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traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors · 2 years ago

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tw: physical abuse, emotional abuse, attempted/planned (unsuccessful) murder, mention of injuries and sexual abuse, and idk what else to tag but this one is really dark, sorry

could you tag this as <Rot> so I can find it later? Thanks!!

I've sent in a think or two before, but idk if you'd remember me. Basic run down: my birth parents abused me heavily before my birth mother's boyfriend nearly killed me (broken bones, skull fracture, eyes swollen shut/blinded, spine messed up, stuff like that.

idk if I mentioned it last time but one of the things they did to me was hit me and tell me to cry, because they thought it was hilarious when I cried. But when they were high or drunk sometimes they'd punish me for making noise, so I wasn't really allowed to learn to speak or make noise unless I was crying and in pain for their enjoyment. I probably mentioned last time that the closest thing to a parent I had was a cat? The last thing I sent in wasn't tagged with a nickname so maybe you won't remember. But basically, they were horrible parents.

Also need ot mention that my adoptive mother is... off. She believes in alternative medicine and deprived me of physical, emotional, psychological and social health and care once I was adopted, and basically raised me with the idea that "everything that happens is something I planned and want, even if it's out of my control or done by others" while knowing some of the other foster kids would try to beat me, kill me, or a few times rape me.

But she also runs a business based off her alternative medicine advice and stuff, and she probably is experiencing heavy delusions but she says it's like the same thing spiritual leaders had in the past (being visited by other beings and given knowledge) so who knows lol.

SO yesterday we were talking about something relating to her friend because she sometimes shares her friend's dramas with me, and changed the subject to things that happened in our lives and eventually that changed to my experiences with my birth parents. My mother told me something I had thought a few times but didn't really know, which was that my case was so bad that it was one of the worst ones they'd gotten from where I live. To the point that during the custody case the judge left partway through the first day (it was supposed to be 3 days) and made his choice right then.

The other thing she told me was something I never knew, and before I say what it was I need to tell you why she kept talking. She tries to "fix me" through energy work, and this was another moment where she was doing that because she recognized that the topic made me uncomfortable, even though "I was aware it was in the past and it happened so long ago that it should have no impact, and that I'm stupid for having full on body sensations of pain (in the leg that was broken) when certain triggering topics are discussed". You know, stuff like that.

I'm not very good at expressing emotions, but she says she can "sense my discomfort" and kept talking in a LOT of detail in this conversation about my birth parents BECAUSE it made me uncomfortable. The more uncomfortable I got the more detail she'd use, and she was speaking in a very conversational/nonchalant way so it was really awkward and I couldn't leave or tell her to stop because she's gotten mad/upset at me in the past for doing that or tells me it's signs that "that's the living conditions I crave to live in" and stuff like that.

OKAY SO the thing that really shook me was that she told me that after my birth mother's boyfriend beat me to near death, the reason I wasn't taken to the hospital for 3 days after wasn't because they left me to die. It was because my birth mother was debating on where to bury my body. She had previously known her boyfriend was abusive and took measures to protect herself, but not me because she loved him more than me (not surprised there lol).

They dragged my body around the house while I was blinded, bleeding, with full on broken bones and a fractured skull (with brain damaged that was never checked on later??) and acted like nothing was wrong because it was either I'd be better and they could pretend he didn't nearly kill me, or bury my body because they didn't want him to get caught.

Eventually the protective services got wind and I don't know who got them involved but I was practically dead at that point.

And I know it's stupid or weird that that new knowledge shook me so much but I almost think it's better that I thought they left me for dead because like all the other bad things people did to me, I was left alone after. And through being left alone you can figure out how to help yourself. But knowing that she was basically dragging me around like a broken doll and planning where to bury me makes me feel ill.

I've always known that I wasn't a wanted person and over 4 people have tried to legit kill me so like I've known I'm not exactly life's favourite person lol (admittedly most of them were foster siblings that weren't very good at (attempted) murder, but still intent and having to fight for my life makes it seem serious in my mind). But knowing that there was intent even past the moment of violence, and that it wasn't just a violence of passion makes me so much more uncomfortable and grossed out.

I can't help but wonder how close she was to actually burying me? was it purely my determination to not die that stopped her from doing it? was she waiting all those days for my last breath?? Was she planning on burying me alive? I wouldn't doubt it, since I'd been put on an inhaler from the government doctor because she smoked so much i was literally suffocating from lack of oxygen among other things, but still..

Does she regret it? was she too high and/or drunk to even remember it? Was her boyfriend telling her to do it? It adds a whole new level ot my fear of being blind/not seeing, because it wasn't just that I was blinded and left ot die, but I was blinded and dragged around in pain and nearly dead while people planned to finish me off, and I was just too stubborn to die.

sorry if this is too long or messy, I just feel surprised and disgusted and shocked at this new knowledge, and it makes me feel so much worse knowing that my birth mother HAS had other kids and they were removed from her for farfarfarfar less. Her two older kids were given away because the government was concerned about her lack of job, drug use, and unstable family situation, all which I experienced and worse and the governemnt said it was no big deal if I was there. And she apparently had another kid 5 or so years after me that was a amab boy, and apparently ""all she wanted was a boy"" and got clean from drugs, a new home and support system and all that because he was the "kid she wanted and was waiting for" (to add, I'm a nb trans guy, so :/ )

But for me I had to survive years of abuse both physical and emotional, starvation, suffocation, being used as other people's entertainment, and on top of all that nearly killed and everything else that came with that experience just for a sliver of the mercy those kids/siblings had. I mean I knew I was the black sheep so to speak, but it hurts knowing she cared so much more about them than she ever did me, which is stupid I know..

Sorry for the rambling, I hope you have a good day, <rot>

Hi rot,

I do remember you. I'm so sorry about what you've been through. That is absolutely horrible and you don't deserve to be treated like this. It is understandable that the recent revelations about your birth mother's intentions have disturbed you.

Please know that you deserve to set boundaries and have them respected. Just because you set a boundary doesn't mean you enjoy it being violated. The actions and choices made by your mom do not define your worth as a person. You are not responsible for her actions, and you deserve care, support, and healing.

Also it's not at all weird or stupid to be so shocked by learning that information, because it is very grim and could have drastically changed the course of events that transpired. But I also think that while it's natural and understandable to wonder things like how close she was to burying you, it's ultimately not healthy to ruminate about certain details like that, especially around such a distressing event.

It sounds like your biological mom was extremely manipulative, even when looking at how she seemingly blamed being abusive on her children being AFAB, which isn't an excuse. But please know that it's understandable to have mixed feelings towards her, as she was of course your mother, so to some degree it makes sense to yearn for her affection despite everything she put you through.

I'm not sure if we've suggested this to you previously so forgive me if so, but It may be helpful to seek the guidance and mediation of a mental health professional, such as a therapist. If you can access or afford it, a therapist can help you process these recent revelations and work through the emotional impact they have had on you, but also help you digest your trauma as a whole and heal with the assistance of an expert.

Please know that it's okay to feel a range of conflicting emotions, and reaching out for support from trusted friends, loved ones, or mental health professionals can be valuable during this challenging time. It's important to be patient and gentle with yourself as you continue on your healing journey.

I hope I could help. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

#mod bun #trauma talks #<rot>#tw abuse #tw child abuse #tw sa #tw csa #tw emotional abuse #trauma details #tw r #tw cocsa

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ethrenisnotthehero · 4 years ago

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Let’s talk about this now.

Everything that follows in this post is totally my own opinion. It has nothing to do with Jill; it wasn’t read by her or condoned by her. It’s my story and my experiences, and I think it’s important in this context because some of a survivor’s worst enemies are often other survivors.

As someone who has survived abuse, and as someone who is currently in training to become a Court Appointed Special Advocate for youth victims of abuse and domestic violence, I’m going to explain why internet callouts and motions like the #MeToo movement are not only something you can believe, but that you should believe because of the complete and systematic failures that continue to persist in our real-life institutions of justice.

Please heed the tags. Nothing is in too graphic of detail, but I remember when just the words were enough for me.

TW: Abuse, Neglect, Gaslighting, Sexual Assault, Pedophilia, Trafficking, Drug Use, Mental Illness, Violence

I spent a majority of the first years of my life in sexual slavery.

Before April, 2004, pseudoephedrine could be purchased over the counter and without an ID in the United States. Tablets of it were used across the nation to manufacture what some people still call “the drug of the 90s:” methamphetamine. In 2021, many people might know meth because of television shows like Breaking Bad, and make xenophobic jokes about Mexican drug cartels and the infamous “Wall” while breaking up blue-tinted sugar candy.

The truth is, few people our age this day remember methamphetamine use being the epidemic it was when Oklahoma enacted its ban of pseudoephedrine in stores. In 2005, which required medication to be sold at licensed pharmacies and for purchasers to present a photo ID to acquire limited amounts, OK officials located and shut down 334 home meth labs -- less than half of the 812 seized before the ban.

In fact, meth use was so widespread and easily accessible that 93% of people who went through rehabilitation for it would end up using again. It was viciously addictive, and the help that was offered was only a drop in the bucket of a growing sickness that the government wrote crime bills to control instead of trying to treat the symptoms. By 2004, it was too late for a lot of people. By 2004, it was too late for me.

My birth parents spent their entire lives addicted to meth. My birth mother grew up in the American foster care system and was adopted as a teenager by junkies in the deep South; my birth father was a paranoid schizophrenic who spent the first 7 years of his life locked in a closet by his parents until they lost custody, and then aged out of the system. She used drugs to get away from the fact that her birth parents despised her; he used meth to “calm” his paranoid rages when he couldn’t afford medication. They both tried rehab. They both failed to stay sober.

They had several children before us. My birth mother miscarried. She tried again. My birth father lost custody of his first before he met her, and they relapsed together and lost custody of a second child. That child died from complications of neglect.

They had me.

They stayed sober for six months. They relapsed again. They weren’t smart enough to make meth, so they bought it. They had another kid. My birth father lost his job. They couldn’t afford it. They couldn’t afford medicine or food. They had no money, they couldn’t get work, and so they gave up what they did have.

2004 was too late for me.

When the ban came, my parents moved to try to escape. We came to a new state. They found a job. My “uncle” became their new dealer and they paid the only way they knew how. One day, a SWAT team showed up at our door. They told us we could pack one box of our belongings, and that was the last time we ever belonged to those people.

The law chased them down, but not for what they did to us. They were given a plea deal; my birth parents would sell out their suppliers and their “business partners,” and they wouldn’t go to prison. The entire case would be locked up, the records closed, and they could try to get their kids back.

My parents never served a single day for their crimes.

They showed up once to visitation. They kissed me. They promised me they would come back. I privately wished that they would disappear forever, and they did. I later learned they relapsed the day before our next visitation, and had parental rights terminated.

The law does not protect children. It rarely protects the victims that it’s meant to, but it never protects people who can’t speak for themselves. Unless you have money, no one will care. If no one cares, your transgressors will never, ever answer for their crimes. To this day, the United States Justice System will not let me own records or copies of records of the case against my parents. I couldn’t speak until I was six years old. When I was put into foster care, I couldn’t eat solid food for three months. My gag reflex was so bad I couldn’t brush my teeth comfortably until well after I was adopted. I trembled under my bed because my nightmares blended into my waking hours and I was so scared I couldn’t even scream.

When I turned 18, my birth mother found me. She lives with my birth father in a state known for its rampant meth use. She had another child. He’s 14 now. He plays soccer, has girlfriend, learned the flute last year, and his favorite Pokemon is Rayquaza. He got all A’s in his final year of middle school. They started over.

I talk to him sometimes. I don’t talk to her, because when I asked her to apologize for what happened, she told me the government was lying to me. She told me there were two sides to every story. She told me that my adopted parents had poisoned me against her. She called me an ungrateful little whore and told me that God would punish me one day. She told me she was a victim, too, and she deserved a relationship with me.

She is a victim. I still remember the sound when my birth father broke her arm in a rage when she threatened to leave him.

I also still remember trying to hide with her as she lay on her bed, high as a kite, not so much as lifting a finger to help me.

Being a survivor doesn’t give a person the excuse to minimize the experience of other survivors. Some people get justice. A lot of people don’t. Sometimes the police swoop in and make predators pay. Sometimes they shoot mentally ill foster children to death because the alternative takes too much time and effort. Technology is a useful tool, because it gives a voice to the voiceless. It empowers people who are made powerless. My adoptive parents didn’t believe me when I finally had the words to say “I was harmed.” They beat the shit out of me when I was little for trying to draw out what was wrong. They stopped letting me see a therapist when she told them I showed signs of serious trauma from sexual violence. The internet gives a rope to people who are stuck in a whole with everyone around them calling them a liar. Technology gives survivors and outlet to make their story their own again.

Your story doesn’t erase other peoples’ stories. People who are nice to you can be hurtful to others. What you see isn’t necessarily the truth and until we have a government that survivors can rely on it’s always, always important to believe survivors.

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north-of-annwn · 6 years ago

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Ok so I'm not going to do this anonymously because i don't fear getting chastised for my own ignorance but there are other alternatives to abortion aren't there? I mean i honestly don't understand this bill nonsense but it mostly at least to me sounds like it's just to keep children alive. I mean there are adoption centers and people who will actually pay women who are pregnant to act as surrogates. Why is anti abortion so bad? And how is this a woman's autonomy probpem. Please educate me

First, I want to thank you for acknowledging that your perspective on this may be informed from a place of systemic oppression of AFAB people, and for seeking out information. When people add on to this post with the purpose to educate, I implore you all to remember this person is seeking information. Please avoid shaming them or ridiculing them.

Let’s first address your questions:

1) “There are other alternatives to abortion aren’t there?”

Let’s first define abortion. “In medicine, an abortion is the premature exit of the products of conception (the fetus, fetal membranes, and placenta) from the uterus. It is the loss of a pregnancy and does not refer to why that pregnancy was lost. A spontaneous abortion is the same as a miscarriage. The miscarriage of three or more consecutive pregnancies is termed habitual abortion or recurrent pregnancy loss” (Shiel MD, MedicineNet).

¼ womxn will have abortions in their lifetime. Abortion is a medical procedure that can be requested or required for a lot of different reasons:

The pregnant person may not be able to carry an embryo to term safely.

The pregnant person may not have the financial support to pay for the medical bills that pregnancy costs in the US (prenatal and delivery alone can cost around $18k).

I also want to add that people in this country are not given any kind of financial support for the time taken off for prenatal or postnatal care. Being out of work for this time could mean entering extreme poverty.

The pregnant person may not have the financial support or stability of lifestyle to support a child.

The pregnant person may not be physically up to the task of carrying a child to term and delivering. Not all womb-having people are up to what childbirth does to the body. Childbirth is one of the most dangerous things that a body can be put through. In the US we’re just under 20 maternal deaths per 100,000 births, which is the highest in the developed world. Some undeveloped countries have better stats than we do

Abortion may be required as an emergency life-saving procedure for the pregnant person. And waiting for approval by a committee could mean the death of that person.

Medical interference can also be needed if the embryo has already been determined unviable (basically will not ever have life) because having dead tissue remain in the womb will kill the person. Wombs don’t always do what they’re supposed to and often they will still act as if the pregnancy is going along normally when the embryo stopped growing and forming.

Abortion as a medical procedure is part of basic reproductive healthcare. Denying it is like denying the use of a c-section or blood transfusions.

I also want to add that many of these GOP states are seeking to classify any and all contraceptives as “abortion” as well. This isn’t included in this bill specifically but it’s been named as part of their agendas.

2) “I mean I honestly don’t understand this bill nonsense but it mostly at least to me sounds like it’s just to keep children alive.”According to the CDC, 91.1% of abortions are performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation. At this time, this is an embryo and fetal tissue. It’s not a child. Pro-life people are placing the eventual *possible* life of a being that isn’t even formed yet above the autonomy and rights of a living human being (the pregnant person). A zygote without a brain or the ability to survive outside the womb is not a person, and therefore not a child. We have determined that something without brain activity is not alive. People with wombs are not incubators. This is not the sum of our existence.

Right now you cannot force a person to give blood or organs in life-saving situations. Why should it be okay to force a person to donate their entire body as an incubator if they don’t want to, which has health complications, and long-lasting effects on the body? We even afford humans that are DEAD more rights than womb-having people in this country. It is illegal to take organs or tissue from dead bodies with no brain activity without consent, but it’s legal to force a living person to act as an incubator for tissue and chromosomes that aren’t even formed to make a person yet?

Also, this bill has SO much more nuanced support for the oppression of women than just keeping “children” alive. This affords the state the right to investigate any suspicion of “intentional abortion.” This means, if a person miscarries, they may be subject to invasive investigation and murder charges on top of grieving for their loss and recovering medically. This bill also in no certain terms basically considers all womb-having people in their state to be the property of the state by allowing people to be extradited and charged if they have a LEGAL abortion procedure in another state.

3) “I mean there are adoption centers and people who will actually pay women who are pregnant to act as surrogates. Why is anti-abortion so bad?” We currently have 108,000 foster children up for adoption right this second in the US. This doesn’t even include unwanted pregnancies being given to private adoption agencies. Adopt one if you want to save a child, but forcing people to enter crippling debt, put their body through the abuse of childbirth, and possible forced poverty because of lack of childcare or compensation for missing work isn’t okay.

Additionally, anti-abortion really only seems to be concerned with one thing - popping out children. There is ZERO concern for the health, wellbeing, or survival of that child OR the parent afterward. This is oppressive and forced childbirth expectations. And again, reduces womb-having people as nothing more than a means to an end. Their life and wellbeing aren’t considered - they’re incubators.

4) “How is this a woman’s autonomy problem.”All of the above. The entire idea of denying women normal reproductive medical procedures or criminalize a natural thing that our bodies DO is inherently oppressive. Deciding that a womb-having person is just supposed to do their best to carry to term an embryo regardless of danger to their life, medical needs, e, inability to care for the child, inability to pay medical bills, or the abuse that childbirth puts on the body… and possibly condemning them to death, poverty, or life-long debt removes the ability for a person to choose what is done or what is done TO their body. It’s inherently oppressive.

Make no mistake, these bills have very little to do with saving the lives of children, and everything to do with keeping women impoverished, oppressed, and without any control over their own bodies and lives. These bills are also written and signed without ANY input or oversight primarily by the people they affect. This is not a choice that womb-having people made… these are oppressive laws being forced upon them.

Some final personal notes from me: I am currently in a place where I would suffer greatly from these laws if they were to be implemented in my state. First of all, if I were to get pregnant, mine would be a high-risk pregnancy. It is likely that I could lose the pregnancy anytime within the first two trimesters, which would require an abortive procedure to remove the remaining tissue. If I’m to get pregnant, I need to know that modern medical procedures that are agreed to be the most effective best practices would be available to me by a doctor without the threat of criminalization or debating on whether it’s necessary/legal. This affects all people who may ever become pregnant. This is a clear and present fear for us. It’s not just anti-abortion. If that’s all it was… the answer would be simple, don’t have one. If you need one to save your life, you can choose to say no. But it’s not. This is about controlling womxn, denying us healthcare, and we are afraid. We are all desperately terrified of this becoming the new normal across our country. ONE in FOUR pregnancies ends in the need for abortion. And if you need one, you get one. This is about whether or not we have access to SAFE and MEDICALLY sanctioned abortions.

I really encourage you to do some additional research and reading from educational sites. Be wary of both FOX News, CNN, major news networks, and any journalists with a religious agenda. Further reading: https://prochoice.org/education-and-advocacy/downloads-resources/https://iwhc.org/2018/09/abortion-normal-and-vital/https://www.prochoiceamerica.org/issue/abortion-access/I’d really appreciate if any followers could tack on additional resources, statistics, and personal stories. This is SO important.

#abortion #reproductive rights #womxn's rights #women's rights #swamp-rat-king

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loudlytransparenttrash · 4 years ago

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Ngl the conservative stance on abortion and women's health in general are major sticking points for me. There's a lot of other stuff I can get behind but bringing another unwanted/unexpected kid into an unprepared family situation that can't meet their physical or emotional needs isn't a good thing for anyone involved. Our foster system is a disaster as it is and saying "well you should've thought of the consequences before you shagged" doesn't help anyone.

Tho to be fair nobody gives a fuck about women's healthcare no matter which side of the fence you land on.

I respect your views and thanks for the message :) To me though, the right not to be killed supersedes the right not to have your lifestyle changed. Very few people are ready or want children before they have children, until they do and form families and discover the strongest forms of love and fulfillment. There’s women who absolutely don’t want children, ever and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s her choice who she sleeps with, it’s her choice to use contraception, but killing her baby simply because she’s “not ready” or because she didn’t hear back from the one night stand she met on Tinder shouldn’t be a choice. Many parents who have these unplanned pregnancies turn out to be wonderful mothers and fathers, many of us can vouch for that as we weren’t aborted after being unplanned. The ones who truly don’t want to be a parent, their babies can still go to wonderful mothers and fathers. While sex is usually spontaneous, it should also be taken more seriously and the responsibility must be put on both parties to avoid becoming pregnant rather than feeling you should have no responsibility and use abortion as birth control. If you’re concerned about women’s health, then let’s not ignore the suicidal behavior, depression, substance abuse and mental health problems many women suffer post abortion, especially multiple abortions.

I don’t believe we should demonize women who have had an abortion but I believe we must prevent abortion by placing greater value on sex and relationships and accountability for our decisions. The mantra of even the pro Roe v Wade backers was abortion should “safe, legal and rare.” Today, it’s anything but rare. Of course, wiping out a human life to make yours a little easier should never have been given the thumbs up to begin with, but it’s also important to change our entire attitude around abortion and focus on the issues women cite (apart from sex-selection and eugenics) for pushing them to kill their baby so we can solve them, helping both woman and baby. Keep in mind the typical abortion seeker is a low-income, black, single mother. Despite making up about 13 percent of the women’s population, these women abort 5 times the amount of babies as white or Asian women, meaning if you were a racist then you’d probably be all for keeping abortion alive and well. Of course these women don’t want another mouth to feed when they’re dependent on the state, they don’t have the emotional support or financial stability one gets when in a steady relationship.

There needs to be many changes, culturally and politically. You’re right, healthcare and the adoption/foster system also need a lot of work. Women should know that they will be provided the best possible care and support whether they intend on keeping the baby or putting it up for adoption, much better than what’s currently available. But even in crisis pregnancy centers, those who provide alternatives to abortion, from adoption, counseling, training, childcare or financial assistance, they are still required by law to not only endorse abortion but to actually provide the contact details to abortion clinics, yet there are no requirements for abortion clinics to inform their clients about any alternative to abortion. Can’t we agree that abortion should be at least a little bit disincentivized? We should be protecting the most innocent lives while safeguarding the health and wellbeing of women. Why can’t we do both? The go-to choice shouldn’t be killing babies to absolve adults of responsibility.

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diariesofaplutonian · 5 years ago

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Pluto: Where is your power lost? Where can it be won back?

Someone with Pluto in the 8th house may feel powerless over death. Such person may undergo countless tragedy in the form of losing people close to him. He may lose his mother, aunt, younger brother, cousin, close friend, mentor, etc. through the course of his life, and so on. He may feel like he has no control over the lives of people he meets, and be plagued by the thought of forming attachments with other people, due to the fear that they, too, will die if he develops a closeness with them. His fear of death (not even necessarily his own) may evolve into a fear of connection and intimacy, another 8th house theme. He can overcome this fear or feeling of powerlessness through re-examining his basic safety, comfort, and survival needs, so when he reevaluates or reassesses his proximity to death, he sees not the history of all those who have passed before him, but the potential to live as though he is dying, not wasting a single minute, relating to himself and others with a newfound depth and urgency. He can form fierce, meaningful, powerful connections that allow him to interact and engage with people without being held back by the immediacy of crisis or the threat of future death. His knowledge that the future is uncertain can give him resistance to the notion of being extinguished, causing him to live relentlessly and with vulnerability, in search for deeper truth. Death may ignite a fury or appreciation for living within him. He may, as the familiar poem goes, “not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Knowledge of the impermanence of life makes him full of the desire to build something stable, solid, and long-term, seemingly permanent connections. He finds longevity in essence and via the impact he leaves on others and the impact they in turn impress on him. This gives him life and intense pleasure. Life becomes about energy, constancy in spite of inconstancy, and active transformation (self-transformation). He cultivates resilience and strength/temerity of character through this commitment to continuity of self-change.

Someone with Pluto in the 9th house may feel disempowered in light of others’ ideology/belief systems or in the field of higher faith or science or education. These people are some of the most likely to be successful high school or college dropouts. They have their own unique mission in life, and discovering it is their source of power. This person may also feel constantly tested or undermined by religious notions or organizations and possibly even the notion of God or higher power. This person may, alternatively, derive immense inner strength and fortitude by believing in God or higher power or the Spirit. This person may also form his own introspective, unique thoughts about life and produce philosophies or inquiries about the nature of existence. He could derive great fame or fortune or success or influence from disseminating his views, albeit controversial, whether positive or negative. In fact, he is sure to be polarizing. Nonetheless, his ideas will generate significant outreach due to the distinctiveness of his voice or message. His spirituality may be called into question, abandoned, or adopted. This person may struggle at school/in formal education, not necessarily academically or intellectually, but in terms of curriculum. This student may not agree with what he is being taught or feel like he cannot learn via compulsory schooling. The native may thrive in more organic settings where, opposed to sitting in a lecture or taking notes off a PowerPoint, for instance, he may be asked to design a project implementing his ideas or approach to something or invent a novel way to problem-solve an application. This, to him, may be a better use of his time, energy, and creativity. He may also flourish in home-schooling or alternative schooling, trade schools, or special schools. This person may feel restricted in environments where he is subject to other people’s beliefs or so-called knowledge, such as when someone insists fascism is the right way to live, for instance, and he argues socialism is the right way. He has to learn to contend with other people’s viewpoints, however challenging to hear he believes them to be, without feeling the urge to change or compel them, despite whether he believes himself to be right and they wrong. Other people don’t have to believe what he believes and he shouldn’t feel obligated or righteous enough to attempt to sway or influence them. He will find his personal power when he is able to separate the actions and beliefs and opinions of others without feeling the need to compete with, attack, or obliterate them. There isn’t always a “winner.” Not everything needs to be contested or debated, and sometimes, it really is best to say nothing at all.

Pluto in the 3rd house may feel intimidated, pressured, limited, or controlled in situations involving siblings, local spaces or regional transportation, or informal school as opposed to higher education. For instance, one may be significantly older than her sister and may be forced to help her parents raise her due to her family being large and having significant age gaps between children, or, her sister may have been made an orphan after their parents died in a tragic car accident, and the native thus may have been forced to intervene and take custody of her sibling to avoid the younger girl ending up in the foster system. She may resent having to take care of someone else as an adult when she is not even fully able to provide for herself and her own needs, or she may have difficulty relating to her younger sibling because of their large age gap, and may thus find herself in the mother role instead of the big-sister role. She can see this as an unfair constraint upon her own resources, time, and happiness. Or, in a different scenario, the Pluto in the 3rd house person may have parents who divorced when she was a child and one of her parents, say her father, remarried and her stepmother brought in 3 children of her own. This person may feel abandoned by her own father, especially if her mother remained her primary caregiver and her father acted as a birth parent to his stepchildren, treating her as an adopted or stepchild. She may resent her step-siblings for being closer to her father and in her eyes, ‘stealing’ her dad away from her. Tension between her siblings and herself could cause her to feel troubled or indignant and unable to change this deeply unsettling feeling of being replaced that dwells inside her and eats her up from the inside. Rather than letting this jealousy or envy consume her and ravage her insides, she can overcome this tribulation by fostering an intense self-love within herself and finding stimulating mental activities and hobbies (as Mercury traditionally rules the 3rd house) that make her feel powerful.

For example, let’s say she begins to read and write exceptionally well, eventually crafting a memoir about her experiences, and it turns into a bestseller. Or, perhaps, though, this is petty, she joins the chess or debate team at her school along with her siblings and constantly crushes them at debates or chess. She will have thus found a way to transcend those setbacks that made her feel defeated and less important, by becoming the best in a field or championing her story or becoming victorious in publishing or some type of Mercury-related field. She will have attained some sort of dominance or recognition and will no longer see herself as second-best in terms of her parents’ eyes/her father’s treatment of her. And who wouldn’t like to be the most successful sibling? The one who introduced the world to the family name? Sibling rivalry/competition can be healthy.

Pluto often brings the potential for struggle and demise and defeat, but it also rules comebacks and success stories and champions the role of the underdog. There is no ‘failure’ or setback that cannot be overcome with Pluto, so long as one constantly and consistently transforms and generates a second skin, so to speak. Pluto is a test, and you can’t ace every test, but you can’t flunk them all either.

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fantasychica37 · 5 years ago

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Possible full names for the Dreemurr kids

Chara:

Birth name Charles (if pronounced “char-a” - there’s probably a similar girls’ name if Chara’s AFAB) or a name like Caroline (GLaDOS parallel!!!!)/Carol/Carrie/Carolyn (if pronounced “care-a”), alternatively Chara is AFAB and Greek and Chara was their birth name (Chara’s a Greek girl’s name apparently, it means “joy”!!!!!)

Chosen middle name Togore or Goriel (so they can be named like Asriel was as they’re as much Toriel and Asgore’s child as him and because those names both have the word “gore” in them - and Togore uses the opposite name elements as Asriel and is “toe gore” which I think they’d enjoy, but with “Asriel” and “Togore” being perfect opposites Frisk is a little bit of an awkward third wheel, although “Astor” for Frisk is a good solution, see below)

Alternatively their birth surname was Astor (they’re white and Astor is a European name) which they keep as their middle name so they can be named like Asriel and their name can be Chara A. Dreemurr (Chara, a dreamer) but that would take away the only middle name idea I have for Frisk so maybe not

Frisk - birth name Francisco/Francisca/Francesco/Francesca/Franziska Lee/Astor, chosen name Frisk Astor Dreemurr

Those first names all have the consonants in “Frisk”, possible origin of that name, also they mean “French person” and “France” is from “Frank”, a name of an ethnic group deriving from a type of spear they used, but the English form, Francis, is associated with a very peaceful and good saint - so either a peaceful loving person or “people of the spear”, which is the choice we make as we control Frisk

Astor because it’s a real last name that’s also a combination of Asgore and Toriel’s names, as though it were destiny (I headcanon that Chara grew up with abusive parents and Frisk was given up for adoption as a baby and grew up in the foster system and only knew lack of love, not active malice, so Chara was angry and hated humanity but Frisk was desperately determined to do anything to make friends - so Frisk might have cause to keep the surname Astor because they don’t hate their birth family since they never knew them and by keeping Astor they can be named like Asriel.) Also, if Chara’s middle name is Goriel, Frisk can be their opposite in middle names just like Frisk and Chara are opposites in many thematic senses. If Chara’s middle name is Togore, Astor is a combination of the first elements of “Asriel” and Togore” with an extra letter added, just as Frisk is a combination/mix/middle ground of Asriel’s and Chara’s worldviews with stuff added that enables them to break the barrier and break everyone’s old flawed mindsets. Finally, Frisk’s name would be Frisk A. Dreemurr (Frisk, a dreamer).

Lee because it can be either Asian or European in origin (and black and Native American people can have European surnames), thus giving Frisk the maximum number of possible ethnicities - I’m confident the reason Frisk looks ambiguous is that they’re supposed to look like you but 4′10″ and with a certain hair length - and also because when people hear Lee they think Asian and it’s a joke about how Frisk’s appearance, which was designed to be perfectly ambiguous, also happened to wind up looking like if a racist person drew an Asian

Also Lee because 1) if they made Lee their middle name it sounds like a first or a last name so is the perfect middle name and 2) if their middle initial is I or A (Astor, perhaps) they’re Frisk A. Lee or Frisk I. Lee which sounds like “Friskily” (a la the joke about Chara’s middle name being “Cter”, which I will include in this post as soon as someone proves to me that “Cter” or “Ter” (middle initial C) is a real name somewhere in the world)

Kris: birth name Kris P. Lee (”crispily” - the thing about “Lee” being for multiple ethnicities and Kris looking ambiguous applies here as well as to Frisk) or Kris P. Bacon, with Kris probably being a nickname for something; chosen name Kris Togore Dreemurr because Kris would also enjoy “toe gore” and because there is no third Dreemurr child Kris can have the opposite middle name of Asriel without blocking anyone out

Asriel - birth name Asriel Dreemurr, chosen name Asriel Chris Dreemurr

Middle name Chris to fit in with humans on the surface who have middle names - especially human royalty with long names - and to expand his name after he’s been through so much and grown so much, and to pay tribute to Chara and Frisk as “Chris” is like a combo of their names)

Alternatively the long form of “Chris”: Christopher or Christian (so all his names don’t come from other people - he chose a middle name that was part derived from the names of other people but also part unique), and here’s a rationale behind each name

“Christopher” is “Christ-bearer” and Asriel bore a heavy burden to give the monsters salvation

I as a Christian often joke that the reason Asriel isn’t suffering a soulless eternal fate worse than death in Deltarune is because God’s in Deltarune (there’s a church) and God would never let anyone be a zombie in lonely torment and unable to be truly happy for eternity, and I guess the corollary of that is that if Christianity was in Undertale Asriel could be saved, so!

Even without that line of reasoning, the reasoning behind “Christopher” would be an endless reminder of Asriel’s suffering, which he may or may not want (some people wish for scars to prove they survived, while other people wish them gone, for example), and a Christian is someone who believes in hope and mercy and love and that things will always get better, and in miracles.

For example (not that Asriel knows this - he doesn’t know his world isn’t real, thank goodness), you could be faced with people who want to kill you and be nice to them instead of attacking back, and by a series of miracles have it always work - and then find that because you were nice to everyone it will by “chance” set off a series of events that leads to enough people being together in one place for the villain to have enough power to absorb enough souls to break the barrier and get you your happy ending! (I also think that if Asriel and Chara were saved, it would be because Asriel used all that soul power to do it! I mean it’s the power of a god, right? And don’t gods create souls and give people life in most religions?) The creator of the world made us the promise that the angel Raphael made to the boy Tobias (yes that was his name I’m not making this up) in some apocryphal Old Testament book: “Do what is right and no harm (well, no permanent harm, even if you die 128 times like me) shall come to thee.”

The Dreemurr children in every universe try to get free king suite or whatever tickets to the fancy hotel called the Waldorf-ASTORia because of this (and in Undertale, it’s because they’re actually royalty so they deserve the king suite and free room service, right? No? Darn it)

(@askroyalchildren, I’m not trying to say my ideas are better than your middle name ideas you came up with, but what do you think?)

#undertale #deltarune #frisk #kris deltarune #chara #asriel dreemurr #dreemurr family #christianity #undertale is a very christian game in every way but the presence of someone named god

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polarishq · 4 years ago

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Meet NADEZHDA “Nadia” STERANKA. They are SIXTY years old and hail from ODESSA, UKRAINE . Nadia embodies the star, CAYREL’S STAR. They use she/her pronouns. Their faceclaim is STAV STRASHKO.

Cayrel reminds me of messy ponytails, childhood crayon drawings, radio static, scraped knees and dirty feet from running barefoot, glass coke bottles, a lucky pair of socks, smudged eyeliner, a daughter in nothing but title, cracked mirrors (seven years bad luck but who’s to say its your bad luck?), wishing wells, a love of all colors but red, iced coffee as the superior beverage, moral ambiguity, and carefully tended grudges.

BIOGRAPHY

The thing about little girls (even little girls raised in the tail end of communism ; even little girls once mistakenly thought to be little boys) is that they know how to embrace the world as their playground. Nadia was born to a flaky mother and absentee father, but her circumstances were inconsequential. What she lacked in wide open fields, she made up for in creating an imaginary world that stretched as far as her street’s long row of Soviet-era apartments. What she lacked in decent parental figures, she found in the care and acceptance of her maternal grandfather. What their community lacked in wealth, Nadia replaced with an imagination that turned their limited space into her own fairytale world

It helped that her grandfather (unlike her mother) encouraged her in everything she did, even when communism tried to dictate everything outside of their home. All Nadia need to do was ask, and he’d do whatever was in his power (both figuratively and literally, using magic) to make it happen, up to and including the day Nadia asked that he stop referring to her as his grandson. A few memory charms on the people they interacted with on a regular basis (to simply reintroduce Nadia by her gender identity would’ve been dangerous for the time), and that was that. Looking back on it, Nadia can note the distasteful switch in her mother’s interactions with her after that point, but did that really matter? To her, no. Her family was her grandpa and their neighborhood, and what remained were footnotes to her story.

Nadia never had to learn of the existence of magic — it was all around her from day one, so most of her formative years were spent awaiting her own star mark. When it finally appeared though, in the crook of her elbow at age twelve, no one could really tell her what it meant. Which sucked, but at least it meant Nadia had powers, and that was something, right? The entire story of how she discovered her magic is rather simple. She’d been walking down her apartment hallways, idly thinking about a pair of earrings she’d seen on a model in a magazine, when she stopped to look in the hall mirror. When she saw herself exactly as she was, except wearing the same earrings she’d been imaging, she had to reach out to make sure she was really looking in a mirror. Her hand passed clear through the glass, and then back towards her with the earrings folded in her fist.

You shouldn’t give a twelve year old that kind of power, much less a twelve year old growing up in that environment. She knew enough not to go overboard after trying a few more times to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, but she did abuse it more than she cares to admit. A nice new hat for her grandfather, a slice of honey cake from her favorite bakery when she couldn't make the trip, a very specific looking collar for her cat — small things, but enough for Nadia to know that she had it made.

As she grew older (and, as her grandfather grew older), Nadia learned to use her abilities for... not necessarily good, but for good intentions. All she had to do was imagine a high price item and it would be hers with just a pluck. Her building was full of people willing to help her sell her new goods, no questions asked. And her grandfather, thinking the world of her, rarely questioned here Nadia came up with money to help support them. No one was getting hurt. That’s what she told herself... until her grandfather unexpectedly came home while Nadia was hands deep in another dimension. She’d not told him about her powers, so to be discovered caused her to panic. What followed was her waking up on her bedroom floor, looking up at her grandfather and the living breathing person she’d dragged through the mirror, now stranded.

Everything after that seemed to crumble. Her grandfather refused to accept anything she gave him without proof of where it had come from, so she couldn’t help provide for the household like she once her. Her feelings for her flake of a mother became twisted, resulting in endless screaming matches on the rare occasion they were in the same room. Her new roommate/foster sibling/dimension buddy was... a complicated matter, we’ll leave it at that. It wasn’t until the fall of the USSR in 1991 that there was a shift, and their little cohort immigrated to the States a few years later.

What they don’t tell you about being a little girl with an active imagination is what you grow into an adult with much the same. And when simply imagining something is enough to create a new dimension for your picking, it’s hard to resist temptation. Nadia’s grandfather passed away in the last decade, and although it broke her heart, she has since started to slip back into old habits. Moving to Polaris Village was a business move, really, even if most of her time should be focused on school. The people at Polaris rarely care where you get something from, so long as they can get it.

Nadia is something of a walking black market nowadays — if you need something hard to find, just give her a description and she’ll pluck it from another world. And in return, she gets paid. She had her limits, of course — nothing fang will cause another person harm, no illicit materials, and nothing living (not again). Her grandfather would be disappointed, she knows this. But, as always, Nadia justifies. The more practice she gets, the closer she can get to dimension hopping. And that means she’s one step closer to sending her person back home. So in the long run, she’s doing a good thing. Pocketing the money is just an added bonus.

INCLINATION

As one of the oldest known stars in the universe, Cayrel’s Star knows that there are endless other universes to be seen. The witch or wizard is capable of accessing alternative realities via mirrors, and in a manner of speaking, can control which multiverse they’re peering into. The witch or wizard looks into a mirror while craving an apple fritter? Their reflection becomes the alternate universe version of themselves that just so happens to be eating an apply fritter at that exact moment. Then, it’s simply a matter of reaching through the mirror and bringing the object from Universe B into Universe A. Some sponsees have even been able to move through dimensions, though this is highly prohibited. The bigger an object, the more energy is needed to bring it into this world.

CONNECTIONS

Half-Sibling: Nadia’s mother was largely absent from her life, so she really knows nothing about the woman who gave birth to her. One thing she is clueless about is that her mother had another child (either older or younger, I’m not fussed!) that she gave up and let be raised either as an orphan or to be adopted out. Whether they somehow know about Nadia is entirely up to you, but they would at least know their birth mother’s name. Do they want to know more? Does it not matter to them? Will they and Nadia ever meet? YOU TELL ME.

Mirror Mirror: The tricky thing about interdimensional exchanges is that you have to be very careful about what you grab. Nadia learned this lesson when she accidentally dragged someone rather than something into this universe. Having no idea how to either reimagine their universe or to return them, the only solution was for them to stay with her. They can have become close friends or maybe they deeply resent Nadia for displacing them. Maybe they’re close friends while also resent her. Who knows!! (Since this person is from a completely different dimension, there’s a lot of leeway in their magic. They may even be an alternate dimension version or the alternative sponsee for another character, but make sure to get permission first)

Frequent Buyer: Someone (or multiple someones) who enjoy hard-to-find items, otherwise known as Nadia’s specialty. They pay her on time and have established a good enough rapport that, who knows, maybe she’ll soon be willing to break some of her own rules regarding what she brings back.

Penned by Jeanne ★

#jeanne.#taken.#student.#air.#cayrels

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pika-ace · 5 years ago

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Foster Dog Hamilton AU-Character Descriptions

((I combined all your submissions into one to save space cause I’m kinda OCD like that, okay X3))

Burr Breed: Black Lab Appearance: Um…a black lab,lol. Dark brown eyes. Breed Info: To be honest, this is just what I’ve always imagined Burr to look like as a dog. While Labs are usually very hyper, many can have a calm disposition as well. They are very friendly and charming to lots of people, as well as intelligent. Background: Burr was born to a breeding pair of Black Labs that were owned by an official breeder. He was adopted by a man at a little younger than two months. He was very hyper and playful, which amused his master at first, but as he grew bigger the man grew tired of the constant barking, and began yelling at Burr when he began to get loud, even kicking him at some points. Burr soon grew afraid to bark or make much of any noise. If he even moved around the house too much his master would get angry. He trembled at any raised voice, even at voices raised in excitement. His life soon became both monotonous and stressful at the same time. A personal motto he ended up developing was “Bark less,Wag more”. At a little under a year old, his owner finally grew tired of having him around and tied him up outside the animal shelter one night. When the employees found him they took him in right away. The attempts to adopt him out were unsuccessful, as due to his anxiety he would never play with anyone who came to look at him or interact with them much at all. Plus,he would show great fear at raised voices and barking, as if he would be punished for other dogs barking. The shelter employees decided to ask the Washingtons if they could take him. Perhaps they could help him to be a normal dog again.

Laurens Breed: Beagle/Retriever mix Appearance: Slightly taller Beagle body, golden brown color with a white chest,fluffy floppy ears, light brown eyes. Scar on his tail. Breed Info: Beagles are friendly social dogs. They usually get along well with others. They do tend to howl and bark when left alone though due to separation anxiety. They also love to track scents,though they must be watched carefully because this can cause them to wander and get lost. Beagles owners have to work hard to train these dogs to listen, as they sometimes their pets will ignore their directions, especially when tracking a scent. Beagles are also one of the most popular breeds in South Carolina. Background: Laurens was born to a beagle father and retriever mother in a small family home. His other siblings were sold but he was kept by the original family. They had a hard time teaching him not to howl and wander off. Eventually he ended up wandering so far that he became lost. After days of trying to find his way back, he finally made it,but his father,who never really liked having the puppies around and still didn’t care for Laurens himself,chased him away before the family saw him,giving him a good bite on the tail. He was picked up by a shelter a few days later. The Washingtons were still new to this foster care thing, so they decided to try and foster him, so he was sent to Virginia to be their second foster.

Lafayette Breed: Picardy Spaniel Appearance: Just as a Picardy Spaniel looks, brown eyes Breed Info: The Picardy Spaniel originated in France as a gun dog. Today it’s nature is active,affectionate, and alert. They are great family dogs and are content to stay by their family’s side. Due to their alertness,they are excellent watchdogs and will sound the alarm if something is amiss. They are easy to train from a young age. They do best with a positive and consistent leadership. They are great with children. Background: Lafayette was born in France and purchased by an older couple living in France. After a few months, their schedule would not allow them to give as much time to him as he needed. Rather than just send him to anybody, the couple asked their friends the Washingtons to take care of him back in America. Lafayette was flown to them some time later, and has been with them since. It was soon after that the Washingtons decided to foster some more animals.

Hercules Breed: Pitbull/Rottweiler mix Appearance: Rottweiler style body, a bit leaner however. Brown brindle coloring. Brown eyes. Breed Info: Both Pitbulls and Rottweilers have a bad reputation due to many being used in dog fights. Both breeds are affectionate and protective towards people. They make good guard dogs and are both active and intelligent. Rottweilers are very alert and aware of their surroundings. They are levelheaded and calm. Pitbulls can be fearless,yet stubborn. Both breeds were used to drive livestock in the past. Background: Hercules was born into a dog fighting organization, but at a few months old he was rescued in a police raid. Despite being rescued as a pup, nobody wanted to take him, especially as he looked more and more intimidating as he grew older. At a couple years old, the staff was thinking he would never be taken by anyone,until the Washingtons took him in. He was the third dog that they fostered and kept,after Lafayette and Laurens. Unfortunately for Hercules, he is often feared by people who can’t see past his breed and history, but he is one of the sweetest dogs.

Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy Breed: Golden Retriever Appearance: Angelica: Darker gold wavy coat Eliza:Straight gold coat Peggy: Light cream coat Breed Info: Golden Retrievers are even-tempered, intelligent and affectionate. They were bred to retrieve game for their masters. They enjoy being in water and are very easy to train. They can be trained for many different things. They enjoy being around other dogs as well Background: These three sisters were born in the same litter and are inseparable. They were adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Schuyler at a few months old and have been there ever since. Angelica enjoys going duck hunting with Mr. Schuyler, Eliza gets spooked by the gunshots however, and Peggy is a little too hyper to stay quiet, so they stay home with Mrs. Schuyler. They live nearby the Washingtons’ home, and their owners have been friends with them for years,so they often go over to their home,as it is large enough for many dogs. Eliza is so calm and gentle and Peggy is so friendly that Mrs. Schuyler volunteers them as therapy dogs for children in schools and hospitals.

(Just a little note that I forgot to add in my submissions. I made Jefferson and Madison cats because I thought it would fit them better in this AU. I may send in an alternate description where they are dogs, but for me, I headcanon them as cats. Plus, it sounds less overwhelming when you say someone is caring for five dogs and two cats rather than seven dogs.)

Jefferson Breed: Ragamuffin Cat Appearance: Brown tabby,long-haired, light blue eyes. Magenta collar Breed Info: Ragamuffins are large and long. Their fur is long, soft, and silky. It needs to be brushed daily to keep all the tangles out of the coat. They usually have a docile nature and love to be held or lay on laps. They crave attention and can become clingy. Background: Jefferson belonged to a wealthy elderly lady. He was very spoiled from the moment she bought him. The best quality,most expensive wet cat food,groomed every day and night, and the softest bed. It all ended when she passed away when he was older. After a little while, some people dropped him off at the animal shelter. He mourned his poor owner as he sat in the kennel he had been placed in. He turned up his nose at the food they offered him, he barely knew how to groom himself, and what was this bed!?. He became grumpy and unwilling to let anyone interact with him. The shelter decided to ask the Washingtons if they would be willing to foster him, as they have been pretty successful with animals. They agree, and the next day he was sent off to them.

Madison Breed: American Shorthair Cat Appearance: Small, stocky grey cat, amber eyes Breed Info: American Shorthair’s have broad chests and a muscular neck. They are placid and easy going. While they’re fine with attention, they don’t need it constantly. They can entertain themselves easily. Their coat is thick and dense, so they need some brushing, especially in the colder months when it gets thicker. Background: Madison was born in a kitten mill. He was sickly soon after birth and developed a cough. It’s a wonder he survived. Police shut down the kitten mill when he was six months old and brought as many cats as possible to be evaluated and treated. Madison was there for a few months to regain his strength. It was discovered that his cough could be controlled with medication. It wasn’t contagious but he would always have it for the rest of his life. Not many people want sickly cats,so the shelter asked the Washingtons if they could continuously foster him if the shelter provided the medication. They agreed and took him soon after that.

#hamilton au #dog au #submission #long post

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lokiarsene · 7 years ago

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While researching Japanese orphanages, I came up with a few thoughts regarding Goro Akecho's past that are probable, and a headcanon or two here and there. If anyone has more knowledge with the subject, please feel free to correct me if any of this information is off the mark.

All my sources are listed at the end of the post. If you check any of them, please make it source #8, as that is a video where children in orphanages/foster institutions and the institution workers speak for themselves about their experiences, as well as what it’s like to be a part of Hinatabokko, a support group.

ETA: For clarity’s sake, the age of majority in Japan is 20. Not 18. Not 16. Goro and the PT are not considered legal adults until they are 20.

Also, Goro turns 18 in the game. He’s in his third and final year of high school, which would place him in this age bracket as per how Japanese students are assigned to school year. It is unlikely that he would have skipped grades, as that system doesn’t even exist in Japan:

“In Japan, there is no system for skipping grades during the compulsory education period. A student advances from one grade to the next. After completing their compulsory education, in order to get into a [senior] high school, students are usually required to pass an entrance examination.” (Source)

The “senior high school” bit here just means a high school that runs from first to third year. This is why Futaba has to take an entrance exam if she wants to continue her education past junior high.

We know that Goro approached Shido when he was 15/16--which is around the age some children are forced from their orphanages/foster homes (it ranges from 15~18). I'd go so far as to say that Goro approaching Shido was one of the most bitter pills he probably had to swallow. If he wanted to survive, he had to reach out to the father who had used his mother and abandoned the both of them. His other options would be extremely limited, if not non-existent. Most Japanese orphans and foster children end up unemployed or outright homeless once they're forced out of their homes, or they cycle through low-paying jobs with little hope of stability.

We know that Goro had planned a big elaborate revenge set up on Shido after gaining his trust and working with him, and I think many people, mostly critics of Goro, completely overlook just how many obstacles he had to clear just to get to Shido in the first place. Goro would have had no contacts, no social connections, and no political clout whatsoever that would allow him easy access to his father. I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason why Shido first gave him the time of day was a cruel whim.

Personally? My headcanon is that Wakaba Isshiki's research on Palaces, the Metaverse, and Treasures involved orphans and other such people that would easily be overlooked by society. While it sounds really crass to assume that orphans would be experiment victims, please note that I don't make that statement or offer it as a headcanon lightly. It's something I pieced together based on @jacks-plays-persona5's already existing argument for Wakaba’s research to be shady, as well as information gleaned from my research into Japanese orphans and foster children--that being they have little to no rights, and no one actively or even legally interested in their well-being or protection. What's more, children in these care facilities are often still beholden to their parents or relatives' control, even if they are not caring for the children.

From source #6: A care worker at an institution in Tsukuba said, “In Japan, the interest of the parents is seen as more important than the interests of the child.”

This refers to how children in these systems are often placed there by parents who can no longer care for them, but also refuse to actually legally give them up. Because of this, these children can never be formally adopted as they are still legally within their birth parents' custody.

To bring this back to the Wakaba headcanon: for parents who give up their children due to financial hardship, who's to say that they wouldn't thus be paid to give their children over to this research? There's even an instance of birth parents using their daughter to help mitigate their own financial troubles, such as the case of Kana-chan during Futaba's confidant link. Kana is not an orphan, nor was she placed in foster care, but the abuse and mistreatment she suffered was born from her parents' financial desperation and their callous insistence that Kana's life was theirs to do with as they pleased.

With the above information in mind, and with an in-game example of birth parents mistreating their own daughter for financial gain, I think my headcanon that "thrown away children" were sold for research to help their struggling parents is well within the realm of possibility. I also find it extremely difficult to believe that Wakaba would find willing, voluntary participants in such risky research, especially since it sounds like batshit crazy science on par with the Kirijo group's experiments in Persona 3.

Regardless--us not knowing exactly why Shido gave Goro the time of day is a frustrating oversight on the part of the plot, because by all rights Shido shouldn't have given an absolute shit about Goro unless something about him stood out from the get go. I highly doubt it could have just been Goro saying, “hey I have special powers for you to use.” Goro would have needed something else as a foot in the door before that revelation, or Shido would have already had to assume Goro capable of such a thing. Thus my headcanon that it was Goro's surname that caught Shido’s attention--perhaps Shido recognized it from Wakaba's research data? Or his own memories about Goro's mother?

It’s possible I’m totally overlooking something in canon that Shido says about this, as I haven’t yet gotten up to Shido’s fight in my replay and I have a totally abysmal memory. I’ll come back to this and edit in any information that either refutes or backs up this headcanon.

Now, back to the fruits of my research: Many children in these orphanages receive little to no education on top of spotty care from overworked and underfunded foster caretakers and the qualities of the homes themselves. For Goro to be as intelligent as he is--articulate, quick-witted, talented, and educated enough to work with the police while he's still a teenager--is downright miraculous. It strongly indicates that he desperately dedicated himself to his studies, most likely out of fear of where he'd end up if he wasn't smart enough to succeed. He himself admits he worked so hard so someone would accept and need him, but this doesn't answer how he had the resources to do so--it's very likely he did it all himself, which is another miracle considering that most children in orphanages don't continue past junior high, and they’re raised to do exactly as they are told, with little emphasis on individual decision-making. And even with all this, Goro is in a prestigious private high school in Tokyo. I know this is likely due to Shido's influence, but for Goro to have the knowledge to succeed in that school is still downright staggering.

Also gained from this research is the information that the hierarchy of bullying within Japanese orphanages is a tyranny of its own. Older children often antagonize and bully the younger ones, forcing them to 'stay in line' and listen to what the older children say. There is also very little privacy guaranteed to the children in these care homes--most have to live in very small spaces close together, and have to share bathrooms.

This information provides yet another necessary detail we can safely assign to Goro's background, one that leads nicely (re: heartbreakingly) into his reaction to hearing Ryuji talk about abuse in episode 3 of the anime. As an orphan, Goro would very likely have been a victim of bullying at some point, if not for the majority of, his stay in the facility.

From source #6: Japan’s alternative child care system suffers from overly large institutions where physical space is limited and chances for bonding are scarce; poor physical conditions of facilities; physical and sexual abuse by both caregivers and other children; and insufficient mechanisms for children to report problems.

With this in mind, abuse would very likely be no new thing for Goro at all, nor would it have been something he could easily or even reasonably do anything about. This could and very likely does explain how fervently he clings to his ideal of justice, as he was denied any hope of it for a long time. It also makes his Personas of Robin Hood and Loki all the more fascinating and hurtful: Robin Hood was a champion for the downtrodden and abused. Loki is responsible for the doom of the gods that imprisoned him and massacred his children.

I also don’t want to dismiss the very real damage that Goro would have endured from knowing that his mother committed suicide from the shame of giving birth to him.

To quote from source #8: Takao Inui, Deputy Head at Izumigaoka Gakuin Institution: “Of the 82 children [in the facility], 88% were previously abused. The term “abuse” cannot fully describe the scar they carry in their hearts when they come here.”

My research has also led me to the discovery of an organization called NPO "3keys," which is a fairly recent foundation that strives to help educate and support children in orphanages. When I say recent, I mean it was founded in 2009. If we choose to assume that the developers had this information in mind when writing Goro’s background, he would be in his early tweens at the time of 3keys’ founding, and thus still in an orphanage. It's possible that he was helped by an organization like/inspired by NPO 3keys, and perhaps this is why he's so intelligent and highly educated. But even this is a stretch, because it would assume that 3keys would have (1) had access to whatever orphanage he was living in, and (2) that his orphanage was within Tokyo or Yokohama (where 3keys operates)--as well as (3) that the writers even had this in mind in the first place. I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt here and assume yes.

Even if that's what happened, that still doesn't change the likelihood of Goro having been abused and mistreated on top of the already existing neglect and trauma of his mother's suicide, and Shido's obvious disinterest in taking any responsibility. What's more, Goro's knowledge of even how to live in society or function in the world likely would have come at a great mentally and emotionally exhaustive cost.

To quote Kiyomi Moriyama, from source #8: “I have friends now, but when I’m by myself I feel lonely. I can’t get used to being alone. Even now, I still don’t know how to spend time on my own. So I get quite lonely.”

Goro’s public personality of a charming, eloquent young man is thus both more impressive and heartbreaking when you realize he had no one actually caring for him, raising him, or helping him grow up at all. This is knowledge he would have had to learn by careful study and observation, or by imitating someone he idolized (very likely Naoto Shirogane and other idol personalities).

I'm basing this assumption off of this excerpt from source #5:

Masashi cared about his appearance – he wore fashionable, albeit worn, clothes and had styled his hair – but a sense of isolation clung to him.

��A day feels like it never ends,” he said, sighing.

It gradually became clear that, growing up in an institution, Masashi hadn’t acquired the knowledge and life-skills necessary to live independently. Nor had he received the continuing support he needed to re-enter Japanese society.

This is a lot of information to take in, and none of it’s easy or light. I’m honestly crying as I go through these sources, seeing what happens to these children and how painful and lonely it must be. To know that this was the basis of Goro’s backstory only makes what happens in Persona 5 all the more infuriating and hurtful.

If I can try to end on a somewhat positive note here, I would like to put forth the slightly desperate plea that the anime does not fail Goro like the game did, and that the anime gives him some sort of hopeful ending, or at least a path to rehabilitation for a young man treated like a throw away child, a young man who was never given a chance for love or support or happiness until the final months of his life.

... I don’t know how else to end this post, besides to ask those who read it to consider Goro’s character from the context of all this difficulty and loneliness, and to perhaps do what they can with this knowledge and put it forward into some kind of real world effort. And to pass along the link once again to 3keys, as donations are always helpful.

Source: Economist.

Source: Quora

Source: JapanToday

Source: Time

Source: HRW

Source: HRW, 2

Source: HRW, 3 (This is 119-paged report, by the by)

Source: HRW, 4 (This infant care institution is called Futaba, by the by)

Source: JPNinfo

Source: JapanTimes

#this is the ask tag #meta #goro squad

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starsaboveyouadoption · 4 years ago

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ground control

I wanted to start this blog by saying how delighted I am to have now hit over 100 followers. I always started this blog with the view to help as many people as possible navigate life as an adoptive parent in the UK, but knew that reach may be difficult, so if only one person benefitted, I would have been really pleased. Thank you to those of you continuing to tune in and read my ramblings and I hope that the blogs are proving useful to you, wherever you’re at in your journey.

Without further ado, if you’ve stuck with me so far, by now we’ve arrived at the point of introductions. The most surreal, amazing, wonderful and yet draining, exhausting, and nerve-wracking of white-knuckle rides. For many of us, this is the first time we have seen our child in the flesh, and it just can’t be overestimated how momentous this time is. For those of us who have seen photos or videos, we’ve had to feast on scraps for perhaps months at a time before arriving at this point, and may have been surviving on a stack of paperwork and a handful of pictures to help us “know” our child. Much like how I imagine it must be bizarre and surreal (whilst deliriously joyful) to meet your baby for the first time on them being born, we adopters are meeting a child, however small, who already comes with a lot of history, their own established personality, and (hopefully) a bond with a loving foster family. So we are jumping right in cold to a world that already existed without us in it for some time, even if for just a few months or years, so it’s no wonder we find ourselves at times feeling woefully insecure, full of trepidation and on the verge of hysteria amongst all the amazing happy stuff!

I’ll start by saying that introductions, while all of those scary things, is also a really life-defining experience. It’s not really feasibly comparable to anything else and it’s hard to make an equation to birth parenting, but I guess there’s something of the transformative nature that comes along with having gone through labour and child birth, whereby you emerge with a totally altered perspective on the other side. It doesn’t feel how you expect it to feel (sometimes in all the right ways) and many of us will thankfully have our anxieties somewhat alleviated when we meet what is usually the warm and loving foster family who are raising our child, but of course as with anything, there is huge variation in each adopter’s personal experience of introductions (or “transitions”) and a myriad of factors at play which make each journey so unique. There are, however, some common steps to the process I can share with you, and I’m happy to share some aspects of my own experience that may prove useful. I’ll caveat by saying that my experience was with an infant under 18 months, and so I’m unable to advise on the experience of introductions with older children, but I hope that whatever age your child, there are some of my tips that may help you on your way regardless.

I guess it makes sense to start with what introductions actually are, and the rationale for them. Basically, introductions refers to a period of time pre-agreed with all parties which serves as a transitional time for your child to make the change from being parented by their foster carers to being parented by you. For young babies and infants, a typical timeframe would be between 5-10 days, and for older children this might stretch into several weeks. Anecdotally, most adopters I know who have adopted under 2s have been looking at under 10 days. Our introductions lasted 8 days. The rationale for introductions is as follows:

· They serve as a way for you and your child to familiarise to each other. Up until now, they won’t have had any more than a possible “bump into” meeting with you (see my previous blog), but likely haven’t had any contact with you whatsoever. Not only do you as adopters need time to get to know your little one, they most importantly need time to attune to you, to feel safe in your presence and to be comfortable in being cared for by you

· Trauma and attachment research in adoption consistently shows the benefit of gradual, managed introductions to helping the child securely attach to their adoptive parents, and securely transfer their parental bond away from their foster family. You don’t need to stretch your imagination too far to consider how you would feel if you were suddenly ripped away from all that you know, from the family who have loved and cared for you for your life so far, to be taken away to a faraway house to live with a group of strangers who until this day you have had absolutely no contact or bond with. Even with gradual transitions, it is well acknowledged that grief and loss are a central aspect of adoption, not only in the form of separation from birth parents, but from foster families – but the hope is that when the transition is handled with care, supervision, and steps to make the child feel more secure, placements will be much more likely to succeed, and the child is far less likely to be adversely affected by the change. Introductions allow you to get to know your child, and start the very beginning foundations of trust and bonding.

· On a practical level, this is a child who is already in an existing routine so intros give you time to understand key aspects of their care such as sleep, feeding, toileting, playtime, preferences/dislikes, behaviour, and better understand any additional needs and associated care.

· While the focus is primarily on the child’s welfare, adopters also benefit from the time and gradual transition in getting your own heads around the fact you are parenting this child now and process the huge amount of information that will be “downloaded” to you. Becoming a parent is a mountain of new responsibility hitting you like a train at the best of times, let alone the added layers of complexity that accompany adoptive parenting.

· Introductions allow for the child to understand from their foster carers in a safe environment that you are a trusted adult. They are learning about you too, and will take a lot of cues from their foster family as to how to warm to you in return. This system gives space for foster families to welcome adopters into the fold and provide a sense of security to proceedings.

On a practical level, you won’t actually be living at your foster carer’s house, but you may as well be for the amount you’ll be spending over there! Prepare yourself for an intense time ahead (hopefully the upcoming tips will help you get in the right mental space) as you live and breathe your child’s life and routine with their foster family over the next few days/weeks. The introductions plan will be a mix of time spent in largely your foster carer’s house but with room to transition by the end of the time to your child spending the majority of time in your space and your care as the foster family relinquish the reins. Our experience was a little different as we had a long distance adoption, so had to make use of some holiday accommodation to see Little Star, which added a little complication, but most adopters even if the match is quite a journey away can tend to use their own home for that part most of the time unless not feasible.

Again, I can only really speak of my own experience adopting an infant, but a typical introductions plan over a week for a younger infant might look something like this:

Day 1 – AM – Welcome meeting with foster carers, adopters and social workers. Final agreement around introductions plans and any tweaks needed. All agree way forward for the week, any specific instructions or arrangements, and time for any Q&A.

PM – First initial meeting with child at foster carer’s house, around 2-3 hours. You will probably be asked to hang back a little on too much affection, and to calmly greet and observe the child in their home setting, and have a relaxed visit with foster carer’s with some light playtime together. No expectation to provide care etc at this stage.

Day 2 – Half a day spent with foster carers to observe an aspect of core routine. This might include something like arriving for wake-up time, and seeing breakfast/nap time, and morning routine – observing rather than providing care at this time. Alternatively, you might observe dinner/bed and bath time. Usually you’ll have some downtime on this day.

Day 3 – similar to day 2, perhaps observing the other “half” of the routine, staying for a little longer with a break somewhere in the day. You will probably start providing some basic care like changing nappies, some feeding, and may be invited to do something like take the baby out for a brief walk. Foster carers may invite you to have some play time alone in the house, or to have a try at some things like putting baby to nap.

Day 4 – if this hasn’t happened already, things will step up a lot at this point and might get quite intense. By this stage, you will probably spend the entire day with the child and be taking the lead on their care, with guidance from the foster carer. You’ll probably start to arrive early in the morning before wake-up and handle the routine yourselves with foster carers on hand if needed – so be there as they wake, take downstairs, give breakfast, change etc, and get down for their nap. If things are going well, you may go out for some kind of community trip out with your child, and foster carers will be in a separate area away, to give you space – perhaps a shopping trip, trip to a soft play, lunch out etc. You’ll probably be putting your child to bed and continue to do so for most of the week. Foster carers should be giving you kind feedback throughout to let you know how you’re doing and any tweaks that may be helpful.

Day 5 – Another full day with you taking the lead in all aspects of care and play. Likely you’ll be invited to go out and about with your child, and probably to take them back to your space for a few hours to have time alone as a family and start them getting used to their home. You might put them to nap in their bed at home, feed them a meal, and bring them back to the foster carer’s in time for bed, which you will probably take the lead in. There will probably be a mid-way review meeting around day 4/5 to review how things are going from all perspectives, perhaps observe you informally with the child, give you the opportunity to make any tweaks, and to make extensions to introductions if necessary. Usually around now, you’ll be invited to start moving some of your child’s toys and things into your home day by day to help them feel more at ease with some of their familiar objects around them while they get used to your house.

Day 6 – Another full day, probably by this point spending almost the whole day in your own space, much like day 6 with the emphasis on collecting them from the foster carer’s straight away and bringing them home for bed last thing at night, doing this yourself. If able, you might take them for a trip out somewhere in your immediate area, though the focus will probably be on getting them used to life at your house. In some introduction plans, the child stays a night at the adopter’s home, but I’m not too sure how often this is the case.

Day 7 – Perhaps a half day with your child again likely in your space, but usually adopters are given some time on the last day for a bit of a break. You might have a private review meeting just between you and your own social worker, and will be given some downtime just to decompress, and take a breather. This gives you a chance just to have a step back before coming home day – and the foster carers a chance to say their goodbyes in private and get your child’s stuff ready for the big move. There will usually be an end of introductions meeting with all the professionals and foster carers on the last day(s) to give the green light to bringing your child home (and occasionally to extend intros by a few days if deemed needed)

Day 8 – Moving home day. Typically, you might arrive slightly later at the foster carer’s house in the morning in order to give them time to say emotional goodbyes without being “watched” and as a favour to you on what may be an intense day, they may do a little of the care in the morning (all depends on everyone’s preferences). You’ll collect the last of your little one’s things, all say your goodbyes…and it’ll be homeward bound! Our foster carers drove Little Star home as it was a long journey and their policy was they liked to do the drop off but ordinarily you will drive your child home and say goodbyes at the foster carer’s home. Usually if distance allows, arrangements will be made for foster carers to visit in a few weeks’ time to see how the child has settled in and as an important step to the child realising they haven’t disappeared or vanished, giving them a sense of permanency. Needless to say, this will be a hugely intense day and you will feel both emotionally and physically drained! We’ll move onto looking at life after moving in (or what is commonly referred to as “cocooning” in the next blog.

Introductions struck me as, similar to matching, another one of those “mysteries” about adoption where it’s hard to visualise how you are going to feel and how it’s all going to work in practice. The truth is everyone’s journey with introductions is very individual; you’ll hear some adopters sing their foster carers’ praises and others speak about the relief of saying goodbye. Some will have had much more intense plans in place, drawn out over many weeks and you’ll hear the occasional person talk of as little as 4-5 days. So it can feel especially hard to provide catch-all advice, but I tried to ask myself what things I wish I’d have known or thought about ahead of introductions that would have made our lives easier and helped us feel better prepared for the experience. Hopefully these are universal to most adopters…(in no particular order)..

· Wherever possible try to ensure introductions have a structured plan as far in advance as is possible. One of the things I would have changed is that our intros were a little ad hoc and “go with the flow” – which was lovely in some ways as it allowed for flexibility, but it did feel at times we were drifting and it was hard not always knowing how long the day would be or what exactly to expect to cover. It’s tempting when you find foster carers that are so warm and friendly to feel you can sort it as you go along, but you really will feel the benefit of knowing where you’re coming and going on each day

· I cannot emphasise enough how draining introductions are – they can be a wonderful type of draining, but exhausting nonetheless! It is almost a guarantee that you will collapse in a heap at the end of the day so plan as much sleep and rest as it’s possible to in your downtime. This was a real challenge for us as we had to stay away for ours and were a long way from home – I think the comfort of coming back home to our own bed/sofa would have made a huge difference to how recharged we felt for the next day. We definitely didn’t sleep enough out of trying to “make the most” of our free time, but to be honest, if I did it again I would prioritise early nights and not try to cram anything else in. I was utterly exhausted by about 8.30pm most evenings, and long after Little Star came home, I was still adjusting to the change of lifestyle and fatigue! Any opportunity for a lie-in grab it with both hands! On a serious note, it can really help your emotional state (which is bound to ebb and flow throughout the process) if you are running on good sleep and restful evenings.

· Don’t be afraid to ask for tweaks to the plan. I think we sometimes felt however lovely everyone was in our case, that it wasn’t really for us to define how the days went, but in actuality, there were a couple of things we’d have chosen to do differently. For example, it was planned for us to take Little Star out the second evening to a local event with the foster carers and take more of a lead in handling them. The trouble was, they really didn’t know us very well at that stage, and Little Star was visibly uncomfortable and a little distressed being handled by us and confused by the presence of their foster carer at the same time, plus it was a late night for them. It was a lovely gesture, but personally, I think this was too much too soon and it did make for quite a stressful evening as we worried that Little Star was crying and agitated so much. This may have been more appropriate say the 4th or 5th night in. Introductions can be made longer (and sometimes shorter) at different parties’ request – so for example, if you feel that your little one needs a little extra time to get comfy with you performing certain tasks, or there have been some hiccups along the way, any good social worker/foster carer should be accommodating to this. Similarly, sometimes it is felt more expedient introductions would be helpful – say if an older child has been scheduled in for several weeks and it is felt to be confusing for them or drawing things out unnecessarily in a way that may prompt further trauma.

· Don’t beat yourself up for little mistakes – much easier said than done, but I can’t count the number of times we felt like complete idiots for not knowing basic things about how to look after a baby. But why would we? Babies don’t come with a manual and they certainly don’t when you are going in cold to introductions with a baby who has established needs and preferences, who you’ve not had the chance to get to know organically from birth. I remember taking Little Star out for a trip just us in the car on something like Day 4. We made the rooky mistake of forgetting they were due a bottle and wondered why they were going bright red in the face screaming for about half an hour, our anxiety ratcheting up with every new banshee cry, until we realised the obvious! I also felt incredibly silly not to feel able to dress Little Star easily – they hated it and resisted it and with foster carers looking on through the glass fish tank which was their living room doors, they could see us chasing Star around trying to get them to sit still for just one minute to get even their vest on, let alone their whole outfit. We had countless times we forgot to pack essential things only have to scramble around buying alternatives last minute whilst out. And don’t get me started on the death-defying challenge of trying to fit a car seat! There will be times like this. Plenty of times. It will happen and you’ll feel like a twat, and like everyone might change their mind and decide you clearly can’t be entrusted with the care of this tiny child, but somehow, by the end of intros, you will feel at least somewhat differently. Don’t be afraid to ask even what may seem the stupidest of questions, or to ask the foster carer to repeat something you didn’t quite catch, or to Google the hell out of how to change a nappy if that’s what needed. You’ll get there. It’s also natural at times to feel your child is “rejecting” you which of course is unlikely to be true but can be the way it feels on a hard day – I’ll always remember Little Star screaming when we tried to put them down for a nap and just rocking and rocking them and nothing working. With hindsight it was day 3 and of course they weren’t comfortable yet but at the time I truly felt it was their way of telling me “you’re not my mum”. Be kind to yourself.

· One of the weirdest things for us was practically living in someone else’s space for over a week. Intros are such an intimate process and they involve a huge amount of trust between two sets of adults who have never met each other, not to mention the child involved. It feels so odd to help yourself to cups of tea at someone else’s house, or just grab things out of the nursery without checking, or go and give your baby a bath in someone else’s house. You’ll feel awkward and conspicuous at first, but please know, as our foster family continually reassured us, this is normal for them, they’re so used to it. Any experienced foster carer should make you feel at home as possible. They should show you round the house, where you can find things, and if you really feel awkward, there’s no harm in just checking in informally with them which rooms they’re happy for you to use so you don’t feel on edge. On day 2 we had to lie with Little Star in the foster parents’ own bed(!) because that’s what Star needed to soothe them when they couldn’t sleep. It’s surprising how quickly these inhibitions drop once you’re a few days in and priorities have shifted, and it’ll become a new normal. On a practical note, it can’t hurt to set the right tone at the beginning by bringing some bits of food with you so not to assume the foster carers will “put you up” for everything. This is at their discretion – ours were lovely and insisted on feeding us, even asking us which meals we would like in advance, but some may be slightly more stand offish in this respect, so I would advise on the side of finding ways to contribute and bringing along a few bits on the first day to show politeness. Chances are you’ll be raiding their cupboards/fridge without a thought by the end though!

· On a similar note, it can help to establish from the beginning how the foster carers like to work intros, if they have any particular methods they use, and when and how they will show you when it’s okay/not okay to take the lead. Ours were brilliant in this respect. They were more of the type to let us just have a go but would be around if we needed them. They explained they would quietly exit the room if they felt that things were going well, and we could take the lead on a task. Equally if they observed us struggling they pre-warned us they’d kindly step in and help coach us which they were brilliant at doing without making us feel patronised or like failures. Talk about how you’ll check in with feedback – we had dinner mid-way through in an evening after Little Star went to bed to chat about how we felt things were going, what we could try the rest of the week, how we could ramp things up a notch etc. Continual feedback is really important, and any good foster carer should be trained in how to facilitate this in a way that makes you feel comfortable.

· A really crucial part of intros for us was a debrief call with our social worker every single day. You may feel you don’t need this at the beginning but as intros wear on it’ll become clear why these are so imperative – the foster carers will likely be doing the same with theirs. This was our safe space to share any frustrations, worries, happy moments, anxieties or just “info dump” about our day so we could then move onto enjoy our evening and rest. It needn’t be long but just a 10-minute chat as you pull out of the foster carer’s drive in the car home can make all the difference. It also really helps with perspectives on those wobble days (you’ll have one or two) to have an outside person cheer you on form the side-lines and help you to see how much progress you’ve made in such a short time.

· This may not be your thing, but I journaled a few (v brief) bullet points every evening as a debrief. I did it because I wanted to remember how everything felt for Little Star’s life story and also for myself and my partner to look back on years from now. I included happy moments, emotional wobbles, any top tips or observations from the foster family, and any special memories I didn’t want to forget. It also goes without saying but take loooooads of pictures. Our foster carers took a video of when we first met Star, and we’ll always have that which is amazing. Don’t also be afraid to make some discrete notes about aspects of your little one’s care you envisage doing differently. Now’s not the time to make immediate changes but observing and noting down can help you reflect when back home and gradually transitioning to your own way of doing things.

· Towards the end of intros, you’ll ordinarily have a bit of a break day planned in – this may not be a whole day but may be say just spending the half day with your child that day. This allows for all parties to take a breather and recalibrate, and is invaluable time for you (and your partner if applicable) to sit and enjoy perhaps a nice drink or dinner, decompress from intros and enjoy a “last supper” if you will before madness descends on your home! We didn’t really get this and probably with hindsight would have asked for this, but on our last night, we did go for a nice meal and arrived slightly later the following morning (foster carers got Little Star ready for us so we could have a slight lie in as we were facing a long drive home). I remember the evening fondly. It was a mix of exhaustion, relief at having a nice hot shower, a wonderful memory for us both as a couple, and the dawning of a new chapter – it felt very apt. Try to find time for a little ritual to mark the end of an era, and to celebrate what’s to come before the really hard work of parenting begins. It’ll be something you look back on with a (perhaps wry!) smile.

· A big note on bonding – I feel so strongly about this and want to make it as clear as possible for anyone who may be struggling with this thinking they are alone. In the adoption community (as with the birth community), you will hear a lot of people claim to have fallen in love with their child at first sight, and to have instantly formed strong attachments within the timeframe of introductions. It’s not my place to comment on others’ emotions but what I will say is take this with a strong pinch of salt. It would be entirely normal when meeting a child you have never met before and who doesn’t know you from Adam, to not feel “love” as such just yet. Introductions can go really well, you may feel joy, excitement and positivity about the match and there can be some really encouraging signs that your child feels comfortable with you – some light bonding. I would argue it’s unlikely anyone could form a secure attachment within this time, and that building true attachment with your child is the work of months, if not years, if not indefinite. Don’t place yourself under this pressure. I felt very conscious about this and it made me feel like an awful person a few weeks into moving home that I only felt warm affection and protectiveness towards Little Star, rather than a genuine feeling of being their parent just yet. I, and lots of other honest adopters I’ve spoken to, have described more of a warm feeling of “recognition”. I’ve said before I believe matching is a science rather than destiny, but there was certainly a feeling of Little Star being the best “fit” for us, of wanting to comfort them, care for them, and protect them from harm – and a strong affection. I would be lying if I said I loved them straight away. I think a lot of people may be doing a disservice to others by claiming that they loved their child in a true sense from the moment of birth or meeting, but I did definitely feel a sense of us having “chosen” each other. The feeling of “falling in love” with my child over time as I got to know their quirks, their laugh, their tears, after having rocked them to sleep, fed them, held them, kissed and hugged them day after day, was more magical than any “thumbnail moment” I could have framed superficially from intros. I’ll write about this in more depth but I just wanted to share this because there is such humungous pressure on introductions and the last thing I’d want is for anyone to feel that things “weren’t working out” due to an absence of this feeling. There will be plenty of times you may even feel slightly disassociated or disconnected from your child, and this is all part of growing to learn about them, nothing to be ashamed of.

· If like us, you are travelling away for intros and won’t be back home until they’re over, think about getting everything ready for that first night home in advance to save any panic stations at the time. Get your beds made up, perhaps an outfit ready for them for the next day, some pyjamas, a few toys for them to play with on the floor when they arrive, and my advice? Do a deep clean as you’ll not have the chance to do one in a loooong time!! This’ll help you come back to as calm an environment as possible.

· Nothing has to be set in stone but how you get on with your foster carers during intros may give you an indication of how much future contact you’d like to continue with the foster family. A visit a few weeks in is typical, and you may wish as a minimum just to send a short message with a photo to say little one has settled and arrived okay. Don’t forget the foster carers will be grieving their loss too as well as your child, and a small kindness of letting them know how things are going for the first few days may be really helpful in reassuring them. Some may want to stay in continual contact as we have done (we view our foster family as aunts and uncles to our Little Star and plan to visit twice a year), whereas others may not be comfortable with more than the occasional text – you don’t have to make any concrete decisions but intros is a good way of getting to know them and making this call.

· If like us you are travelling, you may feel, as we did, very homesick. It’s a really intense thing to be doing away from home, and this is where your support network kick in. Something simple like giving your Mum a call each evening can be enough to help you hold your nerve and remember you will be home and secure soon. We were just so exhausted that we settled on a daily update text with a few photos so our family could track our journey without us needing to make calls, but this is personal to you.

· There’s no such thing as a stupid question, and I’d encourage you to ask your foster family as many questions as you feel you need to even at the risk of bombarding them! Questions could be about:

o The early days of when your child came home – how they presented, what they may know about the birth, how they settled into their foster home and built bonds (which will be useful for you)

o Information about how contact with birth parents went – foster parents will have facilitated this and will be in a position to share with you how the birth parents interacted with your child and any special moments they remember, For example, we know a special thing for Little Star and their birth Mum was looking at the sensory room together at the contact centre. It’s these little details, especially any loving moments they can recall, that really help to fill the gaps for life story work at a later point

o Any challenges in behaviour, soothing, fiddly things like dietary preferences or needs

o Any special foster family memories they had with your little one you can tell them about

o I really wish I’d asked more about what was “typical behaviour” for my little one. Asking something simple like “I noticed X responded like this when I tried to do X. Is this normal for him/her? What’s typically worked for you when this has happened before?” can be very reassuring and help you call to mind tips and tricks when you’re having a down day at home

· I’m not usually one to “start in the deep end” but I do feel there is no better way of making the most of intros than this. It’s hard to push aside politeness or anxiety but as much practice you can get in caring for your child within the foster home with the family’s coaching before you bring them home will pay dividends in your confidence. If you feel yourself hanging back a bit, do try to push yourself to ask if you can “have a go”. It may be something that terrifies you or you feel silly trying in front of the foster carers but don’t be afraid to ask them if you can take over.

· For those with partners, depending on the dynamics of your relationship, I felt strongly it was important that we both got equal exposure to trying to do some things on our own. Throughout intros we both had some “alone” time with Little Star where perhaps one of us tried to put them down for a nap, or gave them a bath while the other chilled with a cup of tea just to ensure we didn’t get into a situation where only one of us could handle a certain task. I didn’t want to arrive home and find Little Star was comfortable with one of us, but would refuse the other, or get into a weird pattern of not both being capable of each thing. In practicality, you do find that sometimes the bond is there of certain aspects of their care with one parent over the other, but trying to keep things balanced from the start has really helped us. Our foster carers were brilliant but if you are a heterosexual couple, don’t fall into the trap of the foster family just directing advice to the Mum. Dads need to get stuck in too, and feel included in the process.

· You’ll have been asked to send a “transition” object such as a blanket or teddy along with perhaps a photo book for your child prior to intros. We found these really helped facilitate and reinforce the bond with our Little Star – constant repetition of showing ours and our family’s photos (“Look, it’s Mama/Dada”) and offering them comfort with the same object really built up a sense of familiarity.

· Finally, and this is another big one that I’ll write about another time, but there is what’s known in adoption circles as the “honeymoon period” in many adopters’ experience of the intros period and early days of being at home with your child. Your child will almost certainly not act completely the same once they are home, outside of the warm familiarity of the home they are used to, and in the care of new adults, in a strange environment, as they did in intros. When you think about it logically, it makes total sense, but in the dead of night when your child’s woken up, is screaming ,and nothing will help settle them back to sleep you can be left wondering what you’ve done “so wrong” or if things are going to work out. The reality is there’s probably very little you’ve done wrong. You can follow all the foster family’s advice to the T, but undoubtedly the complicated mix of factors on arrival home will impact your child’s presentation. If someone asked me what I wish I’d known going into introductions it would be that the placid child who was very happy to be handled by us most of the time, who was smiley and bubbly, and seemingly an easy sleeper, would not necessarily always be the same baby when they came home, and that that is to be expected. Giving myself some grace on this would have saved me an awful lot of neuroses.

Well, it’s another mammoth entry but one which I hope has been of some benefit. My next entry will focus on those first weeks and months of having your child home, and the process of “cocooning” and lessons learned. From then, I’ll take less of a linear approach and we can start delving into some separate topics intertwined with the adoption world.

Til then, take care and thank you.

#adoption adoptionblog adoptionblogger adoptionrocks adoptionislove adoptioncommunity ukadoptioncommunity

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unholyhelbiglinked · 7 years ago

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Dimensions | Chapter Five

His hands were rough against my skin, touch chilled and nails digging roughly into my arm. It stung, not like the shots that I had gotten in middle school, or right before I went to college. This wasn’t a simple test to see if I qualified for birth control or even giving blood.

This was them testing me to see exactly what I was. Exactly what I had told them millions of times over the countless hours being grilled through a cell wall. Kara was nowhere to be found, neither was her sister- or the two goons that had brought me roughly to wherever this was.

Judging by the walls, it was underground. Underground and completely unreachable.

“I’m claustrophobic.” I mumbled, my eyes staring up at the ceiling. The chilled embrace of handcuffs kept me oh so skillfully to the hospital examination table I had been set on. It reminded me of the pediatrician I used to go to- from the gross alcohol smell all the way down to the parchment paper crinkling under me.

“That is my problem how exactly?” The guy rubbing cold liquid against the crease of my elbow. My fingers were growing numb, head resting against the edge of my arm as I tugged lightly on the cuffs once more.

“Just thought I would make conversation,” I grumbled, drawing in a breath as I felt a needle dig deep into my vein. The doctor apologized in a mumble, my jaw clenched as the pinch of a rubber band tied around my upper arm distracted me a bit.

“I’m not authorized to make conversation.”

“I didn’t know you had to be authorized.” I countered, lifted my chin slightly, finally glancing over at him. His deep green eyes were hard and unforgiving. He had done this hundreds of times to god knows what. He held the edge of a syringe wrapper in his mouth, his gloved hands pulling back on the rubber stopper as thick crimson pooled in the glass container.

“You have to authorized for everything down here.” Alex’s voice was colder than the man with the needle, my gaze moving to hers as the man quickly looked down, pulling away from me as he finished drawing blood. “Agent, Jackson would you give us a moment? I can finish up here.”

The sound of metal chair legs against a linoleum floor filled the room, my eyebrows raising slightly as the man left- taking his overwhelming scent of off brand cologne with him. I gazed at Kara’s older sister, the two of them taking the same power stance as they walked.

“Everything about you has come back completely normal.” Alex said, sitting down in the same creaky stool as she pulled gloves onto her hands. They were pale, the bright blue of the latex pressing against her ivory color. “The blood tests, the psych evaluation, shit; even your birth records are real.”

I nodded, cringing away from the slight pain that moved through me as Alex wiped more alcohol against the already sore spot. She placed a bit of cotton over the spot, a bruise already moving against my skin as she secured it with tape. She worked quickly and gently.

“Your adoption records even more so.” She mumbled, voice hushed “Does Kara know?”

“No,” I said quietly, shifting slightly as Alex leaned back, allowing me to sit up completely and face her now. She was chewing her bottom lip, eyebrows knit together as I kept quiet for a few minutes. “It shouldn’t be too hard to keep that quiet considering I don’t have much contact with the outside world at the moment.”

Alex’s breath was hot against my collarbone as she let out a long sigh. She smelled strongly of mint, the scent burning my throat. “Grace, we can’t figure out where you’re from. What you are.”

My gaze moved down to my feet. I hadn’t spoken of anything like this- told to keep quiet. To keep everything a secret to fit in with the large powerhouse of a family I was given here. The not draw attention to myself. This agency, whatever it was, wanted to coax me into submission. I needed to get home. Wanted to get home.

I scratched lightly at the tape that Alex had just pressed againt my arm, the adhesive already wearing off at the edges. She was a lot lighter with her approach than before. Something that concerned me for a number of reasons.

Kara must have spoken to her.

She was a protective sister, both of them knowing that family was everything in a city like this. It made my heart ache just thinking about getting off on the wrong foot with both Danvers sisters. Kara and I would walk to work everyday together, ocassionally getting drinks after our shifts had ended; but the first night we ever really talked was the night I was locked up in this place. It had been almost a week a this point.

“I’m not from another planet.” I sounded out, the words foreign to my ears. “I was born here, on earth. Just not… this version of earth.”

Alex had her arms crossed over her black shirted chest, eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “So what? Like another line of reality? One that give you whatever the hell I saw in my sisters apartment?”

“Sort of,” I grumbled, a bit exasperated. “They’re different dimensions really.”

“Dimensions?” Alex scoffed, “Miss Helbig, you expect me to believe that you come from a different dimension that turns you into a human nightlight?”

I shook my head, trying to think of a way to explain myself completely. People here had chalked up little differences in books and movies to a shift in time- not a shift in world. A changed title could be from a different place entirely. I never expected anyone to listen long enough to believe me, or even ask.

“Your sister grabbed a plane out of the sky and landed it safely in National Cities largest river and you don’t think alternate dimensions exist?”

“No I-“Alex stood quickly beginning to pace back and forth. I watched her curiously for a few seconds, still messing with the bandage I sported. “I deal with enough bullshit in my world. I don’t want to believe there are other versions of me out there.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” I said innocently “These places exist on separate plains, they don’t mirror them in anyway.”

“Right,” Alex scoffed “that was foolish of me to think.”

I laughed softly, biting the edge of my lip. “Agent Danvers this is the third dimension. The one that you exist in. Mine is the fifth. More advanced. More in tune with the powers that we possess.”

“Which is what, exactly?” She stopped pacing, staring me down harder than she had the whole entire conversation. “What exactly can you pull off, Grace?”

I could hear the buzz from the agents that walked back and forth, doing their day jobs like normal. This was normal to them. The danger in their profession something that they had adapted to; whether it be of their choice or not.

They were a nice distraction for a few seconds, a few long seconds where Alex Danvers, the sister of the one and only Supergirl scrutinized me. Judged me behind that filmy grey gaze. “Anything.”

“Anything?” She scoffed, her passive aggressive nature from before shining through. Part of me wondered if she was more livid about my secrets, or the ones I was hiding directly from her sister.

“Pretty much,” I ran a hand through my hair. “I just kind of have to think it, will it in a way. It… it plays off of distractions, and ties well to my emotions.”

“I don’t understand.” Alex defended once more.

I bit my lip for a second. The other night was the first time in a very long time that I had even come close to using my powers. It was something that was difficult to explain. “Okay, uh. Well, when that thing came for Kara the other day, I was angry.”

Alex sat back down slowly in the chair, her stare never leaving mine.

“That anger, coupled with my desire to want to help made me stronger.” I added, lifting my eyebrows “Inhumanly strong. That feeling of being helpless and seeing her hurt like that… It made me wish to be able to help. Want with everything in my being to save her. To help her.”

“So you’re telling me that you’re a ticking time bomb of power based on how you feel?” Alex asked, pressing the pads of her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “Grace, that’s not good.”

I let out a small grumble, running a hand through my hair once more. It felt greasy, my whole body coated in dirt considering I had been trapped in a cell for god knows how long. “No, I mean. I wanted that strength then. So I got it. It’s not always like that.”

“Then what is it like, huh?”

“Magic without spells?” I sounded it out, my tone getting higher as I went. I had never explained this before. My foster family had known about all of this from the start- Cat making sure I would keep my powers dormant for as long as I can remember. “I can conjure anything and everything.”

Alex let out a shaky sigh “This is a little too R.L Stine for me.”

“You don’t say,” I mumbled, pressing my fingers gightly against the edge of my hairline. Another nervous habit. Another thing that I needed to stop doing. Like biting my nails and sweeping crumbs into a small pile on the kitchen counter; it drove Mamrie nuts. “I… Alex there is only one of me here. That I know of.”

“So Cat?”

“Doesn’t take chances when it comes to what I can do.” My voice was strained. “I haven’t used my powers in years. Forever really. I knew I had them as a kid. Doing trivial things like conjuring up a toy that I wanted. Or maybe even some ice cream but, aside from the whole lactose issue I have now, I was taught to work for what I have.”

“So no one knows?”

“Only my foster parents and you.” I lifted my chin.

Alex was silent again, something I was used to at this point. She was thinking, her mind racing as she kept the pads of her fingers pressed firmly to her lips. “You can go home.” She spoke softly at first. “But not alone.”

#gracehelbig #alexdanvers #karadanvers #supergirl #fanfiction

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toomanysurveys9 · 6 years ago

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1. Do you ever give things away to your friends?  i don’t really have many friends to give things away to, but occasionally. like, i recently gave brittany some of eliana’s onesies for octavia because she was a surprise. they thought they were having a boy up until about two days before they were scheduled to be induced.

2. Does it make you uncomfortable when your parents talk about finding people attractive? If your parents don’t make comments like that, what sort of things can your family members say that do make you feel uncomfortable? no, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable. unless my mom starts talking about asses. then it’s a little weird. lol.

3. Have you ever heard of an “alternative spring break”? Have you ever participated in one or known someone who has? i’ve never heard of it.

4. Is there anyone’s friendship or relationship, in particular, that makes you jealous? not really jealous. i was kind of bummed when brittany had octavia because then kayla sort of just dropped me and my kiddos.... but i’m used to it.

5. Do you feel a sense of community among the Xanga survey-takers? If not, is it because you’re not interested in that sort of thing or is because you feel excluded for some reason? i don’t use xanga, but i definitely feel like there is some of that on tumblr. which is pretty neat. :)

6. How often do you think about what guys will think of you? i don’t care at all. not besides jacob. which i wish i didn’t even care what jacob thinks since i know he thinks i’m unattractive. maybe some day i’ll be good enough.

7. Have you ever made a friendship pact with someone, where you pricked your fingers and became blood-bonded? If not, have you ever made any sort of friendship pact? no. i have never done anything like that, and i never would. it’d be weird to me.

8. If you are on birth control that allows you take pills and skip your period, how often do you opt to skip it? How come? i’m not on birth control at the moment, but i’m also not having sex so... on the rare occasion we do, condoms work.

9. Is there a book series where you loved the first book, but for some reason the other books in the series just didn’t measure up? not that i can think of.

10. If you are a registered voter or are considering registering for this upcoming election, do you know which statewide issues will be on the ballot this November? Can you list some and share which way you will be voting on them? there isn’t an election this year, but i will vote at the next one. i didn’t this year because i had eliana during the time to vote.

11. Have you ever been to Pride? If not, have you ever been to any sort of Slut Walk or other protest? i have not been to any protests.

12. Are there any stores/restaurants that you would like to shop/eat at, but there aren’t any located near enough to you? i know there are but no specific place is coming to mind right now.

13. If you are a part of a certain fandom or are a fan of a popular series/musician, is there a rivalry between your fandom and another one (e.g., Lady Gaga fans vs. Katy Perry fans or Marvel vs. DC)? i mean. i’m in fandoms. but i don’t take part in any drama there might be. supernatural and marvel are probably the main ones that come to mind.

14. How many people would you say you are close with? Who are they? my kids. that is about it these days. oh, and i guess i’m pretty close to my mom.

15. Do you ever have smell hallucinations? not that i am aware of.

16. If you were told by a professional that you were unable to become pregnant, how would that affect you? Is there something important to you about conceiving a biological child rather than adoption? And finally, if you even want to have children, would you choose adoption or surrogacy or would you go on childless? if i were told i was unable to have kids, i would have looked into adoption, for sure. there are so many kids that need homes. even though i have two kids, i would like to be a foster parent someday. i’ve always wanted to. ever since i was a little girl . i just don’t know if i will ever be able to get jacob on the same page to do it, which makes me really sad. i have two biological kiddos though right now. and they are plenty for the moment.

17. Is there something that you did not used to take seriously, that you either now take seriously or wish that you had in the past (e.g., a relationship that you miss, your education, etc.)? hm. i guess high school. i could have taken more honors classes than i did, but didn’t because i wanted to try to get classes with jacob. but i probably could have gotten more scholarships if i had taken high school more seriously. not that i didn’t do well in my classes, they were just kind of easy.

18. Are there any subjects that you are interested in so much that you would read whole books or academic journals about them? i don’t know about academic journals because those can be boring, but definitely books and maybe some articles. it just depends on the journal, because i’m not against them either.

19. Are you physically affectionate with your friends? no. i’m really only physically affectionate with jacob and my kids.

20. When you were in middle school and high school, did you witness a lot of bullying? How did the teachers react to name-calling or violence? no, i didn’t really witness that much bullying. but i was always in my own little world.

21. If there is a specific celebrity (or two, or three!) that you dislike, is it because of petty reasons or is it because they’ve done something absolutely damning in your mind? there are some that annoy me, and some that are just shitty people from what i’ve seen.

22. Are any of your friends/relatives actually impressive artists or writers? Are you willing to share an example of their work? there are but i don’t have any of their work to share, and i wouldn’t without their permission, any ways.

23. When it comes to relationships/crushes, are you more often the pursued or the pursuer? eh. i think when i was younger, i was the one most often to have crushes, and no one really had crushes on me until high school when i was with jacob. and jacob asked me out. i think i asked richard out.

24. Do you have anyone’s tweets sent directly to your phone? Whose? not anymore. i don’t even use twitter.

25. Do you ever find yourself making negative comments about other people’s appearances, whether it’s people you dislike or even just people on tv? sometimes, but very rarely, and it’s not anything super horrible about them. just if i don’t like an outfit or something stupid.

#survey #surveys #personal #question #questions #random

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diariesofaplutonian · 5 years ago

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Pluto: Where is your power lost? Where can it be won back?

Let’s talk about Pluto! Pluto, to me, represents everything it has been mythologically and culturally assigned to—the underworld, the shadow side, the darkest parts of ourselves, the selves we wish to hide or keep contained from others, death, taboo, mystery, power struggles, and so on, but above all else, to me, where the planet falls in a house demonstrates the arena in which we feel the most powerless. The house where Pluto falls in shows us the themes we will grapple with and indicates the obstacles and struggles that may arise. Gratefully, Pluto also represents in the chart the area where we can most empower ourselves and elevate our lives and our dignity if we find a way to turn what disempowers us into our strength and make it part of our story, our story of victory, instead of a lesson of our defeat, our story of failure. Pluto shows us where we can triumph if we find a way to revolutionize or otherwise radically transform/change ourselves internally, despite our external challenges. For example, if Pluto falls in the 4th house, it may indicate that a person feels most powerless or defeated in situations involving family. One may be estranged from one’s family or have a difficult relationship with one’s mother or stepfather, for instance, but due to financial, emotional, or other reasons, such person is unable to liberate himself from his family and be free of a toxic home life. He thus feels resentful not only by the fact that his environment limits him, but by the fact that he cannot escape or change his environment. His transformation may come through the act of juggling multiple endeavors to support himself until he is physically and emotionally able to remove himself from his unfit guardians and cultivate his own family through his individual selection of trusted people he names “adopted family.” Someone with Pluto in the 8th house may feel powerless over death. Such person may undergo countless tragedy in the form of losing people close to him. He may lose his mother, aunt, younger brother, cousin, close friend, mentor, etc. through the course of his life, and so on. He may feel like he has no control over the lives of people he meets, and be plagued by the thought of forming attachments with other people, due to the fear that they, too, will die if he develops a closeness with them. His fear of death (not even necessarily his own) may evolve into a fear of connection and intimacy, another 8th house theme. He can overcome this fear or powerlessness through re-examining his basic safety, comfort, and survival needs, so when he reevaluates o reassesses his proximity to death, he sees not the history of all those who have passed before him, but the potential to live as though he is dying, not wasting a single minute, relating to himself and others with a newfound depth and urgency. He can form fierce, meaningful, powerful connections that allow him to interact and engage with people without being held back by the immediacy of crisis or the threat of future death. His knowledge that the future is uncertain can give him resistance to the notion of being extinguished, causing him to live relentlessly and with vulnerability in search for deeper truth. Death may ignite a fury or appreciation within me for living. He may, as the familiar poem goes, “not go good into that gentle night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Impermanence of life makes him full of the desire to build something stable, solid, and long-term. He finds longevity in essence and the impact he leaves on others and they in turn impress on him. This gives him life and intense pleasure. Life becomes about energy and constancy in spite of inconstancy and transformation. He cultivates resilience and strength/temerity of character. Someone with Pluto in the 9th house may feel disempowered in light of others’ ideology/belief systems or in the field of higher faith or science or education. This person may feel constantly tested or undermined by religious notions or organizations and possibly even the notion of God or higher power. This person may, alternatively, derive immense inner strength and fortitude by believing in God or higher power or the Spirit. This person may also form his own introspective, unique thoughts about life and produce philosophies or inquiries about the nature of existence. He could derive great fame or fortune or success or influence from disseminating his views, albeit controversial, whether positive or negative. In fact, he is sure to be polarizing. Nonetheless, his ideas will generate significant outreach due to the distinctiveness of his voice or message. His spirituality may be called into question, abandoned, or adopted. This person may struggle at school/in formal education, not necessarily academically, but in terms of curriculum. The native may not agree with what he is being taught or feel like he cannot learn via compulsory schooling. He may thrive in more organic settings where, opposed to sitting in a lecture or taking notes off a PowerPoint, for instance, he may be asked to design a project implementing his ideas or approach to something or invent a novel way to problem-solve an application. This, to him, may be a better use of his time, energy, and creativity. He may also flourish in home-schooling or alternative schooling, trade schools, or special schools. Pluto in the 9th house people are some of the most likely to be successful high school of college dropouts. They have their own unique mission in life, and discovering it is their source of power. This person may feel restricted in environments where he is subject to other people’s beliefs or so-called knowledge, such as when someone insists fascism is the right way to live, for instance, and he argues socialism is the right way. He has to learn to contend with other people’s viewpoints, however challenging to hear he believes them to be, without feeling the urge to change or compel them, despite whether he believes himself to be right and they wrong. Other people don’t have to believe what he believes and he shouldn’t feel obligated or righteous enough to attempt to sway or influence them. He will find his personal power when he is able to separate the actions and beliefs and opinions of others without feeling the need to compete with, attack, or obliterate them. There isn’t always a “winner.” Not everything needs to be contested or debated, and sometimes, it really is best to say nothing at all. Pluto in the 3rd house may feel intimidated, pressured, or controlled in situations involving siblings or local spaces or regional transportation or informal school as opposed to higher education. For instance, one may be significantly older than her sister and may be forced to help her parents raise her due to her family being large, or, her sister may have been made an orphan after their parents died in a tragic car accident, and she thus may have been forced to intervene and take custody of her sibling to avoid the younger girl ending up in the foster system. She may resent having to take care of someone else as an adult when she is not even fully able to provide for herself and her own needs, or she may have difficulty relating to her younger sibling because of their large gap, and thus find herself in the mother role instead of the big-sister role. She can see this as an unfair constraint, upon her own resources, time, and happiness. Or, in a different scenario, the Pluto in the 3rd house person may have parents who divorced when she was a child and one of her parents, say her father, remarried and her stepmother brought in 3 children of her own. This person may feel abandoned by her own father, especially if her mother remained her primary caregiver and her father acted as a birth parent to his stepchildren, treating her as an adopted or stepchild. She may resent her step-siblings for being closer to her father and in her eyes, ‘stealing’ her dad away from her. Tension between her siblings and herself could cause her to feel troubled or indignant and unable to change this deeply unsettling feeling of being replaced that dwells inside her and eats her up from the inside. Rather than letting this jealousy or envy consume and ravage her insides, she can overcome this tribulation by fostering an intense self-love within herself and finding stimulating mental activities and hobbies (as Mercury traditionally rules the 3rd house) that make her feel powerful. For example, let’s say she begins to read and write, eventually crafting a memoir about her experiences and it turns into a bestseller. Or, perhaps, though, this is petty, she joins the chess or debate team at her school along with her siblings and constantly crushes them at debates or chess. She will have thus found a way to transcend those setbacks that made her feel defeated and less important, by becoming the best in a field or championing her story or becoming victorious in publishing or some type of Mercury-related field. She will have attained some sort of dominance or recognition and will no longer see herself as second-best in terms of her parents’ eyes/her father’s treatment of her. And who wouldn’t like to be the most successful sibling? The one who introduced the world to the family name? Sibling rivalry/competition can be healthy. Pluto often brings the potential for struggle and demise and defeat, but it also overrules comebacks and success stories and the champions the role of the underdog. There is no ‘failure’ or setback that cannot be overcome with Pluto, so long as one transforms and generates a second skin, so to speak. Pluto is a test, and you can’t ace every test, but you can’t flunk them all either.

#Astrology #zodiac #Astro Notes #astrology observations #Pluto #Pluto in the houses #my post #text #astro #n #how I feel #me #my thoughts #personal

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diariesofaplutonian · 5 years ago

Text

Pluto

Let’s talk about Pluto! Pluto, to me, represents everything it has been mythologically and culturally assigned to—the underworld, the shadow side, the darkest parts of ourselves, the selves we wish to hide or keep contained from others, death, taboo, mystery, power struggles, and so on, but above all else, to me, where the planet falls in a house demonstrates the arena in which we feel the most powerless. The house where Pluto falls in shows us the themes we will grapple with and indicates the obstacles and struggles that may arise. Gratefully, Pluto also represents in the chart the area where we can most empower ourselves and elevate our lives and our dignity if we find a way to turn what disempowers us into our strength and make it part of our story, our story of victory, instead of a lesson of our defeat, our story of failure. Pluto shows us where we can triumph if we find a way to revolutionize or otherwise radically transform/change ourselves internally, despite our external challenges. For example, if Pluto falls in the 4th house, it may indicate that a person feels most powerless or defeated in situations involving family. One may be estranged from one’s family or have a difficult relationship with one’s mother or stepfather, for instance, but due to financial, emotional, or other reasons, such person is unable to liberate himself from his family and be free of a toxic home life. He thus feels resentful not only by the fact that his environment limits him, but by the fact that he cannot escape or change his environment. His transformation may come through the act of juggling multiple endeavors to support himself until he is physically and emotionally able to remove himself from his unfit guardians and cultivate his own family through his individual selection of trusted people he names “adopted family.” Someone with Pluto in the 8th house may feel powerless over death. Such person may undergo countless tragedy in the form of losing people close to him. He may lose his mother, aunt, younger brother, cousin, close friend, mentor, etc. through the course of his life, and so on. He may feel like he has no control over the lives of people he meets, and be plagued by the thought of forming attachments with other people, due to the fear that they, too, will die if he develops a closeness with them. His fear of death (not even necessarily his own) may evolve into a fear of connection and intimacy, another 8th house theme. He can overcome this fear or powerlessness through re-examining his basic safety, comfort, and survival needs, so when he reevaluates o reassesses his proximity to death, he sees not the history of all those who have passed before him, but the potential to live as though he is dying, not wasting a single minute, relating to himself and others with a newfound depth and urgency. He can form fierce, meaningful, powerful connections that allow him to interact and engage with people without being held back by the immediacy of crisis or the threat of future death. His knowledge that the future is uncertain can give him resistance to the notion of being extinguished, causing him to live relentlessly and with vulnerability in search for deeper truth. Death may ignite a fury or appreciation within me for living. He may, as the familiar poem goes, “not go good into that gentle night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Impermanence of life makes him full of the desire to build something stable, solid, and long-term. He finds longevity in essence and the impact he leaves on others and they in turn impress on him. This gives him life and intense pleasure. Life becomes about energy and constancy in spite of inconstancy and transformation. He cultivates resilience and strength/temerity of character. Someone with Pluto in the 9th house may feel disempowered in light of others’ ideology/belief systems or in the field of higher faith or science or education. This person may feel constantly tested or undermined by religious notions or organizations and possibly even the notion of God or higher power. This person may, alternatively, derive immense inner strength and fortitude by believing in God or higher power or the Spirit. This person may also form his own introspective, unique thoughts about life and produce philosophies or inquiries about the nature of existence. He could derive great fame or fortune or success or influence from disseminating his views, albeit controversial, whether positive or negative. In fact, he is sure to be polarizing. Nonetheless, his ideas will generate significant outreach due to the distinctiveness of his voice or message. His spirituality may be called into question, abandoned, or adopted. This person may struggle at school/in formal education, not necessarily academically, but in terms of curriculum. This student may not agree with what he is being taught or feel like he cannot learn via compulsory schooling. He may thrive in more organic settings where, opposed to sitting in a lecture or taking notes off a PowerPoint, for instance, he may be asked to design a project implementing his ideas or approach to something or invent a novel way to problem-solve an application. This, to him, may be a better use of his time, energy, and creativity. He may also flourish in home-schooling or alternative schooling, trade schools, or special schools. These people are some of the most likely to be successful high school of college dropouts. They have their own unique mission in life, and discovering it is their source of power. This person may feel restricted in environments where he is subject to other people’s beliefs or so-called knowledge, such as when someone insists fascism is the right way to live, for instance, and he argues socialism is the right way. He has to learn to contend with other people’s viewpoints, however challenging to hear he believes them to be, without feeling the urge to change or compel them, despite whether he believes himself to be right and they wrong. Other people don’t have to believe what he believes and he shouldn’t feel obligated or righteous enough to attempt to sway or influence them. He will find his personal power when he is able to separate the actions and beliefs and opinions of others without feeling the need to compete with, attack, or obliterate them. There isn’t always a “winner.” Not everything needs to be contested or debated, and sometimes, it really is best to say nothing at all. Pluto in the 3rd house may feel intimidated, pressured, or controlled in situations involving siblings or local spaces or regional transportation or informal school as opposed to higher education. For instance, one may be significantly older than her sister and may be forced to help her parents raise her due to her family being large, or, her sister may have been made an orphan after their parents died in a tragic car accident, and she thus may have been forced to intervene and take custody of her sibling to avoid the younger girl ending up in the foster system. She may resent having to take care of someone else as an adult when she is not even fully able to provide for herself and her own needs, or she may have difficulty relating to her younger sibling because of their large gap, and thus find herself in the mother role instead of the big-sister role. She can see this as an unfair constraint, upon her own resources, time, and happiness. Or, in a different scenario, the Pluto in the 3rd house person may have parents who divorced when she was a child and one of her parents, say her father, remarried and her stepmother brought in 3 children of her own. This person may feel abandoned by her own father, especially if her mother remained her primary caregiver and her father acted as a birth parent to his stepchildren, treating her as an adopted or stepchild. She may resent her step-siblings for being closer to her father and in her eyes, ‘stealing’ her dad away from her. Tension between her siblings and herself could cause her to feel troubled or indignant and unable to change this deeply unsettling feeling of being replaced that dwells inside her and eats her up from the inside. Rather than letting this jealousy or envy consume and ravage her insides, she can overcome this tribulation by fostering an intense self-love within herself and finding stimulating mental activities and hobbies (as Mercury traditionally rules the 3rd house) that make her feel powerful. For example, let’s say she begins to read and write, eventually crafting a memoir about her experiences and it turns into a bestseller. Or, perhaps, though, this is petty, she joins the chess or debate team at her school along with her siblings and constantly crushes them at debates or chess. She will have thus found a way to transcend those setbacks that made her feel defeated and less important, by becoming the best in a field or championing her story or becoming victorious in publishing or some type of Mercury-related field. She will have attained some sort of dominance or recognition and will no longer see herself as second-best in terms of her parents’ eyes/her father’s treatment of her. And who wouldn’t like to be the most successful sibling? The one who introduced the world to the family name? Sibling rivalry/competition can be healthy. Pluto often brings the potential for struggle and demise and defeat, but it also overrules comebacks and success stories and the champions the role of the underdog. There is no ‘failure’ or setback that cannot be overcome with Pluto, so long as one transforms and generates a second skin, so to speak. Pluto is a test, and you can’t ace every test, but you can’t flunk them all either.

#Astrology #zodiac #astro notes #Pluto #pluto in the houses

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