#tris with controlling and emotionally distant parents with impossible standards n just. growing up in an environment where

[albatris]

it’s *MY* blog and *I* get to choose the unnecessarily lengthy, extremely niche and mostly incomprehensible OC rants to go on at 4 in the morning

ALSO I’M SORRY I FORGOT TO ANSWER ASKS AGAIN

also i hope the readmore works this time

thinkin about how both tris and noa both struggle immensely in dealing with the unpredictable nature of their reality n how this profound, intrinsic, inescapable lack of safety and control in their lives fuckin TERRIFIES them n has them both fucked up in wildly different ways

and like

I talk about this specifically for several reasons, not JUST because of the obvious one which is that, like

they've both grown up in a rapidly collapsing universe where the laws of reality are flipping themselves inside out and the world is basically unravelling under their feet and it's just gonna keep getting worse. like. hm yeah that’s not gr8

but also because both of them grew up in extremely unstable and unpredictable home lives, though each for incredibly different reasons

n in almost every aspect of their lives they both internalised from an extremely young age that nothing is certain and your entire life can be flipped upside down in a heartbeat and you're powerless to stop it and You Have No Control Whatsoever

which manifests in entirely different ways in both of them, n you might consider them at a glance and be like "????? how can these two even relate to each other at all???" but even though it presents differently it's the same core fear and same core feelings of helplessness

in noa it tends to manifest in this sense of like...... well, safety is a lie and you can do everything right and still be completely fucked anyway so why not just do whatever!!! n just turns into reckless impulsivity, self-destructive behaviour, this tendency to push boundaries to dangerous lengths just to see how far she can go, just a distinct lack of self-preservation because what's the point? any sense of safety she can find is not real safety at all, and this is the only way she feels like she can exercise any sense of control and agency over her own life

WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY NOT IDEAL

then with tris there's also the same sense of just. feeling completely helpless and terrified by the lack of control he feels over his own circumstances. and the fact that "you can do everything right and the universe can still squash you like a bug at any second" is like. not. a thing he knows how to handle or process in any capacity and the only real way he can manage to navigate the world without being in a constant state of panic is just.by desperately clinging to anything that gives him any scrap of safety and control and relief at all, even if that control is completely imagined and baseless

and on one level leads to him stressing over every little detail and not leaving anything to chance because the fewer variables there are the less chance there is for anything to go wrong, and like. frequently has panic attacks at slight changes to routine, frequently goes through weeks where he can't leave the house, has rituals he has to go through in order to make sure Things Are Safe, mantras and phrases he has to recite to protect himself, constantly worrying over whether something harmless and incidental he does is going to bring harm to other people

also not helped by paranoia and psychosis

ALSO NOT IDEAL

but I don’t think either of them really........................ gets?? that they’re struggling as much as they are?? and that they’ve been struggling to make sense of horrible situations and trying to find a sense of safety and normality in a world where that........ kind of doesn’t exist at all and like, no fuckin KIDDING, of course they weren’t equipped to handle it??? they’re kids??? tris saw someone’s head collapse at the supermarket when he was 9???? 

anyway that was mostly what this post was about, literally just me rambling about that central fear n stuff. the rest of this is just. well, I was already here at my computer typing, so

like I think tris is an anxious trainwreck but is also someone in noa's life who can help her ease on the brakes a little in terms of Dicey Risky Dangerous Ideas And Scenarios, and also he's someone who genuinely cares for her and worries over her and is the first friend she's ever had who's actually gentle and kind to her...... n like........ it's easy for noa not to care about her own safety, but someone else caring for her safety helps her put it into perspective a little. n her caring about herself through someone else is also not an ideal endgame but it’s not an endgame it’s a starting point, it’s room to think on it a little, y’know. it’s something she’s working at

and on the flipside I'm pretty sure without noa tris would never fucking leave the house lmao

like she's definitely someone who drags him out of his shell and is pretty good at knowing the right level to meet him in terms of anxiety, n sometimes that's just gently helping him ease out of whatever obsessive spiral he's currently spiralling in and other times it's "hey jackass I want to see that new zombie movie so we're going to the fucking cinema whether you want to or not"

n I've talked before about how she's someone he considers a grounding force and a touchstone of reality, which is more to do with psychosis than anything, but also like. I think in general she's a Safe Constant he can trust and rely on which goes a long fucking way considering the everything

anyway there was no point to this last part of the post like I have no grand conclusion what with how they relate to each other in terms of this shared fear specifically I just was like

hm!!!! I can talk about the underlying feelings of helplessness and lack of control they both share at their core and how this manifests in two completely different ways and that could be a fun way to spend twenty minutes

#tw for.......... idk. it's just kind of sad vibes. also a brief mention of an unspecified head exploding so #body horror #? but very briefly #i can talk abt other parts of their relationship like it's not just Oh We Relate To Each Other Because Everything Is Terrible #like this post kinda makes it sound lmao #but this was a niche post about one central fear i guess #anyway. hold on. tag ramble time. instabilities! #noa much more in terms of financial difficulties and illness and struggling to get by on the day to day #tris with controlling and emotionally distant parents with impossible standards n just. growing up in an environment where #love is completely conditional and based on a set of rules that seem to change daily n that neither he or becca can hope to decipher #lmao #also noa and her mum have a really good relationship #n she never met her shitty fuckin dad but there's still a lot to unpack there #n also worth mentioning that tris was already very genetically predisposed to mental illnesses of various sorts but #like i think in any universe tris is a person who deals with mental illnesses of various sorts but #none of this fuckin helped lmao #but also they're just kids y'know they're dealing with a lot of bullshit. they're like 12 #ok that's wrong they're both 17 but tris only by a month and also they're basically both like 12

[albatris]

T for the oc asks?

hey! thanks for the ask! I think I have two T characters that I can remember and I have another T in my inbox so…… as per usual I’m gonna start with the easier one hahaha

which would be Tris, much to the surprise of……… no one, probably?

also, obligatory apology for the lengthy rambles

I swear not all my responses will be like this ok

I just don’t know how to, like.......... shhh, ever

Full name: Tristan James Greer, n like. as mentioned in a previous ask he and his older brother Jacob share a middle name because of just. incredibly stupid reasons. both in terms of canon explanation and Me As A Writer explanations

Nicknames, if any: technically I guess “Tris” is the nickname, although it would be more accurate to say that “Tris” is his name and “Tristan” is a word he is entirely divorced from and will not respond to, unless you’re one of his two siblings, or his parents using A Certain Tone Of Voice, or sometimes Shara who forgets, or legal forms, or it's pertinent to a joke he'd like to make

Hogwarts house: Hufflepuff

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Ace, definitely at least a little bi, not that it ever really comes up in a major way in-story. Like, could definitely be argued he had a crush on Kai when they first became friends, but like. who knows whether that was legitimate romantic attraction or whether he was just so unbelievably caught off guard by someone being genuinely interested in and nice to him that it immediately crashed his entire emotional system and caused his brain to short-circuit. could go either way. also who of the atdao gang DOESN'T have at least a slight crush on Kai, probably

A song I associate with them: How about five instead!! Good Tris tunes include but are in no way limited to: “Boys Will Be Bugs” by Cavetown, “Sloom” by Of Monsters and Men, “If This Ship Sinks (I Give In)” by Birds of Tokyo (melodramatic edgy Tris vibes), “Monsters” by The Boy Least Likely To and “The Future’s Right In Front Of Me” by A Great Big World

3 important relationships:

Okay so first off would be Noa, his best friend of an amount of years that I always just fucking make up because I can never remember. More than 3 and less than 7. Anyway these two only started hanging round each other ‘cause it was mutually beneficial, ‘cause kids are mean and they eventually twigged that they were less likely to be targeted as a pair than on their own, but pretty soon they were like "oh wait hey you're actually a nice person and I genuinely enjoy ur company and we make a good team" and their friendship grew from there n now they're bros.

honestly I have like seven hyperspecific rambles in my drafts about Tris and Noa's friendship n how they relate to each other could honestly talk abt both of them for hours

in terms of Tris I will say that Noa is part of the extremely extremely small group of people that he's generally willing to trust completely with zero strings attached, which is like. sure something. n she's someone he generally considers a touchstone of reality and someone he can rely on when he can't necessarily trust his own perceptions. also she's someone who is a half-decent opponent at upside down Mario Kart which is a plus

and also, Jacob, arguably the most important person in Tris's life, someone he thinks the world of and considers his biggest role model. like. not in terms of Jacob's intelligence or success or how hard he's worked n all the reasons their parents think he's the ideal Tris should be striving for, just in terms of like. the sort of person he wants to be, someone kind and well-liked and fun, someone with a good heart, which is super corny now that I write it. Cool. Great. Cool. Tris did not have a lot of super great adult role models growing up 'cause his parents are a nightmare and most teachers found him frustrating beyond belief, nor did he have a lot of friends being a weird neurodivergent kid lmao, so his relationship with both his siblings but especially Jacob has been one of the only sources of stability and genuine warmth and connection through most of his life

so I mean basically he pretty much thinks of Jacob as Literally The Coolest Person In The Entire World which is funny because Jacob is just a complete dweeb

n then thirdly. I mean. parents, again much for the same reasons as I listed in Jacob's post. controlling, emotionally distant, impossible standards, more concerned with maintaining a perfect image than any of their kids' actual wellbeing, blah blah

Jacob is currently the only Greer sib who has any real grasp on exactly HOW unhealthy their relationship with their parents is? Tris has a whole thing going on in the story where he's kinda juuust starting to come to grips with things and work through some of his complicated feelings towards his parents and reconcile the ideas of "I love these people" and "these people kind of really truly genuinely fucked me up and none of what happened to me was normal or my fault and I'm going to be untangling the repercussions for a long time" and how both these things can be true for him at the same time

also Jacob's like thirteen years older than Tris I feel like I forgot to mention this here

I'm tired, yeah

2 fears:

1. everything

2. literally everything are you kidding me. weird birds. diseases. public transport. dying. sudden change. loud noises. crowds. hot weather. roadworks. natural disasters. people walking behind him. it'd be easier to list the things he's not afraid of. it's a miracle he leaves the house at all

ok those aren't good answers ummmm let's see

here's one: being somehow responsible for harm coming to the people he cares about, being the cause of something that directly hurts someone else, etc. etc. in broad general terms, but also in terms of intrusive thoughts and in terms of delusions/hallucinations that sometimes wander into the realm of threats, orders, "do this thing or your best friend will die horribly", kind of thing. so. the stress that he's going to disobey something or misinterpret something and his loved ones being punished for it....... all of that

1 element of their backstory:

his parents once tried to have him exorcised as a child and he’s only just now beginning to realise this was a "legitimately fucked-up experience” not “haha relatable childhood hijinks”

also on a lighter note he insists to Shara that this makes him immune to demons and she is fairly certain this is not how it works at all, but neither of them can technically prove it's NOT how it works without actively trying to get Tris murdered by demons, and while this DOES sound like a fun after-school activity, both their parents said no

anyway cool that's it from me! I'm not going back to edit this at all! I don't remember what I wrote even slightly! I'm going to bed! I should have probably picked a more fun backstory fact! The one I chose is horrible! Goodnight!

#atdao #tris #long post #so many of my answers make this story sound. real grim. lmao #it's FINE tris gets to go on INTERDIMENSIONAL ADVENTURES with a SWORD it's FINE he's ok #also sam and shauna greer do not get a redemption arc like if anything the conclusion u can jum to with the direction #tris is heading is that one day he's just gonna fuck off to the bahamas or more likely perth probably and never talk to them again #he's not there yet! but he's on the way #but anyway #exorcisms are a demon immunisation shot............. maybe #like. i think tris and noa both have had a lot of Bullshit go on in their lies n #when they bounce off each other in conversation i think they both r so used to it all that they forget #Hey That's Not Normal Or Universal #like #he mentions it to shara and kai in passing just like. haha here's a fun vaguely relevant anecdote #and is legitimately taken aback when both of them are just like. fucking horrified #and he's kind of just like. oh. excuse me i need to go reevaluate certain things about my life right now immediately maybe #also additional fun fact #the greer siblings all share one brain cell but it's divided equally between them all so #occasionally when all three of them put their heads together and really concentrate they can achieve one (1) rational thought #Anonymous