#But this manifests as him being a knight where for callum it manifests as him being a mage

[imminent-danger-came]

One day I'm going to write my god damn meta on how Callum and Soren's arcs inform each other.

[raayllum]

Why is it that Rayla seems to be showing symptoms of ptsd but Ezran and Callum are none the worse for wear?

ptsd and trauma manifests differently in everyone and “through the moon” is purposefully rayla centric. one sympton of ptsd can be panic attacks, which callum has at the end of s2 in his nightmares, and questioning who you are after trauma (ie. doing dark magic and the toll it took on his body). seeing rayla almost die. meanwhile ezran saw viren get murdered and also watched his own knights/guards/staff turn on him. 

so i would imagine the boys’ ptsd would manifest something like this: 

Cry often

Try to be as nice as possible at own expenses to the point of mental breakdown (ezran in particular) 

Have a need to be “right” or be valid

Panic attacks

Aggressively emotional (which rayla already has)

Panic at the slightest loud sound or certain words and get upset openly or loudly (ezran and rayla in particular) 

Feel anger and intense self hatred at being incorrect or messing up (callum in particular)

Have a need to justify emotions without anyone asking or demanding (callum in particular) 

(post here). like i said, if we were going for realism, every single main character in tdp would have ptsd: amaya, janai, rayla, soren, claudia, ezran, callum, etc. just from being in that final battle in the series alone, never mind everything else. do i actually think the show is going to do a deep dive into all of those characters’ specific journeys and recovery arcs? no. that’s what fanon has been for, for a long, long time.

but just because we’re not seeing them have nightmares in the 10 pages we have leaked of an add on graphic novel doesn’t mean they’re not experiencing ptsd. I know Ezran in “Book One: Moon” sings the lullaby Harrow would sing to him every night to himself that first night out of the castle. That falls into “Very attached to certain things and will lash out if they’re disturbed or insulted” as a coping mechanism and a feeling of safety and routine. And that’s just the first night. 

it shows that Ezran has Phoe-Phoe’s sacrifice still weighing heavily on his mind, do the point he’s willing to shirk responsibilities to do so (absence of direct communication to avoid upsetting confrontation) and that Callum is aware of Rayla’s mental state and is working to be support for her. 

symptoms of ptsd are just how the body and mind copes with what’s happened to cause the trauma and there can be various traumatic events and triggers. some people are also good at hiding those symptoms or there aren’t as obvious as others. 

rayla’s trauma stems from a place, right now, of not having closure and being very far away from her home. the boys, alternatively, are home (even if things are different) and have closure on their parents’ deaths even if they’re still adjusting to that loss and found out about those losses earlier than rayla did with time to grieve. rayla had one day in 3x04 and then in 3x08 had just found out her birth parents were dead rather than missing and then it was battle time. she had no boat impasse or trip back to xadia where there was nothing to do but grieve, tbh.

so yeah, i’m not surprised that the boys have adjusted better than she has