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honeyandbloodpoetry · 3 years ago

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Abuse and Gender Expression - Gender Thoughts Part Three

Huuuuuge trigger warnings for peer abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, religious abuse, a murder attempt and mentions of self harm, suicidal ideation and an eating disorder. 18+ talk of sexual activity also included. Discretion advised!

I feel like the first time I realized I needed to perform high femininity to be accepted was in sixth grade. I was slotted into a rotating elective class, and the first one was a careers class. That careers class was utter hell for me. Every single day, I was tormented by an entire classroom of about twenty of my peers. I was bullied, no, abused for being fat and ugly and weird. I was called a whore, and told the only way I could ever be loved was someone raping me. Things were thrown at me, I was shoved down and tripped. I was bullied for my special interest in Transformers. I was told I was so fat and ugly I should be killed and be made into meat and cheese and fed to starving people because that was my only worth. Every single day I was told I should kill myself in varying ways. And all of that is just a quick summary. It was intense and brutal abuse for an entire semester, and I distinctly remember a day where there was a literal pool of tears on my desk. I couldn’t understand. I reached out to the teacher for help, and genuinely can’t remember exactly what he said. All I know is that he simply watched, and sometimes even joined in with “jokes” of his own. This was also the year abuse from my mother amped up, and home was a warzone--we were constantly arguing, and she became a professional at gaslighting and poking and prodding me until I exploded so I could be blamed for fighting back. My father would vacantly stand by and remind me not to fight back. This was also the year I began to self harm as a way of release.

I remember thinking that if I looked more like the girls in my class, I wouldn’t be bullied so much. I was told I was ugly and unlovable, so I thought that if I performed more femininely, maybe I could be like those who tormented me and therefore not be a target. I thought there was something inherently wrong with the way I presented myself. I convinced my mother to take me to the store, and I bought wedge heels and gaudy jewelry I did not like to wear with my uniform--replacing my autobot necklace and sweatband. In another class I was teased for not shaving and for having ugly feet, so I learned to paint my nails, file my heels, and shave every bit of hair on my body--the echo of my father saying that since I grew pubic hair, I was now a woman and held accountable for all of my sins an echo on the cusp of my mind. I did everything in my power to be more pretty and girly. I used to be loud and rambunctious, and began to go silent and demure.

I remember walking up to the class in the new get-up that was certainly not me. I felt that I would be accepted but as I walked up...I fell flat on my ass. I couldn’t walk in the heels. They all pointed and laughed at me, and the abuse continued in even higher intensity. It was until the next semester that I fought back by throwing a desk at two of my abusers who followed me to the next rotating elective, screaming and snarling at them to leave me alone. Those two in particular stopped, but abuse from others continued for many years in many instances. I developed an eating disorder, continued self harming, and began to try and form femininity and “attractiveness” to the best of my ability. I added things like bows and kitty ears and flower crowns to my wardrobe--sure they were cute, and I did like them in a way, but it felt like putting on a costume or some sort of womanly obligation. It didn’t feel like me. Years later, I was told by someone I trusted that I was “too fat to wear pants”, which I internalized and began to only wear dresses--same thing with feeling like I was wearing a costume. I tried to be beautiful. I wanted to be butch, be myself, but I felt that if I was a cute and girly girl, demure and sweet, I wouldn’t be a target. I would be loved.

And so I locked myself away.

My relationship with my mother was a rocky one. She is definitely a sick and broken person, but I doubt she will ever get help. She swings between extremes, and I was always her doll and punching bag. She had a habit of pushing and pushing, finding all the littles holes in me that triggered autistic meltdowns and despair. She criticized everything about me, from my weight and height to my blaming me for how tangled my hair was. She entered me in sports and spelling bees with gentle but insisting prodding about how good I would be when I would rather be reading or playing, and when I got frustrated she would say it was my choice...when in reality I just wanted her approval. When I got older, and especially after my father killed himself, I began to fight back and question her authority though--sometimes violently. She didn’t like that, and was violent right back, and oftentimes first. I struggled my whole life with blaming myself for my outbursts and reactions, but through therapy I have learned I was a child being gaslit and abused, shown that violence was the only answer… And through therapy, I have learned to do better and grow. The worst instance of abuse was me having an autistic meltdown where I said that we should both just die and her response was to pull out a gun and point it at me--I collapsed down into our trash covered room (I was forced to share a bed with her) and pleaded with her to stop. She threatened to kill me and help me out since I was so suicidal, then turned the gun on herself and threatened to kill herself, in which I had to talk her down. When the gun was down, I fled in a flurry of tears and barely contained screams. It was truly the most horrible moment of my life, and I still struggle with the ptsd of that moment to this day. I was only fourteen.

All that background to say, my mother was extremely possessive of my body. She seemed to love to touch my breasts and butt, jerk me around, slap my butt, watch me get dressed. When I begged her to stop, she would tell me that she made that body and could do whatever she wanted to it. I found messages on her phone of her talking to guys about having sex with me and stealing my panties. She wouldn’t let me do my own hair because I couldn’t do it right. She wouldn’t let me bathe alone until I was over ten years old. I didn’t ever have my own room until I was 18 and shared it with my partner. She never let me play with my hair and kept a close eye on what I wore. This combined with my very religious Christian father, who said things like “if you know more song lyrics than bible verses when you die, you’ll go to hell” and the aforementioned accountability, along with things like letting me know he loved God more than me and always seeming to walk in while I was changing… I always felt owned by something. I never felt like my body or my identity belonged to me alone. And so it was extremely difficult to explore myself.

Sexual exploration became an outlet. I was asexual and didn’t possess sexual attraction or a desire for coital sex (still don’t), but I enjoyed kink play with my partner and playing with myself. I enjoyed porn, mostly stories. I always felt drawn to mlm porn, but never understood why. I saw myself in the big, fat men of the stories. I wished it could be me, wished I was a big hairy man like that. Wished I could be loved like that. Reading those types of erotica always got me off and made me feel relaxed and fulfilled, no matter what kink it regarded. Of course my mom would slutshame me without even knowing what I got up to, but sexual activity and pornography helped me find solace and ownership of my body. When I was aroused and taking care of myself, being taken care of, or taking care of someone else, I felt like I was finally in control of my body and my happiness. I had been sexually abused in different ways by different people throughout my life, and finding a certain safety and security in the kind of sexual activity I explored made me feel like...me. I found myself in those big men, but still didn’t make the connection that I was not cis.

It wasn’t until many years that I began to question my gender. First nonbinary, then agender, then genderfluid, then bigender, then nonbinary again, now finally transmasc. I am autistic and struggle with a resistance to change. I have struggled with shifting my name because it feels like a betrayal to become something new. So I have become Charis instead of Charissa...but I think I may be Myles instead. Since I have struggled with abuse and feeling owned my whole life, it is scary to take my self creation into my own hands. People I am close to have expressed concern and dislike for my transition--especially my mother. I came out to her two days ago over the phone when she guessed I was transgender--or “wanted a sex change” as she put it. She outed me to her anti-lgbt boyfriend without my consent, and now they want to have a discussion. She cried and told me it was too much and she couldn’t talk yet. I am still unsure of what to do about it. I know my mother is broken, and has come far from the cruelty she was once capable of--but she still swings. I see those shattered pieces and their sharp edges and know they have the ability to cut. It is terrifying.

Coming out, especially after so many years of abuse, has been absolutely terrifying and difficult. I am still navigating how to do it, especially with a name change. The clinic I am going to for hrt screwed up with their scheduling and had to reschedule me for later this month, a frustrating thing. I am looking forward to starting hrt, but also scared how people will treat me once those changes begin happening. Even with these fears and struggling with my interpersonal relationships...this is the greatest choice I have ever made. It is my truth and my freedom, and I will fight against that fear to become my most authentic self. I have an incredible partner by my side, and with their support and my own self love, I can do anything.

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qm-vox · 5 years ago

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So You Want To Play An Elemental

(Re-used portrait of Colors Eriksdotter, the Warlock Knight, provided by Domochevsky. Catch her in New Avalon, where she’s the protagonist of Cinderella Sanction Quest.)

Previous articles: So You Want To Play A Beast & So You Want To Play A Wizened

Author’s Note: You’d think the hard part of writing this article would have been refuting basically every canon depiction of Elementals in Changeling: the Lost 1e, but instead it was the bit where I tried to write my lived experiences with autism. While not all Elementals need to be autistic or represent autism, they as a Seeming are pretty good at it, and I’ve written this article with that in mind. That said, the experiences I’m drawing from are my own and those of close friends, and are therefore not even close to being universal, to say nothing of me running my mouth about other kinds of troubles Elementals might metaphorically (or literally) represent. While I’ve made every effort to talk to folks who’ve lived these experiences and to write about them with respect, I recognize that I may well have fucked up. I invite you to let me know if that’s the case.

The stories all agree; you do not want the attention of the Lords and Ladies. Be polite, stay humble, mind your manners. It goes a lot further, of course: don’t stand out, don’t be special, don’t rock the boat. Some say that the purpose of these fairy tales is to reinforce societal mores, but those the Lost know as Elementals have been the victims of those tales firsthand. Taken for a purpose, transformed to fulfill it, they face the task of rebuilding lives in a world they only half belong to. Of all the Lost, even Beasts, it is Elementals who struggle most with human society.

This article draws primarily on Changeling: the Lost, as well as Winter Masques and Swords at Dawn. Other sources, when used, will be cited. It requires Content Warnings for depictions of torture, maiming, abuse, and transformation.

The Remade - Elemental Overview

Elemental is the third Seeming presented in Changeling: the Lost, and joins Beast in being almost as defined by Kith as it is by its Seeming. Elemental is unusual in that it is commonly represented in printed material (Elemental characters with stat blocks appear in Changeling: the Lost, Night Horrors: Grim Fears, and The Rose Bride’s Plight), but also commonly and egregiously misused and mischaracterized. As a result, more than the prior two articles, this one must directly address some of the way White Wolf chose to write Elementals and refute them as examples of the Seeming.

A stunning variety of people become Elementals, but generally speaking any given person was selected for their fate. Unlike the opportunistic kidnappings that mark Beasts and Wizened, Elementals are those whom the Fae sought for some specific purpose or trait, which either served as the catalyst for their later transformation or was enhanced by that same transformation. Infused with the thoughts and feelings of inanimate matter - rushing rivers, whispering winds, forge-hot silver, cold earth, crackling lightning, and more - Elementals gain a distance from humanity that they are never again to bridge. To be Elemental is to be alien even among the Lost, and for those without help it’s all too easy to become a stranger in their own homes.

Nature In Revolt - Homecoming As An Elemental

With few exceptions, most Elementals can eventually point to a singular moment in which they were transformed into what they are. Though all Lost experience shattered, faded, and absent memories of the Fairest of Lands when they first have their Homecoming, the moment of transformation is among the earliest memories Elementals recover. The vehicle of that transformation varies - sweet-smelling fruit that turn humans to trees, vats of molten glass into which their living bones were dipped, vast farms of lightning-trees to which humans are lashed until the levin-bolts enter their souls, and more - but the essence of the moment is the same. Some part of the human soul calves away like ice from a berg, and the Wyrd that rushes into its place is brimming with the will of the inanimate. It could be a singular moment, over almost as soon as it’s begun, or a gradual one (as is the case for the rare passive transformations one finds among Kiths such as Earthbones), but that was the moment at which an Elemental was born.

What happens after depends very much on why any given Elemental was taken and why they were transformed. For some Keepers it’s a matter of pure practicality; the Elemental’s new form is necessary to exist in their Domains (such as the Shining Network and the City of Brass, both in Winter Masques), and without those modifications they would be useless for the Fae’s purpose - or dead, which amounts to the same thing. Many passive transformations are similar to this as well; Snowskins who adopt the ice to survive their duties in the wild tundra, Earthbones who dig until digging runs through their living veins, and Waterborn who choose transformation instead of death share a lot of bones with those who were reshaped before beginning their dread tasks. In other cases, though, the transformation is the logical (well, “logical”) extension of what their Keeper wanted them for to begin with. A bored Page of the Stacks steals a bright-voiced human boy to serve her as a lantern in her dark domains and ignites him from the soul outward; the Screaming Demon ‘rewards’ the luckless gym teacher who beat him in a yelling contest by making her an Airtouched with bottomless lungs. These Elementals share uncomfortable commonalities with the Fairest, who sometimes flock to them once the gap in communications between the two Seemings can be bridged.

Some of the most unfortunate are transformed because they wish to be. The Fae are not above openly offering their ‘gifts’ to others, and for those bending and breaking under the weight of inhuman expectations, inhuman abilities can seem like a godsend. But whether it’s a college student pacting for an all-too-literal ‘enlightenment’, an athlete offered the chance to run ‘like the wind’, or a broken-hearted romantic who takes the hand of a Fae selling a cold heart, the consequences of these deals are never clear up front - and there are no take-backs in the Fairest of Lands. Elementals who suffered this fate often drift towards Summer or Autumn, and throw themselves into the mortal world besides, driven to ensure that no one else is forced to endure the torments that made them other than human.

In Arcadia proper, the transformations Elementals endure are often much more extreme than the ones they bear when they emerge from the Thorns. This forms the first obstacle to a potential escape; an Elemental must recall human form, human emotions, human perspective. Where a Beast loses their reason and intelligence, Elementals lose some vital part of themselves, the part which knows how to speak to other human things and be heard by them, to understand what they do and why they do it, and it is this they must grasp once more in the wounded halls of their soul before they can once again yearn for the mortal world. Those who yearn without remembering end up as hobgoblins when they finally breach into the Hedge, or else dissolve entirely once they have well and truly broken the oaths that hold their new forms together. On the other side of human perspective is the memory of human flesh, and part of almost every Elemental’s escape is the incomplete transformation back into a form of flesh once more.

The escapes themselves are often spectacularly violent. Elementals wield great power over their elements and are, by their nature, surrounded by it during their Durance. An Elemental’s fragmented memories of escapes might be marked by revolts fought alongside their fellow slaves while tame flames consume the soldiers of their master, obedient earthquakes opening ways into the underground of the Hedge, duels of water and ice whose backblasts can cleave steel, and more. For those who cannot escape their memories of this godlike power, the Autumn Court beckons, but for most of the others the fear those recollections evoke is enough reason to quietly pack them away and think about them as little as possible. Still, even the meekest Elemental is the person who performed those acts of sorcerous violence, and their fellows among the Lost quickly learn to respect that capability in those who make it home at last.

The memories that draw an Elemental home can be different from what they or others expect, at least in part due to the nature of their transformation. The infusion of the inanimate shifts the emphasis in recollections of the mortal world, calling to mind thoughts of Earth’s manifestations of the elements. A Fireheart may well want to return home to her loving family, but the memories she has of that family which stand out will often feature fire in some way; candlelit dinners, camping trips with her brothers around a crackling fire, shivering with her wife in front of a space heater in their apartment after the gas bill came up bust. An Airtouched thinks of long walks through whispering woods, sitting on the porch with his mother while a tornado rips its way across a distant street, the cool breeze through a classroom window on the day he crushed his SATs. The mortals these Elementals once were remember those events in a different light, but who they’ve become has an undeniable connection to their element and the call of Earth - for better or worse - is also about the relationship humans have with that element. They may not have asked to have the breeze put in their soul, but the winds of Earth still taste like home in a way those of Arcadia can’t.

By Your Powers Combined, I Am - Elemental Kiths

It’s telling that the common bonds that unite Elementals are almost all about the downsides of their experience. Their Seeming blessing enables them to temporarily display inhuman endurance, but without access to more or less immediate healing any situation that requires its use has already killed the Elemental and they just don’t know it yet. Still, the grim prospect of exactly how dead you have to kill one of them before they die does inform how other Seemings - especially the more violent ones such as Darklings and Ogres - treat Elementals. It pays to remain polite when the other guy can afford to die more dead than you can.

On the negative side, Elementals consistently have problems with, not to put too fine a point on it, being human people. All Lost have urges that are inhuman and suffered inhuman abuse, but for Elementals relating to other people - even other Lost - can be supremely difficult. Their Seeming curse hits all rolls based on Manipulation, as well as those based on Empathy, Persuasion, Socialize, and Subterfuge; that is to say, when it comes to social skills Elementals only display human-level competence in Intimidation, rearing animals, and, for some reason, criminal networking (Streetwise). While Elementals, much like Beasts, are not wholly incapable, their social skills will fall consistently behind a mortal with equal values - and, much like Beasts, this tends to get Elementals seen as idiots by people who refuse to understand their struggle (in some ways moreso; struggling with math is relatable to many people, but struggling with social cues can get the taste slapped out of your mouth right fuckin’ quick).

How this manifests varies widely from Elemental to Elemental, but the common touchstone is some disconnect from societal perception. Elementals quite often come off as autistic (and are prime for representing the struggles of an autistic person, as mentioned in So You Want To Play A Wizened); they miss social cues, misread or don’t understand body language, and struggle to describe their own perceptions and experiences in a way others can understand. Some of that is just not being able to quite connect what they feel with words in a human language; some of it is that Elementals genuinely are not perceiving the same things the people around them are. How do you tell your friends about the language of mirrors without sounding like you’ve absolutely lost it? The way a steady, eroding breeze feels against your rocky skin? The color of the lightning in your veins?

This comes out in the behavior of Elementals in a variety of ways, which does not always help those outside the Seeming understand the common thread, but it’s never quite...”right”, for lack of a better word. A Woodblood with flowers growing in his skin doesn’t always reply even when you speak to him directly, and when he does talk he over-shares; others don’t know of the secrets entrusted to him in a distant Arcadian wood, and the terrible consequences for speaking. A Waterborn nymph won’t shut up even when she ought to; as a babbling brook her musical voice soothed the rages of her Keeper. A heavyset Earthbones, thick with mud and rent with craggy scars, has trouble not touching people, as if he’s afraid they’ll slide away; his friend, a Fireheart, shrieks at the tiniest human contact and flashes knives to keep you away from her precious wick and its life-giving flame. A Snowskin’s volume goes up and down with the ambient light; an Airtouched can’t seem to stop just picking up objects to stare at them in fascination. In all of these cases, the root problem is the same - disconnection from societal expectations - even though the causes of those problems are different. The challenge that Elementals face in their recovery is not to pass as “normal” - no Lost can really do that for long anyway - but to find a medium between their rights and needs and the rights & needs of those around them.

Like Beasts, Elementals are essentially defined by their Kiths, in some senses even more than by their Seeming. Though a Fireheart and a Waterborn have things in common, the experiences that gave them those commonalities are likely to be so different as to be essentially alien to one another. An Airtouched is more likely to feel like she has things to talk about with, say, a Runnerswift Beast or a Windwing than she is to immediately realize she has touchstones with a local Snowskin witch. Mechanically, the Kiths themselves are a pretty even mix of ‘almost entirely related to the folklore’ and ‘almost entirely the physical property of being This Thing’. Some, like Beast’s, are begging for Dual Kith or other Merits to round out certain archetypes, but not all of them.

Some thoughts on the individual Elemental Kiths follow:

Airtouched - Do you like to go fast? Fleet of Foot not cutting the mustard for you any more? Runnerswift is too slow? Airtouched is here to help you. In a game where combat is often decided at the point when initiative is rolled, the potential to add 1-9 to your Initiative if you pick your chicken right means the chance to decide a lot more combats. The Speed boost isn’t anything to sneeze at either (and is applicable to a lot more situations than just murder). Thematically, Airtouched are meant to represent spirits of the air, but their sheer speed doesn’t do it for all such representations, especially in the realm of storms, gales, and other destructive manifestations of the firmament. If your Airtouched concept bends that direction, consider investing in Contracts of Stone, the Giant Size merit, Dual Kithing out (Earthbones, in-seeming, can provide great out-of-combat strength, while Hunterheart & Razorhand could work wonders for you as a more murderous spirit), the Lethal Mien merit, or any combination of the above.

Earthbones - Elemental does Ogre; Earthbones are great for puzzles and problems that can be solved with physical force but which are not in some way murder-related, and strike a solid image of various earthen beings with basically no add-ons. That said, Earthbones also makes a fantastic Dual Kith option for other Elemental Kiths that you might want to use to embody large & strong versions of themselves (such as a glacial Snowskin or a towering Waterborn with the soul of a tsunami).

Fireheart - This is the first Kith where it’s great for thematic reasons but kinda weird for physical ones. Firehearts can burn Glamour for Wits rolls, which makes them great at bursts of perception, quick thought, and cunning, but also sorta bad at being fire. Now, that could very well be a feature! A character used as a candle, a torch, a hearth-fire, a forge beast, might not embody the destructive potential of flame and you may have no need to do so; even if you do, Elements (Fire) is a lot of destructive potential. Should you want to draw that out a little more, consider Lethal Mien as an option, possibly alongside a Dual Kith into Draconic. If the fire you’re interested in is one of renewal or purification, look into the Goblin Contracts of Sacrifice and/or Contracts of Hearth, and if pyromancy is your game it’s hard to beat Contracts of Omen.

Manikin - I wanted to love Manikin, I really did, but I can’t. It’s trash. It’s absolute trash, not just because Artifice is essentially only half a contract (see So You Want To Be A Wizened) but because the other half of their Blessing is completely negated by having any ranks in Craft to begin with. I don’t even know where to start on suggesting a fix for this, but if you’re dead-set on it, maybe look to Shadowsoul for inspiration, as it’s the other Kith that does what Manikin tried to do.

Snowskin - Elemental does Fairest. Appropriately enough, Snowskin shares Fireheart’s potential problem of being very strong in the folklore (its icy social focus is shared by many of the mythic beings you might want to emulate) but very weak on the ‘embodying the element itself’ back end. Snowskins are great candidates for overtly sorcerous Elementals, not just because of those social bonuses but because they get less out of the classic Elemental contracts (Elements and Communion) and a lot more out of Contracts such as Wild, Eternal Autumn (or Winter), and Smoke which provide powers traditionally associated with the lords of frost and snow. A note: Snowskin does not have the same mechanical exemption that Chatelaine does, which means that its bonus of getting 9-again on Subterfuge meets the Elemental curse of not getting 10-again and evens out to having no bonus or penalty. Even then, though, the Intimidate end of things is pretty legit.

Waterborn - Remember Swimmerskin? This is Swimmerskin but as an Elemental. The three water-based Kiths are all fairly alike, so there’s not really a lot for me to say here.

Woodblood - Elemental Does Darkling, Badly. Don’t get me wrong, the actual bonuses are great, but getting access to them is incredibly situational and unlike Snowskin who can, with investment, eventually create the conditions for their more restricted abilities themselves, Woodbloods can’t just grow plants where no plants are no matter how hard they try - which is a shame, since Woodblood is absolutely amazing for many concepts! Talk to your Storyteller before you select this Kith and see where your Chronicle might be taking you. Semi-regular expeditions into the Hedge, a more rural Freehold, or even a traveling Chronicle are all great chances for Woodblood to shine.

Blightbent - You remember how Venombite is cool but kinda a late bloomer? Blightbent is more or less in the same camp; the bonus against man-made toxins is a solid additional bonus, but rolling against Armor, Defense, and Stamina is a losing game both just in general and in a world where shotguns exist. Blightbent’s a really cool concept but even beyond the Kith blessing problem is begs some questions about how you parse out your choices for Contracts of Elements and/or Communion. You’re probably better off flavoring another Kith as a polluted aspect of itself and leaving this one on the table.

Levinquick - Thematically, Levinquick is the physical fire/lightning to Fireheart’s metaphorical fire/lightning. Mechanically they’re solid enough; situationally better than Runnerswift, but at a cost. At low Wyrd, though, that duration on their Blessing is gonna kick your ass if you don’t pick your chicken right. For the cost and duration, you’re better off running an Airtouched with a stormy theme, which is a damn shame because Levinquick is just such a cool idea in theory.

Sandharrowed - When I find an RPG that has a functional grapple system, I will let y’all know. As it stands, Sandharrowed’s Blessing is both incredibly narrow (even if grappling DID work, which it absolutely does not) and kinda a head-scratcher as far as physical themes or metaphorical ones go. I really don’t know what to suggest here beyond ‘anything but this’. Airtouched, Dual Kithing into Earthbones maybe? Air/Fire? Something.

You’re the Queen? Well I Didn’t Vote For You - Lost’s Canon Elementals

So: Elementals are quite bad at all social situations, and especially in those required for leadership considering that their penalty to Empathy makes it harder for them to detect bullshit, be judges of character, recognize the needs of their subjects, and get into the minds of their enemies. That in mind, what are the canon Elementals in the run of Changeling: the Lost 1e - ‘canon’ in this context meaning with fully available statistics that make them ready to use?

- Jack Tallow, a Spring Court Fireheart, who is...primarily Social...spending his time openly inciting revolution against Grandfather Thunder and attempting to talk his way out of trouble. Okay. Like, he’s bad at it and this is the sample character, the example White Wolf gives of how you yourself should make characters (a bad example, at that), but surely the next will be - - Rose Thorn, the Queen of Spring in Miami and a Woodblood, who is known for her...inspiring leadership...and...empathy...hold up...

- Grandfather Thunder, the King of Endless Summer, another Fireheart Elemental. THIS guy is known for his cunning, tactical acumen, ruthless ambition, and raw, unbridled rage. He’s probably the only one of the lot that’s a plausible Elemental ruler. It helps that Thunder was a founding Freehold member, but Summer’s strict chain of command and tendency to favor Mental and Physical attributes over Social in leadership definitely does him favors here.

- Aeolian (The Rose Bride’s Plight), a Spring Airtouched, also a Queen, who for reasons never broken down in the adventure has a dice pool of fucking SIXTEEN to try and trap people into Pledges. She is an abusive and nakedly evil Queen who enslaves her subjects with the word-bond and is known for her fast-talking and being good at all the things Elementals are bad at but surely our last one will be an iconic and helpful example of an Elemental, ri-

- Green-Eyed Gerta, the Queen of Jealousy, ANOTHER Spring monarch and our second evil one: a seductive (???) and charming (??????) Mannikin with a severe abandonment complex, who pacted with a Fae to drive a former lover mad.

And that’s it. That’s all the printed Elementals. And with maybe one exception, who comes from fucking Miami, a setting that should not have been written at the time it was for reasons I might get into in its own article, they’re all garbage. That one exception, Grandfather Thunder, is still an unusual case in and of himself, and as a result should not have been the only fucking poster child of this Seeming.

But Vox, you say, surely this is one of the reasons you’re writing this article? Well, yeah, it is, but I bring it up specifically because for the other Seemings there’s at least a solid base to start with in terms of canon representation. You can look at other Fairest, or Darklings, or Beasts that have been published and get a bit of an idea of what they’re “usually” like. That doesn’t mean yours has to be or even should be like that, but it does form a helpful point for discussion and inspiration! But Elemental has no such point of reference, and for a Seeming as incredibly diverse as it can be, such a reference point is more, not less, valuable. Unfortunately, WW’s writing advice in nWoD 1e had this tendency to encourage players to create characters that were, well...bad. Uninvolved in the plot, incompetent at their supposed specialties, disconnected from the game world, or some godawful combination of the above, and it is with this in mind that I want to counsel you to just kinda studiously ignore the published Elementals. It’s my hope that the contents of this article will be enough to help guide you along in creating your own Elementals if you’re stuck or just kinda lost, but if they’re not, please, feel free to let me know.

Assigned Wizard At Homecoming - Elementals In The Courts

All Lost of all Seemings deal with greater or lesser amounts of prejudice when they join a Freehold, depending on the Freehold in question, and the stereotype that follows Elementals around is “WIZARDS! NO SENSE OF RIGHT AND WRONG!” It’s not entirely without reason; Elementals have native access to three of the most potent and versatile Contracts in all of Lost’s run, and depending on their selections and affinities the roles they can fill are staggering. Contracts of Elements alone can be used for information gathering, theft, sabotage, rescue, construction & demolition, straight combat, open warfare, disguise, home repair, gardening, and That Gay Witch Aesthetic, and that’s before we even touch Communion, Wild, any of the game’s other Contracts, or the fact that the majority of Elemental Kiths see huge returns for cranking their Wyrd like they’re trying to cold-start a Model T in Anchorage. Every Court could use the services of a powerful sorcerer in its baliwick, and almost all Elementals are theoretically capable of providing those services.

But just because the Courts would prefer that Elementals be big-shot wizards doesn’t mean they agree.

Elementals are more keenly aware than most Lost that there is no such thing as a non-magical Changeling, and the closest you get to the idea is a frightened victim trying to deny what’s happened to them, but for many Elementals the idea of following the Wyrd all the way down has a distinctly sour taste. They’re already distanced from mortals in ways that can be confusing, frustrating, and hurtful; why distance themselves further? Going further, institutions without a strong Elemental voice may not understand what they’re asking when they try to whistle up a wildfire or get someone’s bird bath to spy on them, and what those actions might mean to the Elementals they’re blithely attempting to order around. An Elemental might seek a primarily non-magical position in their Court as a way of grounding their humanity, or simply because they find the idea of such work more appealing than witchcraft.

None of which is to suggest that Elementals don’t also commonly fall into sorcerous roles. Even if their title doesn’t say ‘witch’ or ‘magi’, Elementals are likely to lean on magic to enhance their prowess because they, unlike their peers, cannot natively ‘flare’ their strengths. An Ogre knight can call upon her Seeming to intimidate people; an Elemental is more likely to invest in Contracts of Darkness to do the same, or else to get very good at meaningful looks while fingering weapons.

When it comes to selecting their Courts, Elementals often lean towards the ideological end of the scale. Though they, like Beasts, can be extremely sensitive to the seasonal nature of the Courts, Elementals tend to look to Courts for guidance on how to be a person again. After what could have been years of being an object instead, with their references to mortal behavior and mortal society severely damaged, Courts provide a much-needed sense of direction and purpose, a starting point for the all-important question of “who am I?”. Wise Courts help guide their youngblood Elementals, who are rather likely to adopt a performative identity (generally one rooted in their profession) in order to simplify social interactions in a way that makes it easier for everyone to understand each other; the important thing is not to stop this, but to ensure that it doesn’t get in the way of the Elemental’s recovery and journey towards the promise of their Court.

For obvious reasons you don’t see a lot of Elementals wearing the Crown or in general leadership positions, but you do see them in some. Autumn’s Witch of the Bitter Wind is often an Elemental, if not because of strict sorcerous prowess than because of going Full Sith Lord on the previous incumbent. Summer fields Elementals as Jaegers or leaders of knights, favoring tactical prowess and experience over their ability to inspire or politic. Elementals can make for ideal senior Squires in Winter, and can excel as Icebound Armigers with the right Thane to handle them - or enough raw stoicism to negate awkward social encounters before they can start. When looking for Elementals in positions of power and responsibility, try positions that favor intellect, experience, and diligence rather than those predicated on good social skills. Like Wizened, Elementals are common secondary combatants; even if they weren’t inclined to fight tooth and nail to never be literally turned into objects again, figures like the Arrayer of Distant Thunder are exactly as erect for the powerful sorceries of Elementals as everyone else is.

Spring - Elementals don’t often rise to prominence in Spring, for rather obvious reasons, but perversely are among those Seemings most likely to choose Spring as a first Court. Spring’s promise of renewal can be very attractive to Elementals, who then prove completely immune to the subtle attempts to snub them out of the Court by virtue of not noticing the slights to begin with. Many of Spring’s off-brand roles (such as “warrior”) are filled by Elementals just trying to earnestly live their truth, which is not to say that Elementals don’t sometimes make a splash in the Emerald Court as masters of high ritual or keepers of grand Hollows.

Summer - The Court of Wrath has many tactical and logistical needs, and God damn if Elementals can’t provide a ton of them in a single package. Summer puts a lot of effort into recruiting Elementals so that it can use their talents to secure places of power, shore up defensive positions, call tame wildfires down on hobgoblin invaders, create distractions for assaults, and anything else the Crimson Court can think of. The culture of brotherhood and military honor that Summer provides can be equally attractive to Elementals, who find in Summer an identity they can feel good about and which does not ask them to perform complex social niceties...until it does, anyway.

Autumn - Autumn is often of two or three minds about Elementals. On the one hand, they make for incredible sorcerers and Autumn has a strong interest in recruiting those who want to fulfill that potential. On the other hand, Fear is a powerfully intimate emotion, and while Elementals are capable of putting on a good game face they often struggle to achieve the intimacy necessary to understand the Fears of others. And on the third mutant hand growing right out of Autumn’s chest, the Leaden Mirror has powerful needs both social and intellectual at all times, and must balance such factions within itself to maintain its identity. An Autumn with a high Elemental population is likely a somewhat visibly calmer one, with strong similarities to an academic institution in how it comports itself; one with a lower Elemental population is still likely to have some rather explosive Elemental personalities placed highly within it, by virtue of their powerful lore and merciless wills.

Winter - While almost all Lost dally with Winter for a time after their Homecoming, Elementals are among those who dally for the shortest time unless they’re inclined to stay. So much of what they are is obvious and bombastic that it can be difficult for them to feel like they belong. For those who can shake those feelings, Winter puts just as much value in their services - and is much more up front about payment for those services - as its peers do. Winter’s strict culture of humility and silence can be attractive to those Elementals who feel insecure about their difficulties with mortal and Lost society; in time, the Coldest Court may even be able to coax them from their shells.

Fuck, I Forgot How To Person - Elementals And Changeling’s Themes

All Lost need the help and support of their fellows to make a new home on Earth again, but Elementals need it more than most in some ways. Though I’ve brought up their potential to represent the autistic experience (and I’m going to keep bringing it up because this Seeming is among the strongest candidates for it), Elemental is good for any experience of abuse and trauma which changes how a person is capable of relating to society. The person who grew up bent beneath inhuman expectations and the guilt they felt for not meeting them is an Elemental. The person who learns to dissociate in order to function in stressful situations they cannot escape is an Elemental, as is someone so used to being ignored and neglected for their chronic pain that the concept of genuine compassion from the medical establishment is alien to them. Where Wizened embody those whose lives are destroyed by oppressive economic systems, Elementals are those crushed beneath the weight of oppressive social systems that value the appearance of normalcy over genuine health and happiness.

While Elementals can feel disconnected even from their peers (not just because their experiences are different, but because they have difficulty mentally and emotionally envisioning those different experiences), their greatest struggle is with mortal society - which, in this metaphor, is the wider body of neurotypical people. Their fellow Lost at least have a jumping-off point when it comes to understanding and communicating with Elementals, but ‘normal’ people do not, and it is all too easy for them to callously mistake an Elemental’s struggles for deliberate rudeness or malice. In response to this constant rejection and exclusion, many Elementals develop maladaptive coping mechanisms which they then struggle to shake once they find the acceptance they were seeking, ranging from deliberate isolation to dissociation or even, in extreme cases, retreating into power fantasies (”people only hate me because I’m better than them”). While Fairest get all the press in the books for being prone to going back to Arcadia (and that’s its own bag of absolute bullshit that we’ll be addressing in their article), it’s Elementals that can find the idea of complete separation from mortal society to be the most attractive. For too many, trying to relate to the rest of humanity is traumatic in itself.

Autism isn’t the only set of troubles Elementals are primed to embody; almost any kind of neurodivergence which leads to trauma fits very easily into the Seeming’s mechanics and themes, in large part because society is absolute garbage about this topic no matter what your troubles are. Schizophrenia (which causes disconnects in what perception and symbolism mean to a person vs. what they mean to wider society) & ADHD (which is often ‘treated’ in ways ultimately harmful to the person who has it, with long-lasting side effects), among others, are also prime for depiction as Elementals. More physical problems such as chronic pain, fibromyalgia, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, or multiple sclerosis, might also be represented by this Seeming, again because - and I cannot stress this enough - society is garbage; victims of these conditions are often disbelieved, pushed to harm themselves to meet societal expectations, and neglected or abused by those skeptical of their condition or its severity (including family members), and the resulting trauma & its attendant effects stalk them for the rest of their lives. If you’re looking to draw out those themes of medical problems and their life effects, consider using your Blessing more often than you otherwise might (representing the push to try and “function” and its attendant consequences).

Keep in mind that all Elementals are more than their magic, whether that’s their Kith or their Contracts. I’m not here to tell you that you’re playing the game wrong as long as your group is having fun and not hurting anyone, but overt focus on the power of Elemental magic definitely leaves a lot of their potential just sitting on the table. I highly encourage you to ask yourself questions about how your Elemental characters think, feel, and believe. What is their relationship to their element and how does that shape their use of Contracts? What confuses them the most about other people? Do they resent that thing, want it for themselves, maybe just yearn to understand it? What kind of identity has your Elemental chosen to adopt and why have they decided to try to be that person? Do they miss their mortal life, and whether or not they do, how do they feel about that? There’s a lot to explore here, and the best part is that exploring it doesn’t mean you can’t still cast fireball.

Sir, That Is My Emotional Support Belle Dame Sans Merci - Coping As An Elemental

Relating to society - wider mortal society, Freehold society, and most often both - is the great challenge that Elementals face. Most remember at least some helpful things - what pants are for, why you don’t just kick in the door to strangers’ houses, stealing is wrong, that kind of thing - but when it comes to the day-to-day social cues and actions needed to navigate a job, one’s school, a party, or even just kinda sitting at a bar, Elementals’ problems with mis-reading signals or even failing to detect them entirely rise to the fore. Accordingly, Elementals seeking to cope with their return to Earth seek out social solutions to these problems.

There are suggestions in the books that Fairest tend to exoticize or fetishize Elementals; I’m gonna need you to throw that concept in the garbage next to the Magister of Nightmares (So You Want To Run An Autumn Court) and the canon description of the Sage Escort (So You Want To Run A Spring Court). That said, there is something there in the idea that the relationship between Darklings and Elementals, as well as Fairest and Elementals, is different from how those two relate to other Seemings. For Darklings and Fairest, Elementals can often represent someone around whom they can let down their guard; someone who is honest (even if that honesty is just because they’re real bad at lying) and, often, straightforward. For Seemings so consumed with performative social and emotional expression, whose anxieties and fears center around those expressions, a friendship with someone for whom they do not have to perform can be one of the most precious things in their life - something to kill for, if need be. Elementals, in turn, can rely on such friends (including friends of other Seemings, of course, though not usually Wizened because of that Seeming’s own problems navigating society) for help translating the confusing world that is Other People; to trust them to be honest in turn and to help the Elemental back the fuck out of situations in which they have managed to deepthroat their own foot. It doesn’t always work out so neatly (everyone involved has their own troubles and trauma, their own emotions and needs, and like all human and post-human relationships such things cause Drama), but it works out enough.

This focus on friendships and social identity follows Elementals elsewhere. Adopting a performative identity, especially a collective one, gives them guidance on how to interact with other people and helps them establish a routine for their day-to-day. An Elemental that becomes a Knight of Summer knows what’s expected of them and can then perform those expectations, and count on their fellow Knights for assistance and advice; likewise, joining Entitlements, or seeking prestigious offices like the Witch of the Bitter Wind can similarly set expectations. It doesn’t alleviate all of an Elemental’s social problems, of course, but it at least gives a place to start. Shuffling which hat they’re wearing at what time can be exhausting, as it can be for anyone, but the value of those hats cannot be overstated.

When it comes to their physical environment, Elementals are often less concerned with it than Beasts or Wizened. They do tend to lean towards locations that are strong in their element or in which they can be close to it (as an easy example, all other things being equal, most Firehearts will choose an apartment with a working fireplace over one without a fireplace) and to decorate and appoint their homes in ways reminiscent of that element. An Airtouched is likely to have gauzy curtains, open windows, windchimes, glass decorations, relatively light furniture, and the like, whereas a Snowskin’s home may seem like a winter cottage no matter what time of year it is. For those Elementals that are skilled in Communion and/or Wild, their ability to establish a place of power rivals that of Beasts; those who invade such a sorcerer’s home quickly find that the doorknobs are trying to kill them, and the kitchen knives move on their own. Attempts by Elementals to deny these tendencies in themselves traditionally end poorly. Whether they like it or not - and their feelings on the matter are often complicated at best - the Elemental has an affinity with their element, a relationship which inherently brings a feeling of comfort and kinship. Trying to reject that relationship only makes them unhappy on purpose.

With a place to live in and friends made, Elementals then have to actually figure out what to do with the arc of their lives. This can be...challenging. For those with unfinished business from their mortal lives, finishing such business and making decisions about it can be a great initial goal, but eventually all Elementals come back around to the idea of making something of themselves in the context of their Freehold. That isn’t to say that Elementals lack ambition or desires, but rather that articulating such desires, even to themselves, can often be difficult. Many Elementals don’t know what they want or why they want it, and without outside guidance end up spinning their wheels in the lower ranks of their Courts without comprehending either why they have done this or why it has made them unhappy. Here, as well, an Elemental’s Motley, friends, mentors, and/or romantic partners provide invaluable insight and direction. No Seeming proves the truism that isolation leads to shredded Clarity more clearly than Elementals.

Example Elemental - Ripley “Rip” Tide, Summer Waterborn

Jaeger Rip Tide is a coastal-dwelling Summer Courtier who, unusually for their Court, travels quite a bit. They keep a home in one Freehold to which they ostensibly belong, but are rarely there; they take bounties on Hedge beasts, exiled True Fae, and water monsters of all kinds from five separate Freeholds, all of whom have either appointed Rip their Jaeger or else just not made an argument about it when they’ve introduced themselves as such. Rip keeps two Hedge Beasts (”professional associates”), twin eels who introduce themselves as Port & Starboard, which run messages to and from the busy hunter and help Rip with particularly difficult quarries. The sight of their gem-like teeth, or Rip themself (coming in at a clean six-foot-six and never found without their thorn-and-steel fishing spear) is a sight for sore eyes to the Freeholds that the Jaeger services.

Lately, though, Rip’s been under pressure that they don’t really understand. Their ‘native’ Freehold wants them home more often or to at least take time from hunting to train an apprentice, both things Rip does not want to do. People need their help, right? Rip can reach those people easily, right? So what’s the problem? As far as Rip is concerned, their job is to Protect The Weak, not just a particular subset of The Weak. If someone doesn’t manage to defuse the situation, the Jaeger is going to end up exiled or worse over the sheer unwitting indignity of it all.

As with all of my articles, I welcome questions, comments, discussion, feedback, and criticisms. Please, feel free to reblog if you’re feelin’ it!

Next up: Ogres

#Changeling: the Lost #Seemings #RPG #Elemental #abuse #trauma #torture #transformation #autism

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jess951000 · 7 years ago

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I know I write a lot of these and I know Taylor may never see them, but if she does I want to say thank you for helping me get through all of the things mentioned in this post.

First grade is my earliest memory of being bullied. I was bullied by my teacher. She kept me out of story time and made me clean my desk instead. She kept me from show and tell and made me clean my locker. I have the agenda book where I wrote how sad and out of place I felt...mostly with sad faces. We had to show how we felt each day. I wrote sad faces.

I was home schooled for second grade and felt left out because my brother and sister went to school everyday. It was tough. I was diagnosed with ADD and Bipolar Disorder when I was 5. Mild Retardation Disorder when I was 6 or 7. I learned how to read in kindergarten but was set back in first grade due to how I was treated and relearned when I was being homeschooled. I have a just below average IQ. My deficits are with math and problem solving. I'm 22 years old now but when I was 18 I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and told my bipolar was gone.

In third grade I was put in a school for special needs kids. They didn't teach me anything so I was put back in mainstream school and kept in third grade. I made friends at the special needs school. A nonverbal girl and an autistic boy. In mainstream I didn't have many friends. I made a friend with a girl who was really screwed up. She thought it would be okay to hit my sister over the head with a 2×4 piece of wood. I never saw her again after that. That was in 3rd grade. In 4th grade I was friends with a girl who was a bad influence again she tried to glue the doors to lockers together and then when I proved to be a goodie two shoes she dropped me as a friend.

In 5th grade is where the real problems started. I was alone. I felt helpless. It was my first day of middle school and 2 girls who happened to be sisters asked if I wanted to be their friend. I said yes. I was desperate for friends. They were goth. Wore all black and one of them had piercings already. I was invited to their house. We hung out for about 3 months. They had other friends and whatever that didn't like me too much. They walk up to me in one of the classes the three of us shared together after talking to their friends and said I was too weird and I couldn't hang around them anymore then walked away. I pretended I was okay when I was hurting inside. I was alone the rest of the year waiting for summer to come.

6th grade..it was time to sign up for the school musical. I decided to do it since my sister was doing it too. First day of rehearsal a girl walks up to me and starts talking as if we are already best friends. At first I paid her no attention because I thought she was talking to one of the many other people around me but I soon realized no one was looking at her and she was looking at me. I asked her if she was talking to me. She said yes who else? I was shocked and excited. My self esteem by this point was so low that when I walked down the hallway I would literally look at the floor. I didn't want to see the people who made fun of me. I would keep walking and not look up. This girl pulled me out of my slump for a little while. She introduced me to a few people who I became friends with also. We hung out together all the time. We went to eachotjers houses. I felt that I finally fit in somewhere.

8th grade has a bit of a backstory that starts in 7th grade. So here it goes. .In seventh grade people talked about this horrible teacher. She was so mean and horrible that anyone who had her class was doomed to a year of torment. I thought being a good kid and all that it was no big deal. She was a special education teacher which I didn't know at the time. In computer class she ended up subbing because that was her free period and out teacher had an emergency or something. She screamed at me for being off task when I was not off task. I was so speechless another student had to tell her that I was on task. She singled me out for no good reason. As soon as I got off the bus to go home I started balling my eyes out. I was always a good kid to avoid that kind of confrontation. Remember earlier I was too much of a goody two shoes. I still was by this point. I kept my head down and got through the day. I begged my mom not to let me have this teacher. I cried and when I finally got my 8tb grade schedule I was so excited. I didn't have her. Then my mom had to throw a fit about me not having a special education classes. The teachers said they didn't think I needed it that year. I was doing just fine on my own. I never had to ask for help. I was Good. My mom Insisted. I got my new schedule and of course that teacher was on it. I go to school thinking it can't be too bad. She won't be that mean all the time. It was just a misunderstanding. I was so wrong it's not even funny. First day of class when your supposed to hand in certain forms and things. My mom forgot to sign mine and I got screamed at for it. It was not in my control. Then I get screamed at again for taking too long on my quiz to see how much I remember from last year. It was math so that's why it took so long. It was in my IEP which is documentation stating special accommodations for special needs students that I was allowed to just walk out of class to use the restroom and that I was allowed to bring my computer to class to take notes. She never read it. She screamed at me for both. My mom then sent a note stating she isn't allowed to scream at me because i was going home early for hyperventilating. She threw it in the trash and screamed at me for giving her fake notes. My mom then had my psychiatrist write a note. She did the same thing. She then got told by other parents that this teacher was deliberately bullying me and that they recommend pulling me out of the school I was in. So she did. I was put in online school for 2 years. It was twice as hard and I was not a self motivator so it was hard on my mom too.

8th grade also my mom got told by my best friends mom that she was moving her daughter to a different school because I was too different to be her friend. Her exact words were "My daughter needs better friends and yours isn't a part of that" when she went to that new school she made new friends and didn't want to hang out as often and eventually broke off contact with me. I still had my 2 other friends but she was my closest friend.

10th grade I go back to regular school and was put in a lunch with 7th and 8th graders who were moved to our school because the elementary school closed down. I went to the guidance counselor and asked to be moved to the lunch where my friends were. She did me a favor and let me be transferred. We had A B C and D lunch. I was moved from C to D lunch. My "friends" put their bags on the seat, had other people sit by them, etc etc. To keep me from sitting near them. I started running to lunch to be able to sit by them. It worked. The next red flag that they weren't my friends anymore but pretending to be was when I invited everyone to a cook out in 11th grade and they all said they would come and so I set everything up on the day and was waiting. 5 minutes til the time I said everyone cancelled. "Oh I have period cramps" "Oh I can't make it my mom has a thing" that sort of thing. They lied to me and didn't come. I was so upset. I sat at the table surrounded by the food and snacks and cried. One of those friends wanted me to help plan her birthday party but I wasn't allowed to be there. I was allowed to plan it but I wasn't allowed to come. That was low.

For senior prom one of my friends was talking a few weeks before about getting a limo. A week before she told me there was no limo and we would meet at prom. I get there and meet with them. Prom was on a boat. They had tables set up some for people and some just there with table cloths. We chose a table that sat only 4 people. Both my friends had dates but I did not. I suggested pushing tables together. There was an unoccupied table next me. Their response was oh no we can't there might be someone sitting there. There was no silverware. No purses. No bags. No indication that anyone could sit there. I just said ok fine and pulled up an empty chair to the end and their table. Later that night my zipper broke on my dress. I asked for one of my friends to find the t4acher who we knew to have Bobby pins and clips for this kind of disaster because if I stood up my everything would be showing. They threw a fit "why can't you do it yourself" "why don't you go sit with your sister" "why did you come without a date" my dress was falling apart...my sister was sitting with her friends doing her thing...i didn't think having a boyfriend was that important...unlike my one friend whose mom set her up with a total stranger.....hmmmm....i Then later found out both my friends came in a limo....imagine that there was a limo....i confronted them about it and was told it was a surprise...nothing personal. I called bs because she had been talking about it for weeks...i was alone the rest of the year. We graduated...i went to the local community college for a year and a half. One of my former friends was there and we talked some but after that we haven't. I didn't have any friends. After college because it didn't work out. I flunked out because of the math. I spent too much time on it only to fail math and a few other classes. I spent 2 years in bedroom in my parents house watching tv and wondering where I belonged in life.

My mom then when I turned 22 convinced me to join this special needs bowling group. I met a lot of people there and became friends with them. Everyone had different abilities and deficits and I liked this group because it focused on the abilities. My whole life everyone focused on what needed to be fixed or worked on with me and I finally found people that cared about what I could do. Then one day that all changed when one of the girls who I'm not blaming because she gets facts twisted in her mind and they get turned negative told her mom that I called her a lesbian. I did not say anything like that to her but her mom believed her. I had one other girl who was there back up what I said. This girls mom started saying that I was doing all these horrible things. She said I was saying mean things about her daughter and some other girls. She got a bunch of other parents behind her including a leader of another group I joined after the bowling group. I was shunned from the group. I stopped being invited to events. I was blocked by most of the people. The friend that backed me up became and still is my only friend. She almost got kicked out of the group herself just for backing my story. I was shunned. I lost a bunch of friends.

The adults in my life have been the ones who did the most harm to my wellbeing. After that last incident I decided not to care what others thought anymore because I know the truth. I know who I am. I give Taylor swift most of the credit for helping me through all of this crap because right after my last bout of bullying she came out with look what you made me do and it made my life so much happier. It helped me to move on and to be better. I still go to bowling. I still see these people but I'm not angry anymore. I am bashing their hate with total kindness and so far I've been getting snotty looks from the moms but no one had said or done anything. I'm still talking to my friends even though I can't hang out at their houses and be as close as we were their moms can't say anything without looking bad. As long as I am nice and kind...which I am anyway...there is nothing they can do. I'm using Selena Gomez quote "kill em with kindness" and Taylor swift "shake it off" "look what you made me do" I am thriving and there isn't a person out there that can bring me down!

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relatablyinsane-blog · 7 years ago

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Quadpolar Part 2!

Just want to let you know that i had instant bloggers remorse after that last post. Welp, I've stepped in it now.

So i totally forgot to mention that I'm adopted (see: Symptoms of ADHD; rushing, inventiveness), pretty important stuff. That means my nice, old fashioned, very old, worked in the post office their whole life parents are not, in fact my real parents. What they did was reach into a barrel of discarded babies and pull out a meth head kid. (Sorry to my biological mom reading this, we have to go in context for a bit). For the sake of sanity my adoptive mom will be Mom and my biological mom will be Mama, although that didn't happen til MUCH later.

I was adopted at birth and told as soon as i was old enough to understand, something i appreciate my adoptive parents for. They never kept secrets from me, made sure i knew what sex was right off the bat, my super paranoid mom even gave me a book CALLED "Child lures" (I'm not kidding this was literally a pedophile's handbook for a seven year old to read, look it up. Fucked up.) But as far as how true it all was, maybe I'll never know.

What I was told by my adoptive mom was that my biological mother was a drug addict with two other kids already (my sister was 4 and my brother was 2). My father, who she was with at the time, was also a drug addict. As the story goes (i still haven't dared to ask), while high on meth one day he beat my baby brother so bad that his ribs and arm were broken and he now has permanent neurological damage. Last i knew my brother had just gotten out of jail and was homeless, so his life hasn't really improved. That was about the time the state of Arkansas decided that my mother, pregnant with me at the time, would no longer have custody of her children and we would all be placed for adoption immediately. My sister and brother, who shared a father that was different from mine, were placed in an orphanage and my Mama chose my adoptive parents to take me from birth. I had no correspondence with her for decades and didn't want to- to me she was a vile, despicable woman like all the drug addicts in the world- but i had mever even met someone on drugs so what did I know? So, born in Arkansas, raised in New Jersey and then....

Fast forward to the good part: the part that sticks my crazy ass in the awful state of Maine. I liked vacationing there, but did i want to move there? Hell no! My one best friend in the world, the boy next door who I'd grown up with and was the same age as, was not coming with us. It was in the middle of nowhere, on the eve of my Fifth grade year. Having skipped a grade, I was only 9 at the time. I distinctly recall my first car ride to the rural beach town, during which I had a small mental break down and screamed "THEY'RE DRIVING TRACTORS ON THE ROAD!!!" because that was just <i>unheard of.</i> The only kid on the street, eventual cheer captain, straight A student and model child was my age but wanted nothing to do with the hyperactive menace next door who came over uninvited and played with the dogs. Yep, that was me. Forcing myself into the company of people who didn't want me around.

And thus I started school at the local K through 8. Wait. K through 8? How many kids went to this school????? Must be like TEN THOUSAND!! Back in Jersey there were 2-3 grade levels to a school, 30 kids to a class and 11 of each grade.That's over 600 kids in just two grades! (And i still had no friends. Sob. Seriously i must have been an awful kid.) You never had the same classmates twice, classes switched every grade. I couldn't imagine how FRIGGEN HUGE a school with every grade in it would be!!

What? What's that. There are HOW MANY kids in my class?

16. And how many in the grade? 16.

....so there's one fifth grade? And how many kids in the school??? ......a little over a hundred.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAA.

At first i was pumped. I get to make friends and stay with them all the way till high school?! YES. Except this was when I remember my life becoming a living hell.

At this point i had been on at least three different medications for ADHD and none of them worked. Ritalin, Concerta, Stratera etc. Apparently i was still as annoying as ever because i remember being tormented relentlessly. Like, relentlessly. When there's only 16 kids in the class and you're the target, there's no escape. The teacher's let it happen. I was called hippopotamus. My lunch got spat in. I was mocked in front of the class. I was called stupid. Everyone would argue about having to sit next to me and i would just sit alone, or if someone did have to sit with me (usually the teacher assigned someone which made it worse) they would push my things off my desk or ask to copy my work once they realized i was almost as smart as the smartest girl in the class.

And i let them. I wanted SO fucking badly to be popular, to have a friend, fucking anything. It always blew up in my face. As soon as i was done being used for answers, a good place in line, a random good pick for a team or something, i was immediately shunned again. I buried myself in my extracurriculars (now it was swim team, violin and piano), joined band, chorus, jazz band, softball and soccer. I told my parents very little unless they were being dragged in for parent teacher conferences about how i was inattentive and always acting out. My grades began to slip because I was starting to learn about depression and constantly forgot to do my homework. My strict as hell parents were making me practice piano and violin for hours a day and my only solace was my meager 30 minutes of Nintendo 64 time per day. At one point my sixth grade teacher (stupid bitch, i hope you enjoy your cancer (sorry, y'all)) told my parents i wasn't as smart as everyone said and i should be held back because she thought i was autistic. I'm a lot of things, but not fucking autistic.

In the summer before seventh grade i finally got a reprieve in the form of my still longest best friend and the miracle drug Adderall. For those who don't know, Adderall is an amphetamine based ADHD medication and widely abused for it's stimulant properties. For anyone with ADHD however, it mellows the shit out of us and makes us super focused. Well, I'm a little allergic to it, so it actually makes me aggressive. On top of that, it makes your appetite nonexistent so, surprisingly, your favorite curvy girl Jay developed an eating disorder. Not on purpose at first. I just wasnt hungry so i didn't eat. I skipped breakfast, skipped lunch, ate the light dinner my parents prepared and went to bed. Hunger was nonexistent. Then one day i woke up and discovered myself at about 135 pounds, i tried on my first pair of short shorts out shopping with my mom. I'll never fucking forget looking in the mirror and saying out loud "Wow... I actually look great in these!" I didn't realize it was the Adderall at the time but I let it get worse. Whenever i did eat off my only light dinner schedule i would make myself throw up. I eventually got down to 117 pounds. My lowest weight. I stayed there for years. Once i had a state ID with me at that weight. Even at 12 i looked emaciated. It was revolting. I kept that ID for awhile to remind myself how awful i looked and to remind me that I look better curvy, but then i got fat and it made me sad. But i digress.

When i got back to school I suddenly gave not a single fuck about anyone picking on me. Adderall made my emotions <i>nonexistent</i>, but my temper started to boil. As a punching bag i was still pretty friendly and docile, like a big dumb dog that comes trotting back for another beating time and time again. Now i was silent and glowery. People took notice, and that's where my first real best friend came in. Let's call her Patti. I will always remember the day it really happened. I was the first person in line for recess, a great honor, but all my classmates were playing the "EW I DON'T WANT TO STAND NEXT TO HER" game. As per usual. I didn't really care. Thank god for drugs amirite? But then one voice rang out above the crowd of heckling...

I'm just kidding, it was more of a frustrated "seriously guys? Grow up." and then there was Patti. Someone who'd never joined in the terrorizing- i didn't and still don't blame anyone who didn't speak up. It would have made them a target too. But why? She was a cheerleader. I don't think anyone disliked her. She wasn't "popular" but she'd been going to this school since kindergarten and knew everyone. I guess I'll never really understand. But she was a lifesaver, even before the depression got really bad. She actually got to know me, the real me, she realized (and helped me realize too) that i was funny, and goofy and smart, and friendly. Eventually, because of her, some of the others started to come around too, but none of them were ever quite as close to me as she was. I thank god for this girl pretty regularly. Not as much as i should lately.

But there was still the matter of the bullies- and of my short fuse. I had my first kiss that year and a few short lived "boyfriends"- all from other schools of course, it would have been an unforgivable taboo to be interested in Jay. But that year was the year i put my foot down. As i mentioned earlier, Adderall had made me apathetic, but also very, very aggressive. The rage built slowly for several months until one fateful day in art class. I can't remember what i was doing to deserve this comment, i genuinely wish i could, but one of my usual enemies decided to say "No wonder your parents didn't want you!"

She was across the table from me and before i knew it i had launched myself across the table and had my hand up around her throat. No squeezing, just pressure. Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head and the entire room fucking froze. It was like something out of a movie. That was the first time i ever rage cried. If i ever get angry enough that my eyes start to water, someone's gonna get hurt. We both got sent to the principal, maybe because the sensible art teacher recognized a normally good natured kid snapping. I looked dead into that principal's eyes and told him that I'd had enough. I was tired of being picked on every single day and having nothing done. Teachers watched and let it happen. Some fucking joined in. HE let it happen after i told him time and time again what was going on. I didnt get in trouble. The bullying receded a good amount that day. It didn't stop completely until almost the end of the year.

Through my mother's networking at church i had become friends with one of the most popular girls at a neighboring school- a gorgeous russian adopted girl with a thick accent and a very early onset sex drive. Yikes. In turn, she introduced me to her brother, who i began "dating" for several months. By "dating" i mean we held hands and made out under the bleachers at YMCA dances and he tried to get me to give him a blowjob at my 12th birthday party. Jesus yikes. Needless to say that relationship didn't last long but I'd suddenly earned a reputation of someone who was- dare i say it- close to popular?

Then there was the summer of 2004. The best few months of my life. Patti and i were inseperable, we rode our bikes around the town every day, snuck into the state park, ate ice cream at the little trailer shop nearby, stayed up all night then nodded off through church the next day. And we dreamed. Oh sweet jesus did we dream about getting as far away from our shitty little town as possible and never coming back. I had honestly never been happier and for the first time in my life i had a best friend. I had a birthday party at the end of the school year and a bunch of people came- people from my school!- we genuinely had an amazing time. The girls all slept over and for once, finally, i felt like i belonged.

Eighth grade was a breeze, if you skim over Adderall making me almost punch my mom in the face. It was the first and last time i ever raised a fist to my parents. But it had done it's job. I wasn't getting picked on, i gained a little more weight and filled out nicely, I excelled at academics, won awards in jazz band, joined the bangor youth symphony orchestra, and actually made real friends (none in my school save for patti really.)

So.... That's my life up until high school. That's when i met depression. 😘

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