#I never write in Word anymore I write in docs now since 90% of my writing these days is on mobile

[shikai-the-storyteller]

Me: I have a few FitPac ideas but I don't think I've written that much.

The document:

[mejomonster]

I have a Mirror Verse Star Trek fic that's been sitting in my drafts forever, and I fucking love the beginning. How do I get my writing back into this feel? Anyway ToT this fic is like 90 pages in google docs and I think the last time I worked on it, I paused since toward the end I was writing scenes out of order (which frequently demotivates me). But since I just salvaged 1 star trek wip today, I'm trying to figure out if I could salvage this one and finish it up too...

Behold, the opening scene:

Jim is overwhelmed.

"You can't do this-" Jim’s breathing is erratic, whole body is, all energy shoving up against him. "It’s -"

"Jim."

"Don't you call me that," Jim cannot bear to look at him. The hands that were gripping at Spock's shoulders like lifelines slip away, burned by feelings only Jim is aware of, as Jim rips away. "Not anymore."

Spock is incessant. He knows it's too much. But it is impossible to stop, to want - "You could join me. This does not have to be mutiny."

To want -

"My goal is not to kill you, Jim."

Anything but that. Anything.

"You wanted to be a Caesar, that does not have to change."

"Don't." Jim is turned away, apart, and Spock knows better than to reach out and take. Spock must convince him. It is the only way. "You hold me hostage on my own ship!"

The only way to get what he wants.

"This is mutiny, Spock." It is quiet, spoken as a secret bared to the universe on harsh breath. Spock can hear nothing else. Jim is not telepathic, but he has thrown haphazard walls up without even knowing, Jim feels like an empty void in the room, a single place Spock can not sense. But it is utterly apparent that Jim is breaking, anyway.

"Only if you do not cooperate." Spock is pushing. Past breaking, a risk. Always. It is his worst quality, Jim frequently likes to say - how stubborn Spock is.

"With what?" Jim is snapping back toward him now, all unrestrained rage, and whether there are mental walls or not Jim is still flooding the room with his pain. "Suicide?" Jim is shaking him, Spock lets himself be moved, lets Jim have this. "That's what this is you know, suicide!"

It's not the words, never the words, that are too much. Spock can not take this, looking at him, like this. So raw. Broken. Spock did that. This is precisely why -

"Your nonsense got Moreau killed -"

"No," Spock does not touch him,"you killed her," does not want to injure him.

"Bullshit!" Jim's eyes shine. They’re wet. So wet, almost blurred. "You used her like a pawn. I -" there is a gasp that escapes those sweet lips, ripped raw from rage, "If I hadn't - the Empire - would have done worse." Jim's hands jerk away from him again, but they remain close by, at Jim's side, clenched tight. "If you - if that other world hadn't - she wouldn't have gotten dragged into this mess."

All of the energy, then, it falls. Jim is falling apart. Hands unclenching and falling against his thighs, soft, unconscious. Jim's wet eyes don't shine towards Spock anymore, they are looking at nothing, seeing the future, seeing potentials.

"It'll kill you too, Spock." Jim can't face Spock, can't tilt his head up and keep meeting his eyes, Jim's head is too heavy. His whole body is. The whole world. "It's illogical."

"Collapse of the Empire is logical," Spock insists, desperate. Whatever it will take to make Jim understand, comply. They can not keep dancing around, like this.

But Jim is not done dancing. He is shoving forward against Spock again, tiny inches apart, voice loud, relentless. "In a hundred years!" Jim is everything Spock sees, hears, "Not now!" Jim's eyes are so wet, unbearably so. "Trying is a death sentence!" Jim's voice is wet.

Jim is collapsing again. "And..." Jim is against him, strength gone, holding onto Spock's arms, again. Trying to keep himself upright. Trying to continue to fight. Whatever he is fighting, it is more formidable than Spock, perhaps. "I don't intend to die, Spock."

The silence of space, of the vacuum beyond the windows. The quiet familiarity of the gentlest of hums, that only Spock's ears can pick out, coming from circuits within the walls. Spock can hear Jim trying not to sob.

Not even breathing, because Jim doesn't want to let anything out. But his feelings betray him, they are destroying, they are more than anything Jim knows how to handle, maybe. More than Spock knows how to. Spock can't move, can not trust himself to not reach out and hold Jim.

"Neither should you," Jim breathes, against Spock's chest, head falling against it.

Spock's hand is already lost, already threading through Jim's hair, dancing near his psy points, begging to make this end. To help. To stop this fight, for a while. For an instant.

If only for this single instant.

"Please, Spock."

Jim is in his arms, his, hands clutching for something, anything, to hold onto. As if Spock is precious. Special. Tears are filling those painstaking eyes, and Spock cannot look away. Cannot do anything. Cannot escape. He wants - he is holding Jim in return, on instinct and thought, and every desire and decision that composes him is focused in on this man in his arms breaking apart, and it's all his fault. Or Jim's. Or both.

He wishes please was enough. He wishes it had been enough when he had begged Jim, said the same thing in reverse. But it -

But Jim is stubborn. Just like him.

Jim is in his arms, he can't stop crying. Now that it’s started. And Spock pretends he doesn't care. Holds Jim with deceptive lightness, wishes he could crash them together and make Jim strong again.

But that would accomplish nothing, ultimately. 

Not enough.

[wildelydawn]

I'm waiting for your bittersweet chocolate 90% . Will you update it? Or are you leaving it? Please answer this.🥺

Hello there! Thank you for checking in about Bittersweet Chocolate, 90%. I am not leaving it, but I am not sure when I will update it.

I don't talk about myself a lot on this blog, and I know you're not really asking about me, and perhaps the following will be way too much information and will make you and other feels really uncomfortable, but since a few people have asked about BSC90, I just want to clarify a few things.

tl;dr: I'm sad. I'll start writing and updating again soon.

I have very severe depression. And I do mean severe: the kind that where I don't get out of bed for anything, the kind that leaves my hair uncombed and unwashed for days, the kind that destroys any creative ray of sunshine in my life, the kind that worries people IRL. I zone out for hours. I have no concept of time when I do zone out. I get up out of bed when I have to, physically go to work, and immediately come back to bed when I am home. I open up my phone, muster the strength to reply to a few people, then go to Google Docs, and stare at an empty document until my phone locks. I fall asleep and repeat that cycle over and over and over again. I don't leave my apartment for anything besides work; last week was the first time I left my house in months and that was by sheer force (bless my partner for that) and I have no plans on leaving my apartment again because I simply have no will to do so. If it wasn't for my cat, I would absolutely never leave my bed. If I could, I would, and want to, just rot away in bed, and talk to no one. And I am sure many people who talk to me on here, Discord, etc. have noticed that I am taking longer and longer to reply. (In fact, I am neglecting to respond to The Woman right now, and she is someone I prioritize, always.) I could go on and on about how heavy this illness and its roots dig into me and weigh me down, and usually, I have a handle on it, and for the most part, I did! This last year These last six months have been really terrible in terms of IRL stuff, but writing, whether it's creative, or journaling, or academic, has always helped. It's always been my escape.

So you can imagine why I felt incredibly lucky to come across KinnPorsche: the Series because it does spark a lot of creativity in me. I can't believe I've written 200K words for a single fandom, let alone 150k+ words on KimChay. I spent May through November using KP and other media and writing fics to navigate my depression. I spent the last few weeks developing what I would call close friendships with people when earlier this year, I had no one to talk to. Hell, I have all the inspiration at my finger tips. I literally have projects in development with really amazing artists on here. People send me prompts and ideas and I watch my list grow and I think of how lucky I must be to be inspired. I made friends with people on Twitter. Twitter! And it's winter time, my favorite season, and I'm looking forward to the snow, the walks in cold air, my trench coats and sweater vests. And I've been updating YLTTL (which is a finished fic, but still need heavy editing.) According to the math, I should be good; I should be in a place where I can write BSC90 and update. And I should be happy.

But I am not. Right now, I am in a really bad place, and if I have the will to write, it comes in flashes that dim out rather quickly. I am frustrated. I am exercising immense self control when the urge to delete everything I've ever written and run away overtakes my head. I write things, and I delete them because nothing feels good anymore. Nothing I write feels good enough to post either. And I've never written for anyone: as in, I write for me and my health, even though BSC90 is literally for someone. But it really sucks when your own brain is telling you, "Hey! Everyone's lying to you! You're not really a good writer, and if you were, you would push past all these terrible feelings and write like you always do." And I do that often, but that methodology is not working right now because of the severity of my feelings.

Now, I am not saying that this is anyone's fault or that you or anyone who asks about my fics is a bad person or anything. I promise you that's not where I am coming from. I promise you that I appreciate every reader I have, including you. I promise you my intention with this response isn't to make you or anyone feel bad or to solicit pity or sympathy. But I do need to say something because:

1) I think people deserve honesty, no matter what.

2) I've given the "Haha I've just been really busy!" excuse over the last month and that hasn't been enough and

3) I'm beginning to feel like I'm letting people down, which I know really isn't the case, but my flickering brain is trying to convince me that I am, and my chest tells me the same thing.

I promise when I come back, Chapter 6 of BSC90 will be, I hope, worth the wait. And that despite everything I've written here, I do appreciate you asking about the story and I appreciate your patience. So please don't feel bad or some type of way if you (or anyone else) is reading this. I just want to be honest.

Thank you for reading. 🖤

[loud-whistling-yes]

ON IT BOSS o7777

....ok actually wait i need to actually finish my multi-page long google doc monstrosity first, but i can give you an extra thought that popped into my mind a few minutes after posting this for now lol

^^^ please imagine me swinging hachi around like this for the entire duration of this rant, thank you

(now imagine me shoving him into your face for this line) THIS BITCH HAS SO MUCH LOVE IN HIM THAT NEEDS TO COME OUT (TOO BAD JOKER'S LIKE ALLERGIC TO THAT THOUGH)

idk man. when you have so much love and excitement and whatever else you have in you and you need it to come out somehow. he reminds me so much of when i was a kid and i had so much stuff i needed to say so i would. not. shut. up.

his entire character is so transparent (.... actually now when i think of it, might just be an audience surrogate thing) like, you always know what hes thinking cause 90% of the time hes usually blurting it out loud and i think???? ITS REALLY ENDEARING?????? PROBABLY CAUSE I CAN RELATE BUT IDK MAN I JUST THINK ITS NEAT

(also it makes hachi and joker a really interesting dynamic cause jokers always like. DEAD FUCKING SILENT whenever family is being mentioned which is like,,,, fair. im pretty sure there is like at least 3 instances of joker going like "what who said that" whenever he, oh god forbid, become all touchy-feely. anyways wonderful case of unstoppable force vs immovable object and its beautiful to see joker finally break in ep51)

(..... ACTUALLY HOLD THE PHONE MORE RANTING NOW THAT I THINK OF IT. speaking of joker finally breaking in ep51, did anyone notice how much more uh, affectionate is definitely not the word but????? protective????? nice?????? to hachi??????? in encore??????????? like idk theres a shift in his behaviour is what im saying. all i can guess is since ep51/the manga's equivalent of ep51 happened like RIGHT BEFORE the finale we never really got to see their behaviour after the whole hachi-fucking-dying thing. so this is an absolute win for me and found family enjoyers all around.)

(seriously. i think hachi fucking broke joker what the fuck. i was so shocked by the dialogue in the first chapter i was wondering if i was dreaming cause theyre behaving exactly like how 11-year-old me would write fanfic /pos. the whole "how can i lose to my own assistant" thing. the other "we won't be partners anymore" thing. just like. the whole 3 chapters of lowkey insane detail that is joker getting BURNT ALL OVER, CRAWLING OUT OF BED AND IMMEDIATELY ASKING IS HACHI OKAY, THEN MAKING QUEEN FLY OVER SO THEY CAN CHASE AFTER HIM?????? BRO YOU HAVE LIKE 3RD-DEGREE BURNS ON YOU OR SOME SHIT GO HOME YOUR CHILD IS FINE) (NOT REALLY) (HE ALMOST TOOK A FUCKING FIREBALL TO THE FACE LIKE YOU DID) (GOD SAVE THEM)

hey guys fun parallel

[works-of-fanfiction]

“He’s the Best.” - 90s!Graham Coxon x Reader

Summary: Graham struggles with his self-esteem within the band and the reader tries to cheer him up.

Requested by: Anon. I hope you like this <3

Warnings: Swearing (literally once).

Word Count: 3.3k - a bit of a longer oneshot from me! I didn’t mean for it to be this long.

A/N: I’ve been writing this and putting it off for days because I just don’t know if I like it, but I don’t want to restart it. Argh… I hope someone enjoys this cheese fest.

* Gif credits to the linked creator

_______________

No one in this life is born ‘better’ than anybody else. It’s not a competition or a game of comparison. Every single human on this planet has their own unique qualities that make them interesting and most importantly, worthy. However, humans sadly aren’t wired to see those qualities in themselves. They spend the majority of their lives obsessing over others; wondering if they’re as talented as the next man, or if they’ll ever look as good as whatshername. Sometimes, it gets to a point where even the deepest of friendships can become strained due to one or more parties comparing themselves to another’s achievements.

And seeing Graham go through exactly that, has been killing me. There was a time when everything Graham and Damon did together, was truly that - together. Every single melody, riff, lyric - it was theirs. Neither one did more work than the other, neither was more musically talented. They were both kids crammed inside a Portakabin with their very first instruments, strumming and plucking and making probably rather bothersome noise. They had no idea what was to become of their lunchtime jam sessions and after school practices. Both were just excited to have a friend that liked the same things as them, and enjoyed the noise the other was making.

But Graham has since become a shadow of who he once was around Damon - he’s become Damon’s shadow. Or so he thinks.

Being in a band with a boisterous frontman like Damon was bound to become hard work for the other members at one point or another, but I never thought it would affect Graham like this. It’s getting harder to communicate with him, and I know it’s not his fault but I’m running out of things to say to fill the silences. There’s only so many times I can ask if he wants a cup of tea, or tell him about the encounter I had at the bus stop earlier that day. I’m sick of hearing my own voice, so I can’t imagine how he must feel. The silence seems to be the only thing he wants; he doesn’t write anymore, he hardly plays guitar outside of work commitments, and he hasn’t picked up his sketchbook in weeks. He just seems to stare at the TV or sit on the sofa with his head buried in a book that’s stuck on the first chapter. I watched him the other day and in forty-five minutes, he turned the page once. I bet if I asked him about the story he wouldn’t be able to recall a single character’s name, never mind the plot.

Watching him struggle with his self-esteem is crushing, and I don’t want him to live another second feeling the way he does. I know it may take a while for him to find himself again, but if I can do anything to help move things along, it’s worth a try. I’d drop everything for Graham in a heartbeat.

“I dropped those music stands off today. Did you get them?” Dave asks, his voice a little crackly on the other end of the phone.

“I did, thank you!” I chime, balancing the phone between my shoulder and ear as I assemble the very same stands.

“Oh, good. I was a little worried about leaving them outside. I thought somebody would take them… What do you need them for anyway?”

“That’s something for me to know and you to find out, Dave.” I laugh, tightening one last knob on the second stand and straightening it out. I stand back and admire my handy work, smiling at the prospect of what they are to become.

“Alright, alright. Well, I hope they come in handy! I’ll see you later.”

“Thanks again. See you next week!”

We both hang up and I grab the stands, climbing up the stairs and into the spare room, placing them in their desired places. Grabbing two pieces of sheet music, I slot them onto the stands neatly and adjust them until they’re perfect. With one last thing to check, I turn on the projector I borrowed from an old university friend and let the film play out on the blank wall opposite. I mess with the sound a little, making sure it’s loud enough before rewinding the footage to the beginning and turning it off until later.

Standing in the middle of the room, I turn around and admire everything on the walls. Everything from lyrics to old album art concepts, to still life paintings from Graham’s time at Goldsmith’s. Beside the music stands, there’s crates filled with records, decorated with lyrics scribbled onto scraps of paper, some in Graham’s handwriting and others in mine. I of course, couldn’t resist writing them out in various colours and covering them in star-shaped stickers. The finishing touch is a large beanbag against the wall for us to sit and watch the projector from. I fluff up the beanbag for the thousandth time before heading downstairs to wait for Graham to get back.

It takes around two hours for Graham to arrive home. As soon as I hear his taxi pull up outside, I jump up from the sofa and head into the kitchen to flick the kettle on. Nerves bubble through me as I anticipate his entry. It’s impossible to predict how Graham’s going to be feeling on any given day. He could come through the door and speak to me as normal, or he could disappear into his studio until he’s tired enough to head to bed. Through the rumbling of the kettle I listen out for the door, fingers impatiently tapping on the counter as my gaze fixates on a magpie outside, shakily balancing on the washing line. A second joins it and I smile, muscle memory taking over as I pour the boiled water into two cups, not taking my eyes off of the birds.

“Hi.” Graham’s voice peeps behind me. Putting the kettle down, I turn around with a warm smile on my face. Despite everything Graham has been going through, seeing him come through that door every day is still my favourite sight. Having him come home to me will simply never get old. I don’t know what I’ll do when he has to go out on tour again in a few months.

“Hey.” I breathe, the sides of my face already beginning to feel sore from the ridiculous grin stuck on it. He smiles back, the expression not quite reaching his eyes but I know he means well. He’s trying. “You go and sit down. I’ll bring these in.” I gesture to the brewing teas on the counter and he nods, hanging his bag on the nearest kitchen chair and leaving the room without another word. I finish the drinks as quickly as possible, grabbing the stack of takeaway menus from the junk drawer and bringing them with me, the pieces of paper clamped between my teeth as I concentrate on carrying the two steaming hot cups in my hands.

Setting the cups down on the coffee table, I toss the menus onto the sofa next to where Graham is very aggressively, trying to pull his Docs off. “Need a little help?” I ask, laughing as I kneel down and bat his hands out of the way. “It would help if you untied them.”

“It’s easier to leave them tied.”

“Oh, really?” I scoff, gesturing to his feet still stuck in the cherry red boots. The laces are a complete mess with three bulky knots in them. I sit down cross-legged on the carpet, carefully plucking and unravelling each knot whilst Graham buries his head in the takeaway menus. “How do you even - “ I struggle, pulling at the frayed shoelace whilst trying not to damage it further, “- get these things on?” With one last tug, the first lace loosens and I’m able to slide the boot off with ease. Graham’s face pops out from behind the menu, a side-smile plastered onto his lips and a cheeky glint in his eyes. I know he wants to laugh.

“Shall we get Indian tonight?” He changes the subject, flipping over the tatty piece of bright orange paper as he squints at the options. He always orders the same thing, yet still insists on reading the whole menu front to back. He does it for every restaurant.

“Indian sounds good.” I nod, pulling the second boot off and shoving them to the side. “I’ll call them now.” Jumping up to grab the phone, I type the number in from memory and hold it up to my ear.

“What’s the rush?” Graham mouths and I hush him when somebody answers. I order the usual along with some extras and give them our address, despite them not even really needing it anymore. The phone call is no longer than a minute and Graham sits staring at me, nose scrunched in confusion. “Are you going to tell me what’s going - “

“Follow me.” I blurt out, stretching my arm towards him and rising onto my tiptoes out of excitement. He stands slowly, shrugging off his jacket and leaving it on the sofa. “I was going to wait until we’d had our food, but I have to show you now.”

“Show me what?” He asks as I grab his wrist and drag him up the stairs. We squeeze up the narrow staircase, almost tripping each other over a couple times until we stop on the landing, feet overlapping one another’s on the small square of carpet.

“I know you haven’t really been yourself lately.” I start, my fingers slipping from Graham’s wrist to entwine with his. He looks down, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth. His eyes watch our hands as I lightly stroke the back of his thumb in an attempt to relax him. He has a habit of tensing up whenever I broach the subject. “So I wanted to remind you just how great you are.”

I watch his face intently, the corners of his mouth twitching and trying to smile. With my free hand, I open the door and flick the light on, pulling Graham into the room with me. His hand slips from my grasp and I back up to stand against the wall, watching as he takes in the room around him and everything in it.

He walks to the music stands first, fingers tracing the notes on the pages, flipping them over then back again. He walks towards the canvas on the back wall - a woodland painting he’d won a prize for back in college - running his hand over the textured patch of paint that forms the trees. I nervously bite the back of my thumb as he kneels down to sift through the records in the large black case below, flicking through every Blur album and single released to this day. My favourite lyrics are scattered on sheets of paper all over the ground, and he picks up the second verse from Coffee & TV. “You’ve always loved this one.” He says, turning to me and smiling.

“I happen to really like the guy who sings it.”

“He must be pretty good then.”

“Oh, he’s the best.” Resting my foot against the wall, I kick my body forward and stand straight, joining Graham beside the projector.

“What’s this for?” He asks, hands hovering near the buttons but not daring to touch anything. I take his hands in mine and give them a loving squeeze.

“Sit down and I’ll show you.” I chirp and he sinks down onto the beanbag. I mess with the projector until the sound starts to creep in, stretching over to switch off the light. Graham shuffles to the side to make some room for me on the beanbag and I flop down beside him, nestling into his side.

The image from the projector is surprisingly clear against the wall, although could’ve been improved had I borrowed a screen from somewhere. A variety of different clips play out in front of us, ranging from Graham performing onstage to snippets of his band members talking and praising their guitarist. I try my hardest to focus on the film in front of me, but I can’t help glancing over at Graham to see his reactions. His brows are furrowed, but not necessarily in a bad way - he’s focused, fully concentrating on everything he’s seeing and hearing.

I fidget with my hands, twiddling my thumbs and quietly cracking my knuckles. Graham notices this and grabs my left hand, squeezing it tightly and bringing it over to rest in his lap. Laying my head on his shoulder, I press a kiss onto his sleeve, rubbing my head against him and breathing in his familiar scent. He lays his head on top of mine, but never looks away from the video playing on the wall. Absentmindedly, his fingertips dance on the back of my hand, the drumming following the beat of Song 2 as it plays from the projector. I too can’t help bopping along to the beat, my foot tapping softly on the carpet.

The video closes with one final clip, a message I recorded for Graham. Too embarrassed to watch myself, my focus stays on him as I squeeze his hand a little tighter and snuggle up as close as possible. The picture begins to fade and the sound plays out until there’s no footage left, and the whirring of the projector becomes background noise in the room. Graham doesn’t say anything at first, but as I try to stand to turn the projector off, he pulls me back down onto the beanbag and rotates his body to face mine.

“Hey.” I whisper, my right hand supporting his cheek as he leans into me, his eyes closed and lips pressed into a line. Our bodies slot into one another’s on the beanbag, the very little space between us growing warmer by the second.

Graham releases a deep breath, his eyes slowly opening again with a small smile spreading across his face. It’s hard to see him properly in the dimly lit room, but I could never mistake those big brown eyes staring at me. “I can’t believe you did all of this for me.” He says, his voice low as he leans in close to speak like we’re the only two people who matter inside a crowded room.

“I wanted to show you how incredible you are. You’ve been so hard on yourself and I just - “ As I speak, tears start to well up in my eyes and I look up to the ceiling to try and stop them from falling. I’d already told myself earlier that I wouldn’t cry, because I don’t want Graham to think he’s upset me. I press at my eyes lightly with my fingertips in an attempt to push the tears away. “I can’t stand seeing you this way because you don’t deserve to feel like this. If it wasn’t for you, Blur wouldn’t exist! Everything you’ve all achieved wouldn’t have happened.” My voice begins to shake and I feel Graham’s hand on my arm, rubbing it gently to try and calm me down.

“Y/N.” He starts, before reaching up to turn on the light. It takes a second for my eyes to adjust, before my gaze falls to the ground to avoid his. If I look at him properly, I know I’ll start bawling. “Look at me. Please.”

“I can’t. I can’t because I’ll cry, and then you’ll get upset and I don’t want to make you feel any worse than wha - “

“You won’t upset me. Y/N, I’m sorry I’ve - “

“No, Graham. Don’t apologise.” I grip onto his shirt tightly, my fingers tangling in the fabric. Graham bows his head and nudges it against mine, edging closer until he pushes my head up with his and our noses are almost touching. We both open our eyes, our faces too close that my vision is distorted and I’m seeing double. I pull back, sniffling once and dabbing at my eyes again, still not allowing any tears to actually emerge.

“I’m sorry,“ he starts and I sigh at his words, but he hushes me by holding his finger up to my face, “for putting you through this. I was so caught up in my own head that I didn’t realise how it was making you feel.”

“Graham, this isn’t about me.”

“But it affects you. Bloody hell, if I had to live with this miserable twat - “ he points to himself and I scoff, slapping the back of his hand playfully. “ - I’d have given up by now.”

“I would never give up on you.” My voice is barely above a whisper, the lump in my throat making it difficult to speak. Graham goes silent again, staring down at our joined hands and moving his thumbs around. I nudge his head with mine in the same way he did previously and he sniffles, his chest rising and immediately falling again. “Graham?” I bring my hand to his chin and push his face up to find his eyes watery, and cheeks significantly more red compared to a moment ago.

“God, look at me. What the hell are you still doing with me, ay? I’m a bleeding mess.” He sniffs, roughly wiping tears off of his cheeks with the backs of his hands.

“Because I wouldn’t want to be with anybody else.”

“Not even - “

“Ah! Stop right there. There’ll be no more of that.” I take his hands away from his face, holding onto them loosely. “Graham Coxon, you are the best thing to ever happen to me. And I’ll give you a free pass to slap me silly for being so cheesy.” I laugh, his grip on my hands tightening as he awkwardly slides closer on the beanbag, his body sinking into it at a strange angle and pulling me with him. “I love you.”

Within a second, Graham’s hands are on both sides of my face, pulling me in for a kiss; the kind of kiss that feels like the person is pouring their entire heart out to you. Like the kiss between the main characters of a movie, when they’ve just ran across a field or a busy road to collide with another at the centre. His lips messily press against mine and I can feel the stray tears running down his face as they dampen my cheeks. My hands rest on his legs, holding on firmly as his thumbs dig into my face a little. It doesn’t hurt, but he soon pulls away and swipes at my face softly as if to apologise for it. He uses his sleeve to dry my face and I do the same for him, small gasps of laughter exchanging between us.

“Thank you for doing this. If you can’t tell, I really love it.” He says sincerely with a genuine smile, the biggest smile I’ve seen from him in weeks. The expression is infectious and I can’t help mimicking him as I grin back like the Cheshire Cat. The faint sound of knocking from downstairs pulls us out of our romance film-esque daydream and we both clamber to our feet.

As we approach the stairs, Graham stops and spins me around, pulling me into him. I land against his chest with a huff, before adjusting my hair and looking up at him. “After we eat, can you show me the film again?” He asks, his hand meeting mine to help me fix the loose hairs falling in my eyes.

“We can watch it as many times as you like.”

[chickpeatalia]

I heard "working class!Arthur" and I can't think of anything else yes please!!!

Anon, I know you didnt exactly ask for it, but now that you have put the words “working class!Arhur” into my ask box, you have practically opened pandoras box so I’m just gonna go ahead and talk about it anyway. *mwua*  First things first, I shall note that I am not in fact British, so I might not get a few things right. Second, what we’re gonna talk about today is a rather specific human AU that lives in my head.  Third, this ended up being....incredibly long, I’m sorry. The rest is under the cut!

So, why is working class Arthur splendid?

Obviously, there are many different version of how to do a human AU, and oftentimes fandom likes to go down the rich/royal/elite!Arthur route. Which, in fact, is super valid and oftentimes quite fun too. I like these versions too. However, I think oftentimes a working class background is favourable because 1) it makes more sense, to me, on a meta level  and 2) it has a certain charm to it.

Lets consider the meta level first: - despite stereotypes, Great Britain does not consist of aristocracy and royals alone. What are 600 arstocratic families to 60 million of the rest of the population? - the Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain - factory work, steel mills, textile and most prominently, coal mines in the North of England were all operated by the workers. I feel like in Britain, social classes matter way more than on continental Europe, and also to me personally the working class seemed like a particularly important one, historically speaking. Okay, enough history for now, so lets get into the human AU: - Arthur, who grows up in a large family with four brothers (Alasdair & Dylan who are older. And Sean & Peter who are younger) - his parents had Alasdair very early on and you know how it is. With a baby on the way, you got to make the best out of it and take the first stable job you get. (Which was in Glasgow at the time). - but unforntunately high unemployment rates hit the country, especially the working class (thanks Maggie T</3) and what to do if you lose your job and no new work is to be found? Well, you just go and look somewhere else. In the Kirklands’ case, that somewhere else is Cardiff, Wales where Dylan is born. - So they end up sort of moving quite a lot, practically in every part of the UK, in hopes of finding stable jobs for a bit. - Eventually they settle in a suburb of Manchester, England at long last.

- And life goes on

- They recycle so much clothes between the brothers. A good 40% if not more of Arthur’s clothes used to be either Alasdair’s or Dylan’s. - In turn, Sean and Peter also get Arthur’s old school uniforms. Theyre not particularly nice after all these years, but look, they have five kids. They simply don’t have the money for new ones. ( “Says much about the efficiency of a system when it forces you to wear school uniforms in order to avoid social stigmatisation and yet makes you buy the uniforms yourself, as if richer people couldn’t afford the better ones anyway.” Arthur would say darkly) - lots and lots of second hand shopping. (this is where Arthur got is first leather jacket and Doc Martens from, and yes, this is also when his punk phase has started) - thus his outfits tend to look quite ...interesting. A various mix of old jumpers from the 90s, Dylan’s old plaid shirts and some band t-shirt he got for £5. - one year, he and his brothers were looking for a gift for their mum’s birthday. Arthur didn’t have any cash anymore (yes, it was after he bought the Doc Martens, sacrifies had to be made), so he suggested he tried to bake her a cake. Much cheeper than any other gift. Obviously his brothers mocked him for it (until they actually tried the cake and found out that it actually tasted quite good). Since then Arthur took up baking here and there, and his brothers while not encouraging, do not mock him anymore. They do hope he makes the lemon cake again for Ma’s next birthday though

- SCHOOL ho boy... so the thing is, Arthur is rather clever.

- Academically, he was above average. Acing it in subjects like English and History, being quite good in French (no, he does not bring this fact up often...or...at all), and getting decently by in the rest. Except that one time in PE when he got rowdy with the other boys during a football match (no, not our boy’s brightest moment). - He is intelligent, he even understands subject that he doesn’t particular like, like chemistry. He is quick-witted and sharp tongued and has a natural talent for words and writing. Even rather sophisticated articles and topics do not resent a challenge for him. - Naturally, Arthur toys with the thought of going to university and immediately wants to slap himself for that ridiculous idea. - The thing is, nobody in his family has gone to university so far. Like, he has no, absolute no frame of reference what it entails. - Being from a working class family and then going to university is a scary thing, man. - also, being £30,000 in dept by age 18 is a terror of its own kind - Eventually, he contemplates applying maybe perhaps for the local university and that information seeps through to Alasdair who found it to be a rather ridiculous endeavour. - “Look, you’re shitting your pants about this application one way or another, so why not just go immediately for the top universities instead. If you get rejected, well, at least you got rejected by one of the top universities in the world. But if you get accepted....” “Aw, are you saying you think I could get accepted by one of the best universities in the world?” “I’m not saying anything, you wee little shit. Don’t put words in my mouth. But......being the overachieving know-it-all that you are, you might have a chance.” - For as long as he lives, Arthur’s never gonna admit it but this conversation might have really been the most meaningful thing Alasdair has ever said to him. - And yes, he does apply and yes he does get accepted.

FURTHER HEADCANONS:

- he toned it down by now but the punk never died in him. lots of LGBT+ pins on his jackets too. - that being said, he hates it when people think punk is an aesthetic rather than a political stance (”You cannot be bloody punk and right wing. You just cannot!”) - genuinely likes the taste of beer. Or it might be that it was the cheepest alcoholic beverage he could manage to buy. Situation unclear. - is so prone to get into bar fights oh dear lord when he says “fight me”, he genuinely is 100% down to throw hands even if you beat him bloody - obviously, always votes Labour - will call you a cunt if you’re a Tory - unrelated to anything, but I think he’d wear earrings regularly and they’d be cute - also, has a tendency to dye his hair in crazy colours when he is under pressure - one last thing: oftentimes, Arthur strikes people as incredibly cynic or gloomy or ‘overly engaged in politics’, but growing up the way he grew up, facing so many hardships through the years of which many were directly caused by careless conservative politics...its just hard not to be cynic. My final words here are: this is most definitely not what you were looking for when you sent that ask, anon, but I seriously needed to get this out of my system. If anyone wants to ever talk about my favourite boy Arthur, my ask box is always open.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk<3

[3pirouette]

Jc because you're writing is so good and flows together so perfectly and stuff.

Do you outline your work?

Like do you have an idea and outline it a big idea or chapter by chapter?

What's your writing process like?

Oh Anon, lovely anon.

First off, thank you for the lovely compliment. That was absolutely fantastic to wake up to on a day when my only feeling I had from the moment my alarm went off was “I don’t want to go to work today.” (I still have to go, but your compliment was a very nice little warm hug on a cranky morning)

So, I am SO sorry to disappoint you.

I write like a train wreck.

I have nothing valuable to share. 

I 100% write fic for fun and the process has always just been me, sitting down and writing. I almost never know how a story is going to get from beginning to end when I sit down to start writing them. That’s why I rarely post WIPs, since I usually have to go back and edit things. Like, 90% of the time the characters and plot surprise me with where they end up going. 

That’s also why I have something like 25 semi-abandoned WIPs on my hard drive for various fandoms - if the spirit isn’t moving me to write it anymore, I save it for another day. If I get a new idea, I start the fic and cross my fingers it gets finished. 

I don’t outline, but occasionally I’ll write myself notes in the word doc (Yes, I use word to write my fics. I’m old.) about what I think should happen next. The only time I’ve done any kind of real “outline” is in my super long fics (Like Nobody’s Baby) and it’s not so much an outline of what I want to happen but more like notes on what already happened so I don’t have to go back and reread everything to make sure the times and details are right as I move forward. 

Very rarely will I write the story out of order, but if I have a very clear vision of the end or something that I know is going to happen down the line, I’ll write it while it is fresh in my head and then try to fill in. Heavy edits usually happen because things are ALWAYS changing. 

I decide if it’s a chapter fic or a full story just purely based on my gut. 

I started writing fanfic (though I didn’t KNOW it was fanfic at the time since I was in middle school and we only had a family computer and I didn’t KNOW fanfic existed as a THING) somewhere around 1995 and started posting somewhere around 1998 after my best friend “discovered” fanfic. Because it’s something I enjoy doing I’ve worked somewhat hard at being good at it. I know what kind of fic I enjoy reading, and that’s the kind of fic I want to write. I am for SURE a little embarrassed at my first attempts at fic. I was a teenager trying to write about complex emotional states, it was rough. I like to think I’m better at it now.  

I no longer use a beta, even though I’ve worked with some amazing ones, because the betaing process stresses me out and this is for fun. (Though finding mistakes in works I’ve already published ALSO stresses me out). 

I’ve also VERY CLEARLY noticed that the amount I write, and the content of my writing, parallels my personal life and mental health. I usually turn to writing when I’m missing something in my personal life, and the sheer VOLUME that I’ve written for Steggy since last July has been purely due to the stress of the pandemic. The good news is, I turn to writing because it makes me feel good, helps me deal with everything, and is usually very cathartic for me. The bad news is that it’s very easy for me to walk away from it when my personal life gets more fulfilling or a fandom/show/movie/etc goes south for me (I’m looking at you, OUAT.) 

So, I know that’s not helpful. But in a way, it is. GO WITH YOUR GUT AND YOUR BRAIN. If you’re writing fic for fun, it should be fun. You should be able to get lost in it, and it shouldn’t be all that stressful. If it’s stressful, try to figure out why and eliminate that part of it from your process. I share stories I make up in my brain for fun. Let it be FUN. 

If anyone’s curious about the writing process of a SPECIFIC story or even fandom, because that seems to be a weird one for me, I’m happy to talk about them, too. 

[captain-aralias]

Worse ways of writing a sex scene - Hang the Moon deleted scenes

as usual, after writing something, i have a doc with a bunch of stuff that i wrote and then deleted because i thought it wasn’t working, but i liked it enough that i thought... maybe i will regret my decision to delete this and want to either put it back extant or refer back to it. 

it’s a random collection of stuff - not the best ideas i had but didn’t use unfortunately. because to end up in the doc, i have to have written whatever it is and remembered to copy and paste it, rather than just deleting it. 

as usual - i thought i might as well put it on the internet as not, although the real version is better. 

from the recently completed ‘hang the moon’ / ‘the sky isn’t black anymore’ pair - apparently i have:

- one real deleted scene, and some tiny snatches of conversation from ‘hang the moon’ (and that’s it, really - apart from some scenes i thought i would delete, but then put back in)

- some baz thoughts, and three-ish attempts at writing baz trying to explain gay sex to simon. which i clearly absolutely hated writing. 

when baz says “It’s just – the Simon in my imagination knew how to do this too. Without prompting” that’s my literal pain on the page.

----

Hang the Moon:

Chapter 2 - 

(barely a real deleted scene as it still basically happens this way - but i show it to you because you can see baz doesn’t start the chapter in jeans in this draft - i went back and forth on it. then i thought, he might as well go away and get changed when he gets too embarrassed at breakfast, plus we get the trad jeans moment. also in this draft mordelia is fiestier. EVEN fiestier) 

“You should – tell him that,” I say when I can breathe enough to get the words out. “Please.”

“All right,” Mordelia says. She hops off the bed, like she’s going to do it now, and heads for the door.

“I didn’t mean it,” I shout after her (I don’t want Baz to murder his sister in front of me), but it’s too late. She’s already yanked the door open and Baz is actually there, standing outside. He’s dressed for tennis, I think, even though the court is being used. White shirt and shorts.

He steps back, confused. He must have been about to knock.

“Mordelia. What are you doing in Snow’s room?”

“Mum sent us to get the Chosen One for breakfast.”

It’s the first I’ve heard of it, but I’m definitely excited to try breakfast in this house. It must go on for hours. “I should probably get up then.”

--

Chapter 3 - 

(This is the real deleted scene. It’s an alternate version of the scene between Baz and Simon after they finish talking to Fiona. i’m pretty sure it comes after this exchange, or maybe a slightly different version of essentially this exchange: 

“All magicians like me,” I say, because it’s true. My magic means that I’ve never had to try to make friends at Watford. “You’re basically the only one who doesn’t.”

Baz huffs. “Well. None of the others have to live with you.”

I deleted what you’re about to read because although Simon getting upset is good for showing he loves Baz, it’s the wrong mood. so instead simon is aggressively good-humoured about it and baz is like - argh, i love him. you can see i kept some of this in the version as written with simon reflecting on where baz will live after watford in the privacy of his own head before he coincidentally finds out the answer on a shopping trip.)

That pisses me off, even though it’s not exactly a surprise that he thinks this. I know I’m a terrible roommate, much worse than Baz. Objectively. (He doesn’t try and kill me when I’m in my room so I don’t think I can count it against him). I leave my stuff around and I snore (apparently) and I leave the window open even though I know Baz gets cold easily.  

“I suppose you must be looking forward to eighth year being over,” I say as he hits the bottom of the staircase. “You’ll finally be rid of me.”

Baz stops and turns back towards me. I’m still a few stairs away from the bottom, which means I’m taller than him but it’s still like Baz is looking down on me.

“Simon,” he says, like I really am exceptionally thick. “We’re getting married.”

“Yeah,” I say. “But not really. It’s not like you have to live with me, if you don’t want to.”

--

Chapter 4 - 

(A few extra lines here - although you can also tell from the tense-choice that this was literally going to be the end of the ‘simon snow hung the moon’ scene - then i shifted it into the next section and shoved it into a flashback, which is a good trick for when you really love a piece of dialogue but it’s going to require you to write more than you want to to get to it/when it ends the scene at the wrong point)

“I’ve got a theory that your family uses insults to disguise affection.”

“That’s because you’re an idiot.”

“It’s all right, Baz,” I say. “I know that means I’m amazing and you can’t wait to be my husband.”

“I can wait,” Baz says. “It’s only eight hours.”  

---

that’s all i’ve got for ‘hang the moon’. sorry. 

---

The sky isn’t black anymore

(fuck knows what baz is talking about in this snippet - WHAT IS THE TRUTH?? i don’t know.  i think it’s from the stripping scene. but it might not be. i almost put something like this back in, but in the end, i couldn’t be bothered.) 

It’s the truth. Living with Simon for seven years has required an extraordinary amount of willpower on my behalf. And this week has been a kind of blissful torture. Since the day my father told me the Old Families were looking to marry one of our own the Mage’s Heir, I’ve been in agony.

It had to be me, that was obvious. And then he arrived, in that suit – I’ve never seen Simon in a suit before, one that was made for him

I can only hope it’s been even half as bad for him; I know it wasn’t. He didn’t even know he fancied me, he didn’t even know he was gay. But this seems to be torturing

---

OK, here we go. time to try and write this scene. 

I squeeze some into his hand.

“Start with your fingers – or, actually, one finger. Work up to three.”

“You’ve never done this before, have you?” Simon asks as I slide down the bed and end up on my stomach. I can’t work out if he sounds jealous. Or if I’d even want him to be. (He doesn’t have to be jealous. There’s never been anyone else. There could never be.)

“Not with anyone else.”

“Right,” Simon says. (He doesn’t question that statement, thank magic – I’m not feeling so honest I want to tell him about my masturbation habits.) “But you know you have to be on your front.”

“It’s easier. Apparently.”

“Yeah, but it means I can’t look at you,” Simon says. “Which you know I want to do.”

That’s true – he has been unerringly consistent on that point.

I turn over onto my back and Simon rewards me by pushing his tongue into my mouth. One of his hands is wet with lubricant and he’s holding it above me

--

(and again) (i like the phrase ‘without sounding like a complete pillock’ - classic british 90s slang. might bring it back later in something else)

“I’ll let you know when it’s enough. Then––”

I can’t work out how to say, then slick your cock up and shove it into me – vigorously – without sounding like a complete pillock. So instead I just do what I should have done earlier, what I haven’t been doing or even thinking about, because I didn’t want to frighten him with how much I wanted it. I slide my lubed hand down his cock, all the way to the base, before drawing it back up.  

It should just have been a demonstration. One quick stroke, but Simon closes his hand around mine before I can let go – and I don’t want to let go. So I don’

--

(and again) 

“Fingers first,” I tell him. My voice is shaking again, even though he isn’t touching me. He should be touching me.

I take his hand and draw it down my body as I roll onto my stomach. He lets me do it. I feel his slick fingers start to trace a line down the cleft of my arse. Fuck, this is happening.

Is it? He still isn’t quite there.

“Start with one,” I prompt.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Simon says.

“You won’t.”

I hear a soft snort from above me.

“All right,” I concede. “I’ll tell you if you hurt me.”

--

(and we’re done with that! this next bit is from slightly later in the sex scene. this is where baz has just come but is still getting off on simon’s magic. at this point i thought i was going to teleport baz out to the pond with simon, so he needed his wand with him so he could get back in. i went back and added loads of ‘where is baz’s wand’ into the narrative to get us to this point - and then i was just like, this is too unrealistic, and it’s also more dramatic if baz doesn’t go, so all of that was wasted)

I’m running one of my hands over his back and feeling for my wand in the other. I don’t know what I think I’m going to do with it. I don’t know any spells about gay sex (there aren’t in my library), but there’s much magic here it feels a waste not to cast something. Something showy. Something Simon will like. Something––

--

that’s all i saved. although i definitely wrote a bit for simon at the end where he says something like ‘If we see your dad, I’m not waiting. Just run’. which i thought was funny - but again, wrong mood. so you just get a glance towards it in baz’s POV about simon being wrapped in the blanket. 

the fic was also going to end with ‘on love’s light wings’, although i never wrote it. i don’t know how obvious that is now i told you my trick about putting stuff you like but don’t want to lose into flashbacks. like baz, i love the image of baz carrying simon up to the window, and another major spell that only works if you’re really in love. i would have tried to bring it back thematically by having simon grumble about how he could have cast it and carried baz, if he’d had his wand.... or something like ‘give me a year, i can cast that’. or even just having baz think it was ok to tell simon he loved him - but i didn’t think that was giving us anything new i hadn’t already told you. so - it gets cut. 

is ‘let’s go back to bed’ a weak final line? i think it sort of is, because it’s just about leaving a room, which was my go-to ending for a long time. but i thought it worked because the whole fic is about sex and being in bed, and it starts with baz being in bed. anyway - once i wrote it, i wrote a few more lines for simon ...... and then deleted them, because ‘let’s go back to bed’ felt like the ending. 

[kyurilin]

Writing ask game: all of them bc I’m genuinely interested!

Gabby you're a menace and I mean that with all the love in my heart

notebook: I have two regular sized notebooks, and then two half sized ones where I will occasionally still write out notes for stuff. Since I switched over to using Google docs exclusively none of my notebooks get used as much anymore

pencil: I honestly love Calibri which is the fucking default font for like Microsoft word. Which is funny because I could use that for my Google docs horde but instead I'm apparently typing in arial

paper: the living room couch is honestly the best place, I can just curl up and type my atrocities to man

docs: so I'm not exactly sure what the exact longest thing I've written is because for one story I only know the page count, but my handwriting is also huge so it would likely be far shorter if it were typed. So my two contenders for longest are Truth Is Golden, the FNAF AU I never finished writing at I believe 290 pages (or close to that) and Present Mic's Totally Bullshit Life at 54k words and a printed copy of 140-ish pages. If I ever type up Truth is Golden maybe it'll be less

nano: I have not mostly because I can't make myself write daily I'm terrible at that

computer: Google Docs, gotta say it's just super nice since I can now just infodump onto an app on my phone rather than pulling out my bag of pens and a notebook and having to make sure my handwriting doesn't look substandard to me that day

genre: I'm 90% sure that now my favorite genre to write is Hurt/Comfort and that I am just as much of a sucker for reading it as I am for writing it. Hey Gabby remember when my favorite genre to write was Action/Adventure and I was terrible at it? I've really grown as a person, now I just emotionally damage my characters

tropes: Childhood Friends to Lovers, I am just absolutely weak for that even if it's not like a main part of the story

tw: I think the darkest theme is actually a part of the character building from my matching tattoos au wip where a character has a history of suicidal thoughts and an attempted suicide.

characters: every character I make no matter the universe loves the hit Pixar franchise Cars and has nothing bad to say about it, they're all Lightning McQueen's #1 fan, I need this to be known. Okay, more seriously though, I think I accidentally dump my own personality into every character a little and I don't mean to which is why I get attached to some in particular. And if they're not like a major OC in a story, their name or personality or look is from a character in something else.

wip: so just to give myself backstory for the current chapter story that I'm very slowly working on, I started a side doc that leads up to the events in that. For anyone reading crumbled rooftops, yes, there is legally a doc out there about Shouta and Hizashi that goes from chapter 298 until the start of the story that will probably never be put out because I wanted to more firmly establish what their relationship was going through since crumbled rooftops has Oboro's perspective and he's a bit of an unreliable narrator at the moment. Gabby I'm so sorry that means nothing to you

coffee: it's the same thing I drink continuously and that is diet Dr pepper at this point my blood is probably diet Dr pepper

personal: I love to slip in hints of stuff that would be fun to write by itself. My favorite part of writing has always been having this whole expanded lore in my mind and being able to incorporate tidbits into other things. I just really love to write and it's fun to share it with people even if I don't share nearly as much as I used to.

playlist: Spotify at some point is going to fucking break into my home and beg me to please chill on the character/story specific playlists I make because I usually find stuff that fits the right sound for a character and it also fits for like three story ideas. I have so many playlists I don't listen to and the mood wildly changes with each one. I have playlists for Cars OCs I have only thought about in passing. I have playlists for stories that never got started. I have a playlist for a character that still, 2 years later, only has one song on it. I cannot be stopped.

[twistednuns]

September 2018

I spent the first week of September in Bali. I got my advanced diver's license and did my navigation dive with David in PadangBai. For the night and wreck dive I went up to Tulamben (and had the driver teach me how to open my chakras and read someone's aura - he even made me connect with my mother who wrote me an e-mail a few hours later asking if something was wrong because she had felt me very strongly) where I ate the very best tempeh satay skewers and fried eggplant at Warung Rusti (with a 90s playlist in the background - "Shalalalala!").

That night dive deserves it's own bullet point: It was the first time for me, I had never been under water at night before. After saying that I met real-life Gary (Spongebob's pet snail) I'll just include the message I wrote to a friend that night: Das war gerade so bombastisch. Mein erster Nachttauchgang, ich wusste überhaupt nicht was mich erwartet, und dann war das gleichzeitig noch ein Wracktauchgang - ich hatte das Wrack vorher noch nicht gesehen. Wow. Du steigst einfach nach Einbruch der Dunkelheit direkt am Strand ins Wasser und tauchst ab. Nach ein paar Minuten taucht plötzlich ein riesiger Schatten vor dir auf - die USAT Liberty. Könnte auf den ersten Blick allerdings auch ein Blauwal sein... Ich kann's gar nicht beschreiben. Du hast nur eine Taschenlampe dabei, auf einer Seite siehst du vage Schemen vom Boot das von hinten manchmal von anderen Tauchern angeleuchtet wird, auf der anderen Seite nur Dunkelheit, schwarze Tiefe. Das Allerbeste ist allerdings, die Taschenlampe auszumachen. Wenn man im stockfinsteren Wasser mit den Armen wirbelt, erzeugt man hunderte kleine Luftbläschen, die wie leuchtende Funken aussehen. Magisch! Hat das was mit Biolumineszenz zu tun? Muss recherchieren. Das ist so ein geiles Gefühl. Mitten im Nichts, in der Dunkelheit, um dich rum nur Wasser. Ständig am Überlegen, ob man nicht doch noch spontan Panik kriegen soll. Beim Auftauchen siehst du die Sterne über dir, den Mars, die Milchstraße. Vom Ufer siehst du das Meer an manchen Stellen milchig türkis aufblitzen - wo die Taucher tief unter der Wasseroberfläche das Wrack anleuchten.

Climbing a fucking volcano in the middle of the night. Seriously, climbing Mount Batur must be one of the most challenging things I've ever done. I wasn't ready for this. Getting up at 1am, only a weak flashlight against the darkness, shorts and a thin jacket against the cold. I got scratches, killed my knees, my lungs were angry as well. I fell. And I still don't know how but somehow I made it to the top. So I sat there, shivering, wet, in the thin air surrounded by clouds. Listening to Krishna Das because that's what I kept doing in quiet moments during my trip. So I witnessed the moon and the stars vanishing, the night growing fainter, the sunrise behind Mount Agung. Walking downhill wasn't any easier (I'll never be able to get the black earth stains out of my jeans) but I managed. My reward: an organic tomato for breakfast, straight from the field. And soaking in hot spring water at Toya Devasya. They had an infinity pool right in front of Lake Batur, just what I needed - even though I only started to notice how many of my muscles were mad at me.

Later, I went to Ubud where I took part in a cleansing/blessing ceremony at the Holy Spring Water Temple, Pura Tirta Empul. We got green bathing sarongs and made an offering before we got cleansed and "talked" to the spirits in the pool. In the afternoon we met a Balinese healer who basically only confirmed what I already knew. I must be on the right track, I suppose. Later I talked to Alex from the UK on the backseat of our car while the others had coffee. We were born one day apart and felt that there were a lot of similarities in our biographies. He asked me for advice on his panic attacks and what he could do about the mask he keeps wearing so that nobody gets to know the real Alex. It felt like a therapy session but I loved how open you can be around a total stranger.

Ubud treats: daily massages, affordable lash extensions, health food everywhere (Smoothie bowls! Veggie wraps! Goddess bowls! Oh, and Gelato Secrets, not healthy at all but delicious), a successful ring quest (good luck trying to find gold jewellery in Bali... but in the end I managed to find a gorgeous ring with a bluish green stone) and a whole day in a batik workshop where I learned the traditional technique from locals. Worth mentioning: the little girls dancing for us at the healer's place - especially the goofy, chubby one with her puppy and the girl in pink who would exaggerate the traditional eye movements and made me laugh / Riding a scooter - this time as a passenger on the back. The gorgeous view of the countryside north of Ubud. / Talking to the Canadian newlyweds about the NHL while having lunch with a view over the rice terraces. /

Magic for Humans

The stories Richard and Star Wars in Benedict Wells' new short story collection Die Wahrheit über das Lügen.

Silence. Thank you, ear plugs. I don't leave the house without Ohropax and a good book.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. More or less the first science fiction book I've ever read but MAN that one is SMART. It's a take on human culture, mirrored by a tribe of very unexpected sentient animals. Worth mentioning: my new Kobo e-reader and OnLeihe (where you can get e-books from the library).

So I'm officially an adult now. Every single thing on this list is true for me. I don't really know why I'm putting this on my Things I Love list since it is pretty scary but at the same time I feel weirdly good about it.

Seeberger's trail mix salty/fruity with rhubarb, banana chips, almonds, peanuts, cranberries and physalis.

Celebrating autumn - even though I had a beautiful summer I'm kinda looking forward to sweater weather, crinkly leaves, gothic novels and pumpkin soup.

George Harrison with a beard and long hair was such a gorgeous human being. Listening to his songs on repeat at the moment.

Spending a day at the Isar with my students. We made a fire, they tought me how to skip stones (no talent) and after a while we couldn't bear the sun anymore so we just hopped into the river in our underwear. We walked along the gravel bank and allowed the water to carry us back to the others. I had such a good time.

What a musical conductor actually does on stage - such an interesting video, especially after many seasons of Mozart in the Jungle.

I know I've probably already said it but this recipe is absolutely delicious. Perfect for autumn. Not bad either: spelt crepes with a creamy chanterelle/champignon filling.

Finally finding a way to do a shoulder stand in yoga class even though my stomach muscles aren't strong enough.

Spending the evening with Manu. Who thinks I'm prettier without make-up. Who played with my hair. Who cooked for me. Who looked gorgeous that night. I mean, come on, open denim shirt over a hairy chest, wavy hair in a man bun with loose strands - that's just unfair. He played the guitar and we sang together. Trying to find a good duet to perform on Thursday (karaoke night!), ending up singing along to every weird song we could think of.

Nursing a yellow bell pepper plant back to health.

Sitting under a blanket outside, a captivating book on my lap, Dunkelgrün fast schwarz, watching the clouds being blown away by the warm autumn winds, flying leaves, deep in thoughts. The smell of family dinner in the air, the light fading away. A sense of longing in combination with melancholia and thoughts occuring on a meta-level, probably the result of too much writing, reading, dreaming, spending time alone.

A matte top coat turns Essie's Bahama Mama nail polish into pure velvet. I love the look and feel of it. So much more elegant and understated than shiny polish.

Give up comfort

My first karaoke night in Munich at Keg with Manu and Bibi. Performing together - my favourite was Because of You by Kelly Clarkson even though we were really bad. The atmosphere was pretty great. There were a lot of Brits around, probably because of the Oktoberfest. Folks were swinging a huge double-ended dildo around, we all danced with each other and I taught everyone German swear words. The good kind. After a few beers I just walked up to Manu (and Bibi!) and we started kissing. I kissed a GIRL and I liked it! Being thirty and somewhat confident is such a blessing. A lot of people kept saying that Manu and I should be a couple. Promising! Especially the girl who sang the Adele songs (and nailed it - voice twins!) was shipping us. Daw.

Dinner at Lena and Obi's wedding location. The waitress showed us around. I feld very grown-up asking questions and acting all responsible and busy.

Going shopping with Lena, trying to find a wedding dress for her. Falling in love with the coats at Zara. Unfortunately I still need to lose some weight in order to buy my clothes there.

Wondering how people actually perceive me. Sometimes I get the feeling that they see me as an angry feminist. But while being a feminist is totally fine with my - I guess I gotta work on my anger issues.

AnderART festival at Odeonsplatz - singing Wonderful Life with Ian, Jens and the GoSingChoir!

Meeting Manu L. at the Alcest concert. I liked talking to him that night. It was only the two of us and I liked how honest he was. And that he gave me a new, less emotional perspective on the whole deal with Frank.

Wearing black jeans, my new checked shirt, dark-rimmed glasses, a huge, soft grey scarf. Doc Martens. A headband.

Treating myself to a 100ml bottle of Byredo's Super Cedar perfume. I smell damn fine now.

On a Friday morning there was a cat downstairs in the subway station. She hung around at a corner and permitted me to pet her. She even jumped a little to meet my hand halfway. Very good start into the day.

[minhyukie]

931122

the number :// cute i guess:/ anyway here we go

firstly.... im literally the Worst jfdkslfdsfsd bc i remember when u did this or like the 50 times u’ve done this game idk ur always like “i skipped 5 people to write urs <3″ meanwhile me i skipped u to do 10 other people bc i knew urs was gonna be a full fledged essay also i was like hm i might cry so like.. better not write this one in public fjdsmfds and secondly pls i can’t slander u.. in my love essay.. im still slowly and badly compiling a google doc (my legacy) of dumb shit i need to drag u for but its literally like 90% about toes and u already expose urself publicly so like. pls i dontknow how to drag anyone... ok onto the love fest

i’ll start with Kihyun. remember when he was like #5 in my list and u were like it’s my goal to make him ur #2 and in my mind iw as like :// probably not gonna happen but ok :// and now im dragging u into emo kihyun hours and shit smh wtf i just started a google doc of videos of him smiling who am i.... ur love for kihyun and mx is so fucking!!!!! big!!!!!! like i try to boast about my love essays or whateve r but ur literally the queen idk how u have so much to say i read ur mx-aversary post and i was like :((( bby :(((( literally queen of Love u taught me how to love :(

anyway..... moving on bc ur my wife! the most beautiful cutest person ever!!!!!! firstly im still offended that u never snap me back ( i dont even use t anymore but im still offended) bc i wanna see ur cute face and i think at this point u’ve seen my uglie ass face too much fdsjkfdsf but like ur always cute pls....:( and ur voice.......... i still remember listening back to ur bts voice tag even though i didn’t care about them at all and thinking it was cute but the mbb one pls ur actually adorable....... if i actually knew u irl i’d probably think ur too cool for me (i already think that but:/) ANd i know we’re both Uglie but like if u ever call urself ugly again i’ve got words for u i just had to get all this out there first :-(

so it all started one day in february... FJDSKLFMDSF plesfasjdnfsm im not actually gonna write it all out like this but like anyway i’ve said this like 32543 times but im still not sure how we actually managed to be friends 1. because ur too cool for me 2. bc i approached u int he Stupidest way possible 3. im not even sure why u were following me, a seohyun blog,,, but like wtf even from the start i was like wow we get along so well!!!!! little did i know!!! pls i dont even know How we started talking so much at the beginning of summer like i honestly dont remember but im so happy we did?? ur really one of my best friends right now and fjdskfds i usually leave this out becasue i dont wanna come on Too Strong but i think we’re close enough now but like i was in a really bad place emotionally last semester and i was really nervous about being on my own all summer especially not havinga ny family or really any friends at all nearby i really thought i was gonna fall apart but it was actually some of my happiest months since i’ve started college and like it’s definitely because of our conversations that lasted every waking hour like we had so much dumbassery together (So Much pleasefdsnfd i dont even remember all of it anymore probably) and u’ve really let me laugh and cry to u no matter what even when the crying is from dumbassery (pancakes.. bugs.. the cat..... bread.....) ur really one of my best friends and i love you :-( my wife :-( and like i still remember the conversation we had after U Know What happened and idk it makes me emotional like firstable we both cried bc we’re dumbebes but like no matter how many other people we somehow drag into our dumbness ur still my one and only my best friend and the one i trust the most:( im really grateful i got into mx because like... they’ve given me so much love and a reason to be happy and given me the chance to meet so many people but also im just really grateful that i started talking to u? it was literally fate pls u make me so happy not to be dramatic and cheesy and sappy but i love you !!!!!!!!! ♡ and i know things will be different now with both of us starting classes again but i hope we’re able to stay like this ♡ i love you!

[metaformers]

Megatron and Abuse

I’ve spent months emotionally gearing myself up to make this Megatron meta post. It will contain mentions of real life abuse--verbal, emotional, physical, sexual--from my own life, as well as links to sites that discuss said topics. There will be a focus on emotional and narcissistic abuse, as that is the kind I have the most experience with--and the kind I most see Megatron perpetuating in More than Meets the Eye.

I understand that many people identify with Megatron. It may be best for you to skip this post if you count yourself among them. I want to be clear that this is my reading of the character, and I do not fault others for reading him differently; I’m not going to go after anyone for liking him or shipping him with people. It’s fiction. Do what makes you feel safe and happy. I can guarantee you are not the first to block me for saying I believe Megatron is abusive.

If you are interested in reading about why I, personally, view Megatron in this light, I would like to make one final request. This subject matter is extremely personal. I have spent four and a half years in therapy, but this still affects me powerfully. If you find yourself getting the urge to argue with me, please keep in mind that I will not be responding to comments for my own health.

So why am I posting? Because I have seen no discussion of this in fandom. When Megatron’s abusive behavior is described, it is invariably treated as a thing of the past, not the present. And I think that multiple views of a character in fandom lead to richer interpretations in fanworks and other meta.

And, with that, we’re off to the races.

(Note: This post is over 18k words long and contains over 70 images. If you would prefer to read this as a Google Doc, use this link. I recommend going to the View dropdown and un-toggling Print Layout if you do so. If you would rather read this as a Tumblr post, please use the read more below. The Google Doc may be better if you would like to use a functional outline navigation system or if Tumblr’s habit of stretching images bothers you.) 

***

First things first: abuse is cyclical. An abuser is not always going to be abusing someone--if they did, no one would ever tolerate the mistreatment. When times were relatively good, my mother and I would crack jokes. My ex would hold my hand and tell me cheesy pickup lines. This is known as the ‘honeymoon’ or ‘idealization’ stage of the abuse cycle, and it is as much a fixture of abuse as the tension-building and abuse phases.

If an abusive relationship never left the abuse stage, no one would ever tolerate it. No one would stay. So violence must be rationed, and after each new outburst, the abuser is likely to promise that--this time for sure--it will never happen again. They then ‘prove’ it with a honeymoon period and the cycle turns anew.

As a result, there is no way to point at one instance of kindness and say that someone isn’t actually abusive. It is likewise not generally possible to point to one instance of cruelty and call it abuse. Abuse is almost never a one-time thing. As a result, I’ve gathered examples from throughout season two of MTMTE and from the latest issue of Lost Light.

Since it’s the most clear and unambiguous example of Megatron’s abuse, I’m going to be singling out one particular relationship--the one between Megatron and Rodimus.

RODIMUS

To help me structure the problems I have with Megatron’s treatment of Rodimus in the time since the Lost Light left Cybertron, I’m going to borrow text from Psych Central’s “Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” article as well as tactics mentioned in their “Signs of Emotional Abuse” article and my own experiences.

Degradation

This is perhaps the most obvious type of abuse Megatron commits. He constantly belittles and demeans Rodimus. On the surface, it may at times seem justified. A minor comment on a fair annoyance.

Here he calls the Rodpod a vanity project, for instance. Getaway does much the same. But we know--and he likely has been told--that this wasn’t a vanity project. This was a gift from the crew to Rodimus.

It’s easy to forget. There’s no clear origin for the Rodpod before it was rebuilt, and, frankly? It’s not important. Whether it was a gift or something he had built, this is a privately owned ship, and this is a possession that clearly means something to Rodimus.

I grew up in the 90s, and I had a lot of tacky plushies and furbies and beanie babies--all extremely easy to mock, especially as I got older and they remained sentimental. Even when I wasn’t a kid anymore, I wanted to hold onto these things, and I think that’s understandable. If I’d lost my neon purple stuffed frog and had gotten a replacement as a gift, it would have been an easy avenue of casual attack. As it was, I mostly got, ‘Are you seriously keeping this ratty old thing?’ about anything that reminded me of happier times. It was always a coded jab at me, a deliberate forgetting of where a gift had come from or why I might want to remember.

This hits me especially hard since everything Megatron says here? Is an uncharitable lie. But believable lies have a way of spreading and turning into a commonly held ‘truth’--and Getaway later cites the Rodpod as a reason that Rodimus deserved to lose everything.

Which, ultimately, is the goal of abuse--start small and build until you can justify anything because of their ‘bad behavior.’

But, of course, this particular comment is targeted at a different audience, intended to undermine Rodimus’ standing with the crew and change the story to something that makes it seem as though Rodimus is squandering quest resources on trivial items.

Much of the time, the audience for Megatron’s comments is Rodimus himself--wearing at his already thin self-esteem and feeding the self-hatred we’ve seen him manifest throughout the series. (If you doubt either of those assertions, I plan to write meta about Rodimus later on. For now, I ask that you remember that he self-harmed by carving the results of the vote into his palm--explicitly so he would always know how many people didn’t want him there.)

Actually, for further confirmation, let’s take it to canon:

While he ‘admits’ to thinking he’s better than everyone else after having a very direct cry for help shot down with an insult, I hesitate to say this indicates in any capacity that his self-esteem is fine.

You see, I’ve been accused of the same. Literally--to the point where this exchange with Ratchet made me sick the first time I read it. How else is Rodimus supposed to respond to this kind of jab, especially when he’s in the middle of handling a crisis?

To me, the willingness to accept as ‘true’ something that directly contradicts his own experiences, especially coupled with the reassurance-seeking behaviors and low self-esteem, makes him especially vulnerable to emotional and verbal abuse.

And so, let’s turn our focus to Rodimus himself and answer the questions posed by the article to see how well Megatron’s behavior holds up.

Do they tell you that your opinion or feelings are “wrong?”

Without any warning of what to expect, Rodimus was presented with his own corpse--which has half its brain sliced out. They specifically didn’t tell him why they were calling him in, which I can’t imagine helped soften the horror. He’s in a very reasonable state of shock.

And there’s Megatron calling his reaction tiresome, even though his eventual reaction when faced with the spectre of his own death is to scream and punch Perceptor. Rodimus is just quietly attempting to come to grips with an upsetting situation, not hurting anyone by taking a moment to process.

But, of course, he isn’t allowed to process. Megatron is the captain of this ship, and he expects everyone else to handle their feelings quickly and efficiently, even if he never does.

This is a hallmark of narcissistic abuse--considering one’s own feelings bigger, more important, more valid than those of others. And it’s fully in line with the dynamic, too, to attempt to invalidate said feelings by emphasizing one’s role as an authority over the victim.

“Don’t you think, as your mother, it’s fair to expect a little consideration?” might have been fair if the consideration hadn’t involved her demanding things I’d already done for her--which she promptly pretended I hadn’t done, or that I’d done them improperly, or that I hadn’t adequately managed my emotions while doing them.

It’s patronizing enough from a parent. From someone who shares the same rank as you? It’s condescending in the extreme--not to mention entitled.

Do they belittle your accomplishments, your aspirations, your plans or even who you are?

But, of course, Megatron doesn’t respect Rodimus’ rank. Rodimus owns this ship--Drift purchased it as a neutral vessel and I would be genuinely shocked if he didn’t insist on signing it over to Rodimus after convincing Rodimus to let him take the fall. This ship? This is his ship. Optimus had no right to set Megatron up as captain; he didn’t even have the right to forcibly install him on the crew roster.

In fact, if you’ll pardon the brief aside, Rodimus had very fair misgivings about allowing Megatron onto the Lost Light.

Rodimus points out that Megatron is dangerous--this is undeniably true, no matter what your stance is on his character. And Ratchet responds by lying to Rodimus to convince him to let a powerful criminal aboard. Which is, ironically, the same thing that kicked off season one--only this time it’s Megatron instead of Overlord.

Personally, I think that this shows Rodimus has learned his lesson and is trying to avoid a repeat of that particular disaster.

He also offers a great insight into why Optimus is cooking up this outrageous plan:

And, although this is just conjecture, I think that this is part of why Megatron targets Rodimus. He can be insightful--especially when it comes to people and their motivations. This makes him a threat to Megatron’s otherwise nearly unchecked power as captain of this ship. However, he is also susceptible to manipulation, as we saw with Prowl.

Megatron is extremely intelligent and very good at manipulating others; he plays a long game, as Ravage walked us through at the end of DotL. And with the idea that Rodimus tried to bar him from his ‘rightful place’ at the helm of this ship, with the idea that Rodimus was the one chosen by the crew to be captain, I would like to return to the panel at hand...

Here we hear Megatron say--exasperated, belittling--“How many times?” As if this argument should be concluded by now, and Rodimus is being childish to keep forcing the issue.

I’ve heard this exact line in this exact tone too many times from multiple abusers. How many times would I dare to defy them? I wasn’t trying to be defiant; as Rodimus just did, I reminded them of an inconvenient (for them) fact, one they wanted to convince me wasn’t true. I doubt I could list every iteration of this I’ve seen in real life.

This is not something you say to an equal when discussing something that is objective fact. Rodimus is the co-captain, much as Megatron wishes to deny it.

And he continues to deny it. It’s not a real rank. It’s a made-up rank. He is the one true captain, and Rodimus is a recalcitrant second-in-command in denial. Megatron doesn’t have the best track record with those--which Rodimus would be fully aware of. I refuse to believe that the Autobots never saw footage of Starscream’s treatment at Megatron’s hands.

So I think that it makes sense that, rather than push farther when Megatron has already raised his voice, Rodimus redirects. This was a tactic I, too, used to avoid moving from the tension-building phase to the abuse phase in my own relationships.

Do they regularly ridicule, dismiss, disregard your opinions, thoughts, suggestions, and feelings?

This is a pretty obvious example of ridiculing someone’s feelings--and it’s another dig following right on the heels of the last two. Although all three are relatively small, the fact that they come one after another, basically coloring every statement Megatron makes, feels uncomfortably familiar to me.

Even if these are justifiable complaints--which I don’t believe they are, but I recognize they may be open to interpretation--the steady build-up is worrying.

My mother did much the same thing. One mild example was that she would tell me to go wash my face--I had acne, so this could have been reasonable advice. However, it slowly escalated until every time she saw my face, she would suck her breath in between her teeth and cringe. “Go wash your face!” If I complied immediately, there was no reward beyond, “See, isn’t that better?” (Which it wasn’t--the repeated scrubbing made my acne substantially worse.) And even then, within an hour, she would repeat the comment.

And if I didn’t comply? She would keep cringing and insisting until she brought acne pads over to physically drop on top of me before walking off with a smug smile. This despite the fact I was bathing twice a day and scrubbing with one to four of those pads a day. (No wonder my acne got worse, right?)

So when I see these types of minor but incessant insults--nothing big enough that any onlookers would feel comfortable defending Rodimus, nothing serious enough to justify lashing out--it rings alarm bells in my mind.

Furthermore, Rodimus turns away, but Megatron looms right behind him. I find the body language of this interesting--even when Rodimus approached previously, he left roughly an arm’s length between them--enough to not really be getting into Megatron’s bubble despite his frustration. It may be an angle thing, but it seems as though Megatron is closing that distance, subtly physically intimidating Rodimus. He’s closer still in the next panel:

Much less than the almost-arm’s length that Rodimus gave him--and he’s much larger than Rodimus, not to mention more powerful, which means that his physical presence alone can be a weapon. Healing Abuse Working for Change, an abuse prevention group founded in the 70s, specifies “looming over you, getting ‘in your face’ or blocking a doorway” as a variety of physical abuse (source).

Rodimus may have approached Megatron, but he respected Megatron’s space. Megatron did not return the favor--particularly when escalating his ridicule and getting increasingly aggressive in terms of tone and expression.

I’ll discuss other aspects of this panel in a later section--for now I want to focus on the intimidation and the way he insists that it is impossible for Rodimus to do something as adult as ‘take stock’--he is capable of it, but clearly Rodimus is not.

Why? He doesn’t need to state it explicitly; his previous comments are explanation enough. Rodimus is childish for not tailoring his emotional reaction to a traumatic scene to suit Megatron’s needs--and for not conceding the argument to Megatron and arguing about facts.

And when Rodimus turns back to look back at his own corpse?

When you complain do they say that “it was just a joke” and that you are too sensitive?

Rodimus’ head is bowed, and he looks resigned to me. Another red flag, since that was usually how I reacted to that particular brand of abuse, particularly when my ex or mother got into my personal bubble. If I didn’t shut down and comply, I ran the risk of inciting something worse.

Especially coupled with yet another dig at his emotional maturity and sensitivity, this conclusion to their altercation leaves me queasy.

If you have never been in a relationship where this is the norm, it can be hard to fathom exactly how taxing it is. You think that, if it were bad enough, you would notice. You would leave. But none of these comments are quite unreasonable enough to prompt a full-blown fight; none of them are hills worth dying on, particularly for someone who already has (hidden) self-esteem issues.

I’ve heard a metaphor for situations like these. If you place a frog in a boiling pot, they’ll jump out immediately. But if you place them in cool water and gradually turn up the heat, they get used to it. Eventually, they boil--because they were trained to tolerate minor abuses along the way.

Over time, in an environment where nonstop digs are normalized, they become background radiation. Rodimus turns away, unable to fight back against any single point aside from the few attempts at fact-checking and explanation he already made. It’s not worth fighting. It’s not worth pushing. If he pushed harder, maybe--but Megatron knows what he’s doing. He knows how far to push.

He wrote the script, after all: attack, withdraw, isolate.

Of course, if this scene were the only such example in the series, I would put it down to Megatron waking up on the wrong side of the bed and Rodimus not wanting to deal with the grumpiness. It’s the context of the entire series that informs the cycle.

Do they give disapproving, dismissive, contemptuous, or condescending looks, comments, and behavior?

Because this panel--containing a very similar dig--takes place a full year later. Instead of encouraging Rodimus or bantering back at him, he dismisses him.

‘But doodling is a sign of inattention and Rodimus should focus!’ you might say. And you would be wrong. As Time reported, doodling helps people focus. So, while teachers and other authority figures demean it, it’s largely because of the lack of respect they (falsely) believe it implies.

Furthermore, even though no one was aware of it, Rodimus was doodling the lost map to Cyberutopia. It’s possible that he was compulsively driven to carve it--and I do mean compulsive in the true sense of the word.

(An aside: I have obsessive-compulsive disorder and, when unmedicated, perform up to six hours of compulsions a day, so I think I’m qualified to make that call.)

He had merged with the matrix--it reformatted him, in fact. It seems reasonable that having the map lodged in his processor would itch like having a word on the tip of his tongue. His doodling in this case would have been more like filling a genuine physical need.

If you have never experienced a genuine compulsion, I can’t explain the visceral need of it. Fighting it down is much like holding your breath--if you hold out too long, it becomes intolerable. You feel like you will die. Like you are actively dying.

Of course, this is conjecture--it’s entirely possible that his doodling serves only the usual purpose: increased focus. And you know what’s a helluva lot more disrespectful than doing what you need to do to focus? Disguising verbal abuse as jokes.

Do they tease you, use sarcasm as a way to put you down or degrade you?

This example is super upsetting to me. On the surface, yeah, haha, Megatron made a joke, good one, Megs.

But...Rodimus was literally turned inside out. He was left in a dark hallway, alone and in pain, unable to move, unable to speak, for an indeterminate amount of time. Someone violated his mind to remove knowledge so basic it’s fundamental to them as a species.

To make sure not to understate things, let’s ask the psychiatrist who has the most experience with the procedure:

The most painful thing a Cybertronian can ever experience. A mental violation followed by incredible pain.

And that painful-looking mess of organs there in the brig?

That’s Rodimus. Who apparently rushed ahead to shut off the lights and protect the mechs in the brig--mechs who were trapped in place and likely targets for a criminal who likes to feast on ‘sin,’ wouldn’t you say?

Meanwhile Megatron and the others are far enough behind that Sunder has come and gone--turning Rodimus inside out, but not prisoners like Getaway, who were left safely in the dark. The timing, to me, makes it look like Rodimus barely got there in the nick of time.

Which, of course, only gets a disparaging comment from Megatron, who won’t even get off his moral high horse to fight back against Sunder and protect his crew.

Rodimus may or may not be able to hear this condescending comment, but when he comes back to work, fresh out of the medbay? Megatron kicks off by making fun of the experience. Rodimus counters humorlessly--clearly not digging this particular joke--and Megatron follows up with, oh, by the way, the only mech you probably count as a friend these days? Helped me come up with this terrible joke at your expense.

Making fun of your own trauma can be cathartic. Making light of someone else’s trauma, particularly when they’re literally leaving their hospital bed for the first time after the fact? No--that’s cruelty. That’s another example of convincing Rodimus that he’s too sensitive. Can’t he take a joke?

And he does take it--with only a minor dodge. Hence the barbed follow-up.

I would say that this is just an example of a tasteless and poorly thought out joke, but Megatron knows people. We see him manipulate the DJD masterfully--and those are mechs who know him, mechs who know the ins and outs of manipulation and abuse. So I’m inclined to believe that this is deliberate rather than a misstep, especially in light of his follow-up...

He cuts off Rodimus’ attempt to move away from the unpleasant subject by literally talking over him (note the overlap of the speech bubbles) in order to make a ‘joke’ about Rodimus resigning. Which--as we saw in the first scene, as we see in many scenes--is a continual point of contention between them.

Megatron is taking advantage of a moment of probable vulnerability by priming him with a ‘joke’ followed by a comment meant to make him feel alone, and then another ‘joke’ meant to indicate the desired behavior.

This is a pattern I’m familiar with, as you might expect by this point. In the case of my ex, he would use this pattern--making light of something traumatic that had happened to me, following up with a non-apology that referenced the fact that no one wanted to put up with my issues, and then bringing it home with an unsubtle joke about things he wanted to do to me to ‘make me feel better,’ no matter how I tried to indicate my own discomfort.

And I, personally, don’t think that this is any less bad here, even though that was really awful and--after enough rounds of it--inevitably succeeded in getting me to give him what he wanted to make it stop. Because, even if Rodimus seems to be in good spirits, trauma can present itself in different ways. And an experience like that, especially given the complete lack of emotional support he experienced before, during, and after? Yeah, no, I’m not prepared to believe that he's actually unbothered instead of coping by acting tough, not when he tries twice to dodge the ‘joke’.

And I’m also not prepared to believe that Megatron can't see right through that act, especially in light of the fact that he also makes a habit of making fun of Rodimus in front of everyone he can.

Do they make fun of you or put you down in front of others?

Megatron continually puts Rodimus down in front of the crew.

In case the screenshot ends up too small to read, he says, “I hope this puts paid to the notion that I ignore everything my ‘co-captain’ says on the grounds that he’s lazy, petulant, and pathologically ill-suited to command…”

From the air-quotes around ‘co-captain’ to the specific insults he uses, every word of this is supposed to cast himself as the responsible, capable captain and Rodimus as the immature usurper. He maintains a formal voice for his own actions--he’s being magnanimous by agreeing to Rodimus’ rendezvous plan on the planet below. Why, if he doesn’t, Rodimus will probably be petulant and whine about it, so really, any inconvenience is on Rodimus’ unstable emotional state.

Which seems over the top, but look at what he said. He starts by heavily implying that Rodimus shouldn’t be respected as a leader, then follows this assertion with three ‘reasons’ for this.

Lazy - Rodimus goes out of his way--literally--in season one to go on side-quests that help people. He’s always personally willing to go to the frontlines of any conflict he’s willing to risk his crew in. And when the co-captains are each presented with the opportunity to risk their lives for the sake of saving others (Rodimus in #21 and Megatron in #33), they have two very different reactions.

We are shown no panels of Rodimus balking; he immediately allows Perceptor to wire him to the anti-killswitch. When told it might kill him and will certainly destroy the matrix, he says, “There goes our map.” And after spending what might be his last moments telling Minimus the truth about Overlord, he says, “Self-sacrifice, Magnus--it’s cheap. It’s a cheap way out. I need to live so I can make amends and--” before the anti-killswitch cuts him off.

We go on an entire hunt while Megatron avoids coming clean about being able to mass-shift; it’s how we find out Brainstorm is a Decepticon. It takes five pages. And although Megatron agrees in the end, his quote on the matter is, “Oh, I could’ve said something earlier, but here’s a survival tip: when everyone’s lining up to make sacrifices...always get to the back of the queue.”

Which maybe doesn’t qualify as laziness--but it still paints a very different picture than Megatron is doing here.

Another point of fact is that even though Megatron has said in this arc that Rodimus has spent the time since launch hiding, Ravage points out later in the arc that he’s observed the same behavior in Megatron. More on that later--under Double Standards and Projection--but worth noting here to undermine the ‘honesty’ in the lazy point.

Petulant - This particular insult is set up to make Rodimus look emotional and childish. This is a pretty common tactic in abuse--it makes it hard to believe anything the person in question says. After all, they’re a child, do they really know what they’re talking about? Surely they just misremembered. Surely it’s safe to ignore their petulant demands unless you feel like indulging them.

Which is exactly what Megatron is implying he’s doing here. Indulging the whimsy of a child instead of working with the mech who shares his rank.

This particular brand of trivializing is a favorite when setting up for gaslighting, which I’ll talk about later. After all, if you can convince someone they’re immature--that they’re too inexperienced or emotional or downright crazy to trust their own perceptions--then they need to turn to someone with the authority to tell them what the truth is.

And if you can also convince those around the victim that this is true--as the villain does in Gaslight (1944), which gives us the technique’s name--by slandering the victim and undermining their authority, you have others who can ask, ‘Are you sure you didn’t imagine that?’ even when you aren’t around to enforce the reality you want.

The air-quotes around ‘co-captain’ are small, and words like ‘petulant’ are minor--but as Psychology Today’s article on Gaslighting points out, it always starts out slow. These words are weapons--and words have always been Megatron’s weapon of choice.

Pathologically Ill-Suited to Command - The final nail in this sentence’s coffin is this one. As I mentioned above, prepping for gaslighting is easier when you can convince your victim and their would-be support network that the victim is crazy--and here we see Megatron pull out that argument. Pathologically ill-suited to command.

It’s not poor baby Roddy’s fault, you see--his brain isn’t wired for command. He doesn’t have the intelligence of the True Captain. He doesn’t have the stability. He might like to pretend, but these are delusions.

As someone with several mental illnesses (primarily anxiety disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, but also depression), I heard this one a lot. A lot. I tried for years to take crazy as a point of pride; sometimes I still want to. But it’s been used as a weapon against me for years. “Are you insane?” prefaced a lot of furious dismissals of innocent requests I made when I was young, but it sometimes still happens when I try again to interact with my family. I also had panic attacks that got called ‘tantrums’ to trivialize them.

Rodimus likely has PTSD--he’s a veteran with a traumatic childhood, after all--and I’ve seen headcanons that he has ADHD. We also know for a fact that he self-harms--and so do all the people Megatron is addressing, since the cuts were visible all the way until the morning of the day this issue began. (It was even commented on when they were looking at Rodimus’ corpse.)

Casually pathologizing someone who visibly self-harms is an easy way of isolating them. Making it an indication that Rodimus is unfit for command? Easier still. It’s also a ready-made dismissal whenever someone doesn’t like your argument. I could offer examples, but this blurb has gone on long enough as it is--and I think every mentally ill person I know could likewise offer examples of it.

This is far from the only time Megatron publicly insults Rodimus in ways that undermine his credibility as a leader. In fact, he does it often enough to have become an in-joke among the crew between Dark Cybertron and the first arc of season 2:

This is the first arc in season 2. The first arc. And yet they’re already saying that Megatron always says this.

Which...isn’t really fair. Rodimus isn’t an engineer. If you review the scene in issue one, he gives the order to jump, and no one tells him that the engines aren’t ready until after they’ve malfunctioned, and even then they can’t tell him why. He immediately has them set down and refuses to take off until they’ve figured out exactly what went wrong--which seems responsible to me.

But, of course, anything that goes wrong can become Rodimus’ fault, even if he wasn’t the one responsible.

Megatron also deliberately insults Rodimus in front of Ultra Magnus, the mech who was, once Drift left, probably the closest thing to a friend Rodimus had on the ship:

Note the way he frames it: “a crisis in morale precipitated by his own woeful captaincy.”

We know people actually liked the Rodimus Stars, even though they were ridiculous. Maybe because they were ridiculous. We saw that in the Trailcutter Spotlight, where the entire story revolved around characters like Trailcutter and Swerve trying to get Rodimus Stars.

Yes, it’s silly. He doesn’t have a great system for passing them out. But that’s not what Megatron focuses on--instead he once again targets Rodimus’ supposed ineptitude.

Am I boring you to tears yet? It’s five hundred insults that all make the same point, one after another, to everyone he can get to listen, for over a year.

Until eventually…

Even the mechs that once supported him are instead convinced that Megatron is correct. Rodimus is incompetent, incapable of leadership--Minimus is comfortable joining Megatron in mocking Rodimus after he took a long weekend off to do something he enjoys.

Something I find interesting about this is that they accuse him of disappearing when there’s work to be done, but he has no idea whatsoever what the work they’re doing is.

In fact, he doesn’t know anything about the situation at all. He’s been gone three days, and they clearly hadn’t started decorating before he left. He even makes the reasonable suggestion of maybe just maybe avoiding the death zone, even if he goes with Megatron’s reasoning in the end.

This implies to me that he didn’t know there was work to be done. Either it came up after he left, or he wasn’t properly informed before he left.

As for the ‘not returning their calls’ bit--I suspect that meteor storms might interfere with comms. I’m fairly sure that’s a repeated subplot in most sci-fi I’ve seen, and the Lost Light’s comms aren’t especially robust at the best of times, let alone whatever handheld or internal unit Rodimus might’ve had.

Leaving things in the hands of Megatron and Minimus for three days--just a long weekend--isn’t irresponsible. Everyone deserves to be allowed to have hobbies. Everyone deserves to have a long weekend now and again, no matter their job. But Megatron has turned this--along with a laundry list of things he himself does--into a way to justify isolating Rodimus.

Isolation

How isolated is Rodimus? Since season two started, there have been no scenes of Rodimus spending downtime with anyone--until Drift returns, the one friend who hasn’t been exposed to months of Megatron’s unending degradation and insults.

It’s possible I missed a scene in my reread, but even though every other member of the group who ends up on the Necroplanet in Dying of the Light has at least a panel of casual or friendly interaction with others, the closest I found for Rodimus was the scene when he was fresh out of the medbay and Megatron made fun of him. Not promising, to say the least.

From all the available evidence, I’d say that Rodimus is an extrovert. He seems more energized in front of crowds, he was so charismatic he was partly responsible for short-circuiting the personality ticks, and he does things like naming his favorite crowd the Rod Squad. He likes people, clearly--and he’s shown repeatedly to care about protecting his crew, as well as total strangers.

He also habitually seeks external validation because of his low self-esteem. Without this kind of support, he resorts to self-harm (see the numbers he carved into his palm) and other unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Again--planning to do a Rodimus meta at some point. For now, let’s roll with the idea that he’s a social mech who craves being around others and needs external validation to function, which I don’t think is particularly difficult to believe.

The lack of interpersonal interaction in season two--alongside the belittling comments he faces when he does interact with others--indicate that he’s isolated. He’s a charismatic mech; that’s part of how he helped to kill off the personality ticks. And yet by the time they leave for the Necroplanet, he’s receiving no external validation, no interpersonal support, nothing. He’s alone.

He may not be the best at friendship--but neither are Whirl, Cyclonus, or Swerve, all of whom end up with strong friendships and support networks. Considering the previous section and Megatron’s clear attempts to isolate Rodimus, one can only surmise that he was ultimately successful in cutting him off even from Minimus.

So what does Megatron accomplish by shutting out all sources of external validation, anyone who might rebuild Rodimus after Megatron verbally tears him down?

In my experience, he’s setting himself up to have power over Rodimus. Remember--Rodimus is so full of self-doubt even before the beginning of the series that he reaches out to Ratchet, only to get shot down there. (“Beneath my cocksure exterior I have terribly low self-esteem.”) No longer able to lean heavily on Drift for emotional support and cut off from any positive reinforcement, he’s put in an extremely vulnerable place.

I, too, am an extrovert. Sometimes I’m fairly sure that it makes me intolerable to be around, especially since I do the same reassurance-seeking behavior as Rodimus. If I go too long without interacting with friends, my depression makes a bitter comeback.

Yes, it would be awfully nice if I could go without social interaction or reassurance or positive external feedback in general, and certainly no one is obligated to provide such things for me. But the fact of the matter remains that without these things, I’m left vulnerable and hungry for any scrap of affection I can find.

And, in my experience? My abusers have deliberately starved me from outside attention to put me in that vulnerable state. It was easiest for my mother, which isn’t surprising; she already had absolute power over where I went and who I saw. What she didn’t have--and what she wanted more than anything--was my undivided attention and affection.

So when I displeased her--and there were quite a lot of ways to upset her--one tactic she used was cutting me off from other sources of support. People who could verify that she’d said one thing on Tuesday morning and something radically different by Wednesday night. People who could help me cope with the nonstop insults, the micromanaging, the unbearable pressure.

Without them? I crumbled. I did anything my mother asked--and I apologized when I did it ‘wrong,’ or if I had ‘misunderstood’ the order she’d changed halfway through my obeying it, or if she’d simply forgotten that I had, in fact, obeyed her already. She was the only one who could arbitrate the Truth; I didn’t have anyone else to turn to.

My siblings and I banded together sometimes to stave this off, but at other times they behaved more like Minimus--going along with Mom to keep the peace, to keep her focused on me instead of them, or just because they actually agreed with her, I can’t quite be sure. In the end, I’m not sure that it matters.

For a specific example--I was required to hug my mother and tell her I loved her before I went to bed every night. One night, I could tell she was sleepy when I hugged her, but she said, “I love you, too,” so I thought I was safe.

No such luck--she woke up at two in the morning convinced that I hadn’t hugged her good night or said I loved her. She burst into my room, sobbing and shouting, and I had to stumble out of bed and try to calm her down.

I’m fairly confident that she didn’t cite that as the direct reason for the ensuing silent treatment and enforced ‘family time’ that meant I couldn’t see friends for a while, but the timing was suspicious.

We see this general pattern a few times with Megatron and Rodimus, as well, the most recent of which was in Lost Light #4. I’ll cover other aspects of that later, but, for now:

Transgression: Rodimus asked about teleporters.

Warning: “Hush.”

Withdrawal: “Not now, Rodimus.”

Isolation: Public humiliation.

And that pattern--do something ‘wrong’ to earn punishment, an initial outburst, pulling back with the silent treatment, and then isolating them from others as a way to build tension for a final blowout? Uh...

That’s a script Megatron wrote a long time ago, and he knows exactly how effective it can be.

Ultimately, what Megatron gets out of setting himself up as the only one to interact one-on-one with Rodimus is a lack of oversight, a lack of outside influence, and--if he presses hard enough, if he twists Rodimus around for long enough, if he sways the opinions of enough of the crew--eventually he might succeed in becoming sole captain of their merry band. With Minimus in his pocket? It’d be a recipe for total control over not just Rodimus, but the entire group.

Rage

“This is an intense, furious anger that comes out of nowhere… It startles and shocks the victim into compliance or silence.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

This is what most people think of when they picture abuse--the most violent of the symptoms. It’s also the one that Megatron has deliberately been keeping in check, pulling it out only when the long game he’s playing is at risk of being cut short.

I have said before that abuse can only be viewed in a pattern--one instance of shouting doesn’t necessarily make an abusive relationship. In the context of an abusive relationship, however, even one instance of rage is a powerful tool for controlling someone. Even if someone never again takes it ‘that far,’ the victim remembers. And they know that the threat is always going to be present.

When I was fifteen, I did something to upset my mother. To this day, I have no memory of exactly what I did wrong. What I do remember is my mother taking a book and slamming it against my temple so hard that it knocked me to the floor. She then grabbed me by the hair and dragged me up to scream in my face. I remember being held high enough that my knees weren’t on the floor, but my legs were still bent--the only point of contact I had with the world was my toes. I remember being so terrified that I had no idea what she was saying other than the tone, the way spit hit my face. She then stormed out of the house and blamed me for it.

The older of my two younger sisters tried to run away that night, and I nearly jumped off the roof of our house. I remember very clearly that the only reason I didn’t was because I was convinced that I would only break my legs, and she would use it as an excuse to trap me at home with her.

Beyond that, my memories blur. I remember that either that night--or perhaps another night--my littlest sister caught our mother’s attention. I remember making an attempt to distract our mother. Was that why she attacked me? I don’t remember. Did I make her more upset? I don’t remember, although I recall fearing I had. What I do remember is the moment that she grabbed my seven-year-old sister and threw her--physically threw her--out of the way. My sister landed wrong--on her wrist--and broke a bone. I remember her crying. I remember my mother telling her to shut up. I remember that it took a while before Mom took her to the hospital, and then that we were all ordered not to tell anyone how she’d broken the wrist.

Aside from these instances, my mother never laid a hand on any of us.

She never had to. It’s been twelve years--almost thirteen years--and I still feel it every time we interact. I remember that she’s capable of it. I remember that she was willing to shift her rage onto the more easily accessible target despite my best efforts. All the way until I moved out--and beyond then, and into the present--it’s kept me from being willing to confront her about some of the worse things she says and does.

It’s been over a decade and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that fear. For a while, I was so deeply afraid of even sharing the story--after being ordered to be silent about it--that I think I’ve only told a few of my closest friends and my therapist. The only reason I’m sharing it now is because I’m posting this anonymously. Because, at heart, I am still afraid.

Now, I could cover the handful of examples of Megatron hitting characters here. I could make conjectures about how Rodimus cares more about the wellbeing of others than his own, and threats of violence against characters like Trailcutter, Perceptor, and Minimus would be more likely to keep him in line than violence against his own person. I know that was true for me.

But none of those were done directly in front of Rodimus, even though he would have heard about them later. That makes it harder to draw conclusions about without wandering a bit too far off panel. So I’ll be discussing physical violence in those characters’ subsections--and for now, I’ll be looking at the times Megatron has threatened violence directly at Rodimus.

In context, Rodimus respectfully said that he and the others were reporting for duty; he even saluted. Megatron then ordered all of them to carry Ravage back to Ratchet, and Rodimus objected.

What was his objection? Was it, ‘but this is only half of Ravage, and even Ratchet probably needs both halves to repair him’? Was it, ‘but there are a lot of us, and probably we don’t all need to carry Ravage, so maybe some of us could stay and help’? We don’t get to find out, because Megatron doesn’t accept any objection to his orders, no matter how softly or respectfully put.

In this scene, with the DJD nearby, his long game is, as I said, at risk of being cut short. So he breaks out the rage to terrify Rodimus into unquestioning compliance.

What’s more, it worked. They all fled.

Maybe this doesn’t look like violence to some of you. But his expression and the way he towers over Rodimus as he screams? Looks almost identical to my mother’s face in the anecdote I shared above. And to me, that screaming was violence.

In fact, screaming like that was the only kind of violence my abusive ex-boyfriend perpetrated against me. He was physically larger than me; he would get me cornered in a bus seat and loom over me exactly like this while screaming insults. And I know for a fact that some people don’t think this counts, or believe this behavior can be justified--when I reached out to the older of my two younger sisters about how he kept doing this, she told me that I deserved it, and she wasn’t the only one.

As a result, in the context of Megatron’s treatment of Rodimus, and in the context of this being a tool that worked to control him, I would personally count it as an abusive tactic--one that I believe was deliberate. Especially since he never apologized.

And then, almost immediately after Rodimus risks his life to save Megatron…

Rodimus is standing directly behind Ratchet as they try to convince him to pretty please put down the gun, as we can see in the next panel:

And, of course, Megatron pulls the gun on them--all of them. And Rodimus, the one who brought him through the portal, the one who rescued him, is looking down the barrel of a fusion cannon over Ratchet’s shoulder. This group of mechs--the Rod Squad, his favorite people--are all being threatened.

And then Megatron says that it’s time he left, and it’s hard not to think, under the circumstances, that he means he’s done playing at being an Autobot, done being nice. He’s wearing Tarn’s mask as a deceptibrand, for goodness’ sake! For all intents and purposes, at this moment, it looks like Megatron is through with the quest and has no intention of going to trial.

A few days later--or however long it takes them to build the Den and end up on Functionist Cybertron--you can see that Rodimus is still thinking about this:

There are other potential explanations, of course, but--in context? I find it both telling and worrying that Rodimus’ instinctive reaction when Megatron shouts his name is a full-frame flinch. Not with battle prep or defensive stances or anything that would indicate he learned this response from being ordered around in battle. Just the same sort of flinch I still sometimes get when my mother raises her voice.

And, although it’s been a bit since I used this format, let’s answer another question from the checklist:

Do they accuse you of something contrived in their own minds when you know it isn’t true?

This is the last example I’m going to use for rage--and a tirade like this is an example of out-of-nowhere fury used to shock Rodimus into silence.

The thing is? Megatron pulled all of this out of his tin-plated ass.

In this scene, Rodimus did not once mention the Lost Light. He only tries to ask about the teleporters, and then Megatron derails him with this.

Now, I’m going to give JRo the benefit of the doubt, here. Instead of assuming he’s forgotten about Nyon--the core of Rodimus’ backstory--and abandoned Rodimus’ main driving force as a character by having him sacrifice others to get what he wants instead of, y’know, literally being willing to risk his life saving people at every single opportunity he’s ever had… Instead of pinning writing that terrible on JRo, I’m going to assume instead that Megatron cut off and then derailed Rodimus before he could suggest what he actually had in mind. Misunderstandings and assumptions being thwarted both play a role in JRo’s writing, after all.

And, with any thought at all, it actually makes perfect sense that Rodimus might need teleporters for a plan--for saving the people of this Cybertron, not for tracking down the Lost Light. These mechs aren’t safe on Cybertron, even in this supposed ‘sanctuary city’--and there’s no way to transport all of them offworld. There are too many of them--we see veritable thousands in the streets.

So how do you save everyone? Do you start another war to rise up against your oppressors--because the first one went so well--or do you get everyone the hell off the planet?

Sure, maybe Rodimus wants to use the teleporter after the fact. I’d be surprised if he didn’t--he left half the crew he still has on a distant planet with a bunch of potentially dangerous strangers.

As for why Rodimus responds to this accusation the way he does instead of by saying what he actually intended--have you ever been accused of the worst thing? Something that is so antithetical to your character that you feel like the person accusing you of it has never interacted with you? How could you have given this person the idea that you would ever, in a million years ever, consider doing what they’ve just accused you of?

Well, you see, that confusion? That disorientation? The scrambling to find any common ground to argue on and finding that you have no footing because you don’t even know what to expect--what’s real and what you’ve made up? Leaving you floundering to counter a point in a way that at least connects to their reality?

That’s another abuse tactic. And it’s called gaslighting.

Gaslighting

“Narcissistic mental abusers lie about the past, making their victim doubt her memory, perception, and sanity. They claim and give evidence of her past wrong behavior further causing doubt. She might even begin to question what she said a minute ago.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

I have more experience with gaslighting than literally any other form of abuse, to the point that I still struggle to believe that my memory isn’t just faulty, that I’m not just overreacting, that these things really did happen, that I’m not the one making things up. That’s why I extensively cite every point I make: I feel as though no one will trust me or my word, but maybe if I bring in enough data points--enough hard facts--it’ll make up for the fact that I’m the one writing it.

Gaslighting seems so minor, and it is so hard to point to examples when you’re living in it. Even the extensive trauma I described above doesn’t hold a candle to the scars left by decades of gaslighting. I cannot overstate how deeply emotionally scarring it is, the way it can change the entire way you see the world, the way it makes trusting yourself and others almost impossible at times.

This is a hard section for me to write. Perhaps the hardest, in fact, and I say that despite the fact that writing the last section gave me flashback nightmares so intense I couldn’t sleep for three days. To get through the experience, I’m using the framework offered by the article linked in the above description and referencing other sections of this meta post. Any brevity in this section is a result not of a lack of evidence in canon but of an overabundance of my own trauma.

And with that disclaimer, let’s dig in.

They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof.

“You know they said they would do something; you know you heard it. But they out and out deny it. It makes you start questioning your reality—maybe they never said that thing. And the more they do this, the more you question your reality and start accepting theirs.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

I would personally amend this to say that they deny they ever said or did something, even if you have proof. This can range quite a lot:

“Mom, you said that you’d already picked up the stuff for my school project, but I can’t find it anywhere. Where is it?”

“You never even told me you had a project! This is what happens when you leave everything to the last minute.”

“But I have your text message right here?”

“Let me see that. No, no, that’s not what I meant at all, why would you think that was what I meant? Are you stupid?”

Which was a pretty staple ‘misunderstanding’ in our house, but less frustrating than the times my mother’s reaction to evidence was to say, “I swear to God that I never said that, and if I’m lying, may He strike me down where I stand!” Which was, unfortunately, at least as common--more common, actually, when we were in public. And when God didn’t smite her, she gave us a smug smile and considered herself proven right.

As this escalated--gradually, over the course of my entire childhood--eventually she built to a moment so big and so obvious that I actually realized what she was doing. That it wasn’t forgetfulness. That it wasn’t a case of repeated misunderstandings. That she was reconstructing reality as it suited her, and I was powerless to stop her.

What moment could possibly have been jarring enough to open my eyes to that? I talked in the rage section about the night my mother knocked me to the ground and hauled me up by my hair. What I didn’t tell you is that after she dropped me back to the floor again, I looked up at her and, still sobbing, asked her why she’d hit me in the head with her address book.

“I didn’t,” she said, still towering over me as I lay curled on the floor. “I would never.”

“Then--” Maybe it was her hand, I thought. Maybe I was confused. I felt so disoriented and terrified and I didn’t understand what was happening. “Then why did you pull my hair?”

“I didn’t,” and she looked angry enough to do it all over again. “It must have gotten caught in the zipper.”

The zipper, of course, being on the address book she’d just denied smacking me with.

When I tried to point out this logical flaw, she redirected--and then stormed out of the house, blaming me for the fact that she needed to abandon us. Even though she came home a few hours later, the guilt worked--and I was too afraid to bring up the incident ever again.

And here’s where I’ll be frank--I said that that incident opened my eyes. And it did--but not that night. That night, I was terrified I’d imagined the whole thing. I had no evidence. She’d hit me, but it hadn’t left a mark. She’d pulled me up by the hair to bellow in my face, but I couldn’t even remember what she’d said.

If my siblings hadn’t been there to question her with me--to reaffirm it had actually happened--to be honest? I might to this day believe it was a nightmare. That she’d never actually laid a hand on me. And that’s what long-term, slow-build gaslighting does.

So--a few small denials, a pointed redirection whenever holes get poked at, all of that seems trivial in comparison, I’m sure. But it builds. It has to start small if the abuser hopes to normalize it. Because, at first? You question them. You start hoarding evidence. But if it goes on long enough? You start to question yourself. You start to question any evidence that you, personally, collected. Eventually you’re left questioning yourself so often that you stop questioning them.

Which is why even minor instances of gaslighting--if they’re part of an abusive pattern--should be noted as soon as possible.

In this case, Megatron asserts he’s been saying something when Rodimus has proof that he hasn’t even been around to say it. He says it both to belittle Rodimus and to set up a reality where he’s been dutifully doing his job instead of secretly doing prep work for the ultimate supervillain device in his habsuite (I’m talking, of course, about the antimatter he spends months channeling, almost certainly in violation of his parole).

Before you doubt Rodimus--and I wouldn’t be surprised if you did, because another goal of gaslighting is to make others doubt the perception of the victim--I’ll point out that Ultra Magnus also comments on Megatron hiding himself away.

So Megatron was lying to begin with--he hasn’t been saying that for weeks. He hasn’t been in a position to say anything to Rodimus for weeks. And when called out on it, he neither apologizes for the lie nor even allows time to address the fact that he did so. Instead, he picks something we know to be a sore point--and therefore a good distraction.

Taking stock, not sulking. Because, as Rodimus clearly remembers:

And from the way Rodimus reacts? Especially given my own experiences? I would guess that this wasn’t the only time Megatron said it--just the only time caught on camera, so to speak.

Also, yes--in the next panel, Megatron claims that he’s been working, something that both Ultra Magnus and Rodimus have both confirmed isn’t true. The truth is that he’s channeling antimatter for his own purposes--regardless of whether he eventually uses them to benefit the others, with no one aware he’s setting this up, he has no oversight.

They tell blatant lies.

“You know it's an outright lie. Yet they are telling you this lie with a straight face. Why are they so blatant? Because they're setting up a precedent. Once they tell you a huge lie, you're not sure if anything they say is true. Keeping you unsteady and off-kilter is the goal.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

These lies, in my experience, can range from nearly inconsequential to the extreme. My mother would routinely tell me that I hadn’t said something that my siblings later confirmed I said, but that could be dismissed as forgetfulness or poor hearing. She would also tell me that I’d promised to do something when we’d never discussed the matter in the first place, then tell me that I was the one forgetting. That was a little harder to handle--my siblings didn’t listen to every conversation between me and Mom, so I had no one to back me up. It’s much more difficult to prove you never discussed something than to prove that you did.

But, like I said--minor. Hard to prove or disprove. These tiny lies make it hard to trust reality and harder to trust your memory or judgment. These are also almost impossible to point to when discussing abuse with those who have never experienced it, because they look like misunderstandings at worst. It’s insidious and frustrating and only when you get to a big lie--the kind you build up to over years (or after more than twenty issues)--that you can point to it and say, “See? I have proof. I can prove this time it isn’t true!”

Megatron is claiming--genuinely daring to claim--that he was the one to first suggest stopping to help people along the way. When he’s been complaining about Rodimus’ so-called “side-quests” since day one. In season one alone, we saw them stop on the DJD homeworld so Ratchet could help cure a plague, Temptoria to rescue prisoners being used as batteries, and, eventually, the Big Hero moment when Tailgate uses a semicolon to save them all.

Except something that nobody seems to talk about in season two--as far as I’ve found, at least--is the fact that Rodimus is actually the one who saved all the constructed cold mechs with the help of Perceptor. Tailgate shutting off the suggestion beam and shutting down the Legislators was also critical to the operation’s success, of course, and I’m hardly going to say that Tailgate doesn’t deserve his due credit, but Rodimus was also fully ready to die for a universe of strangers.

I covered this above when talking about how Megatron called him lazy, but let’s pull in the panels for comparison’s sake.

Here we see Rodimus getting hooked up without a single panel of hesitation. As soon as they were ready to wire him in, he went.

He asks if it’ll kill him and has no qualms when he’s given a decided maybe.

And when he does save the CC mechs, you would expect, wouldn’t you, that he would never let anyone else forget it. After all, everyone (especially Megatron) insists he’s a self-centered jerk. But he lets Tailgate take full credit, and the only mention of Rodimus’ role in the proceedings after the fact comes when Optimus gets angry at him for destroying the Matrix.

Meanwhile Megatron drags his feet for five pages as the foam gets progressively worse and more dangerous, hoping they’ll find Brainstorm’s shrink ray so that someone else can go in his place.

But it was Megatron--who stays on the ship, who sends mechs to do battle but spares himself from the dirty work that would strip him of his self-righteous high horse--who first had the idea to help people. Right. One hundred percent his idea, and Rodimus should have told him they were saving organics so he could leave them to die.

It’s a lie. It’s a big enough lie that anyone could point to it and objectively prove that it’s not true. But Megatron says it, and Rodimus placates him instead of fighting him on it. He’s just happy that lives are getting saved; he doesn’t try to take any of the credit.

I find it unpleasantly relatable that Rodimus’ first reaction is no longer to correct Megatron, as he once did--in fact, as he did in the last example where we caught Megatron out in an obvious lie--but instead to offer him something to calm him down. Something to mitigate fallout. Something I, myself, have done countless times.

Their actions do not match their words.

“When dealing with a person or entity that gaslights, look at what they are doing rather than what they are saying. What they are saying means nothing; it is just talk. What they are doing is the issue.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

I want to write a separate meta post about Megatron’s bullshit redemption arc because I don’t want my opinions on that to distract from the primary point I’m trying to make with this meta. However, it also fits this point to an almost ludicrous degree.

Rather than break down Megatron’s entire character arc, I’ll focus on a few relevant points and save the rest for another post.

What Megatron says: “I am on this quest to make amends by finding a new world for our people after destroying our original planet.”

What Megatron does: never apologizes to the people he wronged using his own words, takes control of a privately owned neutral vessel with the help of a mech who holds no democratically appointed position nor has any kind of oversight, deliberately sends them three jumps off course to the necroplanet for the express purpose of derailing the quest.

What Megatron says: “I’ve renounced violence.”

What Megatron does: continues to send others into battles he’s not willing to fight, refuses to act even when it means that his crew will likely suffer casualties, orders acts of violence from behind the protective distance of a screen.

What Megatron says: “It’s not about me! I am taking a vow of pacifism because, if I were to pick up a weapon again, I would be unstoppable.”

What Megatron does: continues to reach for the dark matter that would make him unstoppable (even at the cost of shirking his duties--note that he missed Brainstorm’s trial), continues to risk the lives of others--apparently, by this logic, for their own good.

I could go into greater depth--I hope that someday I will get to tear this particular topic open--but, for now, I’ll leave it at this. What Megatron says can be very pretty, particularly if you ignore the overblown narcissism hidden in the message, but in practice it’s functionally worthless. He does virtually nothing to actually advance the honorable goals he’s espousing--only enough to make himself look good and noble.

This is something my mother and ex excel at. My mother can talk anyone into believing she’s a good and loving person who gives everything she has for us kids, tailoring how she frames her beliefs to most please whoever her audience is. Growing up, I heard a lot about how lucky I was to have such a loving and wonderful mom. My mom has even been able to talk me in circles--‘I only threatened you with a pray-away-the-gay camp because I wanted you to know you had other options! I didn’t want you to be bullied, so I had no choice but to completely isolate you from your DFAB friends any time your sexual orientation came up!’

Only, uh, of course I’m not framing that the way she did. That’s just what all the pretty talk amounted to. I only picked it apart years after moving out of the house.

Actions speak louder than words--because in situations with this brand of abuse, words are just tools to further the abuse, not tools for honest communication. With gaslighting, especially, words are meant to confuse.

They know confusion weakens people.

“Gaslighters know that people like having a sense of stability and normalcy. Their goal is to uproot this and make you constantly question everything. And humans' natural tendency is to look to the person or entity that will help you feel more stable—and that happens to be the gaslighter.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

Gaslighting has profound effects over time. In “Identifying Victims of Narcissistic Abuse” on Psych Central, the provided list offers some idea of the scope of the damage that victims endure.

What I find most interesting about that list in the context of this meta post, though, is that it increasingly describes Rodimus as season two of MTMTE and then Lost Light each progress. From second guessing and increasing difficulty concentrating and making decisions to being highly strung and irritable to fear responses when Megatron says his name, this all actually adds up to a potentially realistic picture of how trauma can affect someone.

It’s not pretty. In fact, it can leave people looking and feeling unstable, which adds further fuel to the gaslighting fire.

I can’t say for sure whether JRo intends Rodimus’ increasingly erratic (and, at times, desperate and out of character) behavior to be read as a response to this prolonged abuse. I hope he does--it makes more sense to me than the alternatives.

Especially since this particular article on gaslighting goes on to cover many of the points I’ve already addressed in this meta, which I think hammers home their severity.

They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.

“They know how important your kids are to you, and they know how important your identity is to you. So those may be one of the first things they attack. If you have kids, they tell you that you should not have had those children. They will tell you'd be a worthy person if only you didn't have a long list of negative traits. They attack the foundation of your being.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

I could rehash this point--but I’ve already spent several thousand words on it. From mocking the Rod Pod to tearing down Rodimus’ identity as a leader and a hero to rattling off reason after reason why he’s worthless, the entire degradation section could fit under this bullet point.

They wear you down over time.

“This is one of the insidious things about gaslighting—it is done gradually, over time. A lie here, a lie there, a snide comment every so often...and then it starts ramping up. Even the brightest, most self-aware people can be sucked into gaslighting—it is that effective. It's the "frog in the frying pan" analogy: The heat is turned up slowly, so the frog never realizes what's happening to it.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

Once again, a point I covered in previous sections. Abuse builds up bit by bit, allowing the abuser to skate by without being called out. What would have looked like a vicious and unfair tirade at the beginning of the abuse--uncalled for and baseless--eventually looks like a righteous ‘dressing down’ of a petulant child.

They tell you or others that you are crazy.

“This is one of the most effective tools of the gaslighter, because it's dismissive. The gaslighter knows if they question your sanity, people will not believe you when you tell them the gaslighter is abusive or out-of-control. It's a master technique.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

This is the reason I homed in on that particular choice of words by Megatron in the degradation section. It seems like it’s no big deal--all varieties of this abuse seem like they’re no big deal. Until they build and build and suddenly everyone believes--both in the comic and in the fandom--that Rodimus deserves the treatment he receives at Megatron’s hands and should not be trusted with any serious task. Everyone immediately believes the worst of him in every situation.

They try to align people against you.

“Gaslighters are masters at manipulating and finding the people they know will stand by them no matter what—and they use these people against you. They will make comments such as, "This person knows that you're not right," or "This person knows you're useless too." Keep in mind it does not mean that these people actually said these things. A gaslighter is a constant liar. When the gaslighter uses this tactic it makes you feel like you don't know who to trust or turn to—and that leads you right back to the gaslighter. And that's exactly what they want: Isolation gives them more control.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

And here we have the final critical point I covered above--the result of all the dismissive comments, the intention behind the isolation. No one trusts Rodimus’ judgment. No one trusts Rodimus to even have good intentions anymore.

It’s a personal hell for someone as extroverted as Rodimus--and it could all end if he ceded power to Megatron. And wouldn’t that be easier?

They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you.

“This person or entity that is cutting you down, telling you that you don't have value, is now praising you for something you did. This adds an additional sense of uneasiness. You think, "Well maybe they aren't so bad." Yes, they are. This is a calculated attempt to keep you off-kilter—and again, to question your reality. Also look at what you were praised for; it is probably something that served the gaslighter.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

This seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? If you’re spending months or years breaking someone down, why would you ever throw in a compliment?

The thing is, this particular brand of abuse--this variety of manipulation--makes the victim especially susceptible to praise as a weapon. When starved of praise, it’s natural to crave it. And in two rereads of season 2? I found exactly one instance of someone praising Rodimus. In issue 43, Rodimus says that Swerve called him the best dancer he’d ever seen. Other than that? Nothing. I reread twice specifically looking for positive comments about Rodimus, and there was absolutely nothing for him.

I was lucky enough to have friends who told me that I was worth something even when I was being abused. And even then, I craved praise from my mother more than anyone--both because she’d conditioned me to look to her above all the others, and because she was the one who was the hardest to please.

Of course, when she did praise me, it was either performative--‘look what a good mother I am’--or it was to get me to do something that I desperately did not want to do. “You’re such a good daughter, (name)--I know you actually do love us. That’s why you’re looking forward to this three month trip (where you’ll have no contact with any of your friends and no means of escape), right?”

And I went. So help me, once she pulled out that card, I honestly believed I had no choice but to go. Every summer, I fell in line.

If I’d been as starved of praise as Rodimus had--if my mother had succeeded in fully isolating me as she so often tried to do--I don’t think I could have pushed back on any subject at all.

At the start of Lost Light, the issue summary indicates it’s been five years since the ship first took off. Assuming half of that was during season two, that’s two and a half years--during which we only have evidence of a single, passing compliment. Especially for someone like Rodimus, that’s downright devastating.

And then Megatron drops this bomb during their most critical argument:

It works.

Rodimus stops pushing. Rodimus stops fighting him. Stops begging him to help them not die by standing with them instead of watching them fight from a screen, directing them in how to die. (Which he doesn’t do, by the way--he makes no contact with the group once they leave until he strides out onto the battlefield.)

This is the antithesis of everything Megatron has said for the last two-ish years. This is everything that Rodimus has wanted to hear.

It’s pure manipulation, of course--Megatron goes back to doubting Rodimus’ leadership and judgment without a single pause. He doesn’t hear Rodimus out on the battlefield or on functionist Cybertron. If this compliment had been genuine? He would have.

But no. It was a means to an end, and it worked. Rodimus did exactly as Megatron wanted. As Megatron knew he would.

The final point the article on gaslighting brings up is one I want to address separately--projection and double standards.

Projection

“They dump their issues onto their victim as if she were the one doing it. For instance, narcissistic mental abusers may accuse their spouse of lying when they have lied. Or they make her feel guilty when he is really guilty. This creates confusion.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

“They are a drug user or a cheater, yet they are constantly accusing you of that. This is done so often that you start trying to defend yourself, and are distracted from the gaslighter's own behavior.” (“11 Signs of Gaslighting in a Relationship” by Stephanie Sarkis Ph.D.)

Megatron has claimed--first to Optimus and later to everyone who would listen--that he would find success where Rodimus found failure. It was part of his sales pitch to avoid imprisonment until his retrial.

So he said then, when they had no map and their only plan was to track down Thunderclash, who was having visions to guide him toward Cyberutopia. And, once they’d found him, the map he’d carved was destroyed in the fight with the personality ticks, leaving them rudderless once again.

Or so it seemed.

Up until this point, Megatron has disapproved of Rodimus taking supposedly pointless sidequests. However, as soon as Rodimus produces a hand-carved map to Cyberutopia, he changes his tune.

Rodimus has just very reasonably expressed that Cyberutopia is in the opposite direction and given his position as co-captain: they need to stay on task and find the Knights. Here, Megatron overrides him without even acknowledging that, technically speaking, he doesn’t have veto power. Of course he gets the final say even if they share the same rank. Why shouldn’t he? Co-captain is a position made up for Rodimus’ ego; if Megatron decides that it’s time for a literally pointless sidequest, then it’s time to start getting the quantum engine jumping.

He looks so smug as Rodimus arches an optic ridge in the background. No one questions Megatron’s authority to make the executive override here, though, including Ultra Magnus, who would be the one in the best position to point out that the captains share a rank and Megatron can’t just arbitrarily ignore the chain of command. Ultra Magnus is also probably the closest thing Rodimus has to a friend on the ship, and he still doesn’t speak in Rodimus’ support here.

Even though, by the terms of the quest and Megatron’s parole? Rodimus is the one clearly in the right.

Megatron has been accusing Rodimus of shirking responsibility, of laziness, and at one point of not having the steel to face his own death (in the form of his corpse). And yet, when they can finally actually get on the right path--when Rodimus has hand-delivered a map--his first action is specifically to derail the quest.

And for what possible reason?

Because of character flaws he’s been accusing Rodimus of since day one.

Of not facing his death quickly enough.

Of not even being able to start the quest--when, of the two of them, Megatron is the one who sent them deliberately off course as soon as he could.

Of vanishing when work needs to be done.

This is all par for the course with projection. It can look coincidental; it can even on occasion look well-intentioned. But it ultimately comes from a self-centered place where the one doing the projection can have a few possible motives.

Self-Centered Motive 1: Being unable to conceive of motives separate from those they would have.

Self-Centered Motive 2: Being unable to conceive of being wrong about someone’s internal motivations--or, indeed, about any assessment they make.

Self-Centered Motive 3: Deliberately using the projection to cover for one’s own behavior. (This isn’t necessarily indicative of shame or guilt; it can be done to draw attention away from behavior they believe they will face repercussions for when they would like to continue perpetrating said behavior.)

Self-Centered Motive 4: Deliberately using the project to confuse and disorient an abuse victim, putting them on the defensive. (After all, “No, you,” is an argument that could be regurgitated by a ‘petulant’ two-year-old and therefore easy to dismiss, particularly when you habitually tell others that your victim is just childish and overly sensitive.)

The first and second motives are unlikely to be the case for Megatron, who is a master-class strategist used to dealing with schemers. He wouldn’t be able to remain several steps ahead if he was unable to read intentions behind other people’s choices. He also wouldn’t have lasted particularly long as leader of the Decepticons if he couldn’t infer the motivations of others.

Meanwhile, motives three and four would serve him extremely well, particularly in this situation. If he spends sixteen issues convincing the crew that Rodimus is the irresponsible one holding back the quest, if Rodimus tries to counter by saying, “But you’re the one trying to keep us off course!”--well. Can you imagine anyone taking him seriously?

Oh wait. You don’t have to--they had that argument in Lost Light #4.

And, as Megatron knew would happen, even Minimus Ambus believed his lie. No one--no one at all--believed Rodimus or took his side.

Great bit of misdirection, isn’t it? It also has the benefit of leaving Rodimus doubting himself--questioning whether he actually is working hard enough. That’s the gaslighting aspect of the technique; it destabilizes your reality and makes it harder to question what your abuser says about you or asks of you. Because if you and you alone think that something is true? Peer pressure is likelier to silence you.

It won’t always--the Asch conformity experiments are an interesting place to begin for further research, if you’re interested--but in those experiments, even though it was clearly objective reality being described, only one in four participants consistently fought majority opinion. When it’s something more nebulous--personality traits, personal failings--it seems likely to be a little harder to fight.

And when you’re already being conditioned not to fight this particular person (with bouts of rage and the other abuse techniques I’ve described here), it can be hard to convince yourself that it would be worth fighting in the first place.

Mix this with Rodimus’ already present self-worth and guilt issues? And it’s frankly stunning to me that he contradicts Megatron as often as he actually does. I know that I didn’t have it in me that often--it’s almost unspeakably exhausting to have this kind of fight, particularly when you have no one on your side and no hard evidence to point to.

This is still relatively early into the abuse, admittedly--six months after the trial. But Rodimus is still trying to assert his own reality in the face of Megatron projecting.

And he is projecting. Need proof? Ask Ravage an hour or two later in this arc:

He’s been sitting in his room for six months, the same as Rodimus. But to distract others from that fact, he loudly accuses Rodimus of it--publicly, purposefully. “I ‘take stock.’ You sulk. You’re sulking now.”

As the second blurb says, it puts Rodimus in a position where he must defend himself against the accusations, distracting from the fact that Megatron is also doing this.

And it works: Rodimus goes on the defensive, and no one questions the narrative that Megatron is setting up.

This narrative allows Megatron to twist situations (and facts) to suit himself with relative impunity.

Twisting

“When narcissistic spouses are confronted, they will twist it around to blame their victims for their actions. They will not accept responsibility for their behavior and insist that their victim apologize to them.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

Megatron avoids apologizing like the plague. He apologizes exactly once in the series--and then leaves without trying to get the injured party to the medical bay or calling a medic, which makes it more than a bit hollow. Beyond that? He never apologizes for his actions during the war--for Grindcore, for setting up the DJD, etc--and he also never apologizes for things like decking Perceptor and nearly sending him through a computer screen. He certainly never apologizes for his behavior toward Rodimus.

Instead, he twists the situation so that he’s justified in his awful behavior or so that the blame falls on someone else. He does this, too, when something threatens the narrative he’s been building or Rodimus ‘disobeys’ him. For example, when Rodimus overrides his condescending hush command that Megatron had no place issuing...

Rodimus is offering a potential counter-strategy that Megatron hasn’t approved: evacuation and escape. It’s something they discussed while Megatron met the ‘troops’ instead of coming to the briefing:

A solution Rodimus brought up at the time, using the same language he describes the teleporter with above:

So he’s trying to work out, it seems, whether there’s a possibility of rescuing the mechs already teleported away--and whether there’s a chance they could get all of these civilians to safety.

I discussed this possibility in rage, but I’d like to look at a different panel for the lead-up to that, where Megatron twists the narrative:

See how he turns his controlling and dismissive behavior (“Hush, not now.”) into an attack that invents a sinister motive Rodimus is clearly supposed to apologize for? This being despite the fact that all Rodimus asked about was teleporters--something that would be absolutely vital in evacuating a civilian population off-planet.

It’s a successful twisting of the situation--successful enough that even I bought it on my first read-through. Despite everything, despite all logic and circumstance and evidence, Megatron convinced even me that his narrative was the right one.

But when I read again? It was groundless. Megatron describes Rodimus as being obsessed; if he’s referring to the paint job, then Drift pointed out it lends itself to multiple interpretations--including mourning. Other than that, all Rodimus has done is organize a plan to get them home. Nothing about his behavior reads as obsessive to me.

But let’s stick to these panels and break it down:

Rodimus attempts to participate in the conversation. Considering that he and Rodimus share a rank and the group is currently planning what to do, it’s perfectly appropriate for Rodimus to try to pitch in, especially since he was the one at the briefing while Megatron met the ‘troops’ in another area. He knows more about the situation than Megatron in some ways, and he’s trying to use that information to help.

But Megatron gets visibly angry and tries to shut the attempt down. Based on his behavior through the series as well as my own experiences, I think I can guess why.

Rodimus ‘disobeyed’ him, which undermines the vision Megatron has of himself as the ‘real’ captain. The image he’s been trying to sell the crew. If he can spin this as Rodimus being childish, he can salvage the situation and maintain his narrative. Scolding him like a child sets that up.

It’s technically also possible that he’s somehow forgetting Rodimus’ experiences with Nyon and nonstop heroism despite being present for both, although that seems like an awfully large and uncharitable lapse on his part.

This implies to me that this isn't the first time Megatron has dismissed Rodimus like this--but before Rodimus can call him out further, Megatron twists the narrative, and now it's not about teleporters or exit strategies. It's a personal attack on Rodimus.

This comes, frankly, out of nowhere. It's an unprovoked attack against someone who shares his rank and is trying to contribute to the planning process--you know, trying to do his job.

Here's the thing. I'm familiar with these derailing types of attacks--where anything I do can get twisted and turned into something that requires an apology when I'm (a) trying to help, (b) doing my job, and (c) trying to do it respectfully but also efficiently due to time crunches. And, like Rodimus, I've been baited into shouting back at my abusers.

It's a win-win for them. Sure, they derailed first--they shouted first--but since I fought back, it can't be abuse. Since I got distracted from the point I wanted to make, I proved them right. I'm too sensitive. I deserve to be ‘taken to task’ or ‘put in my place’ or whatever euphemism you care to use. Because I stop looking like a crying victim on the floor, it stops counting as abuse.

If you think I'm exaggerating, I can assure you I'm not. Read any comment thread about abuse or assault and see how long it takes for people to find reasons why this person wasn't really a victim. Why they deserved it.

I should have talked above--under almost every section--about my abusive ex-boyfriend. Really, it's painful how much is relevant. But I haven't, because… Fuck me, this is the sixth complete rewrite of this section, and I'm still tearing up. I haven't, and it's because experience has convinced me that no one will take my side because I wasn't a good enough victim.

I'll keep it simple and relevant--just a single example that I feel parallels the above scene. It happened within a week of when my mom hit me; I was 15. My ex was failing a writing class, and he showed me his homework. I thought he was asking for feedback, since, y'know, he was failing. But I only got as far as saying he'd misused a comma before he told me to shut up.

I say he told me. That sounds so mild. We were sitting near the front of the school bus together; I was trapped between him and the window. He had eight inches and fifty pounds on me, and he used it to loom over me like Megatron continually looms over Rodimus. I say he told me to shut up; he got in my face and screamed it in front of a bus full of our peers.

He then proceeded to scream insults at me until he was red in the face. I wasn't qualified to judge his commas, I was an idiot, on and on. He had a bad habit of yelling at me in 1337-sp34k--yes, out loud--because it made him feel intelligent when I couldn't understand it. To be honest, I think that parallels with Megatron’s consistent condescending use of ‘big words’--the point of communication is to communicate, not to feel smart about our superior vocabulary.

Like Megatron, he would get loud and condescending and demeaning and use speech I couldn't understand to prove that I wasn't as smart as he was. Like Megatron, he would loom over me, using his height and bulk to intimidate me when I started getting ‘uppity’ or otherwise ticked him off. Like Megatron, he mostly did this when we had an audience--it was other types of abuse he perpetrated in private.

And, like Rodimus, sometimes I backed down--but sometimes I shouted back.

Not often. Usually I kept it to a few incredulous statements. But there were times when he said something so shocking, so untrue, I had to defend myself--like Rodimus does in this scene. And--once again, like Rodimus--I got so ‘het up’ that I would lose my point, forget my words, and find it impossible to actually figure out how to fight his points. Partly because they were so groundless it felt like there was no evidence I could pull to counter them.

I told my sister about it, once. And she said that since I yelled back sometimes, I deserved it.

She wasn't the only one to say that, but it hurt the most coming from her. And it hurts again when I read posts about Megatron and Rodimus where people talk about how great it is that Megatron finally put Rodimus in his place, how much Rodimus deserved to be screamed at. It's just fiction, true, but in the back of my mind, I always think, ‘If I told you that this happened to me, would you say I deserved it, too?’

Because I've seen very little recognition of the fact that victims do sometimes fight back. They often pay for it, but when you're driven into a corner you don't lie down and take it every time.

No one looks like a Hollywood victim all the time--crying and ‘weak’ and only staying because of fear. Anyone of any personality type can be abused. And abusers are experts at seeming like good, upstanding people; they need to be able to build a narrative that casts them as the hero or anti-hero. You need to see a whole pattern to recognize them for what they are--and they're invested in hiding that pattern by any means necessary so they won't lose that control, that power over both their current victim and other future victims.

Some abusers apologize going into the honeymoon phase of the abuse cycle as part of perpetuating that narrative. Others avoid taking blame at any cost, refusing to take responsibility for their actions. Megatron makes excuses rather than apologies and never does the work to make amends; like my abusive ex, he thinks experiencing any guilt at all absolves him of the hard work of fixing things. It doesn't; feeling bad is meaningless. It accomplishes nothing. And excuses relieve that guilt--the false high of unearned absolution.

Do they make excuses for their behavior or tend to blame others or circumstances for their mistakes?

It’s not his fault, you see! This murder squad he personally trained massacred two hundred of his crew members (the theory at the time of this panel was a ‘near future’ scenario, not parallel quantum shenanigans), but really, he knew this would happen the moment Optimus made him say sorry. These are natural consequences of making him do something he didn’t want to do.

Now, it’s true that Megatron didn’t order them to do this, but immediately putting the blame on Optimus making him vocally renounce the cause he was already claiming he’d renounced… When, y’know, these are his hand-picked and hand-trained assassins who he used to terrify his troops into abject obedience to all Decepticon beliefs… It’s just mind-boggling to me.

To explain another way: he just entered a ship full of two hundred mutilated corpses, all but a few showing signs of extreme torture. And he makes it about him. And he does that while still trying to dodge all blame. It’s a natural consequence of him reading the speech Optimus wrote for him, but it’s not because he trained a team of murderers in the art of violent murdering, no, that part has nothing to do with anything. They didn’t answer to him, he says, when he’s the only one who has Tarn’s comm number. When Tarn personally credits him with shaping him into the person he became.

The DJD are responsible for their own actions, certainly, but that doesn’t mean that Megatron isn’t responsible for giving them a list of traitors and turning them loose on his troops--and on innocent bystanders.

This would be a good opportunity for a sparkfelt apology. We could have seen Megatron mourn these dead and regret training the DJD and tell the survivors that he’ll find a way to talk to the DJD and make sure this never happens again (something he could have done at any time--he does have Tarn’s number, after all). We could have seen him start making reparations six months after saying he’d changed.

Instead we see him give a self-righteous little speech about how he’s totally blameless.

This may not be directed at Rodimus, but Rodimus numbers among the dead--he was the first corpse they found. And he cares not one bit that his living co-captain and second in command have vanished, with only gray and disfigured corpses to replace them. No, the most important thing in this situation is to twist the narrative and make sure everyone knows it’s not his fault.

This is what happens when he’s made to do things he doesn’t want to do. There are consequences; he doesn’t need to make reparations because the consequences are natural and right.

Living for millions of years with the DJD as real boogeymen who could appear and wreak this kind of devastation without warning if Megatron gave a single word? It’d be hard not to see those natural consequences as a threat.

Manipulation

“A favorite manipulation tactic is for the narcissist to make their spouse fear the worst, such as abandonment, infidelity, or rejection. Then they refute it and ask her for something she normally would reply with ‘No.’ This is a control tactic to get her to agree to do something she wouldn’t.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

All of the above is manipulation, without question. But I’m including this as a separate bullet point because it allows me to address a particular tactic that doesn’t fit neatly under any of the other sections.

Do they continually have “boundary violations” and disrespect your valid requests?

Megatron has no respect for Rodimus’ personal space, particularly when he’s being ‘defiant’ in some way. Paring away text to focus on body language, it becomes even more abundantly clear.

From the beginning of season two, he towers over Rodimus, jabbing a finger less than a hand’s breadth from his face.

When he wants to be obeyed, he physically gets in Rodimus’ face--snarling and huge.

And as a new arc begins, he’s once again looming and jabbing fingers in Rodimus’ personal space.

If I listed every panel where Megatron was shown leaning physically over Rodimus, I’d be including almost every panel they share. And before anyone says it’s because of Megatron’s size, and he can’t help but loom--he doesn’t do it to other characters unless they, too, are ‘misbehaving.’ He’s perfectly capable of keeping a straight back and relatively professional distance with most mechs, even when being threatened, even with extreme height differences:

Straight back, no leaning over Tailgate, no snarl. It’s the same with other crew members. With Rodimus, however, his nonverbal cues are constantly screaming dominance fight.

Now, I’m a small person, so maybe I’m especially sensitive to this--I’m just barely five feet tall and not muscular in the slightest. When much-bigger people get in my space the way Megatron gets in Rodimus’ space, it’s terrifying. Respectful people don’t do those things, and you can’t convince me that it’s merely a product of his size. My boyfriend of almost ten years now is eleven inches taller than I am, and he’s never once loomed over me or used his size to intimidate me.

I might be willing to call it thoughtless rather than an abuse tactic, since it is possible to loom unintentionally--except he singles Rodimus out for this treatment.

And it works.

After the first example above, Rodimus is visibly cowed while Megatron practically presses himself against his back:

Note the lowered spoilers on Rodimus’ back, the lowered head, the expression on his face.

And after the second panel, he literally transforms and obeys Megatron without further question.

Constant physical intimidation has unfortunate effects on a person, particularly when used alongside verbal and emotional abuse tactics like the ones I’ve been describing. This is a documented aspect of physical abuse--of which physical intimidation is a part--but I also know it intimately.

My abusive ex boyfriend never hit me, but he used physical intimidation tactics like these on a daily basis. He sat between me and the aisle on the bus and got in my face and snarled at the least provocation, but he also just--loomed. He was always--always--in my bubble, to the point that sometimes my friends would literally push him out of it. He would stand behind me like that, and when I have nightmares I can still feel his hard-on pressed against my lower back, his hands on on my hips or shoulders to keep me where he wanted me, the heat of his breath on me as he curled above me, around me, cutting off every exit until he was physically my entire world.

Which brings me to the panel that finally set me off enough to write the meta post I’d been mentally composing for over a year:

I feel sick when I look at this panel. When I look at the hand on his back and the way Megatron curls around him and the way the hand that’s always jabbing fingers in his face is caging him in. When I look at the way Rodimus is hugging himself, pulling in and away from Megatron--because in is his only escape route, because Megatron has cut off everything else. Verbally isolating him, then emotionally, then physically.

Rodimus doesn’t have any friends here to shove Megatron out of his bubble. Rodimus has the certainty that Megatron could be screaming at him (again), could be threatening him with hands in his face (that we can see are the size of Rodimus’ torso), could actually be injuring him--which we haven’t seen, but, honestly? “Whenever you shout my name I expect to get shot,” uh, isn’t a ringing endorsement of what might be happening behind closed doors, where most actual violence plays out.

Even if Megatron hasn’t hurt him--and I haven’t got enough proof to conclusively say one way or another--the threat is still there. As I said, my abusive ex never hit me. But I knew--every time he screamed, every time he got in my face--that he could. That he was capable of it.

He didn’t have to hit me. Like Rodimus, my defiance never lasted--without support, with too much fear, I decided that I needed to pick my battles. And, one by one, he pushed through my boundaries. Because if it wasn’t worth picking a battle over him stroking my inner thigh outside my shorts, was it worth fighting him on stroking the inside of my waistband? With that boundary demolished, was it really so unexpected--really worth challenging--when he went past the waistband?

After all, it was my fault he was so riled up. I’d done this to him. Didn’t I owe it to him to fix the problems I’d caused? But I guess that particular bit of nastiness comes from the next section--the victim card.

Victim Card

“When all else fails, the narcissist resorts to playing the victim card. This is designed to gain sympathy and further control behavior.” (“Eight Mental Abuse Tactics Narcissists Use on Spouses” by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC)

At every point in Megatron’s “redemption” arc, he casts himself as a tragic figure. Poor Megatron, made to stand trial! Poor Megatron, asked to provide evidence to expedite the trial! (optional; he didn't consent to mnemosurgery and they immediately left) Poor Megatron, asked to read a speech renouncing the cause he already said he'd renounced! (optional; purely a get-out-of-jail-free card) Poor Megatron, surrounded by incompetence on this privately owned neutral ship he was given captaincy of in place of his prison stay! Poor Megatron, forced to drink ‘poison’! (optional; again, he made the choice himself) Poor Megatron, having to share the ship with the mech who owns it! Poor Megatron, faced with the knowledge that some people wish the war had never happened! Possibly even the knowledge of how many mechs he killed! What terrible knowledge.

Poor Megatron, indeed.

All of these situations are fair and reasonable for him to encounter. He's not a tragic figure for facing any of these things; in fact, the last two are hardly even about him. Billions died, and we're supposed to feel sorry for him surveying the field of flowers? For having to face the facts of what he did when he still doesn't face any negative repercussions for his choices?

This is entitlement, but it's also an abuse tactic. My ex used this trick to guilt me into roleplaying sexual situations I was really, really not comfortable with, while my mother used it to get me to do...well, in retrospect, basically anything she felt like I owed her.

Used on the wrong party, this tactic is just grating--case in point, Getaway and his mutineers. He specifically cited this overall strategy in his last call with the crew on the Necroplanet. But on someone who already has a guilt complex--someone who's easily manipulated by authority figures telling him it's his duty to do one thing or another, insisting nothing he does is enough and he owes more than he can give--the sort of person who carves into his hand the number of people who wanted him gone? Yeah, that's a different story.

Do they blame you for their problems or unhappiness?

Prior to this panel, Rodimus just informed Megatron that Brainstorm seemed to have jumped through time. Rodimus specifically gives him time to process the info, too.

He's beings downright nice about it.

And, yes, it's absolutely fine to need time to process or to freak about things not going according to plan. That's natural! I say this despite the fact that Megatron--a mech made of black holes--isn't exactly unfamiliar with weird science. In fact, one of the thirteen ores seeded by Shockwave had time properties, and they literally just met quantum doubles of their entire ship. I'm a little dubious about his claims of a minor breakdown here, but the freak-out itself isn't the real problem here.

What's not fine is taking that as an excuse to once again lean in over Rodimus (note the angle Megatron shifts to once he starts yelling), jab a finger in his face, and personally insult him. What's he done to warrant the “You are ridiculous” line and accusatory tone, other than tell Megatron something he didn't want to hear? How does keeping him briefed and patiently waiting for him to process lead to the conclusion that Rodimus is his own, personal punishment?

Well, keeping a level head while publicly briefing Megatron means undermining some of that narrative he’s so carefully constructing, where Rodimus is rash and rude and impulsive and irresponsible. Unsuited to command. Because in this scene? Rodimus looks and acts like a capable and considerate commander.

There's also the fact that Rodimus is treating him like a peer rather than a superior here.

Now, that might not be why Megatron lashes out. He might genuinely be disturbed by the idea of time travel and instinctively target his current favorite (emotional) punching bag. But I think it's telling that he immediately turns something going wrong into being Rodimus’ fault when he's actually doing his job quite well in this scene, not to mention respecting Megatron as co-captain. It's also telling that he breaks out the same physical intimidation tactics I described in the last subsection the moment he gets agitated.

So why do I think this is an abuse tactic and not poorly-handled panic, aside from Megatron's extensive experience with various types of weird science? Because Rodimus doesn't try to contradict him. He doesn't fight the point or defend himself. And, sure, that could be a sign of maturity--but it can also be a sign that he's beginning to internalize Megatron's message, especially when looked at in the context of everything else I mentioned in this post.

In fact, let’s cover his motivations and intentions a bit more directly.

INTENTIONALITY

Assessing whether abusive behavior is deliberate can be nearly impossible when you’re living in it. For example, I highly doubt that my mom is any kind of mastermind with an ultimate end goal of control over me. I’m not actually sure what she was thinking for any of that--she insists most of it never happened and has a different justification every time I ask about the parts she doesn’t deny (although she sometimes denies those, too, depending on her mood).

Even if Megatron’s behavior wasn’t intentional, it would still be unacceptable, dangerous, and traumatic. But I do genuinely believe it’s deliberate--partly because of the following scene:

This is coming from Ravage--a spy with extensive experience that goes all the way back to the day of the Senate. He’s seen a lot. And he makes a compelling argument:

Ravage points out numerous occasions where Megatron played the long game--planning ahead, setting up for what he might want someday as well as what he wants today. Reaching for the dark matter, delaying his trial with sidequests as soon as the opportunity presented itself--those, too, are examples of this.

So it stands to reason that all of this manipulation could serve the fairly straightforward goal of setting himself up to be sole captain of the Lost Light--or some other goal we haven’t yet worked out that requires tearing down Rodimus’ reputation and isolating him from the rest of the crew.

IN CONCLUSION

Megatron is abusing Rodimus. Emotionally and verbally at the very least, but possibly other forms of abuse. He’s certainly threatening physical abuse with his nonverbal cues--and, by some definitions, is in fact perpetrating physical abuse by bodily intimidating Rodimus.

The evidence is overwhelming, and I think that this interpretation gives greater depth and meaning to JRo’s characterizations of both Rodimus and Megatron. Through this lens, Rodimus’ increasingly erratic and seemingly out-of-character behavior as the series progresses can be viewed as a response to gaslighting and other abuse. Meanwhile, for Megatron, this interpretation serves to connect his current behavior to his wartime behavior in a way that feels more in line with IDW’s past version of him instead of a sudden and hollow change.

Ultimately, though, this interpretation is important to me as an abuse survivor. I don't fault those who want to write their own version of Megatron, but, if I'm being honest? I never again want to see another post insisting that Megatron can't be written as abusive. (and if you think this is vagueblogging about someone in particular, I swear it's not. I've seen multiple posts and tweets echoing this sentiment. This isn't some vague callout post; it's an alternative interpretation that runs counter to the dominant fandom narrative as I've encountered it.)

You can keep your interpretation of Megatron. He is a fictional character who has been written by dozens of different people in numerous canons. If you don't want to write about him as an abusive and manipulative jerk, by all means, don't. The only request I make is that you not condemn those who do.

Multiple interpretations of canon lead to more varied and interesting fan works. And I think that's good for everyone.

Additional Reading

In case you want to do further reading, here are some links to other articles I looked at while making this post. I may add to this if I find any others that feel relevant.

15 Types of Verbal Abuse in Relationships

10 Signs You Are in a Relationship with a Narcissist (first part in a series)

[lost-your-memory]

100 questions

So I was tagged by @writerinthedarkabyss so here’s my take at this. 1: Is there a boy/girl in your life?

Nope

2: Think of the last person who hurt you; do you forgive them?

I’m not sure I’m there yet but I will forgive them, eventually.

3: What do you think of when you hear the word “meow?”

My six cats, wanting food

4: What’s something you really want right now?

Peace of mind would be nice

5: Are you afraid of falling in love?

Not afraid no, but certainly not looking forward too. It’s a mess.

6: Do you like the beach?

It’s a tricky question. I love the sea and the ocean but I don’t like sand beaches. I’m all for cliffs with nice edges. 

7: Have you ever slept on a couch with someone else?

Yeah, in every meaning of the term.

8: What’s the background on your cell?

A Supercorp picture, I changed my theme recently and I haven’t find a nice Supercat one yet.

9: Name the last four beds you were sat on?

Mine, my sister’s, my grand mother’s and an hotel’s one.

10: Do you like your phone?

HELL YEAH, I bought it for the camera and it’s LIT.

11: Honestly, are things going the way you planned?

Ah. No.

12: Who was the last person whose phone number you added to your contacts?

Probably the one of a Tumblr buddy, to chat on Whatsapp

13: Would you rather have a poodle or a Rottweiler?

Rottweiler. I don’t like tiny yappy dog.

14: Which hurts the most, physical or emotional pain?

Emotional pain. I am pretty insensitive when it comes to physical pain and it doesn’t last. Emotional pain leaves invisible scars that never heals. 

15: Would you rather visit a zoo or an art museum?

Both is good but it depends of what kind of museum, to be honest.

16: Are you tired?

I just woke up but it’s going to be a long day ...

17: How long have you known your 1st phone contact?

Forever.

18: Are they a relative?

Yeah, it’s my mother. She’s my savior.

19: Would you ever consider getting back together with any of your exes?

Been there, done that, never again.

20: When did you last talk to the last person you shared a kiss with?

A few weeks ago but it was a bet and it didn’t mean anything, we just laughed.

21: If you knew you had the right person, would you marry them today?

Nope. I don’t believe in marriage and anywa, if I’m happy without, then no.

22: Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

I wouldn’t mind, since it was a bet. She’s a great kisser.

23: How many bracelets do you have on your wrists right now?

Just my watch, if it counts.

24: Is there a certain quote you live by?

“Ne prenez pas la vie au sérieux ; de toute façon, vous n'en sortirez pas vivant.” - Bernard Fontenelle (Roughly translated into English : Don’t take like too seriously, you won’t get out alive no matter what)

25: What’s on your mind?

Domestical chores, Supercat prompts, a thesis I need to finish and thoughts about getting a job.

26: Do you have any tattoos?

None.

27: What is your favorite color?

Navy blue

28: Next time you will kiss someone on the lips?

Whenever it happens, I guess

29: Who are you texting?

I’m not texting at the moment but I’m part of a supercat groupchat and they are all awesome.

30: Think to the last person you kissed, have you ever kissed them on a couch?

Uh ... I think so? Either a couch or the floor next to one.

31: Have you ever had the feeling something bad was going to happen and you were right?

Story of my life.

32: Do you have a friend of the opposite sex you can talk to?

I do.

33: Do you think anyone has feelings for you?

I have literally NO IDEA.

34: Has anyone ever told you you have pretty eyes?

Yeah, it happens on a regular basis. I don’t know why, my eyes are pretty much ordinary.

35: Say the last person you kissed was kissing someone right in front of you?

I would totally cheer. 

36: Were you single on Valentines Day?

Yeah

37: Are you friends with the last person you kissed?

Friend is a big word but yeah we get along.

38: What do your friends call you?

Gane.

39: Has anyone upset you in the last week?

UGH. PEOPLE. 

40: Have you ever cried over a text?

Uh ... Maybe, but if I did it was good tears. 

41: Where’s your last bruise located?

Around my left knee.

42: What is it from?

I bumped into the side of a door. It hurts.

43: Last time you wanted to be away from somewhere really bad?

Two months ago I think, when I went through something of a depression.

44: Who was the last person you were on the phone with?

My sister, I was telling her where to wait so I could pick her up.

45: Do you have a favourite pair of shoes?

Yes, an old pair of All Stars blue Converses that I have for like 8 years now.

46: Do you wear hats if your having a bad hair day?

I only wear a hat in summer, to protect my head from the sun.

47: Would you ever go bald if it was the style?

Buh. No idea. Probably not?

48: Do you make supper for your family?

I can’t really be trusted in a kitchen, aside for making desserts or breakfast.

49: Does your bedroom have a door?

What kind of question is that. Yeah.

50: Top 3 web-pages?

Tumblr, AO3 and probably Deezer or Google Doc at the moment.

51: Do you know anyone who hates shopping?

Myself. Unless it’s for books or video games. 

52: Does anything on your body hurt?

I have a sore leg and backpain but it’s nothing abnormal for me.

53: Are goodbyes hard for you?

Nah. It usually means I’m going to enjoy coming back.

54: What was the last beverage you spilled on yourself?

Uh ... Water, I think? Or orange juice maybe.

55: How is your hair?

Clear brown, with lighter strands here and there. Not long but not pixie short either. 

56: What do you usually do first in the morning?

Groan. Check my phone. Groan again. Force myself to get up and then have breakfast.

57: Do you think two people can last forever?

I don’t, not in this world anyway.

58: Think back to January 2007, were you single?

I was 16 ... Probably not, then.

59: Green or purple grapes?

Both is good.

60: When’s the next time you will give someone a BIG hug?

I a few weeks maybe, when I will see my grandma again.

61: Do you wish you were somewhere else right now?

Nah I like where I am but I wouldn’t mind being traveling the world. 

62: When will be the next time you text someone?

Probably this afternoon, going to pick up the sister again.

63: Where will you be 5 hours from now?

In front of my computer, writing or pretending to do so.

64: What were you doing at 8 this morning.

Having breakfast with my mother.

65: This time last year, can you remember who you liked?

Yeah. I wasn’t single then.

66: Is there one person in your life that can always make you smile?

If cats count, then yes. If not, probably my mother.

67: Did you kiss or hug anyone today?

Not yet but it’s still early.

68: What was your last thought before you went to bed last night?

I was honored and excited about an upcoming collaboration.

69: Have you ever tried your hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end?

Yep, story of my life.

70: How many windows are open on your computer?

Right now, 8 but it’s because I’m doing research.

71: How many fingers do you have?

I don’t care what they say, thumbs are fingers so 10.

72: What is your ringtone?

My phone is on vibrate mode all the time.

73: How old will you be in 5 months?

Still 25, on the verge of turning 26.

74: Where is your Mum right now?

Downstairs, getting started with the chores. 

75: Why aren’t you with the person you were first in love with or almost in love?

Because life happened. She’s still around as a dear friend tho.

76: Have you held hands with somebody in the past three days?

Oof, yeah.

77: Are you friends with the people you were friends with two years ago?

Unfortunately no. Well, some of them are still around but the most important ones left. 

78: Do you remember who you had a crush on in year 7?

... IRL crush, yeah. Virtual crushes, like too many to remember no.

79: Is there anyone you know with the name Mike?

Nope.

80: Have you ever fallen asleep in someones arms?

Yes but I usually do the spooning. 

81: How many people have you liked in the past three months?

Four or five, something like that.

82: Has anyone seen you in your underwear in the last 3 days?

Yes and two people actually tried to steal mine. 

83: Will you talk to the person you like tonight?

... Uh ... I don’t know.

84: You’re drunk and yelling at hot guys/girls out of your car window, you’re with?

My friends or my sister and her boyfriend, they are the party people around.

85: If your BF/GF was into drugs would you care?

I would care and I would try to help until I’m forced to remove myself from the picture. It happened and well, it’s okay to put yourself first sometimes. You have to.

86: What was the most eventful thing that happened last time you went to see a movie?

I was with a kid and she was scared so she climbed onto my lap and cuddled with me. It was sweet. 

87: Who was your last received call from?

My mom, to tell me to get downstairs. She is downstairs.

88: If someone gave you $1,000 to burn a butterfly over a candle, would you?

This is sick and no.

89: What is something you wish you had more of?

Hum. Wisdom.

90: Have you ever trusted someone too much?

Yeah.

91: Do you sleep with your window open?

Hell no, not even in summer, mosquitos are MEAN.

92: Do you get along with girls?

Oh gosh. 

93: Are you keeping a secret from someone who needs to know the truth?

Nope, not anymore.

94: Does sex mean love?

That’s hilarious. No.

95: You’re locked in a room with the last person you kissed, is that a problem?

... Again, no, since it was a bet and I actually like the girl.

96: Have you ever kissed anyone with a lip ring?

No.

97: Did you sleep alone this week?

If cats count, then no but if not, yeah I slept alone.

98: Everybody has somebody that makes them happy, do you?

Yeah, cats and books and musics and sometimes, just looking by the windows can cheer me up.

99: Do you believe in love at first sight?

No.

100: Who was the last person that you pinky promised?

What am I, 5? Alright, that was looong and hard. I’m tagging @catherinegrant, @2009121723 and @lenaluthhor and of course anyone else who want to play ♥

[gyrlversion]

Jonas Brothers Chasing Happiness: 11 Revelations From Their New Doc

During the opening minutes of Chasing Happiness — the Jonas Brothers documentary premiering on Amazon Prime on Tuesday (June 4) — Kevin waxes poetic about how the band needs to change. They need everyone to be comfortable, he says, and have open and honest dialogues and not look at the past through rose-colored glasses. Eventually, Nick interjects, telling his oldest brother, “I think you’re afraid to be confrontational with me.”

It feels like a private moment; like we’re not supposed to be listening to their conversation. That sense of voyeurism trickles on for the next 90 minutes, as the John Lloyd Taylor-directed doc chronicles the band’s improbably rapid rise to superstardom, their break-up, and eventually, their chart-topping 2019 comeback. We see Kevin, Joe, and Nick speaking candidly together and individually, and their words give some illuminating context to the band’s new album, arriving on Friday (the doc even features some snippets of unreleased songs!). Below, check out 11 of the biggest things we learned from Chasing Happiness.

They were shut out by their church

After Jonas Brothers got signed, the label had a vision of them as a punk-rock band. That obviously didn’t pan out, but the music the boys were making was still edgier than what people had expected — especially since their father was the pastor of a church. “I think there was some judgment on us for not being a Christian band,” Nick said. “Singing about girls started to become an issue.” Eventually, Kevin Sr. resigned after facing mounting pressure, and the family subsequently lost their home. Around the same time, the band was dropped from their label, but the boys kept writing songs and eventually scored a lucrative record deal with Disney.

Nick’s diabetes diagnosis was a “life-shifting moment”

While the band was grinding away with a grueling touring schedule, Nick started showing some scary health symptoms — he started getting moody and agitated, lost a bunch of weight, and could never quench his thirst. He eventually got diagnosed with diabetes, but the band ultimately decided not to tell the label because they were scared of being dropped. It was a “life-shifting moment for everybody,” Joe said, even recalling, “I passed out in the hospital room because I couldn’t see him hooked up to all these wires.”

Nick was head-over-heels for Miley Cyrus

“I think my brothers and I became closest when we found a common ground beyond music and family: girls,” Nick said. While Kevin confessed that he and Joe “were, like, wingman-ing each other constantly,” Nick only had eyes for one girl, after the band made a cameo on Hannah Montana. Kev recalled, “That changed girls for Nick forever. When he met Miley, I think that kid’s head exploded.” From them on, Nick adorably admitted, “I started writing about love. And I actually knew what it felt like.” Cue “Lovebug!”

They regret their Disney Channel show, Jonas

In a current-day scene where the brothers decide to play a drinking game that basically involves answering tough questions as honestly as they can, Nick said his biggest regret with the band was Season 2 of their Disney Channel sitcom. He admitted it was a “bad move” that “stunted their growth,” explaining, “We couldn’t evolve because of it.” Kevin added that the show was presented to them as a way to keep them relevant while they were touring, but it wasn’t on-brand with them or their music. The show, they lamented, presented them as younger and more “uncool” then they really were. (It did, however, give us “Pizza Girl,” and for that, we are eternally thankful.)

Joe felt like a failure after his fizzled attempt at solo stardom

During a hiatus in 2011 and 2012, Nick ventured off to Broadway and made music with his own side project, Nick Jonas & The Administration. Joe, meanwhile, attempted to make it on his own with a solo R&B/pop record that quickly flopped. “The music didn’t do as well as I had anticipated,” Joe said about it, adding that “it was my first failure” and it was “embarrassing” to feel like he couldn’t do anything without his brothers.

Kevin’s reality show became a big point of contention

While Nick and Joe were off pursuing solo careers, Kevin was “living [his] best life” as a newlywed. After marrying Danielle Deleasa, the couple documented their lives on an E! reality show called Married to Jonas, which ran for two seasons. His youngest brothers weren’t thrilled about the invasion of privacy, admitting they didn’t want anything to do with it because they didn’t want the show to dictate who they were in the public eye. “Our whole life was a closed-door meeting, and Kevin invited cameras into that meeting,” Joe explained. “We felt like he was going to air out a lot of our shit that we didn’t want people to know about.” Needless to say, tensions were building in the band, which ultimately leads us to…

The band’s split was devastating on all fronts

Jonas Brothers reunited in 2013, but it wasn’t the same; Joe flat-out admitted, “We were not happy,” while Nick confessed, “We hate each other, basically.” Nick admitted he had a panic attack the night before breaking the news to his brothers that he wanted to call it quits, and Kevin said Joe “shut down” and took the news the hardest. “I felt betrayed. I felt lied to. I felt angry. Numb,” Joe said of his reaction. “What hurt the most is that it came from Nick. Because he is my best friend and I thought that me Kevin and Nick were going to do this forever and it was us against the world, you know?”

Joe and Nick thought Kevin was holding them back

In one of the hardest moments to watch, the boys recalled how, after the band broke up, some radio stations threatened to never play JB’s music or any of their solo music if they didn’t show up for some promised radio gigs. Nick and Joe went, but Kevin was told that he didn’t need to go. He said it was the “hardest moment of [his] entire life” watching his younger bros play the band’s music without him there, and Joe candidly told him it was because he and Nick thought they were being held back.

“I think it was because we thought you were holding us back,” he confessed. “That’s the truth. I think there was moments that Nick and I wanted to do our own thing and we felt like your focus was not in it anymore and it wasn’t a priority for you. Starting a family was, and your guitar playing kind of fell in the backseat.” Joe continued by saying that he now realizes how “fucked up” that was, and apologized to Kev that he had to go through that.

“Please Be Mine” is still a certified jam

Confession: there are two times I cried while watching this documentary. The first was early on, with old footage of the brothers playing “Please Be Mine,” a love song they wrote in their basement that went on to become the closing track off 2006’s It’s About Time. The second time was towards the end of the doc, with current-day footage of them performing the song, sounding just as heavenly as ever. “Eight years, still a jam,” Nick noted after they finished it. Truer words have never been spoken.

They’re all family men now

And now, I present you with the cutest quotes from all three brothers about falling in love with their respective wives. Here’s Joe: “The impact of falling in love has made me want to be a better man, a better person, and ultimately, made me a better brother. Kevin: “We all spent time apart truly coming into our own. I focused on my family, on being the best husband and father that I could be.” And, finally, Nick: “The time apart was necessary. I was able to pursue different creative avenues and experiment with life in a way I never could before. And it led me to find something greater than I could ever imagine: love. And this love has changed my life forever.”

Frankie’s the biggest JB fan ever, thankyouverymuch

Stick around during the end credits for a glimpse of the Bonus Jonas! The youngest JoBro, 18-year-old Frankie, makes the cutest cameo, telling the camera, “I am their number one fan. I know every lyric of every song. I love their music so much.”

The post Jonas Brothers Chasing Happiness: 11 Revelations From Their New Doc appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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[malumterrams]

So. This has nothing to do with writing or rp or inspiration of faceclaims.

But I’m venting here, because I do need to vent. This may not be coherent, I just need to write it down.

Some of you know what’s going on, some of you do not. Some of you don’t know the extent. Potentially triggering content below? Mentions of death, and illness.

I’m not working right now. I haven’t for a while, because I’ve been a full time caregiver for my grandmother.

So my grandma’s health has been declining for a while, she just got out of the hospital for the fourth time since June. Basically my Dad and I are taking turns living with her bc she can’t be alone. She’s 94.

They gave her a catheter for her heart. That turned out to be all they could do. The valve is calcified, but they couldn’t do the treatment they wanted because it turns out the valve is leaky and the blood flow would be too much.

She’d basically drown in her own blood.

They said other than that, she’s in pretty good shape for someone of her age. They said that we should do what we can to make sure the rest of her life is comfortable.

When asked, he said that could be anywhere from three months to three years. So that’s fun.

Really fun.

They were talking hospice, but then settled on palliative care which isn’t as “she’s gonna croak soon” as hospice. So that’s nice I guess. They can actually do it in home so she doesn’t have to move anywhere and can stay comfyish.

It’s the uncertainty of the whole thing that miffs me.

“3 months to 3 years”

Well there’s a big fuckin difference, doc.

She came home today. It took her 20 minutes to get in the house, even with my Dad and I helping her. She couldn't move her feet even.

She can't stand up straight, I was in front of her with my dad behind her as we helped her in the house and it was like she was head butting me in the stomach the way she was bent over. She was hyperventilating even with the oxygen. The one aid lady probably shouldn't be living alone, and should move into a facility. Of course she shut that down.

She refuses to move in any home, or even with us. So basically, we moved in with her.

Aid lady said that then she should at least have one of those life alert buttons. Again, no. She admitted it's easier getting into a hospital bed, but she still refused one. She agreed to a recliner. I think they're going to have physical therapy for her, and an aid who can be on call 24/7.

I wouldn't be surprised if she died tonight. There is no way she should have been released from the hospital, but there’s really nothing left that can be done aside from making her comfortable for however long she has left.

I left her with my dad and excused myself in because I'm had an anxiety attack. Once I came down from that I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody, which is a very good film, and that’s where I’m at rn.

Went home for the night, visiting my mom and sister. I’ll go back in the morning.

It won’t be the first time I’ve lost a loved one. It’s not the first time I’ve had to watch them decline.

This was so hands on though, because I had been taking care of her, and there’s really nothing left I can do. I feel so fucking helpless and I know she’s had a long life and I should be thankful for that and for whatever time we have left with her but I just.

Fuck it, y’know?

Fuck it up the ass with a rusty spork. I’m not ready to lose her. No one’s ever ready, but it’s just. Y’know. And I’m going to be a wreck. My dad’s going to be a wreck. Everyone.

And I honestly don’t know how we’ll recover, and go on. My dad’s in his late sixties now. I’m worried about how health. It’s just.

I hate all of this.

And I know some of you have lost loved ones, and seen them decline. I know I’m not alone in how I’m feeling right now, that it’s a thing.

My grandma just has always seemed so invincible, y’know?

For some perspective? She beat ovarian cancer. They didn’t think she was going to make it past 75.

She’s survived 2 heart attacks. She had bypass surgery. Congestive heart failure. She has diabetes. She’s had pneumonia three times that I can remember.

She’s broken her hip and had it replaced. She had a broken ankle. Falls where she’s not broken anything, but was pretty fuckin’ bruised up.

She’s like the energizer bunny, she just keeps going... and now she isn’t. Now she’s barely mobile.

And I know what she’s survived is impressive, again, I should be thankful.

It just. There are no words to describe the feeling.

She won’t be there at my wedding, if I ever get married. I reconciled that. She won’t be there at my sister’s wedding. If my sister ever has kids, she won’t live to see them.

She’s gotten to know all her other great grandchildren, but hey.

She won’t do word searches anymore, she goes through a book in less than a week.

All her actual books, there are literally hundreds. Maybe into the thousands. What are we going to do with those? Donate them? I doubt anyone will want them, some are over 50 years old, but we’ll see.

Her furniture. We can take some of that, I guess. Her clothes. Idk.

I’m not going to go over every other night, watch reruns of Match Game on the Buzzer network.

Andy Griffith on MeTV and TV Land.

All the TLC shows. Little people. Obese people. Big families, and saying yes to dresses. People marrying people they’ve known for 90 days.

I won’t get up in the morning and pour a bowl of corn flakes, with evaporated milk, which is just the grossest thing ever.

I won’t be forced to watch The Talk or all the CBS soaps. I won’t be kept up to date on what’s going on with that crusty bastard, Victor Newman.

A part of me will die with her. Part of me is declining with her. There’s not a fucking thing I can do about that.

I can love her, keep her happy and comfy, spend time with her.

This is going to hurt like a motherfucker, to quote one Michael Scott. That’s a massive understatement.

I haven’t gotten over the death of my cat, nearly four years ago. I have his paw print framed on my night stand. The little bell on his collar is now on my key ring. I had that cat since I was 4 years old. I’m 24 now. Do the math.

I’ve lost my great uncle, who was the closest thing I ever had to a grandpa, because both of mine passed before I was born. He adored me, because he and his wife never had kids of their own, so no grandkids. I lost my step-grandpa on my mom’s side. Same thing. I lost my great aunt, the aforementioned great uncle’s wife.

My cousin, who I’m quite close to, lost his wife. Cancer. Started in her breast, she fought it for years. It made it’s way to her brain when it killed her. She was in her thirties. Left behind two kids.

And those fucking hurt. My grandma, though. This is going to be in a league of it’s own. Nothing could come close to it. And I’m not ready for that pain. I’m not ready to see my dad experience that pain.

It’s painful enough watching her decline, but when she goes, and when she’s just not here.

I don’t fucking know.

[lizmahony-blog]

145 Days

One year ago the phone rang with the long awaited phrase, “Jon, we have a donor on the table”.  The following account is the messages I sent to our family and friends during the hours, days and months following this call for bilateral lung transplant surgery at UT Southwestern Hospital in Dallas, Texas.

April 14, 2016:

This is difficult to write – Jon is back in OR. All of numbers post surgery were in positive range, but his heart rhythms were difficult to manage so resulted in very erratic behavior, then his heart stopped. He was paddled 5 times and then opened up for cardiac massage. He left the room heart stabilized but docs need to understand rhythm problems and be cooled down for next few days for fear of neurological impact from the heart stoppage. We won’t know anything neurologically for a few days. He will be deeply sedated and kept cold for at least 48 hours. The risk is stroke and other neurological problems. I’m well informed and feel very well supported by all of you and staff here.

Just spoke w/lead doctor who took Jon to OR and brought him back w/CPR. Jon’s heart is stable – no additional support needed – not back on bypass, no ecmo (to oxygenate the blood externally).  Dr. had done 500 transplants and has never seen anything like this happen. Jon’s heart had to be charged over 5 times to respond. But it did respond.  What happened in OR just now is best possible outcome bc back in rhythm without additional external support outside of meds. Neurological problems cannot be assessed at this point. Doc did say that brains of people with PH (pulmonary hypertension, which is what Jon has) are “used” to low O2 function. He will be chilled for 24 hours at least and then warmed to determine next steps.

I have spent the last hour with Jon. I was given permission to go in and hold his hand and be with him. He's being cooled for 24 hours as I have mentioned. The hope is if there was a lack of blood profusion to his brain, this will combat the effects. His pupils are responsive but he has not moved deliberately. It is too soon to tell. When I was holding his hand, he definitely was resisting my attempts to straighten his fingers - possibly because he's cold and clinching his fist.

Cardiology came in to discuss what the hell happened?? The consensus is he is vulnerable to long QT (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/long-qt-syndrome/basics/definition/con-20025388) and the medicine he was on extended the length of QT and sent him into arrhythmia which would have been fatal had it not been fast acting UT staff.  The long QT is most likely a result of the trauma of surgery.

He will be on medicine to help stabilize his heart during the recovery phase.

We are not out of the woods. But his lungs are working so far - 98% on room air. Baby steps today.

Shift change so I have an update - Jon's cardiac output is 2.5 - anything above 2.0 is what good looks like. He was on three heart medications and now down to one to help his heart function while it gets used to new lungs.

The star of the show that's been overlooked is our new, healthy lungs. They are doing great and apparently were a great pair for Jon. O2 stat is steady at 100% saturation on room air.

Jon is heavily sedated and again remains medically paralyzed while we wait for the 24 hour hypothermia treatment. He is not out of the woods but is trending up which gives me hope with reservation.

I am deeply grateful for your texts, your prayers, your unending support and love for my Jon. The nurse who first responded today and remained his nurse is Lili. She saved his life. I gave her a big hug from all of us and said there are so many people who are grateful for you.

I'm a little over 20 hours without his voice.  I'm a little over 40 hours since sleep. I'm headed to hotel for a rest and will keep you posted with news. Hoping a quiet night.

April 15, 2016:

Good morning. Jon had a quiet night - his heart was stable and lungs continue to function well. He had a chest x ray this morning and everything looks the same as yesterday. They are slowly lowering the heart medicine and weaning him off to see how he does, so far so good. The cardiac output I mentioned last night (2.0 is threshold) is up to 3.5 which is good news for heart function (Lili our nurse is back this morning and gave a big thumbs up).

His lungs will be suctioned out today which is normal procedure for lung transplant patients bc all the nerves are not there anymore and he can't cough.

Today is a waiting game. They will slowly, very slowly start warming him up. This process can affect his heart negatively so low and slow is the plan. Once he's warm, they will wean of the paralyzing medicine and then the sedation.  Then we wait and see what he does.

I'm anxious and hopeful. Thank you for everything. I slept last night which is definitely helpful.

I'll try to keep it short tonight but wanted to give an update beyond he's awake!!!  He continues to be responsive and even shared a big smile. Now the recovery begins for the lungs which is arduous and difficult. The heart incident does not help but thankfully the UT staff is equipped and so knowledgable with transplants, he's in amazing hands. The respiratory specialist said his lungs are working "beautifully".  

As great as it is to have Jon "back" - his alertness complicates the recovery bc he is uncomfortable especially with the vent in his lungs so he will continue to be heavily sedated.  The game plan - rest and recover.

So today was (pardon my words but this is Jon's new catch phrase) "pretty fucking good!

April 16, 2016:

Good morning. I've been with Jon all morning so away from my updates. All in all - a good night. His vitals stayed strong, he spiked a bit of a fever but nothing too alarming and probably expected with the second chest opening during the code.

The surgeon and lead transplant doc on call came in and we're happy with what they are seeing. The game plan is to continue to wean him off the medicine for his heart and lung output to see what he does. They turned off his "pacers" today which were managing his heart rate at 90 and now 81 on his own 👍🏻

I just checked on him a minute ago and he's watching tv and writing "shower" on a notebook page. All great signs of healing.

Hoping for a quiet day of rest for Jon, doctors orders.

Saturday night update: today had its ups and downs. Jon is much more alert and interactive. Which is a relief given the incident however it also results in Jon communicating how hard this transplant recovery is. The surgeon asked him today "Lung transplant is hard right?" Jon nodded, and then surgeon said "harder than you thought?" Jon nodded furiously. He's frustrated, the tube down his throat is driving him crazy and he's coming off heavy duty sedation - a combo resulting in a lot of stress and agitation. This shows a lot of fight but also affects his pressures and vitals. My one mistake may have been handing him a pen and pad of paper because the kid had some words 😳

So - we wait. The night nurse tonight is the same one who has been with him since Thursday. Cathy doesn't mess around. She's direct, competent, caring and experienced. He's in good hands.

April 17, 2016:

Today is here, give it your attention. Tomorrow is coming, give it your hope. Yesterday is gone, give it your blessing. -Doe Zantamata

Jon is mentally and physically better this morning. Unfortunately 30% of the patients who have a cardiac event post surgery end up in AFib and God knows Jon doesn't want to be left out so he's in AFib. I spoke with his surgeon this morning and he is not at all concerned.  He said he anticipates Jon coming out of it on his own.

All the numbers that should be trending down are doing so, numbers that should be trending up are doing so as well.

Tomorrow the tube comes out and the real work begins. I'm more rested, he's coming around and we are ready to kick some ass.

PFG my friends.

Quick Sunday night update: Jon was up most of day.  Very anxious and a bit frustrated with progress. His heart still in AFib and is being monitored but doesn't seem to alarm any of the medical professionals.

He had the pen again and would like to "go for a walk, have a drink, stand up, how's boo, char char" and the heartbreaker "I miss you".

Later in the afternoon his stats started to drop and he needed a "bronc" - essentially cleaning out his lungs for him because can't cough or anything on his own with vent.

Following that procedure - they decided to add another medicine for him to be sedated. As great as it is to have him communicate - most often when you're intubated you're not awake - so he's agitated and not resting which will negatively affect his healing. I'm much happier with him sedated bc there's nothing I can do to help him so unhappy with the tube down his throat.

The good news - he's stable, the bad news the vent will most likely stay in another day.

Anyone want to tell him? 😖😳

We have another day so PFG and here's to rest.

April 19, 2016:

When they said this was going to be a roller coaster they weren't kidding. Yesterday was a bad day in terms of what Jon's lungs looked and sounded like from Sunday to Monday. And in typical Mahony fashion, the X-ray didn't show what a typical bad lung X-ray shows. Then when they went in and did a "bronc" expecting mucus, or secretions it was essentially nothing. So is it rejection? Usually happens 96 hours post transplant, he's further out. Is it pneumonia? Doesn't happen this soon. So our rock star Doc threw in her words "kitchen sink treatment" to see what would work. Essentially antibiotics, steroids, and deep sedation.

Also when they performed an echo for his heart there's damage on his left ventricle from the code - Doc ran it by cardiology and they think it's a "stun" injury and should come back.

Something seemed to work - this morning his X-ray much improved, his fever untreated at 99.8, his blood gas measuring o2 in his blood better, kidney function is normal for his baseline, BP great. Heart rate 😳 well he can't be perfect? Its between 90 - 120.

Plan today is to continue to be sedated and rest. I'm digging deep because roller coasters aren't really my thing especially with my Jon driving.

April 20, 2016:

Wednesday - one week since we had the call. Jon continues to stay the same, maybe has improved a tad today although he has a fever again. Still sedated.

Rockstar Doc did a bronc - and found a "typical" bronc for post lung transplant. She has ordered a ct scan of his lungs to see if there is any infection in the outer lining of the lungs.

I'm told patience is a virtue daily by many of the medical staff. Before he went into surgery they explained how I wouldn't be allowed in the room but could stand and see him at the glass. Jon said "you will have to get her a chair because she won't leave". Truer words never spoken. I'm standing watch and he's fighting like hell.

April 22, 2016:

Friday - often heard is no news is good news, in our case no news is no news. Jon has a fever from an unknown cause. They have checked every little bit of him with no result of infection. They have thrown antibiotics, anti fungals, anti everything and the fever persists. There has been ct scan of lungs and Doctor said "nothing horrible" - which is high praise from Rockstar. The nurses are doing their very best to make him comfortable and bring his fever down with cooling blankets, his room is about 65 degrees etc. He remains sedated.

Yesterday during his sedation vacation he wouldn't respond to the doctor's requests - she asked me to come in to try and I scrubbed in, literally have to scrub in. I walked up close and said "hi hon" eyes wide open, asked him to squeeze my hand, move his feet etc. he did everything. It was a relief and I said "start listening to the doc!"  This morning a nurse went in while he was stirring and asked him again all the same reactions, and he was kicking his feet, squeezing etc. He's there just so doped it's hard to get him out of it - also can we say Irish? That kid is stubborn.

Slow and steady wins the race? Patience is a virtue? Good things come to those who wait?

I'm not sure but I sure do miss him.

April 24, 2016:

Sunday night: I hoped to write Jon was "tube free" but alas...god knows he tried - when rockstar doc bronc'D him today she quickly realized Jon had worked the tube out of placement and basically "out" so extubating himself - this was not the plan so they intubated him again. Thankfully he handled It better than he has one week ago in that his stats didn't drop and take most of day to recover. No other news. Baby steps again. I'm patient and hopeful. I miss my boys and girl terribly. I miss Jon. So hug your loved close for us.

April 25, 2016:

”Do not wonder why things are “taking so long.” In fact, everything is rolling out exactly as it needs to, using not a minute more than Perfection requires. Rest easy and be at peace. Life is working its magic even as you take your very next breath.” – Neale Donald Walsch.

A good reminder today. It's Monday, we had a relatively quiet weekend. Baby steps in terms of progress but there was progress. Today rockstar doc announced Jon was a "run of the mill" transplant patient - high praise given our ordeal over the last 12 days.

Hoping for a continued upward trend ride but I've learned enjoy today, tomorrow will come soon enough.

April 28, 2016:

It's Thursday - officially two weeks since surgery. We had an eventful beginning of the week, Jon was off the vent all day Tuesday and then unfortunately a clot traveled to his lungs and it was a struggle for his system. Thanks for the quick action and care of the UT staff he was re-intubated and medically treated to help with the situation. This incident was scary and unexpected but has brought to light some heart function issues that can now be addressed as his lungs are settling into his system. The last two days have been low stimulation recovery days and it's been nicely quiet for him without incident and a steady improvement of all vital signs. I'm hopeful and keeping the faith. Thank you for your continued texts, emails, calls and thoughts - I feel so well supported and loved. All the help everyone is offering in KC has been wonderful, thanks so much. Love you all, PFG and breathe easy.

May 1, 2016:

It's Sunday - Jon has been steady and calm since last update.  Today was his first "breathing test" on how things are going without the vent but still on vent. So essentially turning vent off but for a bit and letting Jon breathe on his own. It's like breathing through a small straw so no easy task. But we have new pink lovely lungs - which I reminded him many times today - and he was good for 3 hours and then truly was exhausted. So "knowledge is power" and hiss lungs are working - he needs some stamina and strength which is no surprise given what he has been through and time in ICU.

We also had our first PT/OT session on Saturday. So I watched and learned what to do and have had 5 more sessions of PT/OT with me. Jon was thrilled. 😬

In other news there's a 23 year old from Overland Park, KS named Katie who got her lungs Friday - she's across the hall from Jon and her family is lovely.  So I'm thinking of her tonight.

Cheers friends. I'm surviving and I'm grateful for Jon's eye rolls when I announce its time for PT.  But God knows I miss my kids so hug yours and if you see mine, hug them from mom (probably more eye rolls).

May 3, 2016:

"Be patient. Be content with small steps. You will get there."

It's Tuesday and in the words of our Dr Rajen, a good day in the ICU is a good day. Jon remains on the vent but was able to breathe on his own for over two hours, building strength. He also worked with PT and sat on the edge of the bed for 7 mins with help. There was a bronc procedure and his left lung is "pristine" and right was pretty good.

The conclusion is his lungs are not the problem, as suspected it's his heart that's slowly recovering and in turn affecting the process of next steps. The magical question is how do we get to the next level - move off vent and protect his heart during the transition? Dr Rajen will balance this with meds for some time post vent. Jon will continue OT, PT and breathing therapy.

So I went to post office today at 12 and standing next to me was a guy in a PFG shirt, honest to God (admittedly it was Professional Fishing Gear) but a god reminder that today is pretty fucking good.

May 7, 2016:

Saturday update - my dear friend Jody sends me a quote every night and I've become quite reliant on her texts - this one seems to sum up my Jon's week:

"Of course life's a bitch...if it was a slut it would be easy!"

Life has not been easy for Jon but today he's been off the vent for more than 24 hours, on and off Bipap all day and all vitals holding steady right where docs want them.

We have a long road to go after what has happened over the course of the last three weeks. A lot of strength building and muscle training through OT and PT. I have watched Jon fight like mad and have no doubt there's more fight left. Before surgery he found bracelets for the 5 of us with TICDA - today I can do anything. He's living it, my kids are living it and I'm doing my best.

I have no doubt there are more ups and downs in the coming days. Thank you for your ongoing endless support. We all know Jon's that guy you cheer for and I'm so grateful to be his wife.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommas! And today is PFG ❤️

May 10, 2016:

Tuesday - hey Jon fans - quite update Jon has made some incredible progress since last update. He has three types of therapy daily - speech for swallowing, OT for daily function and PT for rebuilding strength. He's off all IV meds for his heart function and lungs are at 100% on 2 liters of O2. Just a point of reference Jon was on 10 liters with stat of 92% just one month ago. The doctors are pretty amazed at what's happening. And none of us are surprised but he's pretty much the hero of the CVICU.

His voice has not come back but he's able to whisper and hearing "I Love You" yesterday for the first time since April 13th was well, there's not really words.

Don't get me wrong - Jon has a long road of recovery ahead but at least now some of it is in his hands and his effort.

That Mahony is one tough Irish man and I'm so grateful for not only Jon but for the UT staff who have become dear friends, and all of you.

May 13, 2016:

Friday - one month post op. We were warned that the first 30 days would be critical and difficult. True on both counts - couple new lungs and cardiac arrest, critical and difficult doesn't even begin to cover it.

So here we are. Jon is sitting next to me in a regular chair - this is not an easy task as he has suffered myopathy from the lengthy recovery in ICU and essentially not moving for 21 days but nonetheless he's in the chair, off the vent, on room air and fighting like hell.

Dr Kaza today was absolutely amazed when she walked in and Jon said "Dr Kaza, good to see you."  Everyone in the room cried a little bit.

He will remain in ICU for the weekend to ensure consistency of care and then barring any other complications will be moved to the "floor" next week. Dr Kaza is also moving to the floor next week for 10 days so that will be reassuring to Jon and me for her quality of care is nothing less than excellent.

It's been PFG today - although the reality is settling in for Jon about how much strength he's lost. Thanks to modern medicine and machine there is a lot of ways he can get stronger through PT and OT.

So happy Friday and we've decided to celebrate in Hawaii next June - y'all are invited.

May 16, 2016:

Monday - Jon has new digs. He has graduated from ICU to a floor. It's a big deal actually because essentially everyone on the team agrees he's "well enough to" not be monitored as closely and can focus on PT, OT and Swallowing. I'm the only one hesitant because some of the people I've met on 9 South will be my friends for life and seeing them everyday was comforting.

Jon is one hell of a patient - so strong willed and appreciative. The fact he has new lungs and a new future is starting to settle in. Unfortunately with how difficult the initial 30 days were, we haven't celebrated or even contemplated this new chance. This is all normal according to our pals here at UT but new for us. I remember hoping and planning for this surgery and subsequent outcome but what's the saying "Make plans, God laughs."  

So here we are, 10 South. I have no doubt the quality of care is just as excellent but I may press nine every once in a while for some 9 South love.

Btw the gal from Kansas Katelyn - is kicking some double lung transplant ass - Striding with Strube's is her Facebook page and if you're having a hard day - go check out this family and you'll be amazed, grateful and inspired.

PFG friends and with optimism, breathe easy and deeply.

May 19, 2016:

Thursday - or in other words "sh#% it's already Thursday?!" Jon has continued steady slow progress in the hospital. He has about 2 hours of therapy a day. The physical side of his ICU stint is nothing less than alarming for Jon. He went into surgery the night of April 13, listened to Dave Matthews (his request) and essentially woke up 3.5 weeks later unable to stand and no memory of wtf happened. No surprise it's a emotionally challenging time. But thankfully he has me to encourage him in addition to an amazing team at UT who have adopted Team Mahony and their motto - and we're here to get him to the goal line, to our future and to our second chance...wait third or is it the fourth? So there's encouragement, there's all of your messages and a little ass kicking.

On Monday he moving to a rehab hospital dedicated to getting him stronger with a program designed for him. He will have a strict schedule of therapy - good news he's medically stable enough to move to rehab the bad news it's a bit terrifying when you're working on standing.

We all know he's up to it - he knows he's up to it and in the words of our fav coach "clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose"!

Our 18 year wedding anniversary is Tuesday. Because of UT Southwestern and the donor there is a real hope we have at several years together. On April 12 of this year we hoped to make it to 19.

PFG friends, breathe easy and deeply.

May 23, 2016:

We have hit day 40 - considering we almost didn't make it past day 2 it's quite an accomplishment.  I'm happy to say we are moved to the Rehab hospital up the street and Jon is ready to begin getting his strength and "body" back so he can actually enjoy his new lungs. Rehab is not for the weary - it's intense and daunting but as I'm sure no one is surprised, Jon is incredibly motivated.  So tomorrow at 8:00 AM he will be evaluated and the schedule will be set.

This hospital is part of the UT system so he will be followed by same docs and in fact, the wonderful Dr Kaza is on the Zales rotation this week.  It seems as though our stars are aligned or Dr Kaza is pretty clear she's getting Jon to the goal line of discharge (we also found out our youngest Abigail shares a birthday with her youngest daughter).

We have a new anthem - "Rise Up" by Andra Day..."I'll rise up in spite of the ache and I'll rise up 1000 times again" give the girl some love and check it out on ITunes.

May 26, 2016:

Our Jody nails it again with her nightly quote-

"I demolish my bridges behind me…then there is no choice but forward.”  – Firdtjof Nansen

Day 1 in rehab was alarming for both Jon and me because of all the evaluations and subsequent reality of what's happened to Jon physically.  I'll paint a picture - lost 40 pounds, muscles so tight in his legs neither can be straightened, his skin is so taut around his incision when he applies pressure with his arms for balance to sit up right he has opened his chest wound - and required a visit from wound care. And how was the play Mrs Lincoln? 😖

We were defeated, overwhelmed and weeping.

We hit day four today - he stood yesterday with assistance for 14 minutes, the goal for the therapists was 10 mins by next Wednesday. He needs one person to help him move from one apparatus to another, on Monday he had three therapists helping, the goal was two people by next Wednesday. He's blowing the medical staff out of the water.

Today was the medical team meeting with the us - they all have decided they need new goals, the attending doctor on the floor read his chart Sunday night and expected a much different person than who is "sitting"'unassisted during the meeting. Jon responded "you hadn't met me yet."

PFG friends, breathe easy and deeply and thank you Jon is kicking some serious ass in rehab - it's humbling to watch. He's one of a kind and on a mission...can't wait for you all to enjoy our future.

June 2, 2016:

Quote of the day "your lungs look perfect" - Dr Mahanka.

Jon had a Bronc this morning for his "lung hygiene" - and those babies are working great.

Rehab as I have mentioned is no walk in the park - Jon works 3 hours a day with some of the most incredibly kind, capable and tough therapists at Zale.  They have extremely high expectations and goals for Jon.  I watch him hesitantly accept their challenges and then overcome each one, I understand why the bar is set so high.

We had a weekend with the kids last weekend and I must say we must be doing something right because it was incredible to watch my kids show up in the most positive way for Jon. Charlie encouraging Jon through all his therapies - a true cheerleader and Jack spending all afternoon with Jon so he wouldn't be alone. And then Abby - simply holding his hand and adorning his room with all her art she made while we've been away.  We all know my kids aren't perfect but goodness it was inspiring this weekend to watch our kids be stellar.

I move into an apartment today - that's a big step for me because I wasn't sure on April 14th if we would continue with our plans and now here we are, Jon's alive, building strength, breathing at 100% on room air...PFG.

Breathe easy and deeply friends.

June 10, 2016:

Friday - 8 weeks post transplant: it's been a big week down here in Dallas - Jon has continued his 3 plus hours of rehab a day and this week he has been able to stand with walker assistance and walked (again with assistance of the parallel bars) his first steps since April 13. He continues to gain strength and confidence.

In addition - he passed part of the swallow test today and will be enjoying a diet of puréed foods.  This is a huge milestone in lung transplant ville.

And with the highs there was a low, he had a CT Scan of his lungs and there's some unexplained inflammation on the right side which suggests acute rejection - this happens in 70% of lung transplant patients so no one is too alarmed and the treatment is three days of large doses of steroids.

The most notable change for me is his overall demeanor...I'm happy to say "he's back" - feisty, Irish and ready to get back to our wonderful life.

In other news - I had my hair cut and I'm here to tell you I left the salon "closer to God" as a Dallas blond 😬.

June 17, 2016:

Friday 9 weeks post transplant - Jon officially walking with a walker, stronger ever day and so handsome. His discharge date is set for next Wednesday and both of us are cautiously optimistic.

Unfortunately much of this week was waiting for results from a lung biopsy - there is a spot on his lower right lobe - rejection? Inflammation? Last week it was treated with a shit load of steroids and this week after a chest X-ray the transplant team met on Tuesday and decided a biopsy was necessary. This is no easy task for Jon because he's on blood thinners due to the amount of blood clots in system from the length of stay in ICU and the PE in his lungs. So a shot of vitamin K, blood tests, hope and prayer. Today our rehab Doctor who follows Jon and has become a dear friend walked into our PT session. My heart dropped bc I knew she knew something and had to share. I'm definitely the Debbie downer of the family so assumed the worst - well not today friends...there's no sign of rejection. There's something there - probably from pulmonary embolism but not rejection. We will know more when we talk with transplant and we will have more hurdles but today well...PFG.

One last note...it's Father's Day weekend and my Jon is one of the best and so are all of you. So Happy Father's Day Daddys.

June 25, 2016:

Day 3 at "home" - Jon was successfully discharged from the rehab on Wednesday. It was the bittersweet to say goodbye to our rehab team - a lot of tears and so much mutual admiration. It was humbling to work with such accomplished young women and also alarming when we discussed movies or music tastes and they looked at us blankly - maybe the 20 year age difference 😳

But we're home. Jon is a warrior in this game of life - exercises every morning, a million meds to take and then down in the exercise room for the apartment riding the bike 30 mins - mask on.

Today was a little pampering with a fresh shave and haircut from one the kindest most gentle men I've ever met. You would have thought Jon was his very own brother by the way he carefully took care of Jon.

We just have Abby right now as boys are in Kansas and Colorado for fun and it's been a treat.  She not only has lost 4 teeth, her favorite word is "aloha", she reads everything and when we passed "hooters" she announced "I call it hoots". Keeping it real.

We have our first clinic visit Monday, continue wound care due to part of his chest incision that refuses to heal - may end up in an oxygen chamber 2 hours a day, 5 days a week to hasten process....god knows this hasn't been easy, but we know it's worth it.

So life goes on. Texas is as hot as they say but we are so flipping grateful to be home together, helping each other and enjoying every fucking minute.

PFG, breathe easy, enjoy the weekend and Jody quote of the night...

"Dance. Smile. Giggle. Marvel. TRUST. HOPE. LOVE. WISH. BELIEVE. Most of all, enjoy every moment of the journey, and appreciate where you are at this moment instead of  focusing on how far you have to go." -Mandy Hale

July 11, 2016:

"I'm blessed with everything I need. I am working hard towards everything I want. And most of all I appreciate everything I have" -Unknown

Well the good news - we are "very good" transplant patients meaning we caught a nasty GI infection in Jon early but not before he was severely dehydrated which required hospitalization. So back at Clements - fluids, antibiotics and constant monitoring. As things go for the Mahony's it got worse before it got better and we are on the upswing.

While in-patient - the docs decided to check in on his heart - I'm sure you all remember - it had a rough start as in had to be started after surgery. This week we found out his right side which was in complete "failure" on April 13, so large in size cardiologists would gasp (I'm not kidding and he was a "heart failure" specialist") is NORMAL - in size and cardiac output. We are not even 12 weeks post transplant and we have this result. The left side remains "injured" due to the cardiac arrest, at the 6 month mark we hope see some left heart improvement.

One last note - our time in Dallas has been difficult because of Jon's health journey but we have met the most incredibly kind, loving and smart people we've ever met. We grieve with them this past week as they lost not only lives but a sense of safety.

Breathe easy and deeply dear ones.

July 29, 2016:

106 days, 22 hours and 3 minutes since the lung transplant journey began. Some days flew by, some days felt like 2 combined into one. We have faced more in the last 106 days than most survive in a lifetime. This is due to expert medical care, a selfless donor, hope, prayer, a community of all of you and Jon's will.

As of 2 PM today, we have the green light to go home. Yesterday Dr Wait (Jon's second surgeon after his heart stopped) happened to be in clinic. We asked the nurse if he had time, could be stop in and see us. I will tell you something, the pure elation and joy Dr Wait showed when Jon stood up to shake his hand was life changing. "I am so proud of you Jon - a lessor man would not have survived...and your wife, boy she shared some looks with me but never left your side". It was enough.

We are ready. We are grateful and Pretty Fucking Good has been upgraded to Pretty Fucking Amazing.

Breathe easy and deeply friends. 

August 26, 2016:

19 weeks post transplant

I hoped to write a much different update from the last three weeks than what will follow - but we have to start with the good...It's really just the moments that have made the past three weeks amazing - Jon able to drive kids to school, hockey try outs, jeep rides with Jack and a couple of dates. Not asking for much frankly, just being able to be together as he continues to heal.

The bad...Unfortunately this changed this week with a slight decrease in lung function which lead to a clinic visit at KU revealing a cloudy cheat X-ray suggesting pneumonia. This landed Jon in the ER which when hooked up to monitors heart rate was 150 beats 😖.

The ugly...Fast forward to today - an air ambulance flew Jon to UT Southwestern bc he a. Has an infection and b. At KU he had a cardiac event that led to pulmonary edema and is back on the vent. One of my favorite doctors in Kansas was "on" when this happened and worked quickly to help Jon and save his life. Dr Crosser happens to be the doctor who arranged our meetings at Texas from one year ago when he was so sick. He immediately called Dr Kaza to share the update and put the phone down to say "Texas wants him" I said "what do I do?" His reply - "they're not asking".

So here we are - the possibilities - pneumonia, acute rejection, etc etc. The good news - Jon and I are quick to respond to any change and after the bronch today - there was optimism.  UT is throwing kitchen sink at him until something "grows" - antibiotics, anti rejection meds, steroids and a full Cardiac evaluation. Currently - he's on the vent but so little support and at 100% I assume he will be off tomorrow, heart rate controlled and in sinus rhythm and all in all doing well.

Apparently the first year post transplant is difficult - or so I've been told. Currently my screen on my watch is "...on the bright side I'm not addicted to cocaine" pretty much sums it up.

Breathe deeply and easy friends - would love your powerful thoughts for my Jon.

August 30, 2016:

Not the ones speaking the same language, But the ones sharing the same feeling Understand each other. Rumi

Quick update - lungs are...wait for it...good. There is some pneumonia (infiltrate) in the right lung. Maybe due to aspiration from liquid or food but very treatable.

So what the hell happened?? Essentially Jon's heart is still struggling with the new lung scenario.  Why can't they just get along??  

Thankfully because of what happened at KU - the heart has become a main concern of transplant in Dallas and EP cardiology and cardiology are involved. What has been uncovered is Jon has an electrical issue which is affecting his heart rate and complicating simple issues aka minor pneumonia and a structural issue with a valve in his left ventricle.

Both issues can be resolved with time but have to be treated properly with the right meds that will not stress his system or mess with our fresh lungs, no easy task.

So in short - it was good something happened because the heart needs extra help during the remodeling process and now we have the right information with further testing and evaluations.

Breathe easy and deeply friends - thank you for sharing the same feeling with us.

September 5, 2016:

"Life doesn't happen to you, it happens FOR you". -Tony Robbins

Quick Labor Day update about Jon. We are back on 35 headed north. Jon was released from UT yesterday - best he has felt leaving the hospital since April.

So what happened? As I mentioned in my previous updates - Jon's heart was continue to struggle with the new lung scenario. This is unfortunately a side effect of having severe end stage pulmonary hypertension prior to a lung transplant. We met with Dr Doom and Gloom heart failure and the electrophysiology cardio group. At first we discussed adding medication to better help Jon's heart remodel during this lengthy recovery but there are so many complications and side effects with these medications plus the transplant meds, other options were explored.

On Friday morning - Jon had an ablation procedure of his left ventricle. There were three areas that were in arterial flutter causing a lot of problems - the ventricle performs the squeezing function of the heart so not being rate controlled unfortunately worsens the overall function of the heart.  

The procedure was a success and Jon's heart is in sinus rhythm. So now the remodeling process should be possible with the new lungs in time.

The last five months have taught us a lot about time and life, the quote from Tony Robbins rings so true - we are so grateful to continue to uncover and live through experiences that will help Jon live the best life for him.

Breathe easy, thank you yet again for your unending support and friendship.