#-learning love is learning grief-

[cathaedra]

i caught up on tlovm this morning and then listened to the lili furfaro vm album again and just......everything is fine until the vax song hits huh 

[yuki2sksksk]

Crossover ship of Mitsuri and Sanji cause why not

I imagine a modern sort of AU with these two in the spotlights:

Mitsuri traveling away from Kimetsu town after tragically lost her boyfriend of years Obanai due to an incident involving his family (murder mystery maybe). Taking Kaburamaru with her, she stays in the Grand City, working as an art teacher in the New World Academy.

In the midst of her grief, she finds comfort in a cafe where the chef is nice enough to cook her enormous amount of food without any complaints every time she comes over.

Or maybe it's the chef himself.

(Mitsuri and Sanji are going to start off as friends and then close friends and it'd take a very long time for them to be together because one is afraid that she'd forgot her late boyfriend if she moved on, and another doesn't want to take advantage of the poor girl and he's unsure if he's worth enough to be with her)

[haleyincarnate]

And if nothing else, please, let your love be bigger than your anger.

Brianna Pastor, Good Grief

[untitledgoosegay]

re last reblog I do see fanfic culture pushing/replicating a certain model of "what trauma looks like," "how trauma works"

this is a problem across all areas of society obviously, but transformative works are, well, transformative. they're about crafting and modifying narratives where the fan-creator sees a flaw or a lack -- often for the better! don't get me wrong, I've done my fair share of "I take a hammer and I fix the canon," it's the main thing that gets my creative gears spinning -- but what happens when that "flaw" is simply a narrative not conforming to popular expectations?

some people just don't get PTSD from events that sound obviously traumatic. they're not masking, and they're not coping; they just straight-up didn't get the permanently-locked stress-response that defines PTSD. they walk away from a horrible experience going "well, that sucked, but it's over now." some people do get PTSD from events most people wouldn't find traumatic. we don't really know why some people get PTSD and others don't. but fandom has an idea of events that must be traumatizing, of a "correct" way to portray trauma. you see the problems with this lack of understanding in e.g. fans pressuring the devs of Baldur's Gate 3 to add dialogue where the player character badgers Halsin about his own feelings on his abuse -- because he must be traumatized, and his trauma must fit a certain mold and presentation of sexual trauma, under the mistaken impression that anything outside that narrow window is somehow "wrong" and disrespectful or even harmful to survivors.

take, for another example, the very common trope of a traumatized character who hates touch or sex "learning" to like touch or sex as a part of their healing process. certainly that can be healing for some people; other people will never like, or want, touch or sex, because of trauma or because they just don't. the assumption that someone who doesn't want sex or doesn't like to be touched must be traumatized, must be suffering from this perceived lack, is seriously harmful -- to asexual people, to people with sensory issues around touch, and to people for whom healing from trauma means freedom to refuse sex or touch.

and there's a secondary trope, one that's slightly more thoughtful but ultimately repeats the problem -- that once someone has learned that their boundaries will be respected, they'll feel it's safe to soften those boundaries. once they feel safe refusing touch or sex, they'll feel comfortable allowing it on their own terms. but many people don't, and many people won't! many people will simply never want to be touched, and never want sex, and they are not suffering or broken or lacking because of it. the idea that proving you'll respect someone's boundaries entitles you to test those boundaries -- the paradox is obvious, and yet this is something i've seen hurt (re-traumatize) people i care for.

people are imperfect victims. people don't heal in the ways you expect. many people have positive memories of their abuse, of their abusers. many people hurt others in the course of their trauma, in ways that can't easily be unpacked in a 5k oneshot. very few narratives of trauma and recovery actually fit the ones put forward by popular children's media and romance novels -- which are the ones I most see replicated in fandom spaces, because they provide the clearest narrative and easiest catharsis, and so they're easy and soothing to reach for.

that's not necessarily a bad thing! i am not immune to goopy romance tropes. i am not immune to teary catharsis. not every fic has to grapple with ugly realities. but there's a problem when these narratives become predominant, when people think they're accurate and realistic depictions of trauma, when the truth of trauma is unpleasant and uncomfortable, and doesn't fit any single narrative, let alone one of comforting catharsis

[jojo-the-bird]

"The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not 'get over' the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal, and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to."

- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

[bluestation]

i found you in the future

[virtualtyrant69]

ok so i wanna talk bout how Echo's reaction to grief is to run away. Like, he ran away from the 501st to the bad batch once he learned that Fives died and now he's run away from the bad batch to Rex/the rebellion since Tech "died"

[multifandombullshitbabes]

have we ever thought abt the fact that zuko is literally azula's older brother. like she's his little sister. that's his little sister. throughout a big, big part of atla plot, he was actively running away, scared of his little sister killing him because he KNEW she would/could. can you imagine that? your little sibling, wanting more your father's approval than your companionship to the point of death? every time they fought, zuko was fighting his baby sister. azula was fighting her big brother. this is making me so sick. they were 16 and 14 years old.

[ohwhatagloomyshow]

I know & remember very little about RTD as a person but I do remember he left DW to care for his dying partner and that his partner has since died. And the way that this is so evident in his approach to 14 and 15, it’s phenomenal.

2005 Davies was interested in high drama, big stakes, the roughest heartbreak that could exist. And now he’s lived it, and it feels like his approach to the show has shifted as he has shifted!

14 getting to rest, Wilf alive off-screen, Donna’s memories returned - 15 leaving his trauma and his heartbreak and his pain with 14 in order to begin again fresh and new and ALIVE…it is all so meaningful to me!!!

[morganbritton132]

I put this in the tags of one of my Tiktok Saga post but I just love the idea of Nancy being hard of hearing after shooting her shotgun without proper ear protection because Nancy is so productive.

I one hundred percent believe that she realized that she was having difficulty hearing out of one of her ears and just took care of it. No fuss. No drama. She handles it and moves on.

So when she recognizes Steve having a similar issue (Robin actually mentions it casually since Steve’s been pretty HOH since she’s known him), she confronts him but Steve is not as productive as her. He doesn’t like change. He’s insecure when he isn’t perfect. Though he’s gotten better about being himself and not an idealized version of himself, he’s not ready to confront this.

There’s a lot of denial in the beginning and then just being lost on what to do about it, which is when Nancy shows back up. She helps him make the appointment, explains things that the doctors say that he can’t quite wrap his mind around, and shows him some of the ways she’s learned to compensate.

When he’s like, “How do you know all this?” Nancy gives him a confused look because she wasn’t hiding it. She thought everybody knew.

“I wear a hearing aid,” She said, pushing back her hair to show it. Steve squints at it and Nance asks, “Have you had your eyes checked?”

[hmsdoodlin]

*Sits at a table with a napkin tucked into my shirt.*

Waiter! Waiter! More Mind angst please!! Make him really fucked up after the Juno incident, give him existential dread about his own mortality pretty please!!!!

Make him afraid of the dark, make him jump at loud sounds and claps of thunder. Give him nightmares he can’t fathom because he’s not supposed to feel like this. He’s not supposed to be ‘flawed’ or ‘wrong’.

Make him despise Heart not only for trying to kill him, but also for bringing him down to his level. He isn’t supposed to experience these emotions, Heart has infected him with fear and indescribable grief. Make him suffer with his humanity.

No matter how you see him, automaton, cyborg, full robot. He’s derived from a human, he can’t escape that fact no matter how hard he tries. The shot only reminds him of how fragile his life is, I think that it fucks him up for a good while.

“Mind forgives in the end, but he does not forget.” - My genius friend

[syrahbat]

New Chapter of Want for Nothing !!

“If Astoria had wanted to have kids, would you have?” Potter asked.

“Probably,” Draco sighed. “Yes. I would have.”

“Do you want them?”

Draco folded his hands over the empty pint glass and rested his cheek on it, catching Potter’s eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“Have you thought about remarrying?”

Draco was very still. “I don’t think that’s in the cards for me.”

Potter held his gaze. “What do you wish was in the cards?”

“Are you asking in an official capacity?” Draco said, his voice almost a whisper. “Or as a friend?”

“I’m asking in every way there is,” Potter said, not a beat lost, an earnestness that constricted Draco’s chest like a vice.

Draco frowned. “Where did you come from, Potter?”

Potter’s expression became serious and he brought his thumb to his tongue, licked it, and then leaned forward. Time slowed as if it was drunk and Draco was frozen as Potter reached over and swiped his thumb across a spot on Draco’s forehead. He did it twice, the second time slower than the first, lingering, and then he leaned back into his chair. “You had some er, ink, just there,” He murmured, gesturing to his own head, which seemed to be taking on a curious shade of pink.

The witch from behind the bar levitated two new pints over to the table. Potter reached out and grabbed them, setting one in front of Draco and clearing his throat.

(art by me!)

[waitineedaname]

when im writing them, i often find myself thinking about the difference between jiang cheng and wei wuxian's anger. im not sure how to put it into words, but the way they both express anger is so interesting to me bc like... for jiang cheng, it tends to be his first response. he's confronted with something unpleasant and the safest response is to be angry and lash out, because then that protects the vulnerability hidden beneath whatever has upset him. his anger tends to be explosive, with shouting and violence, until eventually it ebbs away and the vulnerable emotion underneath is revealed. wei wuxian, however, tends to let it simmer until it eventually boils over. I think about the confrontation with jin zixun about the wens a lot, and how you can see him trying to keep a lid on the anger at first, and how that makes him cold and sharp (which is made all the more striking by how warm he is under better circumstances) until finally he can't keep a lid on it anymore and the anger boils over, which is the point at which you should probably aim to leave his general vicinity because an angry wei wuxian is very, very scary

[haleyincarnate]

Just because you were brave doesn't mean you should have had to of been. But I am so thankful you were. You are destined for better love, for greater things.

You deserve so much more.

Inspired by @theopeninvite

[spiderman2-99]

Let me assign you an affection language.

A Knife Called Grief You have left your house, you have left those people behind, but what are you going to do about the memories which have taken root in you? You can run but not without them. You want someone to sit with you on this cool marble floor while the sun burns everything.You want them to cut your rotten heart and theirs too. You want to sit with it in front of you, let them see you with all your flaws, which haven’t been your fault but you have been made to believe so, and you want them to love you anyways. Because you know you’d do that for them.

[yoinked from iobartach]

[dollypopup]

This fandom gets more bent out of shape and upset about that entrapment line than Penelope herself does

one day peeps who get soooo mad at Colin for very easily understandable statements will finally just admit that they don't like him instead of twisting into pretzels to justify why they're so angry at him. y'all don't like him, but Penelope does. she loves him and tries to understand him, she was upset that she hurt him and she extended empathy to him in light of such, which is why her only response to it is 'I didn't mean to trap you, Colin, I love you', and YOUR response is to write fic after fic foaming at the mouth blowing a singular statement out of proportion and using a meangirl Fanon Penelope as a mouthpiece for your own bitterness

Penelope Bridgerton loves Colin. And knows she's hurt him and wants to heal that hurt. She wouldn't vibe with a fanbase who demonizes him the way we have