#-learning love is learning grief-

[lazylittledragon]

Would you ever consider posting your tattoo designs alongside the tattoos themselves? Your most recent one is GORGEOUS

for the most part probably not because i do a lot of customs and it would just make it easier for them to get stolen which isn't fair for the people paying for them (obvs it's going to happen but i like to prevent it when i can)

the most recent one though i would Love to share because 1. it's basically just the hades art style and 2. it's so fucking gorgeous and i love it so much that i might make it a sticker

[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

[quotelr]

The more we love the more we lose. The more we lose the more we learn. The more we learn the more we love. It comes full circle. Life is the school, love is the lesson. We cannot lose.

Kate McGahan

[tragedy-for-sale]

My roman empire is watching Luke Skywalker go from a whiny, adventerous farm boy to a wise Jedi with an unforgiving amount of sorrow within him.

[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.

[riversgoingnowhere]

mark scout and mark s are soooo victor frankenstein and the creature to me ): creator who neglects/is repulsed by his creation because he just wants to forget its existence (plus it's creation or, in mark's case, the reason behind it's creation) vs creature who just wants to be free from the creator's influence but never can be because of their nature as, truely, the progeny of a stranger's selfishness and therefore can't be anything but selfish either because the apple never falls far from the character flaw tree

[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!!!

[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

[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?”

[willyhoos]

you know for someone who loves metamy so much. i gotta say having it be fully unrequited is honestly fitting with metal's whole arc (or rather his LACK of arc)

he wants what he can't have. he's not anything or anyone, he doesn't deserve it. what would he even do with it?

"i don't think i have anything. i don't think i can have anything. i don't know how to have something." (src: 17776)

whether or not you subscribe to the roboticized metal theory, it doesn't change that metal's goals are not aligned with reality. ironically it's the robot that is unable to logically analyze his situation. he wants to be sonic but it doesn't change the fact that he isn't. he wants to win but it doesn't change the fact that he won't. his desires are narratively and morally unfulfillable because what he wants is wrong (factually and ethically.)

and so if he, in theory, wanted amy rose how could he ever actually have her?

the most she would give him is "you're more like him than i thought."

because he's Not sonic. all he can be is sufficiently Like him (sometimes). whatever metal claims he is (and honestly whatever he ACTUALLY is) is irrelevant because he can't MAKE himself sonic. he can't make himself the version of sonic that amy loves. amy loves sonic for WHAT he is (good) not what he's named. the most she could ever do is passively appreciate the traits of sonic that metal is able to imitate. emulate. simulate. fabricate.

sonic's role (in the meta story and in-universe) is so unique and treasured and irreplaceable. the only way to kick him out would be to, idk, replace him with an identical copy and put the old sonic in a lose-lose situation where he could not possibly be believed or sympathized with. or something.

say he gets "rehabilitated," rebels against eggman... you know those metamy fics. what is he then?

-> another job well done. another good deed for team sonic (y'know, the real one).

because it's not just that he's Not Sonic. (and he isn't. even if you believe he once was, he's not anymore in any way that is relevant to the narrative. the narrative, as you know, is the real sonic's pov.) it's that he's not even really a person anymore.

he's been forcibly depersonalized, dethroned, removed from his role (+ promptly replaced with something canonically better!) and isolated from any semblance of humanization. he doesn't even have a mouth. either it was taken from him or he was never given one. and we are not given any glimpse into his thoughts. (they're not important.)

like. this is a dead end. he is a dead end. there's nowhere to run.

he won't "get the girl" (pardon the term) not because he's evil not because he's not sonic but because he is not a "person" in any sense. not literally not socially not narratively not practically not really

idk. whether metal falls in love with amy genuinely, or if it's just out of jealousy/desire to want what the real sonic has/instinct to emulate the real sonic's emotions... it's doomed. he's just a ghost from a doomed timeline and everything he will ever do is destined to fail. he can't kill sonic. he can't hold amy's hand. he can't do anything but lose.

in that sense, metal "losing" amy to the real sonic (as if metal was ever even a contender, as if he was ever real enough) is just another failure in a long, long string of mostly unpleasant memories of a character who doesn't even get to go by his real name. because someone more important took it already has it.

[assmaster-8000]

𝑪𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒐 ✧

✧ Regret

✧ Rememberance

✧ Reunion

✧

All men are equal in death. To Clotho, such is their reigning tenet.

And to Clotho, a man like them sheds no tear for the departed. A necromancer need not fear death, for it is a cycle devouring upon itself, and they are the ringmaster of this primal instinct. As in— need, should, must. One must not fear, one must not ache or pine or rage. A snake is still a snake. Death is still a wild animal. Show your soft palm within the ribcage of your fist, and it will not yield to you. Clotho, for all their cool expertise, knows this through trial and error.

All men are equal in death. So this mantra becomes their epitaph for every sentiment buried under the grave of their tongue.

It's a corpse beneath the floorboards; this memory. The tremble in their fingers - the shortness of breath. Their prized coherence pooling out their ears like brains on a sidewalk. Black is all they've known the world to be, but this time it is blue. Saliva spilling past the shore of her lips. Piercing red lightning streaking through the sky of her eyes. She does not respond when they shake her. By God— what have you done?

All men are equal. Their mother was no man, no monster. Mother, simple and sweet, was cruel enough to damn her. As they were.

Their tears come soft on the linen of her robes. She is softer still. The used crowd of spellbooks and artifacts and alchemical instruments behind them laugh hollow at the display. Wire is taut, so is cloth. Neither will hold them now, after destroying the muscle that stretched to cradle their wretched self. So they bind her in her day shroud. And they bury her in the belly of the primordial Mother.

On her grave, they plant a singular Asphodel. Their one specimen.

And when they shakily kneel back to look down at the mount of soil, for a moment - just a moment, their nails slip back beneath the dirt. Back to where home was.

A moment was all it took. Soon as it comes, they rip it out her shabby resting grounds and lay it on their crown. That brain-shaped gilded mausoleum of theirs. So it has remained all this while - so has she, with that memory just as equal as a dead man.

But you know they never stay where they're supposed to for long.

In the land of the dead, asphodels are for the gray in between. They are the sustenance of the dead. They are my regrets, following you to the grave. O, Mother. You raised a walking corpse. As long as I hold you in my heart, the grave goes where I go; and dead men tell no tales, so... I love you. Isn't that the worst thing you've ever heard?