#How do I start dealing with trauma

[realbeefman]

stacy is sooo interesting because she's in love with house but knows that they will never ever be able to have a healthy, stable, sane relationship because they're too similar so. she finds house-lite instead and marries him and. essentially moves on with her life! and is successful in this because she's a moderately well-adjusted person!

wilson, in contrast, never manages to escape the inevitable, in spite of his best efforts to find a house-lite of his very own, because he's an absolute fucking freak and ends up glued to house to the bitter. bitter end

[da-janela-lateral]

Listen I love Shou doing crazy stuff as much as everyone else, but something that bugs me a little is... I don't think "chaotic" is his standard behavior. He feels like a nice extroverted child who is well liked by his peers and is pretty chill in normal situations. Emphasis on normal. The thing is that most times he is given protagonism on the plot, it is when he is under a extremely stressing context that demands extreme solutions (even more in World Domination Arc, when he has to face his traumatic years-long conflict against his father). It all makes it very hard to determine how he usually acts. He is not always like that! Absurdly high danger is not his natural habitat!

[lord-squiggletits]

The funny thing about Pharma and the Delphi situation is that that's where the concept of the DJD was first introduced (with the first scene with the DJD at work happening literally the issue afterwards, issue #6) and literally the more you learn about the DJD the more it vindicates Pharma in his paranoia and being convinced that he couldn't ask for help like

In the Delphi issues we learn that the DJD hunts down Decepticon turncoats/traitors/etc and that Ambulon, one of the Delphi staff, was a Decepticon traitor. We also learn that their leader is evidently terrifying in addition to being a t-cog addict, but that's it.

Except in the subsequent issue #6 and all issues with the DJD afterwards, we learn a variety of fun facts about the DJD such as

Several of the members either literally transform into torture equipment or have said torture equipment built into their bodies

Their leader, Tarn, the guy with the t-cog addiction that forced Pharma into blackmail, can kill people with just his VOICE

We later learn that the DJD have a fanatical devotion to the Decepticon cause/Megatron such that they literally worship an idol of Megatron

Even later on, we learn that Tarn's kill-you-with-his-voice powers work both over the phone and via recordings of his voice

Tarn is also very talkative during torture sessions and he seems to find pleasure in his stupid, smug-smart guy persona where he likes to describe to victims what's happening to them and why. And there's no reason he wouldn't apply this to Autobots just as much as he does to Decepticon traitors

The DJD have access to signal jamming technologies that make it so that even if their victim can get a help signal out, no one will receive it until weeks after the fact

Their entire system of hunting people down is based on pursuing them no matter what, isolating them from any help, driving them mad with psychological terror, etc

They're capable enough warriors to slaughter an entire ships' worth of people, apparently without sustaining any meaningful casualties

They're drug addicts that are prone to overdosing and/or losing control and slaughtering people while they're under the influence

So like???

If Pharma was only privy to HALF of the things that we as the audience know about the DJD, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that Pharma probably wanted to call for help at some point, but was convinced that doing so would lead to 1. the signal being jammed/blocked so no one would help anyways 2. him and everyone else at Delphi (including the TRAITOR WHO IS ONE OF THEIR EMPLOYEES) would be horribly tortured to death by fanatical Decepticon torturer freaks.

Like I get that in the text Pharma only says that he did the Red Rust stuff so that he wouldn't be caught/blamed for the t-cog deal and is prideful about how he stopped the DJD from murdering Delphi, but like...... there's no fucking way that Pharma going "oh I didn't want to get in trouble and also I'm better than everyone" was his PRIMARY reason for everything on Delphi. Pharma didn't go from perfectly normal/sane Autobot doctor to raving egotistical maniac because he was always an asshole and he decided to solve the DJD issue in an asshole way. It's bc according to all canon evidence we have of the DJD and the way they react to traitors/Autobots, Pharma had every reason to fear for his life and believe that no aid would come to him.

[lynxfrost13]

Do you guys think Holt and Storch Sieben ever hatefucked

[xalatath]

Okay lowkey it kinda annoys me that people treat halsin as if he is viewing his trauma re: being captive in menzoberranzan "wrong" like first of all he is old as fuck and he did all his character development off screen and secondly it is very possible to be able to talk about your trauma in a lighthearted or nonchalant manner and it doesn't mean you're in denial or you don't grasp the weight of what happened. And shockingly everyone reacts to trauma differently.

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

Just speed consumed all of addison lee very much enjoyed I am waiting with my popcorn for next chapter! I did have a wonder while reading, what is Wriothesley's scope of vision? Is it like this needs to be 3 inches in front of his face? Can he see faces clearly if he's close enough? Loving the fic, keep writing!

The short answer is:

No matter how close he gets, it's still gonna be unclear. It's not quite like myopia/short-sightedness where the blurriness can change with glasses/distance. His vision is more like looking through foggy glass. If something is pressed right up to the glass, you can see it more clearly, but it will still be foggy. Additionally, the guy has always been red/green colour-blind, so that doesn't change even after his war injuries, but because his vision is worse in general, he can barely tell colours apart lol. Unless it's bright blue.

LONG ANSWER UNDER THE CUT.

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA HEHEHHHEHEHHE WHUAGHAHA sorry. I like to infodump about my fics.

Not kidding when say this: I have a document that have notes on every single year in the 10 years between the Celestia war and current INGITAL events.

Unfortunately this was all planned before Sigewinne release, so I didn't have her canon birthday (AND I DON'T CARE ABOUT CANON ANY MORE I'm burying my head in the sand.) but it accounts for every year that Sigewinne grew up and some other random lore bits. "What does this have to do with my question?" you ask. Well, I have the 10-years progression notes specifically to keep their life events in order and Wriothesley's and Neuvillette's healing progress consistent KJNDSKJNSANSKJHASDJNJSNDKJNASJNDSAJNKSAKJ.

SO. Detailed answer is this:

At this point in INGITAL, if you stand 1-2 meters away from him and wave, he's gonna notice if he's looking at you, paying attention, and you're both indoors, or he's wearing sunnies. He's not gonna be able to recognise anything, though, he can just tell something is moving. He can sort of read regular text on a computer screen at about 2-3 inches (on a good day) using his better eye (left, so he always sorta lean that way when he's trying to look at something), but it's a struggle and he'd rather not do it. His right is worse.

There's also his field of vision. So like, his peripherals are pretty much gone, and he has some dark patches/blind spots. He's also light-sensitive, so everything's kinda painfully bright sometimes, but his vision is also bad in the dark, so he needs a happy medium, but that can shift from day to day.

Very rough idea of what Neuvillette might look like to him on a sunny day. Veeery rough idea. I'm not blind I just researched a lot.

And then, regardless of what he can actually physically see, if his eyes hurt or feel too sensitive to keep open, it's all moot anyway. And once again, usually that depends on the day.

When Sigewinne was born, he had functionally decent vision in one eye (had a corneal transplant on his right). Legally can't get his driving licence, but y'know, he still felt confident enough to drive (Neuvillette did not let him, though.) The transplanted eye deteriorates over Sigewinne's first few months, and so did his better eye. He got another surgery for his left eye (the better one) when Sigewinne was about one, and that lasted for a bit, but by the time she's two, he's pretty much considered legally blind. By the time she's four, he does most things on his own and his other issues are managed as well, which is why they decided to have a second kid, and they had Carole when Sigewinne was 5. But Neuvillette struggled a bit with that second pregnancy. I mean, his first wasn't exactly rose and rainbows, but he his mental health nose-dived with the second one for a while. It's because he's been so focused on keeping it together while Wriothesley recovers that he hasn't fully dealt with his own trauma until his second pregnancy. Because yeah, thinking your husband died while you're carrying your first baby was traumatic. They've both got PTSD. By the time Sedene comes about though, they're all good. Sedene's pregnancy was a breeze, there was just Covid lockdowns HAHAHAHA. And then, if I go through with another pregnancy at the end of INGITAL, well... That's for me to know and for you to ponder.

[By the way, Clorinde mentioned going over to their house for Wrio's birthday 8 years ago in Chapter 9, which is when Sigewinne was 3 and he was 28. His previous birthday (his 27th) was a disaster. Had a big fight with his husband. So that's another morsel of lore from the 10-years-of-plot document.]

There's a scene planned somewhere in all this, where Neuvillette shows him some of their photos on one of the days when his vision is better. Photos of eeeeveryone their kids and their friends and all. He printed them out and edited them to raise the contrast so Wriothesley can see it more easily. Wriothesley voice: Ajax is fucking ginger? [This is lore relevant. No spoilers though.]

[willowfey]

starting to think maybe waking up with an anxiety stomachache every single morning and then needing to spend the entire day trying to get rid of said anxiety just to maybe have a few minutes in the evening of feeling relaxed before going to bed is perhaps not normal

[equalperson]

I fucking hate being traumatized because why am I bawling the hardest I've bawled in god-knows-how-long because someone I didn't even like that much berated Me. gasping wailing trembling and snotting over this for several minutes.

[beautifel]

seems like my heart does nothing but break lately

[thethingything]

also shoutout to the hospital for sending us a bunch of PDFs with information about preparing for surgery and what to expect, except the information was all generic stuff where most of it does't actually apply to wisdom tooth removal, so I had a huge panic attack where I nearly threw up because a bunch of the stuff mentioned in there is extremely triggering for us, only to then find out that stuff literally doesn't apply anyway, but now I feel like I have even less of an idea of what to actually expect because it's so hard to figure out which information does apply

[agayconcept]

.

[bravevolunteer]

michael's complexities are so intriguing and one of the many reasons i love him but oh god does it kill me as a chronic overexplainer

[enobariasteeth]

thinking about how good supernatural could’ve been if it’s original target audience wasn’t toxically masculine men and if it took itself seriously in later seasons

[africanmorning]

Me: *Venting about people who complain about ttrpg pc's having tragic backstories.* "I mean, tragic backstories are realistic. Just about every player in our group has a real life tragic backstory that I know of, except [so-and-so], who probably does have one and I just don't know them well enough to know it yet. Three of us grew up in abusive households, two of us have been assaulted, [so-and-so] has experienced racial discrimination their whole life, [so-and-so] was bullied by teachers and peers growing up—"

My not-yet-bf: "I don't know, I don't think I have a tragic backstory."

Me: " . . . "

Me: " . . . Your mother died from an infected cut when you were a child because your family couldn't afford to take her to the doctor."