#I'm repeating patterns that probably traumatized her

[dodgeballstuckonthegymceiling]

I remember you saying that Reader would be great for teaching the harder things in life like death and grief and the like. Now I'm imagining them singing 'Dumb Ways to Die' as part of the lesson and Frank is taking notes while listening in horror

This got a chuckle out of me! Frank would probably be horrified if he knew all the ways you could die. Traumatized, even.

If you like my work, please consider commissioning me or leaving a tip on Ko-fi (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)

The Reader telling Frank the ways they could die

★ Frank listens as you begin to list all the ways a person could die. Focusing on the more stranger ones you can remember. He’s scribbling on his notepad as fast as he can. Flipping through as page after page is filled out. He had to start writing shorthand, just to keep up. “You memorized this?”

★ You don't notice how the air in the room changes. Julie had been sitting nearby, focused on a crossword puzzle. But her attention shifts to Frank as you speak. Looking at him in a way that says "Is that true?" But Frank is too busy writing down what you say.

★ In between thoughts, you mention how, if you wanted to die, plenty of poisonous plants exist. Like foxglove or autumn crocus. Casually mentioning it like that wouldn't be a concerning thing to say. Julie freezes mid-motion and looks at you. "Why would you say that?!?"

★ Do not mention death by torture. None of the puppets need to know about it. Not even Frank. You keep that particular detail to yourself. Its better that way. Your friends are too innocent to wrap their heads around such a thing.

★ Then, you bring up Florida man. The stereotype is a good example of human stupidity. And resilience. Frank squints. Looking through his notes to check if you mentioned it before. “Florida… Man?” Julie repeats. You sigh, realizing they have no idea what you're talking about.

★ So you explain. Telling them about the infamous Florida Man headlines. Stories about people doing strange, dangerous, and illegal things. Some losing their life in the process. Frank shakes his head. “You mean to tell me there’s a pattern of humans behaving like this?”

★ By the end Julie is in denial. “Okay, but you don’t really drop dead from these things? Right?” She laughs, its nervous. But you don’t answer. Frank, on the other hand, might finally be desensitized. "I don’t know why I listened to all that.”

[crldnvrs97]

Okay I have a bit of a difficult question. I don't know if you've watched house of the dragon (I'm assuming you have) but I did a rewatch recently and of course I have to make everything about nedcat. How do you think Ned would have acted if he was in a situation similar to that of Viserys in the first episode? Like if he was in a situation where the maester told him you either attempt to save the baby but sacrifice the mother or leave things to their fate and potentially lose them both? I personally don't think he would have made the same choice as Viserys but I would like to hear your take

Okay, so I did watch the first season and from what I recall, Aemma was basically doomed either way, her body had been worn down from a lifetime of childbearing and multiple traumatic pregnancies (and we blame Viserys for this btw). And by the time of this specific pregnancy, Mellos tells Viserys that the baby is in breech and asked him to either sacrifice Aemma or lose both her and the child. He informs him of a technique that is basically a c-section, and that the resulting blood loss will kill Aemma without a doubt.

It wasn't simply "choose baby or wife," but he was really asking a more sinister question: "your wife is dying either way, do you try to save the child, or lose both?"

But when applying that to Ned and Catelyn, it becomes a very different emotional landscape. Catelyn and Ned, for all the trauma their family would eventually suffer, weren’t operating from that same place of medical hopelessness. There’s no indication in canon that Catelyn had repeated miscarriages or stillbirths. She had five healthy children, and while that alone is incredibly physically demanding--especially in a world without advanced medicine--she clearly survived childbirth over and over without fatal complications. So while she absolutely could have had a difficult labor (and with five babies, statistically, at least one probably wasn’t smoother than the others), it’s not the same pattern of loss and trauma that Aemma went through.

And changes some things for this.

Because Viserys, for all his wrongs, made a choice from despair. He was told his wife would die and saw the baby as the only potential gain. He was greedy for a son. For the continuation of his line. He prioritized the idea of his future, his throne, his dynasty, over the person in front of him--his wife, who trusted him and had no say in what happened to her. It was a betrayal dressed in duty.

Ned, in that same scenario, but with Catelyn, who has never been in quite that level of physical peril, would have hope. And hope, for Ned, is enough to wait. Enough to let fate play out rather than seize control and sacrifice one life to maybe get another. Enough to tell her how dire the situation really is (something that Viserys did not even do in the show) and let her to choose, instead. Ned isn’t a man who’s comfortable taking a life for a “what if.” Especially not Catelyn’s life. Especially not when there’s still even a sliver of chance that both could survive.

So if the maester came to him and said, “She might die either way, but we could attempt to save the baby if we act now,” Ned wouldn’t leap at that. He wouldn’t gamble with her body like that. He would agonize, yes, but at the end of the day, I think he’d lean toward protecting her unless he knew with certainty that she wanted the maesters to try everything to save the child. And if she wasn’t conscious to express that? He wouldn’t presume. Not with her life on the line. Not when her life is the foundation of his home, his children, and frankly--himself.

He’d likely say something like, “If there’s still a chance for both, then let them fight.” That’s a very Ned thing: grim, honorable, rooted in painful patience. He’d sit beside her, hold her hand, and let the gods decide, not the blade.

And to the point about her surviving five births already--that’s a huge testament to her strength. And Ned knows that. He knows what she’s already endured for their family, and he’d respect that by not choosing her death on the chance of one more child.

So yeah. Even if things were dire, even if the odds weren’t good, he wouldn’t make that call like Viserys did. Not without her voice. Not without hope. And not when her life, her presence meant everything to him and their children.

And if she did die? It would destroy him. He’d never forgive himself either way. But at least he wouldn’t live with the knowledge that he chose it.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

“Here is a real example of toxic masculinity, when a man openly uses physical and emotional violence and insults, because he considers his girlfriend his property who is not allowed to talk to other men or not to show proper admiration for him. And then brazenly initiate physical contact, ignoring her legitimate annoyance of him.”

This is about Zuko throwing a guy across the room for talking to Mai and then trying to wrap an arm around her despite their break up. Thoughts?

I am once again begging this fandom to learn what words mean AND to figure out how nuance works already. Two things can be true at the same time.

Mai didn't have to like (or pretend to like) the seashell Zuko got her, but she could have at least appreciated the gesture. Zuko getting paranoid that her being unimpressed means she doesn't actually like him makes perfect sense considering his trauma, but it was still all in his head and he had no reason to accuse Mai of cheating.

Jealousy can sometimes be a sign of some deep insecurity/trust issue or potential red flag, but it is also a completely normal human emotion that shouldn't be pathologized just because it's an unpleasant one that makes people lose their cool.

And more importantly: Zuko could have tried handling the situation some other way instead of IMMEDIATELY going for a physical fight, BUT there's literally no one in the world that wouldn't have gotten really mad if someone was blatantly making moves on their partner, KNOWING they had someone - because that's what that guy was doing, not "just talking".

Mai probably only didn't notice his intention because she couldn't be bothered to think about a random stranger for more than two seconds. There's a reason she broke up with Zuko over his unfair accusations, but also didn't stay at the party much longer.

I'm all for pointing out that zutarians often ignore Zuko's flaws (which do include entitlement and a generally toxic, over-aggressive mentality/pattern of behavior) while demonizing Aang for doing stuff that isn't anywhere near as serious as the bullshit Zuko gets up to, but that is NOT the same as going "Let's exagerate Zuko's bad behavior especifically when it comes to his romantic relationship."

There are TWO episodes in which he and Mai aren't seeing eye to eye, and this is the ONLY ONE in which the source of the conflict isn't something as serious them finding themselves in opposing sides in a war. Zuko was the one who behaved the worse during The Beach, but Mai also messed up. After the big confrontation by the fire, neither of them EVER repeats the same bad behaviors (being too apathetic, communicating poorly, jumping to conclusions and picking up a fight).

Of all the people that played a significant role in Zuko's story and arc, Mai is pretty high up on the list of "Characters he had the least conflict with", losing only to Ursa, who was around for one episode (set before THE traumatic event that pushed Zuko to be his worst self).

He said mean things to her that one time, but it never crossed the line into full on verbal abuse like it did with Iroh, or open hostility with threats to her safety like with the Gaang or Azula (even if we need to cut him some slack when it comes to his sister because *gestures broadly at their disaster rivalry*).

The same episode in which he's treating her worse than ever has him openly admiring her for not putting up with it, and he's being completely sincere because one of Zuko's most consistent character traits is not having the patience to deal with people that just roll over and let him do as he pleases (there's a reason Iroh consistently got through to him far more effectively when he wasn't walking on egg-shells, trying to avoid upseting him or bruising his ego, and got screwed over, or straight up ditched, whenever he bit his tongue for the sake of avoiding a fight - Zuko is naturally drawn to people that keep him in check.).

Zuko behaved like a bad boyfriend ONCE, got dumped for it, opened up about what the fuck was going through his head to make him act that way, won his girl back and, again, NEVER REPEATED THAT MISTAKE - and in fact his entire role in this story is being the dude that is trying to be a better person who can hold himself accountable when he fucks up.

That's not how a sexist, possessive, entitled boyfriend that is set in his ways acts. That's how a literal teenager that's dealing with a lot behaved on a really bad day.

Taking this isolated incident and pretending that's just how Zuko is as a boyfriend is no different than if people were to claim Katara is an entitled, jealous, egotistical loser that can't handle it when other people are better than her just because of the ONE episode where she snapped at Aang out of envy for his waterbending skills. It's an unfair, biased reading that only works if you ignore multiple episodes worth of context.

Zuko wasn't a saint or a perfect boyfriend, but he wasn't ever abusive or even genuinely toxic to Mai. We don't need to pretend otherwise just because zutarians decided to label him as the first male to ever do a feminism while the evil Aang is TOTALLY telling women to go back to the kitchen where they belong. You don't respond to bad faith arguments by saying something equally stupid. Literally all it does is invalidate the point you were trying to make.

[asarigg]

Excuse me, person I respect a lot 🥺❤️ I've been checking your analyses of KouR, I haven't been able to see them in depth, but according to what I saw you didn't mention this (correct me if I'm wrong please!) What do you think of Kou in his BE basically being forced to repeat the cycles of violence of both his parents? Like, for example, he ends up imprisoned by his partner (like his mother), but at the same time he does violence against Aoba (like his father with his mother).

I think it took on more weight for me, when in Disk 2 Track 2 of the DramaCD, Kou mentions that when they left Midorijima, his mother was restrained to threaten him so he wouldn't object to being the heir; that later she in Kou's memory of the massacre (Kou's Scrap) appeared wearing only underclothes (at least in the Jast USA translation), makes me think it's not far-fetched to believe that maybe she was in a similar situation to Kou's BE, imprisoned and being used in…. that way.

(It's weird because the way Kou attacked her shouldn't end with her without clothes, I think). As a person that has been close to toxic relationships of friends and family, noticing certain patterns in Kou's story really gave me chills (like Kou's mother having low self-esteem and, apparently, initially choosing to stay in an environment of violence rather than walking away with her son, because of all this emotional dependency she had developed --- I say this because as I understood it, when they were forced to return was when they realized that the wife couldn't have children, i.e. them didn't know from before).

Anyway, this definitely made me admire and love Kou a lot, because he only ends up like in his BE due to circumstances VERY beyond his control; in a normal context, he managed to overcome both cycles, because in any GE that wasn't his own, he would simply let Aoba be ❤️ Not trying to make him stay with him no matter what or anything like that.

This interpretation also makes me feel REALLY bad at the end of Track 2 Disk 2, with that memory of little Aoba saying that he should take care of Kou, when in his BE he ends up being his aggressor… (and indeed it's him, not an alter ego, but an unknown part of himself, as seems to happen in many toxic relationships 😫).

I tried to summarize it a lot ksks, thank you for your attention! I don't know what you think about it.

💖😖

i kind of do mention it on different parts, but i don't focus on it specifically i guess.

And yeah you're absolutely right. There's a cycle of violence and abuse that Koujaku just can't get out of on his own. He's constantly scared that he'll do what he did when he blacked out again (killing in mass) or any of the violence that was inflicted on him or his mother (rape and his father's abusive behavior), so that's why he behaves the way he does as an adult, and why he treats women like that, being a toy for them. He puts great efforts on demonstrating a masculine side of him that isn't violent like his father's, but protective and loving.

It's never mentioned, but knowing how traumatic everything was, not only you could understand that Koujaku's father was still raping her at the time, but that Koujaku himself was a product of it. If he knows or not... that's for interpretation, but as he grew up and lost his innocence he could probably put two and two together. If I don't remember wrong Koujaku says that he loved her, as her toy obviously because he could do whatever he wanted with her, but it kind of reminds me of Vitrip and how they kiss Aoba and caress him even tho they enslaved him. He saw right through them when he met them uh. We don't know why she's in that house, it might be because of some debt, maybe she was sold like in the good old times, or maybe she truly loved him and was deceived.

The underclothes give a sensation of her running to her son too, leaving everything else behind. Like she's unprepared, under dressed, because her son is the most important thing for her, and she leaves whatever she was doing to run to his side. Could also be as a sign of purity, like she's an innocent being that was murdered, betrayed, covered with her own blood. As a horror reference too. And yeah, the implications of her being like that because his father kept assaulting her are...

While on the outside Koujaku is his own person, he learned a lot of things from his mother. He has a people's pleaser's nature, somewhat submissive at times, he's constantly self blaming even for stuff that is out of his control, he feels responsible and guilty, developed low self-esteem, and he's a caretaker too. His mother was saying sorry all the time, keeping things to herself and acting like things were okay, although they were obviously not. She didn't want her son to suffer, and she felt guilty that he was living through all that.

Koujaku went from being his father's prisoner, to Ryuuhou's, then Aoba's. You can imagine what he was thinking when he assaulted Aoba. He was hurting the person he cared the most, the one that prevented him from suicide, repeating his father's behavior towards his mother. And Ryuuhou's behavior and weirdly sexual way of speaking and everything about his tattoo pretty much give the idea that he might have been raped as well, so only makes things worse. In the bad ending he just becomes Sly's pet just like his mother's was his father's pet. Just telling him "You're just like your mother" is something terrifying.

Tbh personally, I know it's like the canon stuff that everyone goes to their normal lifes and shit, but I can't believe that Koujaku really keeps living normally. I personally think he's at a very high risk of dying anyway, either because he kills himself or because of Ryuuhou. We all know that Ryuuhou was actually around during the common route and it's difficult for me to belief that he wouldn't still try to get to Aoba or that he wouldn't notice the traces Ryuuhou left to catch his prey. Sooner or later he's gonna see the tattoo at Mizuki's shop, and he's either gonna go find him, leaving the island maybe if we're talking about post PJ to search for him again. He's either going insane or getting killed because he doesn't have Aoba now to help him lol

[omgthatdress]

Everything I know about the royals comes from Tumblr memes and one bonus episode of a totally unrelated podcast but now I'm morbidly curious, so: what's up with William? And the Middletons? Or if that's a longer story than you want to explain, do you have recommendations for where to read about this that is likely to be fairly accurate?

I don't have any facts I just have pure fucking speculation if that's okay. :)

Like I've been saying for a long-ass time the one thing I absolutely LOVED about The Crown was its portrayal of generational trauma. It very skillfully showed how being a shitty husband who cheats on his wife and treats his kids like garbage was passed down from Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark to Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh to King Charles and then to Prince William. Hell, it probably started long before that but holy shit THE CYCLE OF DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE BE REPEATING ITSELF.

And if you really want to dig into it, well.... I think he and Harry followed a pattern that a LOT of siblings of bitter and messy divorce fall into, one kid sides with the mom, one with the dad. It's been said a LOT that Harry was Diana's favorite son, so it probably started with that. And OF COURSE William is gonna side with Charles because well... he's the heir. They have that shared trauma.

And then there's the way the whole "heir and spare" thing absolutely perverts any relationship they might have had as brothers. Charles managed to have a decent relationship with his siblings, I think, because first of all, Anne was a girl, and then Andrew and Edward were significantly younger than him and Anne, so there wasn't this unnaturally massive imbalance of power between them. One of the reasons I've come to believe the monarchy should be abolished is because of how badly it damages the structure of a family in a way that no one should have to deal with.

I think Diana might have been able to guide William into being a better person if she'd have lived, but idk. It may be wishful thinking. His relationship with her became kind of strained when he was a teenager and she was going on TV to tell the whole fucking world about her sex life. I think Diana did the right thing exposing the family like she did, but I can also understand how a 13 year old boy would be absolutely humiliated by that.

THEN there's the whole way he was a MASSIVE heartthrob as a teenager, and was intensely sexualized for it. Like it will absolutely mess with you when you have girls screaming and throwing themselves at you when you're still trying to figure your own sexuality out. It will also massively inflate your ego and convince you that the whole world loves you and there's nothing you can do wrong.

SOOOOOO

as for his relationship with Kate. She's much harder to pin down because she hasn't spent her entire fucking life in the spotlight, and the Middletons are sill granted a certain degree of privacy that the Windsors aren't. I don't think they're as absolutely fucked up as Diana's family was but I still definitely think her mom was a major driving force behind her staying with William.

I think there actually was some initial mutual attraction and that they may have even actually been in love. Buuuut then he waited ten years to propose to her, during which he cheated and they broke up and got back together. Honestly, I don't know what Kate's damage was with all of that, whether or not she was able to convince herself that William wouldn't be another shitty husband, or if she was willing to put up with his bullshit if it meant she would be queen.

Diana was more or less picked out as a bride for Charles because it was assumed that she would be a meek and beautiful wifey who never caused any problems. I mean, she was 19 and he was 32 for fuck's sake. She very much wanted to be queen. BUT what everyone wasn't counting on was that Diana would *gasp* have some serious emotional needs. She was deeply traumatized by her own parents' incredibly bitter divorce, overwhelmed and deeply lonely in her position as princess, and on top of that, suffering from bulimia and then post-natal depression. She needed love and support and Charles spent the whole marriage balls deep in Camilla.

Kate had a much more stable upbringing and had more than a few months to get to know both William and what her role as a princess would be. Ultimately, the vibe I get from her is that she's willing to be the perfect meek beautiful wifey who puts up with William's bullshit if it means she can be royal, which is exactly what Diana was supposed to be.

And I don't mean that to knock or belittle her. She's good at it. She looks incredibly happy when she's doing that. It's her career. It's an exchange I can actually really understand making, especially when your only other prospects involved working for your parents' party company.

But I could be extremely wrong about all of this Maybe she's absolutely miserable but she feels like she has no other options and worried about losing her kids and is terrified of what happened to Diana. It's hard to know, and I wish The Crown would have at least committed to *something* rather than just brushing all of this off.

[cruesuffix]

Nikki Anon again, LMAO. I'm loving this discussion, by the way, I swear mick fans are the most sane people I meet on this hellsite.

Anyways

You can really understand his psyche when you go digging into his childhood. He was perpetually ignored and yanked around at an adults whim. (His mother, his grandparents)

The only time he was answered was until he lashed out to a violent, extreme point. (Slashing his arm open & blaming his mother)

You can see this pattern repeat itself time and time again, where he purposefully lashes out in a wildly inappropriate way because he knows it will get him the attention he craves.

You see it with the nazi stuff, with saying the n-word/being racist, and the 'pranks'.

I will say, I also noticed how scared, miserable, and consistently craving affection without being judged he felt while on heroin. The depression and vulnerability persisted through his cruelty.

He's a product of his own time, of his childhood, of the world as a whole around him. He's still running from who he was, and if I was him, I would too.

------------------------

Oh also, about the racism, nazi stuff, drugs & pedophilia claims.

One very very important thing about Nikki's personality is he loves to piss people off for attention, which I covered above, regardless of the stake.

So when he said those things on the radio show about Megan, he was doing it for two reasons in my opinion: 1. Shock factor, broadcasted 2. "Holy fuck I'm high as shit"

Now, drugs are no excuse, but they are a reason. I did some digging, and heroin does have a severe impact on the 'white matter' of your brain, degrading it. Which white matter is believed to be connected to quite a few things: including cognitive function and critical thinking.

Using Nikki as a case study, you can see this play out in his entries. His entries grow longer when he's clean (and at home), and more complex in contents.

80s - 90s music history, including its celebrities and vices, is my favorite thing in this world regardless of its flaws and stained glory.

hi nikki anon!! (new nickname alert!) i love having this conversation a lot, because there’s so much nuance to it. and also, i swear all the mick stans I come across are all the most sane normal people, it’s like a breath of fresh air. that being said, people like you are also a breath of fresh air!! anyone in this fandom that can properly hold the guys accountable without fifty “buts” and “well actuallys” are cool in my book! <333

i do agree with your analysis on nikki’s personality and how exactly he became what he did. i think his overall fear of abandonment (which shows very clearly in the heroin diaries imo) definitely did a number on him and how he chose to interact with other people. his all or nothing mentality also plays a big part of it too. i also do think he did a lot of stuff to piss people off, whether artistically or just in his real life. and of course the drugs play a HUGE part in all of it as well. i think his childhood is a very important factor to consider when talking about him and the stuff that he does.

and while i get that the drugs were probably the main reason, i do fear when ppl bring it up because a lot of people mainly use it as an excuse when talking about these incidents. i get it though. nikki wasn’t in his right mind for most of the 80’s so really he was just saying whatever came to his mind first. but, i’d rather look at it from another perspective: his victims. yes, nikki himself was a victim of a terrible childhood, but what he chose to do after that dictates his personality to me. there is the whole “victim becomes abuser” thing, which i understand as well. it’s hard to chose to do the right thing when the environment you grew up in was so toxic. you learn toxic behaviours and you don’t realize they’re wrong until much later in life.

however, i can’t help thinking about people like megan, who was probably confused and traumatized by her encounter with nikki. it’s so scary and weird when an older man makes comments like that when you’re so young. at twelve i myself didn’t know much about sexual things like that, so i can only imagine her being so confused wondering what he was talking about. also, to be talked to like that on live radio with a lot of people listening has to be so embarrassing. i can’t help but think about that woman who was raped by nikki at that party, who went home with vague memories of said party and probably will never get closure about it because nikki wants to pretend it never happened. if she ever read the dirt, i wouldn’t be able to imagine the embarrassment and shame in knowing someone you trusted took advantage of you and never had the guts to tell you, but would rather laugh about it in a book twenty years after the fact. i can’t help but think about the jewish, and very small portion of black fan the crue had who had to hear their fav say slurs and cosplay nazis in front of them. to know the safe space you created for yourself, the band that helped you through tough times would turn around and use slurs used against you is heartbreaking. i know it because hearing both nikki and mick say those words directly hurt me. and i will continue to call both of them out for it, seeing as they both didn’t apologize for it. (peepaw catch these hands)

i want to be very careful when i talk about nikki, and i think his fans should too. yes the drugs were the main reason he was doing these things, but instead of using that as a prop to defend him, we should simply acknowledge that people were still hurt by his actions, whether he was sober or not. ofc i’m not saying that’s what you’re doing at all, it’s very good we understand what nikki was going through at the time.

they are all flawed individuals. though, often times i’m hard press to give definitive tags to them. do i think vince is a murderer? no. do i think mick is a violent racist? no. do i think nikki is a pedophile? no. i think all of their situations are very complex and nuanced. i always give the benefit of the doubt, even if i don’t necessarily like a member. maybe you can say i flip flop a bit, but i think it’s so hard to put any of them down as hardcore evil demented people, especially because there’s still love attached to my thoughts about them. you are right, nikki still does hide from the person he was, but i think it would do him some good to understand its ok to be that nerdy kid that just wanted someone to love him. it’s ok to own up to the nasty behaviour he exhibited, and it’s ok to let go of that part of himself and grow as a person.

and before i keep yapping (at least until i answer the next ask), i think therapy really would have benefited these losers… LMAOOO especially mick!! i think he needed it the most next to nikki.

[saezurufeels]

pineapplekarol

I think Doumeki did kind of notice, when he had that conversation with Nanahara in the rooftop 4 years ago . He realized something. He was having flashbacks of Yashiro saying "You look like the type that would have normal gentle sex so no" and flashbacks of him saying "I don't know what to do with you " I think that's when he realized that Y used rough sex as a way to constrain himself. And since that is not what he can give him he would not be able to constrain himself

--

Not sure whom you were responding to, but I'll just add my thoughts to this.

I mentioned that healing isn't a linear process, which means that sometimes people have setbacks, or things change in another direction completely. When I said that it's important for Doumeki to realize this, I meant that he not only needs to realize that Yashiro was traumatized that time they had sex 4 years ago (which, I agree, D has realized), but he also needs to realize that him changing his tactics so abruptly isn't the best way to go about it either. Look at Yashiro's response in chapter 46. Sure, Doumeki changed his tactic, but it didn't get the reaction he was probably hoping for; so it wasn't the right strategy. Instead, Doumeki should have taken his time getting to know Yashiro again after 4 years in order to understand what Y needs now. But Doumeki jumped to conclusions from the moment he saw Inami calling Yashiro's phone, then assuming, "I guess people never really change" or something like that.

I'm glad to see that the story is taking this route, because I think it will strengthen and enhance Doumeki's character development (and the otherall themes of Seazuru). Specifically, I'm talking about the fact that somehow all the important people in Doumeki's life always end up with sexual trauma; and Doumeki somehow always makes the wrong decisions in response to that trauma. It's his biggest flaw-- this repeating mistake he makes. He unintentionally pushes away the people (Aoi, Yashiro) he wants to help. In Aoi's case, Doumeki turned the cold shoulder, resulting in a long period of isolation for her. After D got out of prison, he barely made an effort to be in her life, even though that's what Aoi wanted; it would have made her feel loved, but it also would have alleviated her guilt. Now in Yashiro's case, Doumeki can't seem to figure out how to be close to him, which is inadvertently hurting Y. Doumeki needs to find a way to break away from this pattern. That's his challenge. Maybe that means he needs to be more expressive (in every sense of the word)? It remains to be seen what he will do and I'm excited to find out.

[sneakerdoodle]

@everymomentonearetwo and i had a very good conversation last night that went something like

"listen, Boober and Wembley WORK but idk HOW because they are the most dysfunctional gays there are, Wembley just keeps enabling Boober's spirals so it's just them sitting on their own getting progressively more bogged down by the weight of the world and it's not GOOD and shouldn't work as a dynamic, but it??? does???"

"you see it's about the polycule dynamic of the Fraggle group, where everyone's bonds with each other are essential to every other relationship, like how Red and Mokey help Boober and Wembley out of their mental labyrinths. without the rest of them these two would not make it"

"would not last even two days"

"...Fraggles are a polycule where no one is actually in a polyamorous relationship, just wlws and mlms and Gobo is the guy who's just there"

"and they all support each other's mental well-being collectively".

"yeah! Red and Boober..."

"Red and Boober are very good bc Red tries to snap Boober out of thought spirals when he gets freaked out and Boober helps Red through her fear when anything genuinely bad happens"

"yeah!!!! and also like, with Red's debilitating ADHD and lack of object permanence and general awareness, she often straight up cannot notice or process how dangerous something she's about to do is, so when Boober starts listing off every horrible thing that might happen she's like "ah. yes. probably should be careful with that". they support each other both concsiously and organically through how their Things mix"

"Gobo is like.... a neurotypical brain gauge... he deals with extreme derealization and depersonalization via masking and autopiloting to the point where he just mimics functionality so convincingly that everyone is like, ah, this is how brains Should process this. he keeps verbally dismissing everyone's weird little thought patterns and impulses and they're like, okay, so i'm overthinking this bc i have symptoms syndrome, got it."

"yeah, and it's funny cause like... when he's in the pit nobody knows how to help him at all lol"

"yeah but it's great too cause everyone's trying! it's like, he's always the one keeping everyone else in check, and when he burns out and crashes it's a collective effort to get him through that and cheer him up"

"Wembley's sort of the same as Gobo in that, he just naturally reminds everyone they're spiraling, but through repeating it back to them. someone expresses a Worry and Wembley rolls with it and repeats it verbatim and the other person's like, "...huh. now that i hear it from you like that. this is silly. i'm over it"

"it's interesting cause with neurodivergent fraggles it's like... how did they get here? Wembley and Red are just autistic and ADHD respectively, Boober probably had a traumatic accident as a child, which makes sense in a cave system, so now he has OCD, and Gobo's like that just bc his family SUUUUCKS".

"...what do you think is up with Mokey?"

"hmmm... i have no reason to think she has SAD. but i just feel like assigning her SAD"

"there's actually an episode later on that implies that Gobo might have it!"

"awww they're SAD friends!!!"

"Mokey seems so functional is the thing"

"she probably just... copes with it by writing very intense wistful poems"

"yeaaahh Mokey poeticizes all her struggles to the point where she's normal now"

"it's interesting that when she struggles she often seeks higher guidance from someone wise and more mature... she looks at her friend group and is like, yep, none of these dorks can help me"

[csa-survivor-confessions]

? Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve to be called a victim? I wasn't raped, only molested, so obviously i'm not traumatized enough, right? It wasn't a big deal if it wasn't rape. But then why does it still keep me up at night? Why do the memories of how I was used as a fucking sex toy for my friend, my other friend's fucking brother, and my own god-damn cousin seep into everything I do? Friend didn't even have contact with me. The brother was never inside me. Only my cousin was inside me. WHY

? Sorry, I was the person who sent in that "WHY" vent. I realized I didn't actually include a question. Why do I think it wasn't enough? I still feel horrified and exhausted by what was done to me. My friend made me fuck her teddy bear when I was like five, my other friend's brother played House with me and told me he had to get on top of me if I wanted to have kids and coaxed me into clothed air grinding while our siblings watched, and my cousin molested me in my sleep. How do I make myself belive? 

(why vent person) How do I make myself believe it was real? Why don't I think it's enough? Am I just a fucking idiot? Sorry, this is probably really jumbled and confused. The memories have kept me up until 5 am, I have school today/tomorrow. Sorry, I just don't know what to do to make it stop. I just want to sleep. I just want to fucking sleep

Hello friend, 

I’m so sorry you are feeling so exhausted. I understand that feeling and it’s so painful to deal with, trauma insomnia is terrible and hard. 

Trauma is not defined by the legal definition, the severity of trauma is defined by the reaction we experience. It might help to read this Informational Article: Define Trauma, knowing what trauma is can help us understand what we are going through and can help us since we are no longer grasping at social norms. 

Many trauma survivors feel like our experiences weren’t “enough” weren’t really “bad” or “really abuse:. Your not alone and definitely not an idiot. Our culture tends to downplay abuse and trauma and that can make us feel like our experience isn’t enough. And believing it’s not real comes from the way our brain tries to protect ourselves by dissociating from the trauma and can make the trauma feel fake. But it’s not fake our experience is real. 

You can help yourself cope with it by using affirmations. Just repeating to yourself that you're story is real helps reinforce those thought patterns. I know it sounds hokey but focusing on that is good. 

Another way is focusing on healing your emotions without too heavily focusing on the narrative aspects of what happened. Write, paint, sculpt, play music whatever feels right.

Working on coping with trauma responses will also be useful in dealing with the body memories and trauma you carry. This can also help with sleep and dealing with the memories. Coping Skills Masterposts: Panic Attacks, Flashbacks & Dissociation & Coping Skills: Obsessive Thoughts

 Be Blessed,

-Admin 2

[saerwenindahouse-blog]

TFP as a prediction of s5

PART 1

THE FINAL PROBLEM

(Before you read this, I just wanted you to give a quick information about this meta.

When I sat down to write it, it became too long and too complicated to put into one post, so I'm making several parts. I’ve got 5 planned so far but that may change.

I will list all predictions at the end of the last part.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading!)

After watching TFP time and again I realised that the whole episode just serves the purpose of telling us about as good as everything about what will happen in s5.

Everything in s4 is happening in Sherlock’s mind palace, he is still on the plane from HLV/TAB on his way back from his 5 minute long exile.

“But what about TST and TLD?”, I can hear you asking. Well, those are simply cases Sherlock reconstructed in his mind palace. ‘The Six Thatchers’ already exists on John’s blog which Sherlock has been reading on the plane in HLV/TAB.

‘The Lying Detective’ is actually nothing more than ‘A Study in Pink’. (I will write about that in another meta.)

Before I get into the major topic, why is the episode named ‘The Final Problem’? Simply because of two reasons:

1. The fans. When ACD published TFP, it was to kill Holmes off and bring an end to the story. However, the fans were so outraged about Holmes’ death that ACD was obliged to continue the story again after a while. Mofftiss are doing the same thing with us. So far, we always had cliffhangers at the end of every season. S4 finished like it was the end of the whole series, just like ACD tried back then. But, just like the old times, fans have been outraged about the whole thing, demanding a new episode or a whole new series. Mofftiss let us go through the same hell.

2. The prediction. Sherlock can’t go into battle without having a battle plan. The Game is all about The Final Problem, hence he’s got to know what The Final Problem is actually about. And, through millions of metaphors, he analyses himself to see what Moriarty wants to do. Which brings us to the question:

What is The Final Problem?

If we just look at TFP, The Final Problem is the little girl on the crashing plane. Sherlock needs to safe her. But that’s something I won’t go into in this part, since I dedicated the whole topic to part 2 of this meta. Just keep in mind for now that it matches up with the theory I will explain to you here.

Because, if we look back on all the former episodes, The Final Problem has been mentioned a few times already.

There was this one scene in TRF, where storyteller!Moriarty repeats and repeats that ruining Sherlock’s career is not The Final Problem.

That may have been the reason for the strange intro in TFP, Moriarty serves as the storyteller completing his story.

But that is not the only time The Final Problem is mentioned.

Again in TRF, Moriarty asks Sherlock outright if he's already figured out what The Final Problem is AND he adds that he's already told him. What exactly did he tell Sherlock before?

That's it. Sherlock's got a heart, which he cannot have, if Moriarty wants to possess him like he always did.

(This can be easily backed up by the psychological proof that psychopaths are incapable of loving.)

Sherlock loves and that's the big problem - The Final Problem.

But how do you make someone 'incapable of loving'?

You traumatise them.

Now, traumas can happen at any age but can have severe effects on a child.

And we know, through a few logical conclusions and the material we get from the show, that Sherlock very likely already suffered a traumatic experience as a child:

His best friend Redbeard was taken down.

We are told numerous times throughout the show that Sherlock never really had any friends, his only "friend" was Redbeard.

Unfortunately, his dog was euthanised, an experience that mast have been really bad for little Sherlock, not only because his beloved pet died, but because the only soul that loved him back (apart from family) was gone.

Suddenly, the little child was completely alone, a situation which can absolutely cause a trauma.

As an effect, his behaviour changed. If we believe Mycroft’s retelling of his, Sherlock’s and Eurus’ childhood (and we should, since that’s actually Sherlock telling himself this), we know that Sherlock was an emotional child before Redbeard’s death.

That’s one of the symptoms to a trauma, something you can read about here. If you don’t want to read it, I will list some reactions that could match Sherlock’s behaviour:

- social isolation & withdrawal

- changes in eating & sleeping patterns

- detachment from other people & emotions

- emotional numbing

- guilt (I will come back to this later)

Additionally, here are some examples for a child’s reactions to traumas:

- changes in eating habits

- becoming more demanding or difficult

- changes in their relationships with siblings, such as becoming more competitive or aggressive

- needing to relive the trauma (Sherlock’s already an adult when he is reliving the whole thing in his mind palace but he probably never let himself do it before. He always tried to suppress it.)

- withdrawal (in terms of not sharing thoughts & feelings)

It's very likely that this was the reason Mycroft started to tell Sherlock all that "Caring is not an advantage."-stuff.

He saw how much Sherlock suffered under the loss of Redbeard and tried to prevent the same situation from happening again.

What Mycroft perhaps didn’t expect (nor want) is that Sherlock took his little wisdom to heart too much.

As a cause, little Sherlock became generally emotionally withdrawn.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Everything that happened to Sherlock is exactly what Moriarty tries to achieve.

Only this time, he wants to burn his heart out, not just a friend but his love.

We know, and Moriarty definitely knows, too (, he has been obsessed with Sherlock since childhood after all), that killing John would completely break Sherlock.

What we don't know is to what extent.

BUT, don't be scared, our detective is aware of what will happen!

TFP is all happening in his mind palace, he is trying to detect what The Final Problem will contain.

Eurus, a Moriarty mirror, even tries to kill John off the same way as she did Redbeard, only that it isn't burning but the complete opposite: drowning.

Why? Somebody wrote a meta about water being a metaphor for emotions. (If this person reads this, just let me know so I can leave a real link here!)

They are DYING IN HIS EMOTIONS he so desperately kept locked away deep down in his mind palace - deep waters (this is a reference to a former meta I wrote here).

That's actually even more tragic, since Sherlock's love is the cause for their deaths, he blames himself for it.

So, the first prediction of this meta is:

The climax of s5 will be Moriarty trying to kill John. He will not succeed.

This is the "1895" of BBC Sherlock, the actual Reichenbach scenario of this adaption.

But we know that "1895" has been broken through, Mofftiss has intended another ending.