to be helpful, but everything goes poorly and he thinks it’s his fault. Pearl was overjoyed to bring him to a dangerous place full of secrets, both canonically core elements of Steven’s desire for bonding activities with the gems (For example, Secret Team, Serious Steven). He also loves learning more about his mom and yearns for lore on her (Story for Steven, Lion 3).

Steven’s dream came true today, he got a dangerous adventure and a bonding moment where he also learns about his mom. He doesn’t realize the glorious war stories are lies/coping mechanisms, he’s still a hundred episodes away from learning the terrible truth about Pink Diamond, and he has not a single clue this will upset Pearl or how badly. He’s just trying to show her something cool like she did for him. She falls apart and then he spends the rest of the episode “picking up the pieces”. 

Pearl: “Rose’s sword. How did it get in there?” 

(Lion: Oh boy.) Steven: “I don’t know! But there’s a ton of stuff in there!”

Steven:  “I keep stuff in him, too.” (Lion: STEVEN DON’T TELL HER THAT)

Lion’s face is doing this as Steven says this because he’s Rose Quartz. He just realized Steven might tell the Crystal Gems that Bismuth has unjustly imprisoned for over five millennia, or bring out that chest, and is bracing for impact. The childhood traumatized Rose Quartz has never been ready to face people.

Luckily Steven is an adorable fool.

Pearl: “But how?” 

Lion, who was downright chummy with Pearl earlier, doesn’t want her messing with the mane.

After all, Lion isn’t just a secret Rose kept from Pearl. He’s like a series of secrets within secrets Rose kept from Pearl. And he’s Rose, actively keeping herself secret from Pearl. And that is kind of a bummer.

See, he makes so much eye contact with her this ep. He’s not acting like he did in others; he’s probably spent more time onscreen caring about Pearl than about Steven at the moment. 

I’m so proud of Pearl for her growth and that she was able to talk secrets eventually, this was a rough period for her.

This is Pearl’s face as she realizes that Rose had secrets even from her, even though she is also a container of Rose’s secrets. (Episode title drop)  “But Rose didn’t have a lion.” “It seems like her stuff in there.”

Note that we don’t see Lion’s face again for this part. I wonder if when we get the reveal, we’ll see a new side of some of these past scenes where Lion’s back is to us.

 “Rose didn’t have a lion! Because if Rose had a lion, I would have known about it.”

“Rose kept many things secret. Even from us.”

Pearl is teary-eyed again, this time actually in tears. “But not from me! I was the one she told everything!”

This is untrue. Bismuth is right there, and as recently as Volleyball, Pearl was learning new things Rose never told her. But the secret Pearl had to keep for Rose, the secret of her identity and Pink Diamond’s shattering, is so significant that the alternative is unthinkable because it changes Pearl’s self-image as much as her image of Rose. Even though at the time (and probably still, certainly at the time of this episode) doing that was her proudest moment and with the intent to break free of the system once and for all, both the trauma of what followed and of Rose’s decision to refuse Pearl the ability to speak of it had completely shaped her life from that point forward.

Not to belabor the point but Rose as Lion in this scene is witnessing the effects of what she did and of losing her on Pearl, like how he was present for the gems responding to Steven’s “death” in So Many Birthdays, or the events of “Cry For Help”.

“Yo, you’re not the only one who misses her!” We glimpse some of what Amethyst is struggling with - and details on Amethyst and Rose’s relationship are few and far between. Garnet showing genuine surprise, too. Possibly she is future visioning that Pearl is about to knock down Rose’s portrait.

Remember Lion is sitting there seeing all this. So is Steven, who just wanted to surprise and delight Pearl with the sword.

“You can’t understand how I feel! None of you had what we had!”

This one really is true, but Steven won’t learn how true until the events of Now We’re Only Falling Apart. Still no visible reaction from Lion, but he does appear to be listening attentively.

Steven echoes Pearl’s own line from earlier in an attempt to reassure her like she reassured him. Great leaders have to keep secrets to protect people! “She probably just wanted to protect you, like everybody else.”

“What do you know?” Pearl’s hurtful words cut Steven, who is only trying to help. 

”You’ve never even met her!”

Now we see Lion looking at Pearl with everyone else. Steven has taken a step back in fear.

The portrait begins to fall from the wall,

Garnet activates Sapphire speed and catches it. Lion’s back is to us once again, as is the portrait’s.

Pearl glances at Steven’s face again, looking strung out on grief and presumably fresh guilt for what she just said,

And takes off. Amethyst says, “Fine! Go cry about it!” Steven says, “Where did she go?” and Amethyst replies, “Who cares? I hate it when she gets like this.” This isn’t the first time Pearl has been upset like this since losing Rose. These are their reactions to that. 

Amethyst frustrated, maybe because Rose was the most important relationship in her life too, and Pearl’s words about being the most important devalue that. Garnet is carrying on putting the portrait away.

“Garnet?”

Garnet doesn’t answer him. She probably doesn’t know what to say. This has been the family dynamic since at least losing Rose.

Steven pushes down his own hurt feelings. Asks about Pearl instead. “Is she okay?” Garnet still doesn’t respond. This kid needs a parent to rely on!

“Well, I’m gonna go find her.”

“Do you know where she went?”

The heartbreaker Rose Quartz growls an affirmative. Unlike Garnet and Amethyst, who are exhausted by the cycle of grief they’ve been trapped in since Rose gave up her physical form & who’ve probably given up trying to talk to Pearl when she won’t (or can’t) talk to them if they tried in the first place, Lion and Steven want to chase after Pearl and do something.

Lore: Lion knows where Pearl is (The battlefield) because he is Rose Quartz.

Rose knows where Pearl would go to be upset about this (Rose, the sword, lies). Just like the armory was a place known only to Pearl and Rose, the floating island Pearl is about to leave Steven to is an unmarked location with special significance to Pearl and Rose.

Sure, we were just there and they found the sword, as the audience we need a setting established before we can return to it and it bookends the episode – but Pearl’s first line introducing the setting in the episode is:

“This was a site of a historic battle. Every weapon here was left by a gem over 5,000 years ago. I don’t like to disturb it, but Garnet said we can’t just leave these lying around.”

She describes that it was an important place because of the battle that happened there, but a place that lay mostly undisturbed for over 5,000 years, and Pearl makes it sound like she’s rarely visited since. No personal connection or feelings, really, aside from respect for the dead. It paints a very different picture from the one she projects for Steven in just a few minutes.

“Let’s go find Pearl!” Pearl left via warp pad, but Lion and Steven take a lion warp. Lion was present to hear the war stories at the beginning. 

Pearl was excited by the scabbard, but Lion would only have reason to assume she’d return there and agree to follow her with Steven if a) he actually cares about her and b) he knows something about her we don’t. Another Lion behavior detail that is odd if just Lion, makes perfect sense if Rose. 

Rose’s Scabbard Part 2

#rose is liveblog 2020 #rose is lion 2020 #steven universe #i wont put others in the public tag but when i finish each season ill do a list #This might be my favorite episode of Steven Universe. #There are a lot of strong contenders #but as a Rose is obviously Lion conspiracy theorist this one is especially beautiful and tragic.

[anonymoustoddler]

I Got Stoned And Started Typing To Post On FB (And Ended With Something That Could NEVER Get Posted)

Hah. I hit my vape pen a bunch and then this happened:

This afternoon, after taking way too many hits of my *state tested, clean and safe* vape pen, I was surfing hulu on my laptop while scrolling through facebook on my phone and playing Stardew Valley on the PS4 every few minutes in between and I suddenly, in fact altogether _casually_ thought to myself, “I wonder if I’d want kids and be able to take care of them if I made it to 38?”

And the thing is, that is literally the most positive organic thought I’ve had in my VERY busy, VERY chatty brain in almost two years. It is the first thought I have had regarding a potential future that wasn’t colored by the idea that My Mom Is Dead So Nothing I Could Do In Life Would Mean Anything Or Be Possible Because She Isn’t Here To Experience It Too Or To Help Me Through.

This stoned, distracted, completely mindless and unfocused random little insignificant thought... is the first time in over a year and a half of thinking, that did not immediately end with, “She’s Dead So You Can’t Ever Hope For That Anymore Because It Means Nothing Now That She Can’t Be There To Experience It Or Get To Be Proud Of Me For Once” and also, “Nothing Is Possible Without Her Because Without Her I’m Alone And Unable Forever Unless Someone Else Takes Over Helping Me But That Will Never Happen And I Will Never Be Ok Or Able On My Own.”

I mean, no wonder I’m doing so poorly and also dealing so badly with her death?! Being close was great in a lot of ways and awful in others. Our codependent enmeshment was deeply and traumatically unhealthy. Having to be your mother’s best and only friend at 8 years old is... really weird. And abnormal. But then, so is developing a diagnosable anxiety disorder and eating disorder at FOUR YEARS OLD is kind of abnormal too!

The thing is... some physical aspects of puberty for me started very early. VERY early. All aspects of puberty seemed to start earlier in me than a lot of girls in my class, in my grade. So maybe it makes sense too then that I would develop these psychological issues so early, particularly with the stress and fear of moving from Texas to Michigan and leaving the first friends I remember having, how terrified I was of change and meeting new people, trying to make new friends. I was so painfully and obviously shy. I was so afraid of people.

But anyway. No one caught the anxiety disorder until I did myself.... in college. I lived with a totally unchecked anxiety disorder and pretty high-but-not-yet-extreme depression from the ages of five and eleven/twelve respectively, and the first time I got ANY help was at the age of 19. No wonder I was sick for so long. The fucking eating disorder is suuuuch a perfect(ly horrifying) coping mechanism. And since it was my primary, and often only, coping mechanism for many many many years, as in almost ALL of the first two decades of my life. Two decades of drilling this into myself of How To Relieve Stress And Self Soothe = Disordered Behaviors And NOTHING ELSE.

Is it really any wonder why I’m like this??? I am dealing with the loss of my only family; my best friend by leaps and bounds and freakin lightyears; my entire and very giving safety net - so I could try something new or move away or whatever and I knew I was safe because if it didn’t work out or I tanked I could ALWAYS go home. Always.

I’m also dealing with the loss of... the person who never let me try things because she was a control freak so I could never learn from her; the person who taught me the

passive aggressive ➡️ passive aggressive ➡️ very aggressive

method of responding to interpersonal relations, which I mean... how could anything go wrong?! 🙃🙃🙃

I’m dealing with the loss of a relationship where my mom once, in all seriousness, asked me if I’d have a baby if I didn’t have to take care of it, she would take care of it for me.

Like, I know part of her was “joking” but... she wanted to be a grandmother. She wanted to see me have a career, a family, security.

But also who sort of benefited from my continued illness; my inability to cope or work; my low functionality, my constant need of help, support, and validation... they made her SO frustrated but also kept her busy and kept her from being alone, kept me with her but also sometimes was too much for her so it was upsetting, because surprise - crazy people gon turn up a notch higher than you can predict, and don’t ever forget that.

I am mourning this relationship that either fully shaped or strongly influenced almost every issue I have now. I don’t mean to shirk responsibility, just to be clear - I have to actually try as much as is literally possible to fix the things in me that are broken. I have to find a therapist and go to therapy. Trust my doctors, try a hundred different meds that might ALL make me horribly sick or even more crazy or both as side effects while still trying to build some kind of life. Maybe, eventually, find one, but also... get out of bed every day. Shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, GET OUT. Grab your coat boots keys purse and go outside. Make it into your car, drive it down a few blocks (depending on where you want coffee/are you reading a book or can you play HP there/etc), get coffee and sit and read or play a bit or work lines or whatever. Make your to do list there! Lay out a plan for the day. Schedule at least two work items then set a timed break for video games or whatever. When the alarm goes off, you MUST get back to work. Two to three more items earns a longer break to play OR taking care of any other immediate need stuff and then going out or something.

If you want to get some casual exercise, go to either mall. Walk around for Shopkick, the game, and to get your blood flowing at least a teensy bit while working out rarely used muscles and burning juuuuust a few calories.

You spend SO much goddamned money on delivery, when actually — Going out yourself is SO much better for you. It is obviously MUCH cheaper, but it’s also good to get out of the house even if only going to and from the car and into the store or restaurant or whatever, and it’s very VERY important to drive the car regularly, to keep the battery functional and the guts ok. ((Also RE: CARS — Next warm day, that Prius goes through an intense car wash. Need to get that shit out so it stops stinking, prob growing mold ugh ugh need fix!))

But I mean JUST THINK how much money you’d have left, maybe to even treat yourself to better things, and also if I stop ordering, I will 100% lose weight. So muck fucking weight lmao. And with a job, I’ve got two sources of income coming in! And hopefully still medicaid for as long as I can possibly have it 😭

This got REALLY away from my stoned assssss BUT. The original point is this:

I thought about myself as potentially being alive six years from now, which is very much not what I see lately but which, for once, didn’t automatically sound like a punishment, and I thought of myself six years older and wondering if I might be better enough to be an ok caregiver and also have a relationship that could sustain children coming in, and I was able to and did have one?? That’s SO bananas to me lol. It made me feel... weirdly hopeful though.

#stonerthoughts #soliloquy #depression #mentalillness #dead parents club #orphan #codependent relationships #dysfunctional family #suicidal ideation #ramblings

[elfcollector]

If you’re still interested in talking about your OCs it’d be cool to hear more about your elven Inquisitors and if they were in any romances :) No rush, it’s whenever you have the time to

as my handle would suggest, i have a lotta elven inkies. ahvir, dhea'mis, emathenan, isala aaaaand viasyl.  (also, more who never got developed enough to make it here)  they're all very dear to me, and they all do have romances, so — let's crack in!

we'll start with ahvir (she/they, which i mention so it doesn't get confusing when i start switching) cos she's the inky of my canon worldstate and i love her the MOST. her canon romance is varric, which is actually based on the fact that i rp'd her for a really long time, a friend wrote varric, we shipped, the rest is history. i do love shipping them with others, but ahvir is very much a mage right's activist, VERY elven, and all of that, and all the romance options in dai are...pretty conservative! there's really nobody who's stringently pro-mage freedom or pro-elves ( blackwall ironically is probably the closest for elves and second closest, behind solas, for mages ). and while i do at least sorta ship varric with both sion and sybil, i do generally prefer varhawke platonically, so there wasn't that hangup. varric isn't some like, crusader the way ahv is, but he's not a chantry fundamentalist or an elf-hater like the rest of the romanceables are.

beyond the like, Utilitarian flavoring of it, they really just bring out the best in each other. ahv has a lot of complexes relating to a lost love ( her partner, a girl called rem, was killed when ahvir was fifteen when the pair snuck out, swapped weapons to play, and some templars happened to see rem with a staff) that varric can relate to for bianca reasons. ahvir's passion and fire gives varric more room to actually give a shit about things, and varric's laid back nature catches ahv when they're being sanctimonious or taking things too seriously. they both have problems with masks and their true identities, if they even have them anymore. they're just...good for each other, and very much in love.

after trespasser, she moves into kirkwall with him — not that she's there all the time, what with running what's left of the inquisition and hunting solas, but still. the dwarven viscount's elven mistress. they both find the uproar it causes funny, and when ahv proposes, they joke that it's to stop being his mistress and become his wife.

dhea’mis is a josiemancer!  i love them so much.  i think with other elf and josie romances i’ve done, i’ve often imagined there being some anxiety on the elf’s part because of the whole ‘elf dating a noble’ thing, but there’s really none for dhea.  she knows josie loves her, trusts that implicitly, and they’re exactly as sweet as they are in canon.  that being said, dhea does take it very poorly when josie’s engaged to another person; she just got out of the fade where she saw horrific, corrupted versions of herself (rather than spiders in the fade, she sees herself as the envy demon presented her) — this is also when the rogue in the party switches from being sera to being cole, because sera is coping badly with the fade and is furious for being in there, so that’s also stressful.  she’s just really stressed and traumatized and it happens at a bad time.  when josephine says it might take years to untangle and refuses to do in a Faster, even if improper, manner, dhea snaps, unfairly, “i see how much i mean to you!” and there’s a fight.  they make up after dhea challenges what’s his face to a fight, though, so it’s okay.

also, josie is quietly delighted when dhea’mis’s reaver - ness gives her claws, a few scales, and slitted pupils.  josie won’t talk about why she likes it but dhea has a guess or two :)

emathenan is super canon divergent, which influences her romance with solas a LOT.  her basic story is that she was the daughter of elven servants — her mother was dalish before her clan was wiped out, hence the name — and raised in that environment.  when her family’s employers and all the other servants were murdered, emathenan unlocked her magic to escape, killing some of the bards that killed her family and fleeing.  (she got the scar on her face sprinting thru the forest as she escaped.)  she was found, badly injured, by an orlesian dalish clan, who nursed her back to health.  she ended up staying with them for a while until they gave her to another clan who didn’t already have too many mages, and she became second.

an important think about enan is, because she was raised a servant and badly gaslit into thinking that was fine by the humans around her, is that she has a lot of complexes about subservience and badly wants power.  emporer tarot card.  like, very morally rooted, and good, and all that, but she wants all power and intends to get it.  she forces the empress, gaspard and briala into working together because that means they all work for her, making her the defacto leader or orlais.  (unlike most of my inkies, who dissolve the inquisition, she submits it to orlais — but only because she knows celene can’t actually touch her.)  she uses that power to protect herself, yeah, but also to advocate for mages, elves, etc.  uses that power for good.

and part of why she’s attracted to solas, aside from the fact that he’s interesting and mysterious and knows so much, is because she is so good and is attracted to people who she knows can curb her power hungry nature, who will call her on it if she’s being evil.  and who will stop her.

but she takes his leaving hard.  and she takes finding out that she’d been made the pawn of a god — mad SUBSERVIENT to a god — even worse.

she’s one of my few inkies who vows to kill him.

viasyl also romances solas, and she’s also very canon divergent, but in a way that has less influence on the romance.  their romance is generally more Normal, but viasyl takes solas dumping her worse than emathenan does.  enan is pissed off and sad for a few days and maybe has a fling with varric but viasyl takes it HARD and just avoids him til he fucking leaves.  that being said, she does vow to redeem him rather than kill him, even if only out of a sense of stubbornness.  “i’ll prove you’re not at shit as you think you are, bitch and i’m going to make you realize that if it’s the last thing i do JUST TO PROVE A FUCKING POINT.”  but mellower.

then there’s isala (real name tarasyl.  isala literally means ‘to lust’ and is a joke she took as her name after being exiled from her clan for becoming an abomination) who romances thom!  they’re really fun.  isala is an abomination (bonded with the spirit of remorse, who was not that when she was initially possessed) and most of the companions take that EXPLOSIVELY badly when it’s revealed just post - haven’s destruction.  but blackwall — who knows all about second names, about identities, about hiding — doesn’t.  it’s so funny, how consistently decent and understanding he is about non-humans, about mages, and aside from a few weird moments that feel real ooc, i just can’t imagine him being anything other than curious.  like, this is the woman who’s led them all, who stayed behind and almost died for them...abominations or not, she’s good.

and isala is so, so touched that he trusts her, despite all her secrets.  it gives her real insight into blackwall’s lie, and he has insight into hers.  she tells him her real name several weeks after sparing him; “i know yours.  it seems fair that you should know mine.”  nobody else (sans cole, which is obviously different) finds that out during the game, and she only tells varric, sera and dorian at the very end of trespasser because she believes she’s going to die, and she wants some of her friends to know who she is.

also i have another elf i wanna make eventually and i think she’ll probs romance sera?  i dunno about her name yet she but shes gonna be Tricksy

#WOO THIS GOT LONG #answers #ahvir lavellan #dheamis lavellan #emathenan bellanathe #isala #viasyl lavellan #nonsense.

[redrobinfection]

Timmy in the Well

AN: TW for traumatic injury; see below for further notes. Many thanks to @chibinightowl for beta reading this for me!

"R-Red? Red Robin? Is that really you down there?"

The Red Hood squints down at the dark blob at the bottom of the old well then pulls out a small flashlight to double check. He's dropped his cowl and looks white as a sheet but, yeah, that is the current Red Robin, Timothy Drake.

"Ti-timbo, watcha doin' down there, buddy?" Jason chokes out, trying his hardest not to laugh at the literally downed man.

Tim glares up at him, squinting at the harsh light. "I fell. Why else would I be sitting at the bottom of a dry well?"

Jason can’t stop himself anymore and bursts out laughing. He yanks off his hood so he can wipe tears of mirth away from the corners of his eyes. "H-H-holy shit, Timmy, you fell down the well." He clutches at his sides. "Help, help, little Timmy is in the well! Somebody call Lassie!" He teases in a squeaky falsetto.

"You better not call Dick or I will make your life a living hell as soon as I get out of here," Tim threatens with the ghost of a grin, setting him off laughing all over again.

"Oh-oh-oh man…" Jason breathes, leaning into the well once he's caught his breath again, "I needed that laugh. Dick as Lassie, huh? I can totally see that. Is that why you called me instead of him, so he wouldn't call in the big B and maybe even the fire brigade, all to get little Timmy out of the well?"

Tim scowls but otherwise doesn’t deign to respond.

Jason clears his throat and tries to adopt a more serious tone. "I guess the better question is why you're still at the bottom of that well? You lose 'grappler one', 'spare grappler one', 'grappler two', 'spare grappler two' and-"

"Fuck you! I only have two grapplers, thank you very much," Tim bites back heatedly. "I'm sorry I'm not a suicidal maniac like you, only carrying the one."

Jason chortles because it’s half true. "So, what, did you lose both of them or something? I would have expected you to have at least started trying to climb out by now."

The younger man glares and then moves for the first time Jason can recall since he had arrived, raising a shaky hand to flip him off. Tim coughs with a wince and Jason sobers up quickly as he studies his replacement a little more carefully.

"What's the story, Pretender?" Jason asks, sweeping the flashlight around to try to see more. Tim turns his head away as if he were now trying to ignore the older vigilante, so Jason waves the flashlight around until the cramped space started to resemble some sort of impromptu rave.

"Ugh, stop it! Fuck! Why would I call you out - call anyone out at all - if I could climb out of this by myself?" Tim asks in a quavering tone, retching at the end of the hypothetical question. Jason freezes the light on him, getting a sinking feeling as he watches what he is now sure are the unintended side effects of his homemade strobe light. The kid probably has a concussion, at the very least.

"Replacement? Speak up, I can't hear you. Why're you still down there?"

"Fuck. You," Tim gasps, coughing. "I fucking fell okay? And now… I think…" - he blanches and swallows - "I think I shattered my right leg. I tried to move after I fell, but I must have blacked out because the next thing I knew it was an hour later and I was still at the bottom of this damn hole." He coughs again and sways, sending Jason into high alert. He does a quick tally of Tim’s injuries: definite broken leg, a probable concussion, and maybe a few cracked ribs - cracked if he is lucky; fully-fractured and puncturing a lung if he isn’t. Multiple sites of internal bleeding if Tim is truly down on his luck. Considering the circumstances, he doesn’t trust Tim’s luck. He raises a hand to activate his hardly-used comm, then pauses when Tim continues.

"I called you because I don't think I can get out of this on my own, as much as it pains me to admit," Tim explains with a weak grin. Jason shakes his head in disapproval at the poorly timed joke.

"No shit, Babybird. But why did you call me?" It was a legitimate question, and one he knew he needed to phrase carefully if he wanted an honest answer. "If you have a shattered leg you're probably gonna need that fire brigade. Why didn't you call Batman or the other Batman or even Batgirl?"

"What, so they could bring Robin along to finish me off? Or so my ex could freak out and call them all in to make a big deal over it? Jason. Please. No. I called you because I don't want to make a big deal out of this. I'm not Batman - I have friends - but I'm still trying to work through a lot of stuff right now and I don't need B or Dick trying to tell me to 'come home' or 'take some time' or whatever else they wanna say to me right now."

Jason blinks at the flood of words then shakes his head, commiserating but uncertain. "Tim, man, I hate to break it to you but this is kind of a big deal - the whole 'shattering a limb' thing, ya know - and you will, probably, need to, uhh, 'take some time'." He sighs and runs a hand through his sweat-damp hair. "Man, I don't even think I can get you out of this hole on my own without causing you some serious pain and possibly inflicting further damage. And can you imagine what Alfie's gonna say when he finds out you needed help and didn't turn to the family? Didn't turn to him?"

Tim blinks up at him with a deeply weary expression - Jason knows that feeling, totally feels him on that - and shakes his head in return, refusing to accept to the realities of his situation. They’ve reached an impasse and neither man seems willing to give, but Jason has the high ground - in more ways than one - and knows it. He crosses his arms on the coping of the well and waits. They stare at each other for a long minute before Tim finally sighs and gives in.

"I know. It's just… I just…" His eyes bore into Jason and Jason knows what he is going to say before the words cross his lips. "I just can't."

Jason gets that - he really, really gets that. ‘Been there, done that’ and all that jazz. He scrubs a hand over his face, groaning internally at what he doesn’t want, but can’t help but say next.

"Fine. If that's how you want to do this, then, sure, Replacement, just this once, I will haul you out of that well and I won't say a fucking word to the Batclan about any of this. But you better be ready for the flight of your life if you plan on concealing your injury from them entirely, or for the fight of your life if you intend on fending off Alfred once he finds out."

Jason tries to ignore the badly concealed look of relief on his replacement's face and also tries to suppress the voices screaming 'bad idea' and 'really, really bad idea' in his head as he begins rappelling down to the downed bird. He only said he'd haul him out of the well, but Jason knows he won't stop at that - there is no way Tim is getting home on his own and how the hell did he plan to set his own bones, anyway?

Tim is probably going to need at least one surgery, if not more, to correct and stabilize the bones, if he was right about how shattered his leg was. There is no way this was going to be a swift, easy fix. Not to mention all the other injuries he’s probably racked up. There is definitely no way in hell he is going to be able to avoid the family on this one.

Jason knows all that and mulls over it as he suspends himself over Tim and prepares to move him, but Jason knows it doesn't matter that he knows. He knows it won't even matter that he plans to tell Tim all about what he knows, sure as sugar, once Tim wakes up again (because he also knows Tim isn't gonna stay conscious for the move, even if he manages to dodge the sedative Jason plans to hit him with).

The truth won't matter until Tim accepts it too, so, for the time being, Jason resigns himself to wait. Resigns himself to wait and watch over another broken Robin until this one decides it's time to come home too.

AN: This set vaguely after the events of the pre-new 52 Red Robin series (2009-2011), in a Gotham in which Tim is still connected to, but distant from the Batfamily and Batman Inc. Bruce and Tim… aren't necessarily seeing eye-to-eye right now. Dick is still Batman, Damian is his Robin, Stephanie is Batgirl, and Bruce is the other Batman who is more concerned with Batman Inc than Gotham for the moment. Jason is the Red Hood and he is "reconciled" with the batfam, but, word of warning, he and Tim are not friends in this setting. Jason is still working out his feelings toward the "family"  and his "replacement". This work wasn't directly inspired by this, but my favorite headcanon for how Jason would feel during this period and how he would eventually reconcile to the batfam is laid out beautifully in All Roofs of Uncertainty by Kieron_ODuibhir; I highly recommend the work.

#my writing #christmasriverswrites #jason todd #tim drake #jason and tim #pre-N52 #you know what rhymes with 'well'? Tim is there too in this fic #angst #injury #tw injury

[dent-de-leon]

This may be old hat, but I have seen people talk about how Shiro clearly favors Keith to the detriment of other team members. Namely, Lance. I don't feel like this very IC, but I wanted to get other opinions and I enjoy your meta.

This is something in fanon that’s always kind of bothered me honestly. I have a whole meta here about how Shiro protects Lance and cares for him throughout Sendak’s takeover. I honestly don’t understand how people could say Shiro doesn’t care enough about Lance when Shiro was literally willing to get captured and tortured again for his sake. “But that was one time!” some fans will say. As if putting your life on the line and getting a few thousand volts of electricity surging down your spine isn’t a big deal apparently?? Shiro cares for Lance, he does. He could’ve won that fight, but he threw it for Lance’s sake. 

Something that I repeatedly see people cite as a sign Shiro “favors” Keith over Lance is their talk before the BOM. Shiro decides he’s going to take Keith with him, and Lance lashes out. He claims Keith is unable to stay calm, and yet, he’s the one losing his temper. And this is only the latest in a long line of instances in which their supposed “rivalry” is really just a one-sided game where Lance is the instigator and Keith repeatedly has to remain calm and either try to make peace or just tune him out. Throughout season 2, he really snaps back. In contrast, Lance has demonstrated again and again that he is childish and self-centered, that he himself has a quick temper. And yet, he’s quick to direct the blame at Keith. Who handles it quite gracefully, might I add.

So yeah, anyway, Shiro was right. It was a good call to bring Keith instead of Lance. But because Lance is often placed upon a pedestal, somehow not coddling him 24/7 can be misconstrued as abuse. I think another reason people are so quick to say Shiro doesn’t treat Lance the way he deserves is because he doesn’t talk Lance through all his insecurity issues. But you know what? If Lance wants to talk about it, then he has to bring it up. The only two people that have actually addressed that directly are Allura and Keith. And both of them only do so after Lance brings it to their attention. If Lance doesn’t speak up or keeps up an act, how is Shiro supposed to see the signs and help? 

More importantly, people act as though all of Lance’s insecurities are somehow Shiro’s fault. Why is that? Shiro has been imprisoned and tortured for a year. His PTSD and consequential paranoia, depression, and anxiety are far more difficult to deal with than Lance feeling upstaged. And yet, Shiro would never presume that this was somehow everyone else’s burden, or that they owed him more because of it. So why should Lance merit special treatment? Yes, Shiro isn’t as attentive with Lance and Hunk. But that’s because they’re so much more well adjusted. 

I don’t mean this badly, it’s just a fact. They came from good, loving homes. Hunk feels fondly enough about his family to want to return, and seems to have no baggage associated it. Lance meanwhile we know was the youngest sibling and somewhat spoiled. They had it good before. There’s nothing wrong with that. Characters don’t have to have traumatic backstories to be deep or meaningful. But this also means that these two aren’t dealing with the same shit as Keith and Pidge. They don’t have Keith’s abandonment issues or the shared grief he and and Pidge feel over losing their family. These two need more reassurance and guidance and comfort, and Shiro is of course there to provide it. 

Bizarrely enough, it also feels like fans are unable to believe that Shiro has friends. Lance treats Hunk significantly better than Keith from day one, and in fact forces his personal vendetta on Keith for purely selfish reasons. But Keith is expected to graciously accept this because “it’s just from Lance’s insecurities.” Meanwhile, Shiro clearly has nothing against Lance and has never singled him out or treated him poorly out of nowhere. Yet he’s accused of favoritism. This favoritism is really just friendship. He knew Keith before Kerberos, was so close with him he literally brought Keith to the launch instead of his own family. They’ve clearly been side by side for a long time, long enough for Keith to develop an intense desire to be with him when he shuts out everyone else. Long enough for Shiro to not be surprised that it’s Keith of all people who shows up to save him. 

Romantic or not, “Shiro and Keith have the closest relationship.” In Joaquim’s own words, that’s canon (source). So of course their interactions will be different from everyone else’s. That gravity and vulnerability is unique to them alone. And honestly? Removing that link is clearly detrimental to both their coping mechanisms. I think it’s selfish for people to expect Shiro to either push Keith away or pull everyone else in. He’s not ready for something like that, and it shouldn’t be forced on him. Everyone else is allowed to have best friends or romance or whatever’s happening here. Why can’t Shiro? Why is that so wrong? And, to take this in another direction–were Lance to somehow become Black Paladin, does that mean he has to distance himself from Hunk? That he can’t still be interested in Allura? No, I don’t think so. 

And I mean, Shiro does trust Lance, you know? He does still take Lance’s input into account. When Lance says he wants to try to make that impossible shot in Beta Traz, Shiro lets him. Shiro trusts him. And when he makes it? Shiro compliments him! And the reaction is immediate–Lance is clearly thrilled. So yes, Shiro does think Lance is capable of great things. Yes, Shiro lets Lance know when he does a good job and wants to be supportive of him. That much is clear.

I think the other reason why people assume Shiro is somehow biased against Lance because he made Keith Black Paladin instead. And, I’m going to be completely straightforward here–the idea of Black Paladin Lance just makes no sense to me. Neither in the narrative nor thematically and it certainly doesn’t fit with his character development. The thing is, I think people have lost sight of what Black Paladin really means. It’s not a popularity contest. It doesn’t mean you’re the “best” and you shouldn’t just want your fav to have that spot. Lance is far more suited to the role of a Red Paladin, as reflected in his parallels with Alfor, his talk with Allura, and his character arc. To quote my other meta:

It’d be a huge setback and really detract from his character development. When he sits in the Black Lion for “like half a varga” Lance’s main motivation here is seeking his own glory. His character arc is about learning to grow past that and see the bigger picture and realize everyone in Voltron is part of a whole and you’re not better because you’re the leader. 

The way he treated Keith earlier in that episode was also incredibly malicious considering the guy was grieving the loss of the person he loved most. And Lance still has the audacity to spit on Shiro’s last “dying” will and continually provoke Keith until he lashes out or leaves. Learning to see the wrong in that and instead supporting Keith was a huge step for him, and I don’t see why he’d ever still take Black after that. 

It also makes no sense thematically. When Keith steps into Black again, he says, “I know this is what you wanted for me, Shiro. But I’m not you. I can’t lead them like you.” And Lance just goes, “This is your moment.” Keith’s concern first and foremost is with what Shiro wanted and what’s best for the team. Lance just wants to steal the spotlight. He has no intrinsic connection to the Black lion through his bond with Shiro the way Keith does. He also doesn’t have those thematic parallels to Zarkon the way Keith does–instead, he’s recognized as being very similar to Alfor. 

People act like Shiro and Keith stole away Lance’s chance at leadership, but Shiro wasn’t even considering anyone else. Lance was never even in the running. 

The thing is, I kind of understand where people are coming from. To my knowledge, a lot of fans find Lance to be the most relatable, and reflect on him–likewise, I often do this with Keith. But anyway, people really feel for Lance and see their own insecurities through him. But that still doesn’t mean everyone should drop everything to immediately focus on him. Shiro is a good leader. Shiro cares about all of his paladins. Shiro by no means has anything against Lance. But that doesn’t mean he should be given the spot as Black Paladin just because he’s Lance, or that Shiro should be micromanaging his and the other paladins’ emotional needs 24/7 when he’s just trying to get by himself. I understand people feeling for Lance and wanting to see him reach his full potential. But that doesn’t mean everyone has to bow down to him. In fact, going by his daydreams and personal arc–this would significantly negate a good amount of his character development. 

#shiro #sheith #lance #keith #voltron

[finding-hope-strength-courage]

Where Does My Anxiety Stem From? - 17/07/2021

I’m trying to understand a bit better where some of my Anxiety might stem from, of course it’s impossible to know for sure but I figured maybe writing some things down might help me make more sense of it.

I lived with my Granny from a very young age, I think I was still a baby. My Mum was very ill and in and out of hospital. I remember living with my Granny as a good thing but maybe subconsciously I wondered when I'd see my parents? Or if I'd ever live with them? I didn’t question it knowingly at the time but it must have occurred to me. On paper my life seemed stable but perhaps it wasn’t inside my mind?

My parents separated when I was around 5 years old and my Mum moved into a flat. I didn’t know this was why at the time and was told she was moving there to get better. Do these kind of situations cause feeling of Anxiety?

My Dad got really poorly in 1998 when I was 6 and I remember my Granny being very honest and realistic that she thought he was going to die. Thankfully some how and maybe due to a miracle he recovered! I don’t know if this may have contributed to Anxiety?

In June 1998 my Mum collapsed at her flat and when she was found and taken to the hospital it was too late, they couldn’t get her back and she died. Realising things were out of control from such a young age may have affected my Anxiety?

I remember from quite a young age becoming almost obsessed with the idea of being “Good”. I was terrified of getting into trouble and doing things wrong. My family were very strict and on the rare occasions I behaved badly I was sure to know I had and made to feel incredibly ashamed. I vowed to try harder and not get into trouble. This attitude followed me all the way through Secondary School and I put so much pressure on myself to never get in trouble and was labelled by peers as a “Goody Two Shoes”. I relied on validation and praise from teachers a lot. Did this pressure add to my Anxiety?

In 2002 when I was 11 my Granny sadly died. Outwardly I coped with this really well considering she basically my Mum. She was my everything but I knew she wouldn’t have wanted me to be sad. So I got on with life as I knew she’d want me to, I needed to make her proud. Did this add to my Anxiety at all? Maybe I felt more alone after she died.

I always wanted people to like me at school. When I was about 6/7 I wasn’t a very nice child, I bullied one of my friends. Something to this day I am still so ashamed of even though she is still one of my closest friends and I love her dearly. I just feel so guilty for how I treated her all those years ago, I take full responsibility for it. My family made sure I felt this too when they found out. I am still reminded by some of how bossy I was as a child so I’ve always tried to actively be the opposite as felt this was seen as abad thing. As I got older I became paranoid with every upsetting anyone and would constantly apologise just in case I had done or said something wrong. It consumed me at times. I couldn’t deal with conflicts or confrontations. Maybe this has contributed to my Anxiety?

I often got picked on at school as a teenager, I don’t like to use the word bullied as that sounds fairly extreme. But I was called things like: “Emotional Train Wreck”, “Goody Two Shoes”, “Always talks about her dead relatives”, “Socially Rejected”, “Two Faced Malicious B****”, “Not Wanted”, “Two Sensitive”, “Weird”, “Not Normal”, “Loner”, among others. I am fully aware teenagers say things they don’t mean but it’s important to realise that words have an impact on how others feel. I am sure I am guilty of saying things and hurting people’s feelings when I was growing up and I hold my hands up and take responsibility for that and can only apologise. Do people being unkind cause Anxiety?

Leaving school was incredibly tough for me, even remembering this time causes me to feel anxious and actually makes me cry. I loved school, I was not ready. It was safe, it was stable, there was routine, I knew what was expected of me, people cared about me, people knew me. Sometimes I feel like nothings been the same since I left school 11 years ago now! How can I still not be over this? Looking back I believe I always had Anxiety at this point but hadn’t put the label on it.

Going to University made it worse, it was a dark time for me. I relapsed with Self-Harm after nearly 2 years. I developed OCD - centred around checking the oven, lights, locks. It’s an incredibly difficult time to remember. I did make a very good friend during this year which I'm always grateful for!

During this year at University my Dad then died very suddenly which sent me into a deep grief. I don’t remember all of this time as it was such a shock but I know my Anxiety got a lot worse after this time. The following year I did go to the doctors and I did start counselling a year or two after.

In 2014 I was finishing my Degree with The Open Unviersity, which. I had absolutely loved studying for. I was also preparing to start my PGCE year and move away from home. I was very anxious about this but I also had to leave my job of 3 years which was actually at the school where I had been a student. I got a job helping at lunchtimes and as a TA with Early Years and KS1. I knew this time I was really leaving. Getting this job after my Dad died helped me more than I can explain. Just being back there I feel saved me. I was still struggling and in a lot of emotional pain but I felt so accepted and supported. It upsets me to remember feeling that way because I’m not sure if I have since I left. The colleagues I worked with and being able to talk to some of my past teachers helped me so much. I left in 2014 and without sounding dramatic I feel like it broke my heart. I cannot put into words how it felt saying goodbye to people and driving away for the last time. I cried for days and just thinking about it makes me cry still all these years later. It really was such a significant place and helped me so much in many ways, particularly actually after I was no longer a student and after my Dad died. My gratitude is huge.

Starting my PGCE in the Autumn of 2014 was tough but I was excited too for the challenge but it was really hard at first. I felt really alone having moved away and living on my own. I wasn’t around people who had supported me for so long, I didn’t know who I could talk to, who I could trust. I tried speaking to my Tutor but soon realised it wasn’t the right person and soon stopped. I just got on with the year and made friends, one friendship in particular is now one of my closest friends and I'm very grateful. I look back on this year as a good one but it was challenging to manage my Anxiety and I felt alone a lot, I didn’t really have anyone to talk to as much anymore. By the end of my PGCE I had found a way to feel more confident, perhaps more in my work than in myself but still it helped. I felt like I was going to make a good teacher and received good feedback from my mentors.

In the Autumn I began my Teaching Job as an NQT, something that began as a really exciting opportunity soon turned out to be some of the most difficult months of my life. It’s long and complicated to go into but in the end I felt like I was useless at my job, not good enough, incapable, inferior. It’s so difficult to remember these times, I don’t even know if people knew what was going on or how someone made me feel because I tried my best to just get on with it and keep quiet. Maybe they never meant to make me feel that way but after my second year I had no confidence left in my teaching abilities and I felt broken compared to who  I was when I had started. I cried when I left because I cared so much for the children in my class and had good relationships with the parents but also from relief I think that it was over. I was also grieving in a way because I believed this was going to be the start of a truly amazing career but I just came up short. Maybe I just wasn’t good enough.

I left in 2017 to work in a Nursery but this ended up making me feel even worse - I was shouted at, mocked, made to feel useless, incapable, stupid, slow and just not good enough. It was humiliating at times and after a year I couldn't take it anymore, I felt so low in my confidence. After this time I just felt like I wasn’t tough enough for this world, too sensitive and just maybe not quite good enough. 

At the end of 2018 I found something out that would cause me to feel - I'm not even sure what the feeling are or were to be honest but it was incredibly difficult. I found out something about someone who had helped me for many years and I had so many conflicting emotions. I didn’t know what to do, I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. It hurt me so much, I looked up to him like a Dad and I realise that may have not been fair on him but he helped me more than I can explain especially with my Mental Health and after I lost my Dad. I’ll forever be grateful for the kindness he showed me despite what I found out. I guess this was kind of like grief maybe, like I was grieving for someone I knew but they were still alive.

My Anxiety got a lot worse in 2019 when I was pregnant with my daughter as it was all I'd hoped for and I couldn’t wait to be a Mum but because of that I was terrified of anything going wrong. I was consumed by Anxiety, I was scared to do much at all, slept so much just to pass the days, obsessed with monitoring her movements, so careful with what I ate and terrified of giving birth. I just wanted her here safe more than anything. It was supposed to be such a happy experience being pregnant but I was just too scared and didn’t want to let myself feel happy until I had delivered her safely.

For me the whole labour and birth was really traumatic and I still find it hard to talk about. On paper it probably wasn't that bad but for me it was terrifying in my mind, I was so scared of what would happen to her or me. I’m also terrified of hospitals anyway so that added to the fear. I’ve never been so grateful once I was able to hold her and she was okay.

I actually feel like I managed my Anxiety quite well in the first couple of months of becoming a Mum, I just put all my energy and focus into my Daughter and I honestly felt a happiness I never have before, she was all I wished for and I was so grateful because I knew how lucky I was and that it is a privilege to become a Mum. Unfortunately then the Pandemic hit.

Since then I've been terrified of getting the virus, my daughter getting ill, obsessing over making sure her things are clean, keeping her safe, making sure she's happy. Being the best Mum I can, planning activities for her in lockdown. It’s too long to put into this post about how The Pandemic has affected my Anxiety as there’s a lot but it’s been hard. I have actually made a lot of progress since the start of Lockdown last March in some ways but in other ways it’s got harder.

I’m making progress in doing more but struggling because I feel so much pressure and expectation to get back to doing things quicker and feeling judged at times for my Anxiety and how I've chosen to do things since the pandemic started and for how I am as a Mum. These have made my Anxiety worse and also my Self Esteem so it’s difficult to manage at the minute. Whilst my Anxiety is hard to cope with at the minute it then brings up lots of things from the past too that I've written here, it’s hard to explain but it reminds me of all the times I've struggled and that brings up difficult feelings.

I have no idea if any of this makes sense but for myself I wanted to try and write all the significant things that may have contributed to my Anxiety. Of course there’s been some amazing and wonderful times too but for this post I just wanted to focus on the times that have contributed to my Anxiety. I guess it’s complicated though.

#Mental Health #Mental Health Awareness #Mental Health Matters #Mental Health Understanding #Mental Illness #Mental Illness Awareness #Anxiety #Contributing Factors #Where Does My Anxiety Stem From #When My Anxiety Has Been Worse #Writing #Self Therapy #Self Awareness #Self Reflection #Working On Myself

[keeliuminshort]

I am all for deploying mindfulness to help traumatized kids in a thoughtful, deliberate way. Unfortunately, the intervention has become so trendy that many schools are trying to roll it out in the quickest way possible, without substantial training for the teachers expected to implement it. As anyone with anxiety or especially PTSD can tell you, mindfulness practice can be incredibly unnerving at first, forcing you into contact with physical and mental sensations that are deeply distressing and that you had previously coped with by blocking them out. ADULTS new to practice routinely walk out of classes, burst in to tears, or become agitated and angry at instructors or classmates during classes they CHOSE to attend. Of course, you do the practice in order to get better at tolerating and moving through distressful experiences, and people who persist with the practice do see deep benefits. But it’s very hard work, and harder the more you struggle with mental illness and/or trauma. I’ve been practicing on and off for years, know mindfulness is a valuable tool, and still struggle to make myself do daily formal practice. Now imagine being a preteen, maybe 12 years old, in a class that you are required by law to sit in, and your teacher comes in and says you have to try this practice that makes you incredibly, sometimes painfully self aware, is done with eyes closed, and, you have to do it in the presence of 30+ other 12-year-olds, some of whom are your friends who you care about impressing, some who are people you don’t know that well, and some who you actively dislike or fear. How receptive would you be, even with the warmest and most skilled and lovely meditation instructor in the world? Now consider that, at schools that are attempting to roll this practice out ASAP, because the data says this intervention is SO VALUABLE for your highly at risk student population, that you as a student are asked to do this on the first day of school, in every single class. With unfamiliar teachers who you do not trust in rooms you do not feel safe in. Probably, if you are a non-white student living in poverty (the demographic this intervention is primarily targeted at), this practice may be taught to you by someone who does not look like you or share your culture. Regardless of the race of the person teaching you, it’s pretty hit or miss whether your instructor will be comfortable with or enthusiastic about the practice themselves, and most likely they had a 30 minute conversation about it in professional development before having to implement it. This is just one of so many examples of great ideas in education that ALREADY EXIST but are simply not implemented well enough to make their advertised difference because schools are trying to DO ALL THE THINGS because the data says so, regardless of the available time or resources. The justification behind cutting corners is always that some intervention is better than none, that implementing the idea in a way that provides 10% of the benefit is still a place to start from. This is a misleading argument because of the imbedded assumption that the worst thing that could happen is that an intervention won’t be fully effective. That is in fact not the worst case outcome, but one of the more benign ones. Implementing new strategies poorly has an incredibly high cost. There is, of course, the opportunity cost alone—time and energy is scarce in education, and every minute spent on a new strategy is a minute not spent on another activity of higher value. But there are also other costs that are insidious and cumulative. For one, the fatigue of teachers constantly bombarded with new solutions is real and consequential, as it makes them less likely to be engaged partners in any future strategies that might be worthwhile, especially ones similar to things already tried badly. Students also can be poisoned by bad implementation attempts—I can introduce you to a few hundred middle schoolers living in poverty who hadn’t heard of mindfulness 9 months ago and now half of them sneer every time it is mentioned, some small percentage feel weird and defective for appreciating it, and the rest think it’s one of those weird white people things schools are obsessed with for whatever reason and you just have to keep your head down and tolerate it. How is that an improvement? We keep talking about how education needs innovation. It sounds like a lovely idea. And there are in fact some great innovations—or at least, new-to-our-current-system practice, like mindfulness instruction—out there that are helping schools improve. But we aren’t ultimately suffering from a lack of ideas. We are suffering from inability to implement things we KNOW would work with fidelity. I will forever be here for calls for social emotional learning in schools, but having been in the classroom and worked closely with a school counselor running herself ragged just to do enough of her job to maintain safety and order on a campus with 450 preteens, I’m always going to skeptical as hell about any program that attempts to do so without either a) additional permanently employed human beings responsible for implementation or b) extensive paid training for existing staff + a supported implementation plan + an explanation of exactly where the time for the new program is coming from. "Students who experienced trauma found the ability to calm themselves and become ready to learn after practicing mindfulness. A group of students found it so transformative, they wrote a book with the help of their teachers."

[forlornmelody]

10 questions

I Was tagged by @illusivesoul Yay! Love your set of questions, by the way. I’m also dead tired, so my answers might not make sense. 

Rules: Answer 10 questions and post 10 of your own.

My questions

1. What’s your favorite romance in Mass Effect and why?

Femshep x Kaidan will always be my Mass Effect OTP. There’s something so simple and real about their relationship. Especially in ME3, they come off as that old married couple everyone knows. Kaidan an old soul and a romantic, full of integrity and an adorable sense of humor. I also headcanon him as a biromantic demisexual, so there’s that. 

2. Who’s your best friend in Mass Effect?

Tali is a girl after my own heart. Nerdy, optimistic to the point of naiveté. James is the one I’d flirt with so many times people would assume we’re dating, but it’s more of an inside joke between us. 

3. Hammerhead or Mako? You know....I have no experience with the Hammerhead. I really need to get the Overlord DLC. Not a big fan of the Mako--too hard to navigate rocky terrain. Just let me climb that cliff, dangit!

4. Which Normandy you prefer, the SR-1 or the SR-2? I love the ease by which one can navigate the SR2, and all the different rooms. Shepard’s loft? To die for. 

5. Favorite gaming franchises? Mass Effect, obvs. ....There’s not really a whole franchise I’ve played besides that. I put a lot of hours into Skyrim, though. 

6. Do you practice any sports? HEMA longsword. In the style of a 14th century monk by the name of Johannes Liechtenauer. Been doing it for a year and a half. Not really into competing, but I love getting better at the craft.Would love to get my own sword eventually. Those things do NOT come cheap. 

7. What would your dream vacation be like? I love oooooold cities. Visiting ruins, or even buildings still in use that have been around for centuries. All the stuff in my region is less than 200 years old. 

8. Do you prefer go to the cinema to watch a film or you prefer to watch it at home? Cinema, definitely. Fewer distractions, usually. 

9. A character or part of the Mass Effect story which you think was written very badly? Jacob Taylor. The way his story arc, especially regarding his father, was handled poorly. I feel like the revelations and the loss should have affected him more. And if he’s loyal to Shepard after the fact, shouldn’t he have opened up more about it? It just makes him seem rather undeveloped. Uber macho is not really my thing. 

10.  If you could give one piece of advice to the whole world, what would it be? Mental healthcare is normal. You don’t have to wait for a crisis to get help. 

My Questions:

1. Most recent song you listened to? 

2. What do you do to get in the zone creatively?

3. Favorite Mass Effect game?

4. When did you start playing Mass Effect?

5. Which ending did you first choose in ME3? Did you regret it?

6. So you get to write a Mass Effect DLC. What happens in it?

7. Given the choice of living on Illium or Omega, which would you choose?

8. One character you wish was a romance option?

9. While on shore leave, you discover a clone trying to take your place. What do you do to re-establish your identity?

10. Against all odds, your Shepard survives the war. What do they do afterwards? Are they injured/traumatized? How do they cope? 

I tag..... @commander-hot-pants, @commanderduckling, @spacesquirrel and @fantasmagoriam 

#this turned into a choose your own adventure post #I have no regrets #ask meme #who is forlorn melody #personal

[fangirlinginleatherboots]

I'm not sure if you're awake right now but I wanna ask, can you describe some things your ocd causes(I don't know if that's a good word to use but it's all I can think of) you to do? I'm wanting to write a story involving a character with ocd, while I'm doing research I remembered (I might be wrong though so feel free to correct me) that I think you said somewhere before you had it and since you kind of inspire me to go after things I thought I ask. If it's too personal feel free to delete!

Also, ocd story anon, I read that trauma can be a cause of ocd, do you believe that your ocd could've come from your trauma?

This is a very very long response going into a few of my (and some alters) OCD traits and some reasoning behind them and the range of responses I have to various triggers. It actually helps me analyze my traits better when ppl ask stuff like this so I may have gone overboard as stuff kinda clicked in my brain but hopefully somewhere in here you will get your answer.

So, I’m going to start with the last question first. MY OCD was not caused by my trauma, however my traumas have completely shaped my compulsions and obsessions to a point where my OCD traits are almost inseparable from my PTSD. See, I’m autistic, and OCD is part of this co-morbidity package a lot of autistic people end up with, to a point where the co-morbid disorders are often not even diagnosed after the autism is because its that common. (They’ll diagnose separately if you need treatment for one of them. like the reason i have ADHD and OCD listed as dx’s is because the doctors count them separately on me bc i need medication for them, but they’re extremely common to the point of being expected with most ASD dxs)

Yes, I have OCD and have always had, but my trauma caused so much anxiety that the disorder reshaped itself around specific triggers. There are many layers to my OCD, it’s actually a strange sort of nonspecific looking presentation because of how many alters also have OCD, so it becomes difficult to tell who has which O and C thus there being a lot of inconsistency in whether or not a trigger affects me.

It’s also worth nothing that some doctor’s feel that I fit under the specific label of “scrupulosity” or rOCD (Religious OCD) because of how much of my stuff revolves around religion. I don’t always agree that it’s this because while my O and C are based on religious themes, I don’t believe in the concepts behind the things. I believe most of the religious stuff is just from religious trauma.

On one layer, I have a number obsession. There are certain numbers that are tolerable, a few that are “cursed,” and one that is “blessed” and one that is “perfect.” I will do anything to change things to match my blessed and perfect numbers. I will even fudge the truth a little (not a lie, often an exaggeration, by about one or two digits) to make something fit those numbers. To randomly come across a cursed number or even just a slightly intolerable one, makes me very anxious and can shape how i spend my day and how much time i spend with my better numbers. The way my trauma shaped this compulsion was that my numbers tie to religious stuff, since my traumatic environment was often religious, or trauma would be inflicted with religious reasons.

There is an alter that has a compulsion to say a prayer. When we have intrusive thoughts (which you super need to research if you’re writing OCD bc it is a KEY PART of the disorder but ill go into it later here), someone starts reciting the prayer. Sometimes I will as well just because it’s easier to go along with it. Not completing the prayer is not an option. I mean that with absolutely every intent. Not completing the prayer is NOT AN OPTION. It does elieviate some background anxiety, so whoever is dealing with that is being helped by the compulsion, but it is extremely frustrating and upsetting, especially since i am as non-religious as i can possibly manage to be. The prayer is also said whenever something is uneasy or something triggers specific flashbacks.

One of the most obviously noticeable and upsetting for all involved O and C is being “dirty.” There’s a VERY wide range of triggers here, from actually dirty/germy/unclean things, to unpleasant/intolerable sensory triggers, all the way to conceptual dirtiness like sin, virginity, and lying. This can affect me subtly sometimes, like how i compulsively tell the truth and over share so that i feel clean or how i cannot go to sleep after a fight if it has not been resolved. (”never go to bed angry” they said, well shit now i literally cant cool.) This can also hit me violently and to a point where I am a danger to myself. I worked at a movie theater for a summer some time ago and touched something that was a bad sensory feeling while cleaning a dirty theater. I then proceeded to scrub my hands in near-boiling water for almost fifteen minutes in the break room, broke down sobbing, and when I got home i sat under very very hot water in the shower until my skin was raw and red for days. It doesn’t often get to that point, but when it does, I’ve been held down for my own safety since I’ll literally rip my skin and bite myself to punish myself for being dirty. It is frequently bad enough that I will let myself do something “dirty” as a form of self harm since it seriously makes me miserable and sick. This stuff comes both from religious trauma and from just....crappy normal autism feelings and manifests as my most disabling OCD trait.

There are other things like closing drawers and straightening and arranging things that are done to feel that I am being “good” because of reprimands I received in the past that made me feel like I am “bad.” I am sometimes able to not act on these compulsions, though it takes conscious effort to choose not to. Whether or not this stems from trauma doesn’t really matter to me. I know that most of the fronting alters have these “little OCDs” be it through me or for their own reasons. Tia for instance has to keep things in the kitchen a certain way and Phoebe has to complete certain physical activities a certain way or else she gets upset or feels she did a very bad job/failed.Since I’m really just. going at this question lmao lets talk a little about intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are upsetting/disturbing/unacceptable thoughts you do not take pleasure in. For me, a few of them make me feel dirty, which triggers my compulsions very badly. Some relate to trauma, others don’t make sense. There are very common ones such as urges to kill or mutilate self or others, urges to do disastrous things (like causing a huge car accident), urges to do disgusting sexual acts (to self or others, often to unacceptable people like children, elders, and the undesired sex), urges to become a serial killer/rapist/shooter/etc, and other such painfully upsetting things such as those. These are often what fuel the obsessions in OCD and the compulsions are to make these thoughts stop or hurt less. Personally, I get a lot of sexual ones because of how poorly the topic was handled in my childhood. I get ones about elaborately slaughtering a specific abuser, about doing things that will kill me, about mutilating myself and mutilating pets (those are the ones that fuck me up the most i think), and about doing very destructive things that would harm a lot of people. I also get some about terrorism happening where I am, but that one is FOR SURE a trauma thing so maybe it could just be my PTSD. 

Intrusive thoughts occur with a LOT of different disorders!!!!! It’s just OCD when you have compulsions to cope with them. Even then, it has to be a certain way for it to qualify.

I hope I was able to give you somewhere to start in terms of information. OCD is a very big disorder and is a major reason why I’m unable to function in a workplace environment. I didn’t go into the specifics of every compulsion, but if you have questions, I don’t mind talking about this stuff. It helps me process it to explain it to others and I end up healing a little through oversharing I think.

#bootsie's advice column #collective #bootsie's adventures #Anonymous

[dbtskills]

anon question w/ tw

we received a 3 part anon question but I’m answering it in a text post bc there’s a trigger warning for self harm, suicide, and assault

i relapsed so badly these last few weeks. in my last relationship i was very codependent and did abusive tactics to keep my ex with me because i was so scared of losing him. after we broke up, i really wanted to work on myself because i knew what i did was hurtful. when we broke up, i started practicing non-violent communication and other forms of communication. i never went to therapy for it but i thought i was doing really good. i was working on myself a lot in my own ways. and then even (1)  when i entered a new partnership we had daily relationship questions which were great. we could talk about problems and what we were going through daily and we were honest. but then idk things started getting more difficult after i got assaulted and a few weeks ago i really started struggling and relapsed and cut myself. and since then i've had such a hard time. i've had suicidal ideation this last week, and yesterday i even tried to before my bf called the cops. during that time i said some (2) very abusive things, blaming him for when i kill myself next time. when i was in psych emergency they told me that dbt is what i need, but i'm so angry right now and i get so rebellious. this was really long, and tbh idk what i am even looking for by sending this. i think i just have a lot of intense emotions going on still. i feel myself wanting to run like i usually do but i know that that'll just burn bridges. anyways. thanks for listening. (3)

Hey there. I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve been struggling and that you’ve had recent trauma. 

First of all, I’m so proud of you for noticing your behavior was unhealthy and working to change that, all while coping with a breakup. That’s really impressive and you clearly worked really hard. 

Also I want to say that it’s ok to relapse. It’s ok to relapse after something traumatic has happened (it’s also ok to relapse in general). Relapses happen. They are a natural part of recovery. They absolutely suck, but they happen to everyone. They happen and then they pass and we work hard to keep from getting stuck in them. 

I know you know what you said to your boyfriend wasn’t ok. There’s no excuse for treating other people poorly because of our own suffering. But it happens. What we can do is recognize that what we did was wrong, apologize for our behavior and work to avoid doing it again and to move forward. I say ‘we’ because I’ve been there. 

I think DBT would be a great idea, but I know what you mean about wanting to run and being rebellious. I was that person too. I would suggest giving it a try and really trying to stick through it, fighting your instincts all the way. I know that probably sounds like a miserable idea, and I might even be pissed off with that answer if I were my old self. But the reality is that you just kind of have to force yourself to do it and wait for something to stick. Be as willing as possible, even if it’s just showing up. It’s a good program with skills that I think could help you a lot, and with a structure that tries to help rebellious people like us. 

I hope I said some of the things you wanted and needed to hear. If I did or didn’t, please don’t hesitate to reach out again. Also please stay as safe as you can. You are a survivor and you will get through this just by sheer grit and perseverance. You have a place here. 

xx Kat

#asks #anon #answered #advice #trigger warning #tw #verbal abuse #self harm #suicide #suicidal thoughts #assault