#Might be the cumulated trauma

[a-timely-problem]

Overheard at the BAU

random unsub: "Before you cuff me, I have a question"

Hotch: "Go on"

Unsub: "...Do you only hire hot people? Because somehow all of your profilers could get it"

Hotch: ...

Unsub: "Like damn." /He winks/ "Now you can handcuff me."

Hotch: "...Now I kinda wish I had been hit by a bullet earlier."

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

What do you think of Big City Engine?

I don't have many thoughts tbh.

I do think it would be funny if he and Henry had a years-long rivalry. Bit of a standard-bog macho chest-thumping who's-the-bigger-badder engine sort of deal, overlaid with some city mouse vs. country mouse dynamic. The NWR lot spent much of early nationalisation listening to Henry gripe about the Big City Engine's arrogance or make plans to put him in his place but it never really did get too dramatic. Big City Engine isn't a bad fellow really, he's all right. So it's not an existential threat or anything. It was just kind of a low-stakes little sideshow that always entertained the rest of the engines once in a blue moon when BCE came in.

Gordon fancies it's due to his superior diplomacy and mediation that the rivalry never boiled over. Gordon believes this because Gordon likes to nurture his little delusions.

[amazinglyashy]

hello, idk if you're open but if you dooo, can you do HC of lads seeing MC being more...brutal? since we all know our mc is badass but kind right, but what if sometimes she slipped and her darkness come forth more than she usually let on? hahahah idk it just after all mc been through she's more than validated to be villain u kno. so yea! thankchuu

Just a heads up, I am ALWAYS open, it's just a matter of when I get to the request, so as long as you're patient, anyone can send in anything anytime!! :D And ooh, this is an interesting one, but something I've definitely thought about haha. MC's been through a lot, and I feel a lot of readers also have too, and there comes a point when you gotta say screw it, I'm mad now. (I'll also say I'm still really grumpy about how little we get regarding MC's grieving during certain points of the story, and the lack of how the Li's all react as well to the news, no matter how little they know about the situation :/) Thank you for the request <3 hope you enjoy!

Love and Deepspace Li's reaction to seeing you finally snap

Rafayel -

He's somehow... not surprised.

But can you blame him?

The amount of rage Rafayel carries in his heart is constantly, constantly threatening to bubble up to the surface and boil over the edges of his last remaining ounces of humanity. The amount of cruelty on the basis of pure rage that he could commit is not a volume that he is proud to carry, but something he carries heavily though.

So seeing you finally snap is... almost cathartic.

He knows what he's been through, hell- he knows a great deal of what you've been through. Even in the distant past. It would be a wonder if you weren't angry. If you weren't seeing things. If you hadn't 't been simmering up to your breaking point from microaggressions and trauma stacking up and up until-

Here you were.

And for him, it feels like you're doing something of your own volition- feeling something that was entirely your own. Devoid of any outside influence or need to be the kindest person in the room. To keep your head down, path straight and narrow.

And despite the sheer amount of power he possesses in comparison to you, he will admit if asked- that he was just a little bit afraid at first. Even if just for a moment.

And damn, he was proud of you.

Zayne -

Calmly, he watches you.

It's out of character, sure, given how you usually are. Even when you're rude or abrasive, it's never anywhere near... something quite like this.

But the other thing is- he has a good grasp on the human psychic, just from his medical knowledge, even though it isn't his main area of study. He knows what it takes to truly make someone snap, both from personal experience and from his findings in research.

He also knows the extent of things you have been through that have been building up, cumulating into this moment before him where you have finally just broken.

Depending on the level of rage and cruelty you reach, he may stop you, or he may let you go. Either way, his actions are calm and calculated, no matter how he might disagree with, agree with, or fear your actions. He knows someone needs to remain levelheaded in this situation, and he's more than capable of taking on that role.

Gods forbid once you calm down that you feel guilty. If what you did was uncalled for or wrong, he'll discuss it with you, but if there was justifications to your actions or experiences and trauma that had led you to your moment, he'll just pull you into a hug slowly, his expression even.

He'll say it if he needs to, but his actions will hopefully tell you that nothing, nothing you do will ever change his love for you.

Xavier -

He's startled.

He himself is used to having complete control over his emotions, to the point where he can disguise them exceedingly well to maintain a calm aura. So seeing you fully snap and head down a warpath, it's... shocking.

But he's not entirely surprised.

Honestly, he would be more surprised if you had never got this angry at all, given the things you had told him under the covers in his bed, after a particularly late night in his apartment watching movies together.

You've been through a lot.

He knows that.

He knows how it hurts.

So when you finally rage, it takes him a few moments for even the thought of stopping you to enter his mind. And even when it does, he first has to have a small battle internally on whether or not letting you go off and have your cathartic moment is better, even at the cost of a little bit of destruction.

He'll stop you if it's particularly dangerous though, even if it means having to wrestle you away from whatever it is that was taking the brunt of your anger.

Otherwise, he'll just let you go.

Whenever you're done though, if you dare try and steal a glance back towards him, afraid that you may have scared him or made him scared or angry with you-

He'll just flash you a small, comforting smile.

Sylus -

Sylus spends the majority of his time in a cesspool of seething rage, backstabbing psychopaths, and fake smiles that take advantage of the weak and needy.

Anger for himself, anger towards others, anger to benefit others who can't seem to get angry themselves-

If anyone knows what fury is, it's him. Whether secondhand, personally, or just being around it for so long, he knows the emotion intimately well and every single shape or form that it could possibly take.

Still, seeing you suddenly lose it is... surprising.

He likes it.

Not in a way where he's turned on necessarily (though it is an additional feeling), but the enjoyment stems from constantly seeing you put others before yourself- watching you make yourself small so that the people around you could be big- and now finally watching you take what you deserved in his eyes.

He won't intervene unless you're doing something he knows you'll deeply regret later, instead favoring watching you until you've burnt out and finished to the end.

He's mostly quiet, he knows it's probably not something you want to talk about, like most people wouldn't want to after a particularly vicious outburst in an argument. But he can't help a few small comments.

"I'm surprised. I never thought the kitten had such big claws. You really surprised me, sweetie."

[makingqueerhistory]

I'm Afraid of Men

Vivek Shraya

A trans artist explores how masculinity was imposed on her as a boy and continues to haunt her as a girl--and how we might reimagine gender for the twenty-first century. Vivek Shraya has reason to be afraid. Throughout her life she's endured acts of cruelty and aggression for being too feminine as a boy and not feminine enough as a girl. In order to survive childhood, she had to learn to convincingly perform masculinity. As an adult, she makes daily compromises to steel herself against everything from verbal attacks to heartbreak. Now, with raw honesty, Shraya delivers an important record of the cumulative damage caused by misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia, releasing trauma from a body that has always refused to assimilate. I'm Afraid of Men is a journey from camouflage to a riot of colour and a blueprint for how we might cherish all that makes us different and conquer all that makes us afraid.

(Affiliate link above)

[indigochromatic]

Interesting (and unsurprising, anecdotally) study about autism increasing predisposition for PTSD/increasing sensitivity to adverse events: https://neurosciencenews.com/asd-ptsd-neuroscience-26067/

(We haven't read the full academic paper yet, but the summary is neat). Seems potentially relevant to dissociative system stuff as well--like, we know that CPTSD can also be caused by "death by a thousand papercuts"-type trauma (where any individual incident "wasn't so bad" but cumulatively it builds up), but/and adding this on top of that suggests that the "threshold of adverse-ness" for events that could lead to posttraumatic reactions like PTSD and dissociative disorders could be quite a lot lower than generally thought, especially for (apparently, according to this study) autistic populations, which may (and this is speculation) also be true for related types of neurodivergence like ADHD and schizophrenia etc.

Also, as far as we're aware (feel free to correct us/chime in/etc), intentional and non-intentional endogenic plurality tends to be more likely to happen for folks who have higher-than-average predispositions for dissociation, even if they don't have a dissociative disorder, and it might be that this sensitivity to adverse events could lead to overall higher baseline dissociation in ways that "encourage" plurality to arise. Thoughts?

[zetsu--bou]

One of the things about canon vs fanon Akashi that probably shocked me the most is the age he was when he lost his mother. I've seen almost everywhere that "he was a very young child", and I don't know, maybe it's just my definition of a young child being different, but I've always interpreted it as "around 5 years old", especially since we're talking here about someone who's 15-16 when the main plot is happening.

Seijuurou was in fifth grade when Shiori died (Chapter 266, Volume 30). That boy was around TEN OR ELEVEN when she died. At TWELVE he started Teikou. The trauma wasn't even probably healed. He lost his biggest and only support in the extreme domestic situation he was in and literally like 3 years later we have the GoM falling apart and him switching personalities. By Winter Cup, it was around five years after her death. On the other hand, he was only 15-16 at that time, so for him, it was a third of his life, but five years is still not a lot.

He probably remembers her very vividly, causing him even more pain. Also - he started switching personalities right after her death (also mentioned in the same chapter) and Midorima did acknowledge that sometimes Akashi seemed to be a different person, so the grand switch wasn't just "I'm going to lose" moment, it was going on since Shiori's death and it just cumulated and exploded then.

He wasn't a baby when Shiori died, he was a preteen, which was probably the worst moment in a person's life for losing someone you're that close with, because you're old enough to understand that they're gone forever, but young enough to not understand fully how the future might look like and how to cope with the lost.

If he was younger - he would probably forget most of his life with his mother there and it would only be some nice memories.

If he was older - he would probably be able to cope better with her passing. It sure would've been hard, but probably not that hard as it actually was.

He lost her in the worst possible moment, also almost right before starting a new school, right before starting to mature physically. With everything new suddenly appearing in his life, he was left alone, without the only person that seemed to have cared about him.

[sysmedsaresexist]

Hello. I know I've sent in messages before but very very rarely. But recent events have caused us to have a question. Just this week, we got officially diagnosed with D.I.D and recommended the idea of getting a psychologist for the first time in my life, besides a psychiatrist. Two of my alts say they can't be serious but the other three think they are bout the psychologist and we are nervous. I saw you talking about disorganized attachment in your latest posts and was wondering if you could tell me more bout what that is because it sounds like I may have experienced that and I'm trying to understand myself and us more from others with experience with D.I.D and similar disorders. We hope that makes sense! We are still very new to all of this. Thank you so much for your time. - Us

First, congrats!!! Try to come back and tell us what therapy and the interviews are like! I'm certain my followers would love to hear about it. It's scary, I'm so proud of you ❤️

Disorganized attachment is both very complicated, and quite easy to understand. I just reblogged a couple old posts about it, but this will be shorter :)

This is my favorite image to describe it!

Note that disorganized attachment (DA, from here on) is linked to low trust in self AND others. All of these types of attachment have shown strong links to different types of disorders, but DA is most associated with dissociative disorders.

The most important thing I've learned is

Even well-meaning, well-intentioned, loving parents can cause DA

DA can be hidden trauma, its relation to neglect is much stronger than originally thought, and neglect is a lot harder to spot and understand than straight up abuse.

A quick note here: DO NOT play trauma Olympics-- with yourselves, with others, on this post, nothing. Trauma is a personal reaction to events, abuse, or neglect and can occur in response to literally anything. When it comes to CDDs, we're looking at cumulative responses resulting in psychopathology, and you don't get to decide what was enough for other people.

It's their reactions.

Mind your own business.

So, all that said, DA is about the child being both fearful and reliant on caregivers. They want to both flee to and flee from caregivers. When a caregiver is unpredictable, the child has a difficult time establishing a consistent view of the caregiver, and of themselves. In other words, the caregiver is both needed, and someone to be avoided, and the child may not understand what makes them a “good” or “bad” child, as the caregiver’s behavior is often confusing and unpredictable.

I'm going to throw out a couple examples here:

Parent A has yelled at you, and you're scared to go to parent B and talk about it - neither parent feels safe but they're your only source of comfort

You're hungry, but parents scold you for eating too much - you're both scared to ask for your needs and yet reliant on their abilities to meet them

Sometimes parent is attentive and kind, and sometimes very dismissive - you never know what you're going to get, but when they're dismissive, it kills your drive for things you thought you enjoyed - sometimes parent puts your art on the fridge and sometimes they throw it in the trash, and maybe that particular piece was important and you'd expected better reception

Parent gets physical when they drink but at school, parent is a model citizen and teachers and other students always tell you how lucky you are

Parents are openly homophobic and you think you might be a little gay - they're good people otherwise (you think), and maybe if you just keep that part of you down...

Parent struggles with their own mental illness and you never know what kind of reaction they'll have, but you treasure the good memories and hold out hope you'll see that side of them again, despite the many letdowns

Parent doesn't let you keep anything to yourself, it's to the point you want to avoid them as much possible, only seeing them for meals

Parent is... mean. Just flat out mean, and they'll tell you no one will listen to you. There's no point is trying to find help with other caregivers-- teachers, babysitters, friends. It's just you and them, against the world.

The start of DA is typically formed in infancy when a parent doesn't respond properly to their child. Missed feedings, not enough skin time, mixing "cry it out" with giving in, ignoring cries for food or changing. These first attachments in infancy set the tone for all your attachments going forward. Meeting needs and milestones help the brain develop in a healthy way. If some of these milestones are missed or slowed, you tend to see psychopathology of some kind as a result. Various future relationships are likely to be affected, and more often than not, you respond to your own children the same way-- a type of intergenerational trauma.

And this is only the grey areas. We haven't touched full and proper abuse and how that can affect someone.

The result of DA is that a child will try to push memories and feelings about their caregivers down so that they're not bothered-- they can interact with their caregiver, whatever mood they're in or whatever happened yesterday.

If you just kill your feelings, parent's outbursts don't hurt as much. If you just don't think about what they did to you, you can put on a smile and get through dinner.

This is, in and of itself, dissociation. A rejection of feelings or memories. DA on its own isn't very likely to cause a CDD, but with additional trauma, it's... oof.

Children with DA and suffering from abuse “are likely to generate two or more dissociated self states, with contradictory working models of attachment,” in order to handle their confusing relationship with the caregiver. This can go in several directions, not necessarily a CDD, but it becomes much more likely.

So, the child needs to maintain a relationship with the caregiver– they have no one else to turn to, so the child can develop dissociation as a way to make sense of themselves, and to maintain a child-caregiver relationship. They may “forget” the abuse, or deny it. “It is an adaptive and defensive strategy that enables the child to function within the relationship, but it often leads to the development of a fragmented sense of self.” This fragmented sense of self may or may not develop into something worse– namely, BPD and DID based on severity, frequency, and whether there was any sense of reprieve (i.e. a child can avoid the worst of dissociative symptoms if one of their parents was more supportive, because it helps them build some positive attachments).

I really hope this helps!

Good luck, come back soon!

[transbookoftheday]

I'm Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya

A trans artist explores how masculinity was imposed on her as a boy and continues to haunt her as a girl--and how we might reimagine gender for the twenty-first century.

Vivek Shraya has reason to be afraid. Throughout her life she's endured acts of cruelty and aggression for being too feminine as a boy and not feminine enough as a girl. In order to survive childhood, she had to learn to convincingly perform masculinity. As an adult, she makes daily compromises to steel herself against everything from verbal attacks to heartbreak.

Now, with raw honesty, Shraya delivers an important record of the cumulative damage caused by misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia, releasing trauma from a body that has always refused to assimilate. I'm Afraid of Men is a journey from camouflage to a riot of colour and a blueprint for how we might cherish all that makes us different and conquer all that makes us afraid.

[ed-recovery-affirmations]

What made you want to recover. I have anorexia and I don't want to recover I just want to get worse and worse until I'm sick enough. I'm in forced recovery but faking it as I just want to starve is there any reason to recover?

Hello anon, this is a difficult question to answer because for me, personally, it wasn't any one thing that made me want to recover. The truth is that when I started, I didn't understand the long-term effects of what I was doing to myself. I sort of knew about them, but the importance of being thin had been stressed to me all of my life and so I was in a self-destructive place where I was willing to make that choice again and again and risk throwing away my health for thinness. That's pretty fucked up, true, but again, I didn't understand the full extent of the damage I might be doing to myself.

I think it's also worth mentioning that I had an undiagnosed chronic illness and some trauma that I was quietly sitting on because I doubted my own perspective and my ability to access real help for these things. Because of this, I didn't have a frame of reference for mental and physical wellness, because I hadn't felt mentally or physically well for a very long time. Even now, looking back at symptoms I was experiencing, it is hard to know if I was experiencing these things due to my eating disorder or something else. I think it was all cumulative damage, to be honest. The eating disorder didn't help.

But looking back, I think I actually had an eating disorder long before I "decided" to start restricting food. I remember going through a growth spurt during puberty around age twelve and being hungry all the time, but we frequently had the kind of foods people call "junk food" in the house because that's what my parents bought. So that's what I ate a lot of, constantly, and my mother was constantly remarking on it in a negative way and trying to stop me. I have a very complicated relationship with my mother, and she raised me with a complicated relationship to food and body image. I remember doing fucked-up things like sneaking food into the bathroom with me so I could eat snacks in the shower unobserved, or hiding snacks under my bed, and just absolutely gorging on food at other times while knowing I was eating way past the point of being full and not knowing why I wanted to. So I officially decided to start restricting when I was fifteen, but the truth is that I had a fucked up relationship with food way earlier than that.

When I was nearing my seventeenth birthday, I experienced a breakdown in health due to chronic illness. I was suffering terribly. At the time I had this hippie friend who believed everything could be cured with the right diet and supplements. As I mentioned before, I was raised in a household where we didn't fully understand proper nutrition, and I had been raised eating a lot of low-nutrition meals. Because I had a stronger relationship with this friend than with my family, I bought into the mindset that if I got the right nutrients, I would be cured. And, in my mind, I had to get as many of those nutrients as possible as quickly as possible, so I immediately turned back to bingeing. But I was bingeing on a lot of high-nutrient hippie foods, so I didn't see a problem with this. I didn't understand that my relationship to the food wasn't fixed. I wasn't enjoying it, I was gorging on it, and between meals I was desperately anticipating the time I could gorge again. And because it was hippie food, I thought that this would cure me.

The thing was, after over a year of severe restriction, my GI system was wildly unprepared to handle the level of food-stuffing I was about to put it through - even though it was super-healthy hippie food. So I actually got sicker, experiencing the symptoms that come along with suddenly eating real portions after restriction. This led to me alternating between not understanding why the food wasn't working to cure me, to not understanding why I felt so addicted to eating. And this kick-started a violent binge-restrict cycle where I'd force myself to go hungry until certain times a day, at which point I'd unleash myself upon food and be unable to stop. Then I'd restrict again the next day to make up for it, get increasingly desperate for food, and you see the pattern. The binge-restrict cycle is so real.

So I was super trapped in that life and I wanted out. I knew I wanted to get out long before I actually started getting out. Because every time I binged, my immediate response was to hate myself and restrict. That was all I knew. By the time I even started to make a bit of progress on breaking that pattern, I had achieved enough real healing to understand that my restriction days had been a part of what led me down this hellish path and I didn't want to go back to that. To tell you the truth, in order to truly stay away from it - because I'll be real, I do get tempted to go back to restriction from time to time - I have to remind myself that while restricting feels like it would save me, it would only be a stepping stone back into that horrible pattern that kept me so sick and felt impossible to break. And I have to choose wanting better for myself.

Now, your story may not look like mine. So I'm not sure your motivation will end up looking like mine. But what do you need for yourself in order to want better for yourself?

You say you want to do this until you are sick enough. Can I just ask you to take a moment to ask yourself, what do you think is "sick enough?" Would you really stop when you got there, or would you just keep moving the goalpost until your body gave out? Because if you're stuck thinking "I have to do this till I'm sick enough" then believe me - you are sick enough. Your struggle counts. You don't have to wait until the damage is irreversible.

Because the thing is, when you start experiencing long-term sickness as a result - GI disorders, internal organ failure, etc - your suffering will be out of your control. Eating disorders feel like you're taking control, but you're not. And as someone who suffered with chronic illness for years, let me tell you, you don't want "sick enough." I can't tell you for sure what you do want, but allow me to take a guess. Maybe you want the validation that comes from being sick enough. Maybe you want to showcase how awful it got because you want people to care, to be concerned, to validate you. You want indisputable proof that you are well and truly fucked up, that you truly were hurt by whatever it is that hurt you.

The fact is, even some people who are sick enough to be on death's door, from some chronic illness or another, never get that validation or support. Our system is fucked up like that. But understanding that also means you don't have to wait for someone else to validate how hard you struggled and how much you've suffered. You're already sick enough. You don't have to wait for it to get worse in order to deserve better. So what do you need? What do you need in order to affirm to yourself that what you've been through is real? What do you need in order to feel you deserve to get better for real? What do you need in order to keep seeking out that desire to heal even when you're triggered as hell and struggling and forget all the breakthroughs you had once made and all you want to do is say "fuck it then, I'll self-destruct" because that's addicting in its own way?

I hope you're able to seek those answers in your treatment, anon. I hope you're able to affirm to yourself that you deserve to be more well than this, and to love yourself enough to fight for it?

[magneticflower]

Sometimes I remember how perfect the ending of Crooked Kingdom was for Kanej

Kaz clearly planned for this moment, even with all the moving variables that could have gone wrong, wanting to give Inej what he could because he wanted it for her. No doubt the time spent after the Ice Court had only solidified that he needed to take the risk to reach out, it even gave him time to figure it all out before he put it all on the line.

It was a perfectly Kaz way of displaying his affection. She had always been a support for him, it was time to do the same for her. It didn't matter that it would only facilitate her departure, because that was already inevitable, so he might as well be part of her start of it.

So, he crafted a meticulous scenario to give him the chance to breach the subject of the future between them which had been looming in the air ever since they had returned to Ketterdam: A ship and a crew to support her new path. Her parents to finally reunite her with what had long been lost. A berth that awaited her whether she decided to use it or not. And his gloveless hands to signify that he wouldn't erase all that had happened between them. He knew he had to lay it all on the line. No barriers, gloves off. She told him as much. He wanted to do as much too.

The fact that at the very same time he is planning all this, Inej was readying herself to let it end as a memory because she wasn't willing to accept all the barriers again after they had broken so many down. LIke she had said before, she wouldn't accept a love at arm's length from him. They were both preparing a good bye, but of different kinds. She was expecting a farewell and a severed tie, he was hoping for good bye with a promise to return if she was willing.

And it all cumulates to such a beautiful moment at the end. Inej approaching with a mindset that Kaz would try to make it business as usual, only to be caught off-guard with his unwillingness to and his gloveless hands that further solidified just that. He opens up instead, let's her know what he wants--- her return, someday. She let's him know what she wants, his help in her fight.

It's such an honest conversation too. Kaz telling her that he isn't good, and Inej telling him that she wasn't asking him to be anything other than what he is. She knew better than to try and change him, she didn't want to change him either, she just wanted to be let in and to let him in in return. She wanted them to be able to help each other and to break barriers caused by trauma along the way.

And then the hands--- the hands.

"Go on," she said quietly, as if she was asking him to continue a story. He wasn't sure he could. But if she could speak those words into the echo of this room, he could damn well try. (ch.26)

Very reminiscent of the bathroom scene, Inej takes the first step --- barely, barely brushing her own against his but nothing more. She was afraid he wouldn't bridge the gap--that he wouldn't take the next step, but she also knew he needed to be the one to do it if it was going to happen. So she waited, and despite every fear, he slowly did take the next step.

He brushed his own knuckles against hers before eventually intertwining their fingers. They even held hands for a long time before even speaking again, contented by this new step into the future ahead of them and just--- what a beautiful moment between them to be able to take steps towards a future together by taking a step towards reclaiming one of the things that had been taken from them--- touch. So much of their respective stories had been about reclaiming what was taken from them in some form or another, after all.

It all closing off with their worlds beginning anew with so much promise ahead--- both individually and together--- was a perfect way to tie it all up for them.

JUST--- what a good ending for us and a beautiful beginning for them <3

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

Did I ever tell yall about my mother's habit of sitting me down once a month to have a Serious Developmentally Appropriate and Relevant Conversation? They started when I was about 5, and continued until I was 17 (with some inconsistencies when the two of us were on the outs), and we talked about SO many things. We had the same conversations multiple times at different levels of depth, complexity, and nuance too, which was a really cool way for me to learn what it feels like for knowledge to be inherently cumulative in nature. I feel like that's part of what has made me as curious, as prone towards positive change over time, and as analytical as I typically am.

Anyway, these conversations were all about important life issues. Body health, drugs, sex, relationship dynamics and boundaries, the different ways people harm other people and what it could look like to react to that, racism, gender, war, death, sexuality, capitalism, surbival resource obtainment, sexism, ablism (although I don't know my mother called it this at the time), etc. My mom's general approach to "risky" information with me was essentially "you're going to find out eventually, whether I try to intervene in that or not. I'd rather your first awareness of these things come from me so it's easier for you to recognize when someone is selling you a load of bullshit." My mom and I have a lot of very different ideas of what it should look like to be a parent, but this was absolutely something I think she did right. She was frank and open, she never made me feel like a question or tooic or even certain words were dangerous or "wrong", and she was careful to scale her approach to the conversation in relation to my own emotional and psychological development. I still actually remember a lot of these conversations, tho of course some stand out better than others.

It took a while of me percolating on our conversation about war and intercommunal conflict before I asked her why people fight in wars if they're so awful for everyone involved. She explained a few different reasons, and things that might draw a person to this one or that one, while acknowledging opposing logic where she could.

Then she describes to me the draft. The act of a political entity compelling its own people to put their lives in harm's way for political interests or assets. She explained different ways the draft might work, and different kinds of people who might or might not get drafted. And then, she says,

"Not everyone obeys when they're called up." She watched me very carefully whenever she was using my reactions to gauge her next words. "In fact, several people in our family have refused to be drafted. Some because of their beliefs, some because of their circumstances. A lot of people do. It's called draft dodging."

See, my grandma was born in 1931. She spent most of her and her brothers' childhoods growing up in the place where her father's family had lived since about the 1500s, up in the Virginia Appalachians. But then Pearl Harbor was bombed, the USA joined world war 2, and a draft came up. It'd been calling up so many of the local men who simply. Did not come home. My grandma's parents knew that the family absolutely would not be okay without her father for any significant length of time, let alone forever. Her mother, Josephine, was visibly brown skinned and a first generation orphan immigrant who had already raised her own siblings by the time they'd eloped at 17. It wasn't that she wasn't capable, it was that she didn't have the bandwidth for any new traumas. They didn't trust that she could hold herself together for their kids and her siblings if she lost the one person who made her feel safe. (Ultimately her husband did die young, several decades before Josephine, but after all the children were grown and married. As expected, she did not take it well, and lived with my uncle for the rest of her life grieving)

So when his number came up, he dodged the draft. Sold everything the family had, packed them all into the car, and fled the state. (Apparently a Canadian radio jockey bought the family land back in the 90s and was incredibly frustrated that he couldn't convince the people in town to start calling it after his name instead of my family name lmao) My family was lucky. They had the resources to do this, and to arrange an exemption when they arrived in their new home. Not everyone manages that. And the alternatives can sometimes be a lot more impactful than "just" blowing up your entire life. Jail time, bodily harm, communal rejection, even death. It depends on your circumstances.

And yet people ALWAYS do it. They dodge the draft, or they go AWOL, or they find SOME way to stay out of the war machine. There will ALWAYS be people who choose and prioritize saving lives and denying a war more cannon fodder.

I think about this a lot when I hear about military, militia, or otherwise militarized organizational violence and human rights abuses. I think about the way humans tend to chafe at being denied their autonomy. How in intense hierarchies, people who are belittled by their higher-ups may often lash out at those they are above when they feel a compulsion to re-exert control. I think about the history of asymmetrical warfare, and what we know about what soldiers tend to do in those environments.

And at the end of the day, I think about how when these things happen, when they KEEP happening. Everyone has the choice to refuse. There have always been people who make that choice, even under the worst of consequences.

So what makes the difference between a person who refuses to supply the state with more power to exert violence with, and the person who complies?

[daydrinking75]

fuck off i just wana get high of prescription medication so my back stops hurting and not participate in society. cant i just DO things? without the weight of having a future and fighting for to keep it. its not that im being forced to, but its my only option. i dont think its worth dying yet, theres nothing to die over really; the cumulative experience of 20 years really is nothing in the grand scheme of things. i have an idea of who i could be, and id like to see that person and be that person, but i can only do so if i keep living. and living means work. it takes a lot of work to live. and that makes me just wana kill myself because why is life--something thats upheld on this stupid pedestal and considered "good"--so damn painful? to me anyway. thats the unfortunate thing, i can only experience the universe through myself. these things are only painful to me, in the sense that without myself present, there wouldn't ve anyone in pain. and the world wold continue to exist. "painful" really just means inconvenient. then again, maybe i just havent felt real pain. im a white girl complaining on the internet with fancy words--i know how it sounds. and even then, pain beyond my understanding is just an extreme inconvenience beyond my understanding. it doesnt devalue it though, what was gained and lost from the pain doesnt go away just because it's a pest. thats the opposite of what they do. some people have wasp nests in their brain. some people clean them out, some let them fester--some people have butterflies (how wonderful that must be), ants, spiders--things of an infestive nature. they accumulate over time, its up to you how to handle it. its a responsibility, to live. to ensure to properly treat the environment of infectents. and ive always struggled to care. to give a fuck. i just dont. for whatever reason, on principle, i couldnt be bothered with responsibility. but i am by the suffering it brings. and the eventual suffocation--forget falling figs, i feel like im watching termites devour my future because of my conscious neglect. i cant stand it. and im sure this is a common occurrence. but i dont have a "will to live" i have a will to become, and the only way to do that is to stay alive long enough for me to understand and grow myself into someone worth dying next to. because im unable to become something when i die, thats all i am, dead. and all the blood and tears and trauma that comes with that concept. but in my experience life is full of that anyway, and the only thing that sets apart the "big sleep" is the act of ending life. it just stops. its a given that im agnostic--i wish i believed in a god that loved me, people often seem happier when they have divine love, even if it hurts others--and for me heaven isnt a place i'll find after i die. hell might be, but that doesnt change the fact that the afterlife remains provably defined as a variable. an entity of limitless possibilities, including nothing at all. the only thing thats known for sure is that its not this, its not life. otherwise it wouldn't end so abruptly. so life and death are antithetical and interchangeable; just two different states of existence. its not by any fault of its own that death is so painful; its a function, a process, it will execute its purpose regardless of if it hurts someone or not. unfortunately all things living, including people, are those who deal with the hurt. no one finds the things that hurt them appealing. well, thats a lie. if you know you know. lets say its at the very least impractical; if you want to live, why would you be attracted towards death? what a wonderful question. its a shame i dont have the answer. i have speculations, educated guesses, impulsive thoughts, but its about time i circle back to the point im trying, flimsily, to make; its impossible to live without thinking. without engaging in life. in society. in people. its those things that give us substance; reality is precious because its uncontrollable, daydreams wont ever compare. so maybe the unknown isnt so scary. its different.

[enbycrip]

Everything is just such a LOT rn.

Doing literally anything makes me just *too fucking tired*.

I increasingly feel I’m honestly just being unrealistic in ever expecting to larp again; I’ve played one larp and run one larp this year, and they were awesome, but they both left me absolutely too exhausted to do anything afterwards for about six weeks, and, from the feedback, it feels like some of the adaptations we made on the fly to accommodate the fact that I collapsed on the Saturday late afternoon negatively impacted the game for some players. Which is a thing; ofc; you make adaptations on the fly, you don’t know how a plot will land, you’ll bear this in mind for the next time, yadda yadda yadda. But it makes me feel even more intensely unreliable than I already do.

I had two more larps I was meant to go to, and I ended up cancelling them both; yes, one was covid, which could have happened to a healthy person, but the entire idea of going to larp just increasingly feels like something it’s unrealistic to expect when, frankly, *living* feels *too much*. I barely see anyone because doing *anything* knocks me out for days and being out of the house is *scary* because I never know when I’m suddenly going to have overdone it and will collapse. Every bit of “pushing through” I do when I’m starting to collapse puts hours and sometimes days onto the recovery time. And I don’t really get anything from lying down for an hour. When I’ve started to crash, that’s me for the *day* at the very least.

And then this fucking PIP consultation thing is *really* getting to me. I’m about a third of the way into doing the consultation and it’s honestly more than I can manage, really, and I don’t know how much of that is that it’s genuinely ridiculously over-complex and how much is fucking trauma, which *massively* impacts my spoon expenditure not only on the thing itself, but on everything else.

It’s just…I’m *barely* afloat. I’ve managed to do this entirely remote Masters, which I fucking *pray* I’ve managed to pass, and it’s broken me, tbh. This continual fucking theatre of cruelty that governments put disabled people through where we performatively have to jump through more and more hoops to get the absolute basics for survival, and those of us who fall along the way are dismissed as “faking” is *too fucking much*.

I’ve already abandoned trying to chase up medical aid that *might* help me because that’s what the NHS is like and I honestly can’t take the cumulative impact of that on my mental health. Every appointment I come away from having been dismissed and belittled and not helped impacts me for months, even on top of the physical and financial impact of travel and whatever else it has cost me, and I made the decision that I would rather risk not getting the increasingly tiny prospect of actual aid than have to keep dealing with that. And I *know* some people will decide that I’m “faking” or “it can’t be that bad” because of that, and I simply have to deal with that fact.

My life has dwindled to so very little. I spend probably an average of 20 hours of my day, every day, lying flat listening to podcasts and audiobooks. Some days it’s 24 hours; on *very good* days it’s 18 or 19. Sometimes I manage some writing or embroidery or playing games in that. And I’m *always* in pain. The painkillers *help*; they don’t get *rid* of it.

Is that a life *anyone* would envy? And yet it’s just not enough; if there’s *any* chance I might not be *miserable* enough in it, I need to be put through *more* performative misery in the name of “economic inactivity”?

And this is *before* we get to gender stuff. If they don’t want me dead because I’m disabled they want me dead because I’m trans.

And I don’t have the spoons to chase up referral to a gender clinic because of aforesaid medical trauma and I don’t have the spoons to explain nonbinary gender stuff and how it impacts how much I just want rid of these fucking tits and how shitty they make me feel, and deal with being gaslighted about am I *really* trans *enough* if I’m not a man either?

[notonlymice]

RUMBELLE + ANYELLE/ANYEM FIC RECS part 2

In celebration of the fact that two years ago today I decided to finally watch ouat (suspecting I might fall for rumbelle but not expecting I would fall that hard lol) here is another part of fic recs. Thank you everyone who has written all the wonderful stories I’ve read (or will read in the future); without you my existence would’ve been much bleaker.

RUMBELLE

1. Alterations by ifishouldvanish

Non-magical AU, 29931 words, M

Belle asks her friend Gold (a single father who, having troubles with work, lives with his controlling mother) to alter a dress for her upcoming wedding.

2. Away to Me by Crysania

Non-magical AU, 106748 words, E, Minor Character Death

Belle needs money, and Gold needs help on his farm.

3. Bare Facts by BarPurple

Non-magical AU, 7514 words, E

Sunbathing naked can lead to some interesting results.

4. Between the Sheets by suchadearie

Storybrooke, 3686 words, E

Belle confesses that she fantasises about having sex in front of someone.

5. Birthday Feast by lizandletdie

Storybrooke, 4421 words, E

Kitchen sex is interrupted.

6. Blind Faith by Maplesyrup

Non-magical AU, 21464 words, E

Blind businessman Gold hires an assistant.

7. Brandy, Apples and Spice by rufeepeach

Dark Castle, 10013 words, E

Celebrating Winter Solstice in the Dark Castle.

8. Bright Ideas by rufeepeach

Storybrooke, 7451 words, E

Belle suggests trying a strap-on.

9. Brimstone and Mistletoe series by ThatRavenclawBitch

Non-magical AU, 12501 words, E, M, T

Father Gold has a crush, which is mutual.

10. Childhood Traumas by TheStraggletag

Storybrooke s6, 2290 words, M

Gideon witnesses something he wasn't supposed (or wanted) to.

11. Children of the Enchanted Forest by ComradeGiddyBiscuit

Creature AU, 6535 words, E

Lady Belle wants to make a deal with a local forest god.

12. Closing Time by Bad_Faery

Non-magical AU, 157352 words, M

Belle's father is sick, and she marries Gold for money.

13. Collateral by rufeepeach

Non-magical AU, 2646 words, E

Moe doesn't have the money he owes to Gold, and Belle suggests Gold an alternative way of paying.

14. Comforts of the Household Gods by intrikate (girlmercury)

Dark Castle, 4141 words, T

The Dark Castle turns out to be even more magical than Belle thought.

15. Compound Interest by Saathi1013

Cursed s1 Storybrooke, 7323 words, M

Lacey takes a job in Gold's pawnshop.

16. Contract by Kelyon

Non-magical AU, 5753 words, M

Belle and Gold discuss the nuances of their new BDSM relationship.

17. Control by ChloeWinchester

Non-magical AU, 5143 words, E

To fire up their relationship, Milah wants to watch her husband have sex with another woman.

18. Coward by wonderwoundedhearers

AU, 1345 words, G

Jumanji AU.

19. Cumulation by AngelofDarkness1605

Non-magical AU, 6152 words, E

Gold acquires a Sybian saddle for his shop and claims he has no idea what it is. Belle shows him.

20. Dark Spring by nerdrumple

AU with the elements of supernatural, 25810 words, E

Gold needs to marry; then things turn strange.

21. Doubt by lizandletdie

Storybrooke s4, 2054 words, G

Belle is pregnant, but Rumple doubts he is the father.

22. Electrical Impulses series by Bad_Faery

Storybrooke, 11854 words, E

Rumbelle + femdom.

23. Falling by DelilahBlueEyes

AU, 490 words, T

Labyrinth AU.

24. Fever by rufeepeach

Dark Castle, 3478 words, E

Belle thinks the potion she has drunk was a cold medicine (it wasn't).

25. Finding the Fun by tinytorso

Storybrooke after s6, 5563 words, T

Belle and Rumple try to make life exciting again.

26. Fuel for the Fire by tjmystic

Storybrooke, 4617 words, E

Watching porn together.

27. Game of Thorns by TheStraggletag

AU, 8605 words, M

Game of Thrones AU.

28. Guide Me Home by TheStraggletag

Non-magical AU, 14260 words, E

Gold is lonely and homeless, but it’s going to change.

29. Handprints by rowofstars

Non-magical AU, 10173 words, G

Gold is a window washer.

30. Heatstroke by Emospritelet

Non-magical AU, 55490 words, E

Lacey, new to the town, accidentally witnesses her neighbour sunbathing naked.

31. Inheritance by rufeepeach

Non-magical AU, 180188 words, E

After five years of travelling Belle returns to Storybrooke to deal with her past (her deceased father’s shop, her ex, and his son she used to babysit).

32. It All Comes Tumbling Down by Bad_Faery

Cursed s1 Storybrooke, 43440 words, M

Rumple is ready to help Regina with the curse under one condition: Belle would be comfortable in the new life.

33. Juicy by tjmystic

Dark Castle, 6888 words, E

Belle consumes a lust-inducing fruit.

34. Keep the Change by rowofstars

Storybrooke, 2927 words, E

Angry sex in the pawnshop (golden lace).

35. Kiss of Life by Emospritelet

Non-magical AU, 82138 words, E

Hospital AU.

36. Knowledge is Power by Emospritelet

Storybrooke s4, 14788 words, E

Queens of Darkness lock Belle and Rumple in his shop so they could resolve things between them.

37. Lacey and the Tramp by chippedcupwrites

Storybrooke, 1498 words, T

Lacey brings home a stray dog.

38. Live Wire by Kelyon

Ghost AU, 14738 words, T

Belle is a spirit haunting Gold’s house through electricity.

39. Lullabies and Exiles by bayloriffic

Dark Castle, cursed s1 Storybrooke, 7325 words (3/? chapters), G

A baby appears in the Dark Castle just before the curse. In Storybrooke Rumple becomes her father, and Belle becomes Lacey, her nanny.

40. Mr. September by ThatRavenclawBitch

Non-magical AU, 13766 words, E

When Gold was younger he did some nude modelling for a calendar. Now he really doesn't want anyone to find out about it.

41. No Satisfaction by ThatRavenclawBitch

Storybrooke after s6, 8714 words, E

It’s very hard to have some time alone in Storybrooke.

42. Number 9 by Emospritelet

Storybrooke after s6, 6114 words, E

Rumple makes a potion so that Belle’s stamina in bed could match his.

43. Over The Counter by rufeepeach

Storybrooke, 5782 words, E

Pawnshop roleplay.

44. Parent Teacher Conference by rowofstars

Non-magical AU, 23178 words, E

Gold is attracted to his son’s teacher.

45. Penance by Emospritelet

Non-magical AU, 218307 words, E, Underage, Minor Character Death

Gold is a teacher, and Belle is his student.

46. Picking Up The Pieces by WorryinglyInnocent

Cursed s1 Storybrooke, 2132 words, T

Gold believes that his wife has committed suicide, and then he meets Lacey.

47. Portrait of the Heart by chippedcupwrites

Enchanted Forest AU, 12707 words, T

Rumple is given a locket that shows its owner a ‘caretaker of their heart’.

48. Primal Desire by ZionAngel

Dark Castle, 5507 words, E

Rumple spills a potion that activates his primal instincts.

49. Receipt In the Bag? by ifishouldvanish

Non-magical AU, 3655 words, T

Lacey works at the Dark Star Pharmacy and flirts with Gold a lot.

50. Rumple & the Real Girl by nerdrumple

Cursed s1 Storybrooke, 6687 (5/? chapters), E

In cursed Storybrooke, Gold is sent a sex doll by mistake.

51. Sacrifice by Emospritelet

Cursed s6 Storybrooke, 47366 words, E

Belle offers herself to Gold to pay the rent.

52. Seal of Love by Endangered_Slug

Creature AU, 4950 words, M

Rumple is a selkie.

53. Seeing Red by KillerKueen

Non-magical AU, 6445 words, E

Belle is on her period and very horny.

54. Shadow Manor by suchadearie

Non-magical AU, 75346 words, E

Gold marries Belle so that she would bear him an heir; Belle’s reasons for marrying him are more complicated.

55. Simmer by woodelf 

Storybrooke, 4023 words, E

Summer PWP with sex toys.

56. Size Doesn't Matter by lizandletdie

Dark Castle, 3414 words, E

Rumple gets shrunken but it doesn’t stop him from satisfying Belle.

57. Sleeping Arrangements by TheStraggletag

Non-magical AU, 2058 words, G

Gold has insomnia, and he searches for someone to share a bed with.

58. Slings and Arrows by rowofstars

Enchanted Forest AU, 15838 words, E

Spinner!Rumple and tavern girl!Lacey.

59. Soapy Water by MarieQuiteContrarie (SeaStar1330)

Dark Castle, 12779 words, E

Doing laundry turns into sex.

60. Soothing by rufeepeach

Dark Castle, 1673 words, E

Lap sex in the Dark Castle.

61. Storm Warning by Emospritelet

Non-magical AU, 5331 words, T

During a snowstorm, Belle is trapped in the university with professor Gold.

62. Strong for Belle by desperatemurph

Non-magical AU, 4454 words, M, Major Character Death

Belle doesn’t survive the childbirth.

63. Tamed, Wild, Caged, and Feral Creatures by merripestin

Storybrooke, 12339 words, E

Belle’s first days after the curse is broken, with the flashbacks to the EF.

64. The Ballad of Lacey French by Bad_Faery

Cursed s1 Storybrooke, Major Character Death

Mary Margaret tells Emma why Mr. Gold has beaten Moe French.

65. The Commuters series by B_does_the_write_thing

Non-magical AU, 5019 words, T

Unconventional ways of meeting on the road.

66. The Dark Floofs series by JunoInferno

Enchanted Forest AU, Storybrooke, 4248 words, T, M

Rumplestiltskin is experiencing troubles with his hair, so he summons a local hairdresser.

67. The Deal by TheStraggletag

Storybrooke, 4148 words, M

Belle has made a deal with Mr. Gold to have a child.

68. The Dungeon by WorryinglyInnocent

Dark Castle, 1338 words, E

Belle explores the dungeons and finds something interesting.

69. The Fire Down Below by woodelf

Dark Castle, 2723 words, E

Rumple spills lust potion.

70. The Gift That Keeps On Giving by Bad_Faery

Storybrooke s2, 2792 words, E

Belle is given a vibrator and wants Rumple to show her how it works.

71. The Hands-On Approach by prissygirl

Dark Castle, 7209 words, E

Belle can’t sleep at night, and Rumple helps her relax.

72. The Incubus by Crysania

Dark Castle, 3407 words, E

Belle is visited by an incubus in the Dark Castle; Rumple is concerned.

73. The Language of Flowers by DeliriumsDelight7

Non-magical AU, 29682 words, M

Belle comes to Storybrooke to deal with her father’s debt and accidentally has a one-night stand with his creditor.

74. The Mask by nerdrumple

Enchanted Forest AU, 12802 words, E

Belle impersonates the Dark One.

75. The Ninth Button by Maplesyrup

Storybrooke, 4906 words, E

Ruby confesses to Belle that she and Gold used to have sex under the curse.

76. The Sounding Sea by mareyshelley

Creature AU, 33034 words, E

Rumple finds an injured mermaid.

77. The Things We Do For Love by woodelf

Storybrooke, 9067 words, E

Rumple is trying a cockstrap.

78. The Third Girl by rufeepeach

Enchanted Forest AU, 2887 words, M

What if Belle wasn’t Rumple’s first caretaker?

79. Unskilled But Caring Hands by rufeepeach

Dark Castle, Storybrooke, 2346 words, T

After dealing with many babies in the Dark Castle, Belle has her own.

80. Warmth by rowofstars

Storybrooke, 1118 words, G

Belle is on her period and wants to cuddle.

81. Watching series by rowofstars

Non-magical AU, 8688 words, E

Belle notices her neighbour watching her and gives him a show.

82. What You'd Thought Lost by DeliriumsDelight7

Non-magical AU, 111560 words, M

Belle and Emma exchange their homes for a while (The Holiday AU).

83. What You Know by Bad_Faery

Non-magical AU, 7058 words, E

Fantasising about Belle, a local librarian, inspired Mr. Gold to start writing erotica.

84. Where is My Mind? by ThatRavenclawBitch

Non-magical AU, 22343 words, E

Belle wants to seduce her boss, Mr. Gold, and pretends to be her twin sister.

85. Who Favor Fire by marchionessofblackadder

Dark Castle, 14141 words, G

Rumple brings home a dragon’s egg.

ANYELLE/ANYEM

1. "and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” - LotR by wandering_gypsy_feet

California Solo, 30552 words, M

Lachlan meets Arianwen’s therapist, Belle.

2. Cell Block Tango by smartgirlsaremean

Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School, 2955 words, M

Frank is arrested, being mistaken for Lachlan. In jail, he meets Lacey, who mistakes him for Lachlan too.

3. Contact by Bad_Faery

SGU, 4863 words, E

Aliens did something that made Belle and Rush constantly crave physical contact.

4. Inner Steel by WorryinglyInnocent

Brick, Trainspotting, 2236 words, M, Major Character Death

Begbie gets out of jail and wants to know what happened to Emily, a prostitute he used to know.

5. My Favourite Mistake by HistoireEternelle

SGU, 6864 words, E

Gold/Belle/Rush threesome.

6. One Small Step at a Time by WorryinglyInnocent

Remember Me

Ally’s new case as a social worker is Mr. Gold.

7. Splash by ddagent

Hamish MacBeth, High Noon, Monroe: Class of '76, 3982 words, E

Hamish, Phoebe, and Tom are having fun.

8. Strengths and Weaknesses by DeliriumsDelight7

28 Weeks Later, 4656 words, T

Belle and Don are hiding from the infected together. 

9. Student-Teacher Conference by WorryinglyInnocent

SGU, 1466 words, E

Rush and Lacey talk about their fantasies.

10. The Barber and the Librarian by TheScholarlyStrumpet (equipoise)

The Legend of Barney Thomson, 1615 words, G

Barney moves to a new town and is very interested in a local librarian.

11. The Offering by TheStraggletag

Hamish MacBeth, 4661 words, E

Something strange is happening in Lochdubh. Also there’s a new librarian. 

12. These Still Waters by Lady_Therion

Summer, 2342 words, E

Belle and Shaun meet when she is swimming in the lake.

13. Turn! Turn! Turn! by sfiddy

Summer, 25299 words (12/? chapters), M

Shaun, lonely and lost after Daz’s death, meets Belle, the new town librarian.

14. Whispers by WorryinglyInnocent

SGU, 5133 words, E

Belle is pregnant, and for some reason everyone on the ship is too polite to ask who the father is.

15. Wide Awake by WorryinglyInnocent

Remember me, 2484 words, E

Ally accidentally hears her roommate Lacey having sex with her boyfriend, professor Gold. They invite her to join them.

[canonicallysoulmates]

Jared JIB13 Saturday Panel

He jumps right into questions and so will we...

Do he and Jensen drive around the Impala's or do they mostly stay in the garage?

Baby bro, his Impala, is in his garage in Austin next to the picture of him on a horse from French Mistake. He says he has to take a pic of that and tweet it, that they both got the Impala's restored and his got finished first but it's not registered yet in America so it's still a Canadian vehicle which is weird because it was born in America in Detroit but it go registered in Canada. In order for him to be able to drive it he has to get it registered but they will certainly go road trip. And he does a Jensen impression saying, "I love baby" 😂 x

Why does he think Sam only had one son?

He jokingly says Sam only had one son that he knew of 😉 But he thinks Sam did all right, in his opinion the reason he only had one son is that when Sam and Dean were both alive Sam had a questionable history as far as success and failures go when it comes to loved ones so to speak, you know his first love was on fire on the ceiling, his next was a werewolf, then a demon that makes you start the apocalypse so he thinks Sam had a child and he tried to not mess it up. He does truly believe that we'll see Sam and Dean ride again in the version of Sam and Dean that are played by he and Jensen but in the mean time he thinks Sam thought 'I've been through enough, this kid is healthy, ten fingers ten toes, I'm gonna honor my brother' so that's where he went. x

How does he think Sam dealt with his hell trauma through all of the years?

The way he played it, and the way he thought it- there's a funny thing being an actor on a show, especially a show that you've done for an ep or two or 3 because he thinks it's cumulative, it grows on each other. Every episode you do in a tv show, if you care, is like a brick. So episode 1 you get a brick, ep 2 you get another brick, ep 3 you might get 3 more bricks, and so on and so forth and there are some really pivotal episodes where you get a whole brick wall like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Changing Channels, the Simon Said one for him was very funny, Fresh Blood, Sacrifice. Sacrifice, he feels he put up an entire wall and poured some more foundation on the floor to build another wall. And so by the time they got to hell!sam you just kinda have to do the best you can, and say okay here's the house of Sam.

And he feels like this, and for people that he hasn't been able to talk to about mental health directly, he tries to think of himself and everybody else as a mountain and so you're a mountian and sometimes you look up and it's a cloudy sky or it's raining or thundering, the next day could be the most beautiful day you've ever seen so don't commit to that thunderous lightning sky. And vice versa if it's beautiful and there's rainbows and birds and you're like everyting's great and it's gonna be that way forever in a week it might be a very shitty day so things change, and that's not dissimilar to how to tell the story of a character so when he played hell Sam all of that was there and it was really though, it's hard to go there, and he thinks a lot of actors and actresses are really well equipped to play a scene like that they can kinda just go into it and come out of it feeling fine, but for him it stayed with him for a little bit, and he thinks it's because it was theraputic for him because there was some stuff he had to deal with and so he explored it.

He's really grateful for his friend Sam, he got to explore a lot of stuff that he would've failed at so he's happy to have had that relationship for 15yrs and hopefully again but all those aspects were there, and still are there if you think about it, he can go back and play hell Sam tomorrow, and he might, he hopes to. x

In a previous panel he mentioned stoicism, could he talk more about it?

The question that he had been asked in said previous panel where he mentioned stoicism was who would he like to sit down to have a meal with, and he says his first thought is that right now he'd love to talk to his grandpa that died before he was born.

He feels he's learned quite a bit about stoicism. He'd love to delve into it he thinks the perceived peace, and not that stoicism is being peaceful, but he thinks it's finding the peace and that has been a journey for him. Again the mountain, the clouds change but remain your own mountain and stay peaceful and pacifist and this too shall pass, so he thinks maybe one of the things he loved about learning about stoicism at just an elementary level that he'd love to keep exploring is how to keep seeking peace wherever you are. x

Does he get his hair permed?

He doesn't get it permed. He shares a cute story about how his hair now is very long because he hasn't had a haircut since wrapping up filming on Walker s3, which happened 3 days after the last JIB back at the end of February, he's had long hair before, obviously, but this is a short hair haircut that has grown out so he doesn't know how to do it, and so he got to the green room that morning and went to Jensen and told him he was fucked because he has hair product for short hair now and he didn't know what to do, and he didn't want to put on his beanie all day long but Jensen told him he might have something and saved his ass as Dean saves Sam's ass many times. Jensen always taking care of his boy 🥰 And if I want to headcanon that Jensen styled Jared's hair nobody can stop me. x

Has the why did uncle Jensen kill mommy talk happened?

It hasn't. He and G have watched some Walker with the kids so it's more why did dad want you killed if he's the producer, but there's something really funny that he feels, and people have asked many times if he's watched SPN with his kids, and his kind of canned answer is they're not old enough to see all that blood but they are, or that they can't see love scenes which they can they get it, it's more he has such a deep and abidding love for SPN and Sam and Dean and C and all the other characters that he doesn't want to watch SPN with the kids casually. He will watch SPN with his kids, he will watch every single ep with them but when he does so he wants to be able to pause and say 'hey here are the archetypes, here are the storylines, here are the tropes, here's why the storyline is going this way because soon it might go that way' basically he wants to able to explain it to them. This is something he's gone through with Tom about like Harry Potter or Star Wars and what's the hero's journey and the speedbumbs along the way. But he will watch it with them and he's sure he will get that question, and hopefully he'll have an answer by then. x

The next fan thanks him for Walker Independence and asks him what his favorite bit was

His favorite bit was attempting to give a voice to the stories that haven't been told yet, it's still an open wound but he's so proud of the cast, the storylines, the characters. It's one of those bummers when he has to remind himself that he's a talking monkey, we all are and sometimes it works out where the people who do or don't decide to pay for you to do another season do or don't decide to pay for it. He couldn't be more proud of the show, the stories, actors and actresses, characters, and he hopes we see more of it somehow. x

Does he have any birthday traditions?

He doesn't have a tradition, honestly when he turned 18 he was filming on Gilmore Girls. When he grew up they had birthday parties but once he moved to LA he believes between his birthday in 2018 and his birthday in 2005 when he turned 22-23, he thinks he was on set for like 12 of his 15 birthdays just filming, and he tells another really sweet Jensen story about how when they were filming Wendigo, it was like the 4th day of filming and it was his birthday and he didn't tell anyone but Jensen found out somehow and surprised him by having the crew sing him happy birthday and get him birthday cake 💕

"Ackles somehow or another found out that it was my birthday. And I think this was like day 4 of filming Wendigo, and I didn't say anything I was like, whatever I'm 23 it is what it is, I'm here to work and then when lunch happened I think Jensen was like 'hey, we're gonna rehearse the next scene before we break for lunch' and I was like okay, cool and so I went back into the set to rehearse and they had a birthday cake for me. I guess he had found out it was my birthday and had them all sing happy birthday to me and had them bring me a birthday cake."

This is so precious 🥹

Anyways, he doesn't really have a birthday tradition, if he were to have a tradition it's that he and G try to go to Italy every summer, and she's currently there so they're gonna spend the week there and try to celebrate this week. x

What's a scene between Sam and C that he would have liked to have seen on the show?

Two part answer to a one part question, he really loves the scene directed by Richard Speight with Sam and Sully, and he loves that Sam had an outlet in Sully to kinda talk about what he wouldn't talk to Dean about, and we're all in those relatonships where the person you care most about it's not that you lie to them but you don't tell them how stressed, or worried, or tired you are so he would have loved to see a scene between Sam and C where Sam thanks C for being there for Dean when Sam can't. With all due respect, that's a no from me. x

Has he heard his french voice in SPN? The actor who dubbed him also dubs Matt Damon and Patrick Dempsey! Also, does he find it weird to hear a foreign voice coming from him?

He finds it really fucking cool. He met in Barcelona, maybe 11yrs ago, the actor who dubbed him. He loves it, he thinks it's so cool. His first experience ever hearing himself dubbed was when he was in Beijing, China back in 2006. They had just finished s1, and he and his buddy who was there were unpacking, and they had the tv on and he heard the trailer for some tv show in the background and his friend started freaking out and told him to look and when Jared looked at the tv it was him in s1. So '06 or '07, he doesn't remember, in the summer he went to China and saw it dubbed in Mandarin, and he found it the coolest thing that's ever happened in his life. Says that if anybody wants to dub him, in any language, DM him, he loves it.

He'd love to watch it, and to meet the performer who does it in French as well. x

What's the secret to his and Jensen's brotherhood?

This questions is possibly a version of his favorite question that could ever be asked about SPN. The main thing he can say is that whatever you see on camera though Jensen and he were playing Sam and Dean Winchester they weren't faking shit. It was real to them and it was and still is an amazing life lesson that you get out of something what you put into it, if you half ass something whether it's a friendship, marriage, profession, diet, excercise routine, you're gonna get half-assed results. If you go 'fuck it, i'm all in and if I get hurt I get hurt and I'll abandon ship and do something else' and they went all in like he thinks sometimes he can think about when that moment happened but he thinks both he and Jensen just went like 'you know what this is found family, could be found family'.

Maybe Jensen turns out to be an asshole, maybe he (Jared) turns out to be an asshole and if that happens then he can reverse and put his guards back up and say this guy is a jerk or vice versa Jensen can say he's a jerk about him, but they both just kinda went all right I'm gonna trust you, they didn't say the words but they had that kind of non verbal communication and went after it, and he to this day loves the guy like a brother. And there are ups and downs, somebody goes through something in their life and he'll speak for himself sometimes when he's super stressed out he can be a little curt, a little maybe caustic, snarky or sarcastic and his buddies around him have to be like 'hey, you're kind of being a dick are you alright?' and he'll go 'no i'm not alright im going through this' but having that trust- he knows he and Jensen found that with SPN in Sam and Dean, and he loves their relationship like he wants that for his sons. He doesn't want the rebar but he wants them to rely on each other.

That he heard a great quote: parents leave us too soon, we're not around long enough for our children, siblings are the ones we go through life with. And he thinks siblings can mean anything, if you're an only child, it's your friend, it's your buddy, you need a partner, you need two people in that rowboat. It doesn't need to be somebody who's there everyday but somebody you can go to, and you might not agree all the time but life is not about agreement otherwise why go through life if you have nothing to learn, if everything you say is right, so he thinks they just trust each other and he doesn't know why but they held each others careers in each others hands and were like 'I got you, you got me? Yeah. All right let's get to work'. ❤️

On SPN G was like the demon on his shoulder, on Walker she's like the angel on his shoulder what did he like best demon G or angel G?

Storyline wise he loved demon G. Says, he's a weird guy, he's a nice guy but he's a weird guy because he loves being around people he loves and trusts that are intelligent when he grew up, in High School he was into debating so sometimes he wants to say something not because he means it but because he trusts somebody else's intellect and he wants to hear their reaction and response and he hopes they'll want to hear his as well so he'll say something like he thinks lights should be outlawed and we should go back to candles because this is bad for the enviroment and someone will counter reply he likes the minutia, he likes the back and forth, he likes conflict, conflict is what storytelling is about often and it's whatever the reminder of after conflict has been settled it's whatever the reminder is that teaches the audience and to an extent the performers what the whole scene was about in the first place, it's never what you think it's about. So, he likes that but as far as angel G in Walker it's been fun to show her off to his Austin cast and crew, especially during the covid days when no one else was allowed so he guesses he should say angel G, Emily, so she can come back to s4. x

...I could say something but I'm not going to....

Last question, was he able to sight see in Poland?

He answers that he finally got to his motherland Poland and it was amazing. He had a great time, he was there for 9 days but it was for a USO tour so everyday he was at a different base so not a lot of sight seeing but he saw a lot, he saw a lot of the country. The fan asks if he got to see any of the beaches, he did not, they were inland the whole time he didn't even know they had beaches. He also didn't get to see Katowice which is where his grandparents are from but he'll go back, he wants to go back; it was a lot of trying to give back to people who were in the front lines of the Ukraine-Russia conflict so there wasn't a whole lot of time for traffic or tourism but he can't wait to go back, he had a great time, loved the people. x

Jared JIB13 Saturday

[papabearbobbynash]

I agree with being disappointed that it’s shaping up to look like Amir may be out for vengeance. I mean, I understand from a certain point of view but feel like we could have done this in so many other, better ways to introduce Bobby’s backstory to new viewers. Hoping the preview was a misdirect. I’m also confused on the pacing of this storyline. Bobby out in the desert with a knife to his throat seems like a cumulation of the storyline but this is Amir’s second episode? Seems like it should be his third episode so it could be a cliffhanger and this final episode would wrap it up so this has me hopeful it won’t be what we expect. This season has had a lot of unexpected moments so we’ll see where it goes. Either way, I’m still so excited for Peter and Malcolm-Jamal to share scenes because these two powerhouses are about to knock every scene out of the park.

Hi, anon. I hope my initial reaction don't mislead people into thinking i'm not excited to see PK and MJW acting together, i know they will deliver it well what they receive. Even if what they receive might anger me. Like you, i think there were way better way of introduce this to the viewer. I might be reading too much onto it, but since this is what we seem to be getting, i think the writers intend to it being harsh and shocking because there is no way of minimizing the consequences of that night in Bobby's perspective. You see, the bomber was something everyone was unaware of it being related to Bobby until all clicked together, and we barely got any emotional aspect of Bobby explored because the plot went another way once Buck got hurt. This time we will have Bobby actively going after exploring this haunting part of his past so he can make amends. And we already know this man did not forgive himself for that night. However i just wish the writers don't go for a revenge attempt. Instead make a civilized point of discussion. Because it's really easy for the audience to side with a fav who they know and who they've seen dealing with the emotional baggage of it. Even if Amir's anger is perfectly understandable and human. The man was probably living day after day, and suddenly the root of his nightmares popped up in his workplace and sent him on a big ass spiral, specially because to him that root is living happily after all the damage it caused.

Like what will be discussed and balanced in a "possible" under threat situation? Only the trauma, rage and loss will be present, for both of them, at least this is what the preview alludes to me. Like this is complex and i'm just not sure how this can help on healing for either of them... And don't even get me started on the body bag bts, because if this ends on Amir killed i will be certain the intention is either to shock the audience or to sent Bobby to spiral because there is no way Bobby wouldn't face this as himself watching a literal consequence of his mistakes once again, Amir forgiving him or not. Hope this wasn't confusing, i feel like my mind is all over the place with this storyline ahshdgfg