I want to take a moment to speak frankly and somewhat personally. Historically, I've praised FFXVI for having an excellent trauma narrative, and for the most part, I still think that's true.
But in this moment, during the final fight with Ultima, I feel it falls short. Clive tells Ultima that he could have never known suffering and implies that if he had, as humanity has, that he'd know that suffering results in togetherness and strength.
In most trauma survivor communities, it's considered a grave taboo and even outright cruel to suggest that one owes their strength to suffering. It's considered a form of toxic positivity. In those selfsame communities, one anecdote you might hear repeated from a great number of trauma-informed clinicians is that part of what makes trauma so terrible is that survivors are not infrequently abandoned, sabotaged, or preyed upon as a direct result of the horrors that befall them--even blamed for it--and tragically, by the very shoulders that should have been there for support. By the very hands that should have lifted them up. That is, anguish and suffering often beget more of the same and bring alienation, despair, and learned helplessness.
Clive is wrong here about his well-supported experience being the norm, and he's dead wrong to connect togetherness and strength as symptomatic of having truly suffered. While I can certainly point to a cohesive string of story events that tell why he ultimately came to rely on this line of thinking, as a trauma survivor myself...this last fight always stings, because I invariably start to feel like I too am on the receiving end of his condemnation. Some of the things Clive says to Ultima are things that people have said to me in the past nearly verbatim. (I have since received apologies from those individuals as they've become better educated, but... their words still haunt me.)
That is no small part of where I found my "sympathy for the devil", so to speak.
And if you want an idea of what trauma recovery might sometimes come to feel like when, all too often, you've received the opposite of support--when the very people, communities, and institutions meant to ensure your survival and recovery have instead turned on you, betraying their intended purpose; when your strength and will to live renew or persist but by your own stubbornness and unwillingness to stay down...well...It's a thing that can wax bitter, counterdependent, and full of rage.
38 notes
·
View notes
Queen Charlotte : A Bridgerton Story Review
SPOILERS !!!! watch out bae <333
honestly, ngl I watched this show only because of the chemistry in the teaser. like the wall scene encouraged me to watch it. Bridgerton is always a little hit and miss for me in a I could not finish season 1 for the life of me but watched the next one like 8 times.
It felt a little too fast paced and people began pissing me off from episode 1 but I reminded myself it was a historical show. Although her brother just signing her away and then saying 'shut up, it's already done' made me so mad ??? like let her react ??? even further down the episodes even when he's concerned, he's like oops sorry, already done now like bitch ??? 😭😭😭 so just #uselesss and annoying !!! I am sorry his little burst @ her got me because she didn't even have time to react !!!
The wall scene comes and I'm practically ready to jump but then to me it felt like the show was going 80 kms/min I was like woah woah woah, why is he saying all the right things... this is just moving too fast. (i want to gloat about being right about being suspicious but the way all i knew i was it felt shady, still had no idea what was coming fr 😭)
they were so cute and tender :'(((( ! like this is what the show kept doing to me till we got George POV. I kept on thinking we were just skipping conversations or moving too fast or just going at it because chemistry !!! but one thing about me, i'll see a romance show through and i'm kinda glad.
the show moves too quickly in the first 3 episodes for me, especially if you're binging it like me. a part of me is glad like yes babe! keep kissing each other (their chemistry is insane!) but the other part is like ??? you're not even going to talk about things. like initially i was even mad that he got to decide when they saw each other and got to be with her with a small ass apology. (the pov episode does so much for us as an audience but my girl was #robbed of many explanations)
they look great together!!! like even when she heard his outburst from the door and thought that he married her and is miserable. you could see both of them really liked each other which is why you keep waiting for an explanation, although i was wondering since they dropped each other's hands QUICKLY post coronation did the king not find it weird that she suddenly is angry ??? maybe i'll catch things on a rewatch. like he's ready and has moved in with her !!! but is not curious that she's visibly angry ???
i also will use this post to say everytime someone is not there in the morning after scenes with their partner, a part of me dies !!! unless they have gone to bring you food, you better be cuddling mate !
i for some reason called Brimsley and Renoylds little romance, i just felt vibes and yet I yelped happily when they started making out while wondering what is wrong with the king lmaooo. #real and also the actual power couple of the show! their interactions made the show worthwhile and i love how both of them were ready to risk all sorts of conduct because of how much they cared for these bozos. trust me their hands slowly touching each other had me waiting breathless because for a second i thought they were about to break up 😭 i wanted to see them grow old together
back to the king and queen shenanigans, honestly i thought that the king had just grown forgetful or just had old people problems in the og show so i was actually surprised when he ran out of the house looking for Venus.
episode 4 is we get George's pov and honestly for a bit my stubborn ass was still not ready to hear explanations till I saw him crumble into his mom's arms and it broke my heart. :( (i do not know what the illness is so i am not going to assume or probably read other posts and learn but it feels like anxiety is always a trigger for it and i felt like leaping in like a protective mother everytime someone put him in that situation)
the actor is so good with tender eyes, like the way he looked at her made me wipe out all of the memories of the earlier 3 episodes and go awwww you love her. that doctor was shady from the jump and just kept on getting worse, like the way i wanted to actually k!ll him. like he actually seemed to be enjoying the torture he was doling out on this poor man... with the obsessive need to tame him like WHEN I CATCH YOU ! (nasty ass loser, like when he spoke about taming the wolf i just knew he was not okay...) practically used the shaving routine as a way to threaten the king! loserrrr
i love that her calling that small dog a deformed bunny is what makes the king laugh (which is a relief to see post doc torture) and is what brings him out of this, and he's like fuck this shit! i'm seeing my wife. both the actors are so gorgeous...
also i am a sucker !!! for POVS and this one came with explanations so i was even a bigger sucker
Renoylds just placing a hand on the king's shoulder did more than what the dumbass doc's aggressive slaps or methods could do...
one night with the queen, one dance with the queen and the king was like i'm all healed up he's just like me !!! he was so in love lmao
then he has the episode and the queen handles it well, but he wakes up alone
the queen was fully right for asking questions but once again like the first heard the conversation through the doors, instead of even slight miscommunication, we get no communication. btw, she's pregnant too (which starts the venus panic in the first place) , blessings ! she actually begins to show a full bump and btw this is where i think the timeline fully goes helter skelter for me because did he just leave her for months and worse did he get TORTURED FOR MONTHS???
my girl is about to leave and a lot happens and i'm running out of word limit so i'll save that for another post but a chat with lady danbury #mygirl pushes the queen into the king's place and she rescues him. I NEEDED THAT BAD like you do not understand for a second i was convinced that the doctor would break him and the queen and the king would never even be able to say i love you, like i thought he'd somehow freeze in that moment right there (it is stupid but like i was actually afraid)
she saves him, they tell each other they love her and like i'm ready to go to war for them atp, they are so tender in the way they hug and you can see relief in his eyes, in her eyes and you let go of a breath you didn't know you were holding.
i love how she lets him heal but more in how she takes care of him when she can feel panic rise and his hands shake and how he calms listening to his voice ( take that nasty violent ass doctor)
the way they lied under the bed and he was afraid he would never be fully there for her and understood if she wanted to leave and she said fuch that! i love you and you're just george, just george to me <3
anyway, i feel a wave of sleep coming because i intelligently watched this at 2 am and it is 6 now but the last two episodes were me just awwing at the screen watching him trust her and himself and be happy with her. i'm so happy he got to share that with her
the children, lady danbury and violet thing I'll get onto later
the scene where the king's mom tells the queen that he's happy because of her is so sweet because it is reminiscent of the dance scene where she also realised he was happy happy.
i love how he swoops his arms around her !!! he's happy and safe <333
also this is where the timeline shakes me up because my girl is already pregnant??? AGAIN??? i feel like he helped her deliver their first baby in the same episode LMAOOOO
anyway text limit warning but yeah i liked it
46 notes
·
View notes
Gravity falls AU rant! Specifically cause I've been thinking too hard about relativity falls.
Mostly I've been trying to reconcile the common version with the fact that Dipper would never trust Bill.
Dipper and Ford are very similar, but Dipper doesn't have the same ego Ford does. At the age of 12 he only trusted his sister, an adult Dipper on his own would fall into depths of paranoia that would make him USELESS to Bill.
On the other hand Bill has a kind of fondness for Mabel exhibited in the show and reinforced in tBoB. She has a craziness he quite likes, and Mabel is much more swayed by that kinda flattery.
So.... Mabel-Ford and Dipper-Stan swap.
Grunkle Dipper (Mason?) is a somewhat nervous mad scientist type who turned his sister's weird house into a science museum for the people of gravity falls. Someone who insists there are logical explanations to the phenomena his nephews tell him about.
While Grauntie Mabel is a literal witch. Unlike Ford's made science she's much more mystical, using her love of art and the weird materials around the town to do things science cannot manage. Not nearly as easily. After being stuck in the multiverse for so long she's even zanier and more colorful than normal mabel
6 notes
·
View notes
OH MY GODRED IS IT FINALLY HAPPENING
Yes! I have finally made some pieces for my ttte gem!au, where they're pretty gem people, like that one 3d anime where everybody's gorgeous but sad things happen alllllll the tiiiiiime. This neat little world has some things like that, but not NEARLY as bad. I mean I'm all for pathos but I'm not a monster who would torture beloved characters. Yikes. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go read Houseki no Kuni online and prepare for Big Bad Moods(tm) and to wonder why the author hurt the baby so
Because I'm an old nerd who grew up with tatmr, I will begin with my two favourite brain synapses Lady and D10, as gem humanoids. If I were still doing gijinkas of the TV trains, they would also generally look like this, and I'm real happy with the hair designs. And the poses are sort of based off of one piece i made before IN A NOTEBOOK THAT WAS BLOODY STOLEN ALONG WITH PAGES AND PAGES OF OTHER ART I MADE, AND WHAT'S WORSE IS THAT INCLUDES THE ORIGINALS OF THE ART I DID POST, ALOT OF WHICH WAS UNFINISHED FGGFSFGHDGDFGGFFSDT guys it was so good I gave Lady a burger king crown to reference her gold funnel it would have been hilarious
Just like the canon, Lady is a big deal and D10 is still trying to destroy her. But the reason why this time around is a little more dramatic and cohesive. There is a clear reason why he hates her, and I wonder if you can possibly figure it out before I reveal it? There's a hint in the picture. How smart are you guys out there ô.ô
In the story, these two are, left to right, Yellow Chrysoberyl and Lady Gold. The gems usually refer to her as "their Lady", with lots of reverence, as she is the oldest living gem on Sodor. As for Chryso, he was a spunky gem even in the earlier days, until he began losing a lot of his crystal - he used to have longer hair. Then, when he lost one of his arms, was suddenly granted a fun augmentation of liquid copper that can morph into anything he wants. But the inclusion was...a bit painful? Sometimes it even shows mild sentience of it's own, and it now treats him like a friend. Though the very first thing it did was morph into a giant machine claw and try to crunch him...it didn't do much though. So Chryso got the idea to call it "Pinchy". But how exactly did he come across it? And what is Lady Gold's involvement?
7 notes
·
View notes