#and i have a lot of complex feelings about anger as a survival mechanism

[betweenlands]

something about anger as a force for good in skyblock kingdoms. fire as cleansing. Fool is angry and he sets parts of OSSHA ablaze, Avid returns to Limbo and tries to burn it all down.

maybe it doesn't work immediately. but maybe sometimes you have to push forward anyway. spite isn't a great reason to keep going, but it's better than giving up entirely.

you use what you have. sometimes what you have is fuel for a fire.

[crystalcanis]

For "The Getting To Know Your Character" Questions: (Fade Away) Kana - "How patient are they with themself vs. Others? Why, and how so?"

Noriel - "What would they Not want to change about themself? What parts of their self do they cling to, desperately? Even when those things would be already gone?" Wonder - "Are they able to perform something 'Quick'? Do they prefer to sacrifice time over quality, or vice versa? How do they dispense effort per task?"

Loona - "Do they think of something as "Their thing", even though other people would disagree? Why so? Are they just not as open or upfront about it as they think? Or do they have gaps in self perception?"

Kana - "How patient are they with themself vs. Others? Why, and how so?"

Love this question, this will actually get shown quite a bit in the scene after the current one in the comic. Its a little complex but in summary I would say Kana is way more patient and lenient with others than she is with herself. The reason for why, is Kana has specific beliefs when it comes to morality, what it means to be a good and bad person, and that includes high expectations for herself because she always feels like she has something to make up for. That "something" is so vague that it can be anything she comes up with in the moment and that's a problem when your mind already can come up with so many horrors as it is, logical or not.

What this leads to is a lot of unfair comparisons between herself and others, where no matter what, she has set herself up for failure and her wrongdoings have a more massive impact in her mind than other people's and thus deserving of bigger punishments. Everyone else is trying their best while she needs to try harder.

I said earlier that its a little complex because if somebody does something that makes them a "bad person" in her mind then LOL. LMAO EVEN. Things change and you're in her level now <\3

Noriel - "What would they Not want to change about themself? What parts of their self do they cling to, desperately? Even when those things would be already gone?"

I LOVE THIS QUESTION A LOT TOO. I'm going to try to not spoil too much since we just started to learn who she trully is instead of other characters' perceptions of her.

Noriel has learned through her little trauma riddled brain that the world works a specific way, how she believes it works is a spoiler for now but they have learned to survive in it through very specific coping mechanisms and beliefs that she keeps close to her chest because they have kept her alive so far. A lot of it boils down to avoidance and detachment I think. THAT is how the world works for her, not in a cynical pessimistic sense but just this is what "normal" is to her. But like obviously no it's not and now that Noriel is out of the foster home more than ever is she forced to face that reality so I think she is very protective of how she's lived her life and defensive if you question her on it at all because to her its essentially like being sent to a different world where the sky is in the ground and the ground in the sky and you have to relearn everything and she would rather Not Do That and if you believe otherwise then you are either naive, stupid or trying to trick her.

Wander - "Are they able to perform something 'Quick'? Do they prefer to sacrifice time over quality, or vice versa? How do they dispense effort per task?"

Ok so the answer to this depends. A part of Wander's character is how in the harsh enviroment that he lives in he finds a way to regain a small bit of control in his own way. And he does this by making himself and what he provides needed enough that he can do his job by his own terms. So taking as much time as he wants despite how much that might anger other people is something he really enjoys because he knows most other people can't really do anything about it. However Wander as a person is very agile and quick and he prides himself on how fast he is on his feet and words. So people seek him out for a reason! He can be quick if needed and provide quality results. But if he doesn't have to be then he won't just because he doesn't want to :3

Loona - "Do they think of something as "Their thing", even though other people would disagree? Why so? Are they just not as open or upfront about it as they think? Or do they have gaps in self perception?"

I think Loona probably sees herself as someone who is emotionally detatched and upfront. Thing is, she does tend to focus more on achieving goals she's set in mind and doesn't deal with emotional situations well so this has caused her to believe that about herself. But in reality she is a very emotional person! A lot of what she is trying to achieve is usually because she feels very strongly about something or someone! She's emotionally motivated but her approaches are logical. And anybody that knows her can see that. What exactly she's feeling is what's a mystery to everyone else. Her emotions are so intense in fact, she ends up burrying them deeply to not get overwhelmed. So most of her feelings and conclussions feel like they come out of nowhere for everyone else because she keeps it all so tight inside her brain (its that ADD man).

[project-doomsday]

whats the irken species like in this au? are they any different?

OOOOOOHHHH!!!! I’VE BEEN WANTING TO TALK ABOUT THISSSS! For this AU I changed the irken species a LOT! They’re now called the “Iyer-Kahn” I just think it sounds cooler lol. I’m gonna splurge a lil bit so this is gonna be a looooong post so please enjoy!! Ahem…

The Iyir-Kahn are a human-like insectoid alien race on the verge of extinction. To survive, they invade other planets and steal their resources. Due to their old planet dying a long time ago, they're always on their giant mothership.

The leaders of the Iyir-Kahn are known as the Tall Ones. They are the last of the old race and the most ancient beings ever to exist. The drones are imperfect copies of the Tall ones, just genetically engineered to differ from one another in terms of gender, traits, personalities, and so on.

The Pa’ak is an organic mechanism attached to the back of every Iyir-Kahn. They cannot survive without the Pa’ak, which serves as a form of life support. The moment it is removed; they die immediately.

Iyir-Kahn young are created in test tubes. They are dead from the moment they are born until their Pa’ak has been attached. Upon awakening, they are taught survival skills, how to fight, and are educated by the older Iyir Kahn.

Characteristics:

Long, thin body. Almost looks malnourished.

Pale sickly looking skin with greenish white undertones

Hard outer shell that protects the body. Only the belly is left unprotected.

Antennas that can detect vibrations, sound, and smell.

Eyes are a solid color. They have pupils, but they are the same color as their eyes. It's impossible to see them without looking closely.

They have natural-colored shells and eyes. Colors range from red to pink to purple to blue.

Sharp needle like teeth

The “clothing” is data given a physical form that's generated from their Pa’ak.

Personality/Behavior

Cold and calculating in nature

Incredibly intelligent.

An Iyer Kahn’s brain lacks complex emotions like love or compassion. Or sadness and heartbreak.

 They can feel other emotions such as trust, respect, curiosity, fear, anger, and hatred.

Iyer Kahn protect their young from danger, but not out of affection. It’s more like preserving the race so they don’t go extinct.

Some Iyer Kahn can even develop a partnership, an ally. Some can even mourn over a fallen ally, but not out of sadness. It’s more out of respect.

Aaaaand there we have it folks! Sorry for the long drawn out post again! I added some pictures to make it look fancy ✨✨

I couldn’t help but gush about my version of the Irken species. They were so fun to write!! Fleshing out characteristics, adding lore, gahahhs it’s SO much fun!

I wanted to base the Iyer-Kahn off of bugs, specifically praying mantis and ants. I was also inspired by Predators and Xenomorphs for extra alien spice.

But what I was really inspired by was this one theory that Irkens are just evolved versions of these alien bugs?? Like they lived underground and stuff, it was really intriguing. My friend Sheepy was the one who told me about it and it was really cool!

Anyways, if you made it this far then wow!!! You are awesome and thank you so much for reading!! I love talking about this stuff so don’t hesitate to ask me more! 👽👽

[garoumylove]

Just some Garou ramblings I wrote up while discussing why Garou is an anti-villain 💖💖

Garou is an anti villain. Basically the definition of it. An anti villain is defined as having "desired ends that are mostly good, but their means of getting there range from evil to undesirable"

That's all there is to it. He wanted to make a more just world but went about it in a bit of a demented way. He's a little bit fucked up, isn't he? But the ends were always good with Garou. He is a villain to the other characters in OPM minus Saitama, but to the audience he is always an anti-villain.

Garou did do a lot of malicious things, some we might even consider evil. I'm not a fan of MA arc ending so I'm mostly basing my analysis and discussion on the WC when it comes to the end of the arc but the manga for everything up to the surface fight.

Garou is definitely a bully to heroes, especially those that are weaker than him. It's very unpleasant to watch him smash Mumen Rider's face into the concrete. There's no denying that he is the antagonist and he does prevent good being done.

However, despite wanting to be a monster and rule over everyone and walking around with big dick energy and being a sexy cocky bastard, Garou also views himself as a victim which he also is. He's not a victim of the heroes he wants to destroy but he is a victim of bullying and discrimination himself. When he beats up heroes and wants to destroy them, it's to create a better world, in his head, for loser kids like Tareo and like he himself was.

This is why I love Garou and find him so fascinating because he's a complicated mix of victim and villain and it's all so enmeshed and entangled that it's hard to pull the threads apart a lot of the time.

I am angry at him for choosing such a twisted and violent path to achieve his noble if deluded goal but I love him because I can also see the very hurt and angry and insecure lonely young man underneath.

Even Psykos/Gyoro Gyoro says he has a pure heart, he absolutely struggles to give up his humanity. It feels with Garou that this violent path was almost chosen for him, inevitable with the amount of bullying and mockery he himself received.

Him lashing out, constantly wanting to throw hands and defeat 'heroes' which he sees as the embodiment of his childhood torment are his defense and coping mechanisms. He was a boy who never, until he met Bang, had anyone in his corner. He has no adults to protect him or stand up for him or love and nurture him. You have to understand he was a child that was left alone and ganged upon most of his childhood. It's not a surprise he chooses such extreme défenses.

He says to Tareo that no one will be there to save him. He has to get stronger by himself. Garou has never had anyone he could count on. The only way he feels he can survive in the world is by literally becoming the strongest. He can only count on himself and so he will make himself into something unbeatable.

I believe he demonstrates, unwittingly, a lot of kindness and empathy when he discusses how he's doing this to erase injustice in society, to erase bullying and prejudice. He wants kids like Tareo and kids like he once was to have a fair chance at life, something he doesn't feel he was given in my opinion.

Garou is full of anger, but to him it is righteous anger. He acts like a complete cunt towards the heroes, but in his head it's to better society for the downtrodden. He sees the heroes as the real villains and refuses to be their victim any longer like he was in primary school.

It's not clear cut and the complexity of his motivations, terrible methods and naturally empathetic personality make for a very messed up but also kind character.

Garou declares himself a villain to the heroes and inadvertently as a hero to the underdogs of society like Tareo. He just isn't quite aware of the second part even though the audience is.

Garou really is a victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy. He was told when he was a kid by everyone around him that he was bad in one way or another and that's what he ended up becoming. It's quite common for kids to internalise the image others have of them and that's very much what happened here.

I do kind of agree with that he imposed his ideals on the heroes, but at the end of the day it's because he had a noble idea of what a good hero should be and to him none of the existing heroes lived up to that knight in shining armour ideal and he didn't have enough confidence to embody it himself so that was really the only path left for him.

It's interesting because he's so fiercely independent and a lone wolf but he's also such a victim of circumstances...the juxtaposition is fascinating!

[aphroditestummyrolls]

Just coming here if its alright to scream about the Colm/wesper 3+1 fic!!!! The care and gentleness with which you've handled all their perspectives, the vindication of wylan finally letting his anger show and getting the hug he wanted, and that ending with just a quiet moment between the three of them!!!! I loved it I loved it I loved it and just AJWBSHEHWBAKA

Thank you so much for sharing it with us 💓

🥹🥹🥹

First of all, it’s ALWAYS okay to come here to scream, and second of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH. I’m so glad you enjoyed ❤️ this message has made my day.

Part of why I love writing the Colm & Wesper’s (and the rest of the crows, but I digress) dynamic is because they all have trauma expressed and deflected from in different ways, but it boils down to this— they bottle things up/bury things/don’t communicate. Colm is a widower who’s isolated himself in his grief to the point that he nearly ruined his relationship with his only child; Jesper is a young man who’s buried his grief/true self so deep that he’d rather never experience genuine connection than have and then LOSE it; and Wylan is so used living in survival mode that he assumes either malicious intent or a misunderstanding every time he experiences kindness. All of these men are trying to make amends and heal, but to do that, they have to start expressing their love openly, and ACCEPTING it as well. It’s so difficult for anyone to do, but for poor Wylan? Accepting love from a paternal figure??? It’s the thing that leaves him feeling the most lost, and simultaneously one of the things he needs most. I really wanted to focus on the ways Wylan’s been impacted by the emotional/physical abuse, and how his and Colm’s healing processes both intertwine and clash.

And THANK you for mentioning Wylan’s anger!! Especially with a character healing from emotional abuse like that, I just thought it was so important to highlight his anger, and how he uses it as a defense mechanism, but refuses to use it for catharsis. He spends so much time holding things in his head and forcing the feelings down because he’s so used to living in survival mode, but it still comes out through the cracks. It’s easy to look at those big 👁️👄👁️ eyes and dilute him, but Wylan’s anger is a huge part of who he is, and a huge part of what he needs to let out so he can heal.

Sorry lol this reply got a little out of hand. It’s just something that really makes my eyes roll out of my head when I see people being snarky about “sweet uwu baby” Wylan versus “we could wake them up” Wylan. He’s a human being! They are both there— he’s a complex, multifaceted, flawed character.

And he is also my little baby boy. Of course.

Thanks so much for taking the time to tell me that you liked my story 🥹 it means a lot to me. Sorry about the ramble 😂

[cyberbenb]

Story #101. Lifting Their "Armor": a Talk With a Military Psychologist

Natalia Shtefanek came to psychology after losing her partner. Later, she began to help people who, as she once did, are grieving for their loved ones. When the full-scale invasion began, Natalia focused her efforts on soldiers and their families, as well as civilians affected by the war.

"People's psyches are being rebuilt to meet the needs of war, which will require re-adaptation when they return to peaceful environments and normal societal values. My task is to guide people through this process and help them to comprehend their experiences."

In her casework, Natalia has found that soldiers return to civilian life is a long and difficult process. The horrors of war, loss of comrades-in-arms, and moral trauma have a devastating effect. The consequences of these traumas can manifest themselves suddenly or after a long period of time. Timely and professional psychological assistance enables defenders to gradually adapt to the realities of civilian life, as well as to minimize and even avoid the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Among my clients, I observe the phenomenon of post-traumatic growth.

Some people who have faced a traumatic event - despite the feelings of  loss, sadness, and pain - reassessed their lives, learned to love more deeply, and gained confidence in themselves."

Natalia shared a case which illustrated the complexity of re-adjusting soldiers from "danger" mode to the "home" mode.

This spring, the wife of a soldier called Natalia after her husband returned from war seriously injured.

"Any experience like this changes a person, and the loss of physical abilities always changes a lot, because you become dependent on your family. I help to comprehend these changes. It is vital for family members to understand that no matter how closely you knew the person before the war, they will come home as a 'stranger,' and you will need to know him/her anew. After an injury, a person needs a recovery period in a hospital, then a period of adaptation.

Time alone is not enough. Social connections and interactions are important. They are the only way to help a person learn from their difficult experiences. But it is maintaining relationships during this period that is most difficult.

Psychological problems are consequences of uncomprehended experience. This is an evolutionary mechanism. Those who felt anxious about new experiences were more likely to comprehend them and, as a result, survive more often. This usually works well. But when there is too much experience, there is also too much anxiety. This prevents a person from calming down, feeling safe, and reflecting on the experience. The stronger the sense of danger, the sharper the division into "friends and foes". The more demands this person has upon his/her loved ones, and the faster he/she is likely to label people as enemies."

At the beginning of therapy, the soldier hid the changes he underwent and tried to appear to his family as he was before, Natalia noted.

A side effect of this behavior was a strong internal tension from constant self-control, which led to outbursts of anger and irritation. This aggressive behavior alienated his family and friends. At that moment, the man opted for what he considered a safer alternative - to keep a distance from his family. As a rule, such behavior leads to a decrease in stress resistance and motivation to act, but significantly increases the risk of developing PTSD and even suicide.

A person is afraid of being rejected, so they feel vulnerable. In an effort to protect themselves in battle, a person puts on armor and a helmet. At home, the exact same pattern occurs, Natalia explains.

"A person comes back home in 'armor and helmet.' If you try to remove their protection, they may become even more frightened and start to resist.

If you want to help, your task is to create conditions in which the person will start removing their armor on their own. And for that, they have to feel safe."

[gatheringbones]

[“Sometimes it’s a curse, and sometimes it’s a blessing,” said Greg Siegle, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh. He studies the brains of C-PTSD patients, and he told me that my suspicions were right—there were many ways in which C-PTSD could be considered an actual asset. “I call them superpowers,” he told me. “So many of what we call psychopathologies are actually skills and capabilities gone awry.”

Much of my research had stated that people with PTSD had shrunken prefrontal cortices—that experiencing triggers often shut down the logical centers of our brains and left us irrational and incapable of complex thought. But Siegle told me he’d discovered that research to be flawed. He’d found that for many people with complex PTSD, the exact opposite was happening. In moments of intense stress and trauma, our prefrontal cortices were actually far more active.

Normally, if you’re facing a threat, your body immediately reacts to it. Your heart starts pumping blood. The hair on the back of your neck stands up. This is all in service of getting blood to your legs so you can run the hell away from it. On top of this, you feel your heart beating faster. You recognize that you’re freaking out. That makes you even more anxious, and your heart beats even faster.

But Siegle told me, “As far as we can tell with complex PTSD, in really stressful situations, you’ve got this coping skill that allows the prefrontal cortex to just shut off some of our evolutionary freak-out mechanisms and instead have high levels of prefrontal activity. So our bodies stop reacting.”

In other words, in some moments of intense stress, we are super-duper good at dissociation. Our hearts don’t pump as hard. Our brains cut themselves off from our bodies, so we don’t really have that feedback loop of getting anxious about getting anxious. Instead, our prefrontal cortices blink online—we become hyperrational. Super focused. Calm.

Siegle explained it this way: “If running away has never been an option for you, you have to be cunning and do other things. So it’s like, this is time to bring all of our resources online, because we’re going to survive this.”

People with C-PTSD might have an outsized, gnarly freak-out about a cockroach in the house or a flash of anger on someone’s face. But in times of real danger—when someone furious is coming toward us with an actual machete in their hand, ready to kill—we face the problem head-on, while everyone else is cowering. A lot of the time, we’re the ones getting shit done.”]

Stephanie Foo, from What My Bones Know: Healing From Complex Trauma

[therockandrolllibrarytroll]

Trauma and Stands in JJBA

So this has been swirling around my head for a bit, and because I just lost my job today I figured it would be good to take my mind off of it by indulging in a bit of analytical escapism instead. 

It’s stated several times throughout Jojo that Stands are a manifestation of a person’s most innate self, their “soul” if you will. Some Stands can be a manifestation of positive aspects of a person’s soul, such as Tusk Act IV being a representation of Johnny Joestar’s resilience or Crazy Diamond being a representation of Josuke’s protective nature. It can be a great character analysis to just break down the aspects of a stand and how it relates to each character of Jojo. But that’s gonna be a super long essay that I don’t have the energy to write. 

What I want to talk about is how Stands can be a representation of things like trauma and negative coping mechanisms associated with it. Specifically, part 5 characters that are good examples of this. There could obviously be others from different parts, but these are the ones that I’ve been thinking about. 

The most obvious one would be Fugo. His stand has a lot of meaning to it. I think a lot of people tend to look at his character at only a surface level. Even if you want to discount the anime’s expansion on his backstory, it’s super clear that this kid has experienced serious trauma. Children don’t just become angry without reason. Fugo’s anger is a direct result of trauma, and we can see that with Purple Haze. It’s a Stand built to push people away, to lash out at friend or foe, or even Fugo himself. It’s a representation of Fugo’s desire to isolate himself as a way to cope, which is a common trait among people with CPTSD (article here: https://medium.com/invisible-illness/the-reasons-people-with-complex-ptsd-self-isolate-846266b52a6d). That anger, and by extension Purple Haze, are walls and armor Fugo built.

Another obvious example would be Abbacchio. While his Stand is useful in the events of Vento Aureo, Moody Blues’ ability is a clear representation of symptoms of rumination in PTSD (article here: https://sites.tufts.edu/emotiononthebrain/2014/11/18/hooked-on-a-feeling-intrusive-and-ruminative-symptoms-in-ptsd/). It’s ability is to play back the events of the past, much like how a person with PTSD will replay the memories of a traumatic event in their minds. Obviously the trauma of losing his partner as a cop would make this make sense. Personally, this makes me feel like Abbacchio is one of the most tragic characters in part 5 at least. What would his stand look like if he hadn’t experienced what he had? Not to mention his meeting with Bruno heavily implies engaging in substance abuse. 

Less obvious, but still interesting would be Bruno’s stand. There’s an issue with children of divorce having to deal with “split loyalty.” Even if the divorce his parents had was amicable, and even if Bruno decided to stay with his father, he had to essentially split himself apart to stay loyal to both parents. I honestly highly doubt his mother was just cool with him staying with his father, either. But you could chalk that up to extrapolation. So how does this relate to his Stand? Well, remember the fight with Pesci? When Bruno had to divide his actual physical heart in half to survive? That was not just a fight, that was a demonstration of his childhood. 

This post is so long, I need to go to bed. And find a new job. I hope this made sense to someone. 

[theminecraftbox]

Hypothetical!

In some alternate timeline either Quackity or Sam are subjected to... not identical, necessarily, but similar circumstances to what Dream faced in Pandora's Vault. They get caught with a dumb plan (that they probably didn't stage. Idiots <3), and they're somehow too valuable to kill, and things go south from there. Or they just get starved and tortured for some other reason, if they don't have enough important evil genius swagger for the full course.

JMAH and the canon Daedalus arc touch on this idea a little for Sam. But I'm talking more broadly and simply, the raw survival bits. Physical and psychological. What's the strategy? What can they handle? What would break them? What are the fun little differences? What do?

/dsmp /rp

Ooh, I’ve actually already answered this a little bit for Sam—not just wrt JMAH and Daedalus, l can’t find the post rn but maybe I’ll look again later.

Basically, Sam would lean in HARD to his sense of being martyred; his main coping mechanism would be believing that he doesn’t deserve this treatment. He’d also focus on denial, while he still could, and then on dedicating his mind to the puzzle of survival and escape. Though I suspect that determination would wane extremely quickly when he isn’t able to make headway. Sam… does come across to me as fragile in a brittle kind of sense: strike him too forcefully or in just the right way and he’ll shatter. In some ways, he’s easy to cow. But the pieces of him are still hard and sharp.

Physical torture is not the hardest part for him—I think he’d break really easily under torture, like embarrassingly easily, but that he’d swiftly pull himself together once it was over. In the downtime, torture gives him a reason to resist in a way the rest of his imprisonment doesn’t. It’s easier to feel righteous when your martyr complex is being legitimized. The isolation and starvation and neglect would take a toll that would be much harder to shake off. Man’s LONELY. The idea of being completely abandoned, left alone to the devices of captors who hate him enough to hurt him, with no one who cares to rescue him, unable to rely on his capabilities, unable to rely on any friend? That’s hellish for him.

If Sam’s in the denial and depression stages of grief, Quackity is in anger and bargaining. Quackity, while he also has severe abandonment issues, would face that abandonment with fury rather than despondency. He’d also try any and every avenue he could think of to try to threaten, cajole, sweet-talk, and otherwise persuade his captors. Unlike Sam—and even unlike Dream, in certain ways—Quackity has a relatively decent instinctive ability to pick up on peoples’ moods and emotions. That will work to his advantage.

He’d deal with isolation and starvation… okay in comparison to Sam. There’d be a lot of kicking things, yelling at walls, and ripping apart books. Oh, and certainly clock-burning. When his energy wanes and pain and exhaustion set in, things will be worse, but luckily it doesn’t burn too many calories to simply sit and seethe. He’s going to sublimate agony and terror into anger as much as he possibly can.

There would be a lot of big talk in the beginning of torture, a lot of swearing and bargaining and accusation and grandstanding. Quackity cares about seeming tough and important, more than either Sam or Dream does. He doesn’t want to signal that he’s easy prey. Once things get worse, Quackity doesn’t want to swallow his pride, but he’ll do it to survive—he does have practice. He could do it again. Quackity is used to feeling out of control of his circumstances, left high and dry without a good plan, and being pushed around by stronger people: more used to it than Sam, a lot more used to it than Dream. None of it would be calculated in quite the same way Dream’s displays of submission were—Quackity operates on instinct and emotion rather than on careful study, and unlike Dream, he’s not going to bend unless he absolutely has to.

He’d also find, I think, a savage sense of importance in being tortured. Especially if it’s either for revenge, or for some critical piece of intelligence: either way, that’s proof he’s somebody, that he’s left a mark. Cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless. Speaking of vengeance, Quackity’s going to devote a *lot* of his waking hours to bloody imaginings of what exactly he’s going to do to his captors once he gets the fuck out of here. It keeps him warm when the pain gets to be overwhelming.

[tg-headcanons]

Touka Was Done So Dirty So I Must Analyze It

I have a lot to say about how poorly Tokyo Ghoul turned out. There was so much wasted potential, so much meaningless angst, so many straight relationships crammed where they didn’t need to be, and so many sudden, anticlimactic plot points. But of all of the mishandling and poor choices, I think that Touka’s treatment is the worst.

Touka was a complex and interesting character. She was raised by loving parents, one of whom died early, the other lived a little longer while doing everything he could to impart lessons to keep her and her brother alive. When he died she was suddenly forced to become her brother’s guardian and rush out into a world that is so much less forgiving than her father was. They got taken in by her uncle and his friends, housed and fed, and she even got the opportunity to pursue an education which is a monumental luxury to ghouls. Despite resenting humans for the way her family was massacred and she is forced to live, she became close to a human, looking past her trauma for a friendship she cherishes. Her brother reacted badly to the idea of her being around such a dangerous person who could have them killed like their parents were, and ran off to join Aogiri, leaving her and her uncle as the last remnants of their family.

Touka is angry, and id say rightfully so. Her parents murder, being forced to grow up far too fast, being forced to live in this war she was drafted into at birth, any one thing would be enough to fuck someone up. She has all that going on, so understandable, she’s going to be pissed at the world. If it ended there it would be perfect, a great starting point for a character to delve deep into the concepts of society shaping identity, but then the worst happened

Touka is an archetype I like to call ”Angry Teen Girl”

Before we talk about the archetype, let’s talk about teen girls in real life, specifically how they’re treated by society. The teen girl in the public eye is simultaneously the epitome of beauty who is seductive and manipulative and lustful, as well as airheaded and shallow and naive and pure. The way that changes has to do with the convenience of the adult male onlooker. She’s A tactical mastermind when she doesn’t want to fuck you and she’s an airhead when she has opinions. She’s a prude when she doesn’t respond to advances and a whore when she wears a t-shirt. Most importantly, she’s a silly stupid baby when she demands independence and respect, and a grown woman who should know better when she acts her age

Teen girls don’t have the same understanding that boys their age do. When a teen boy messes up its “oh he’s 15 he’s still learning.” When a teen girl messes up its “shes 15 shes practically an adult she should know better by now.” Because adult men have decided the teen girl is desirable, she’s forced to grow up faster to save them the shame of acknowledging that she is a literal child. And after being treated like stupid children and sexy mature adults, teen girls are rightfully angry. This is so universal, so all encompassing, that almost every teen girl has this undercurrent of anger and grief at how they’d been socialized. Because of that, it too is brushed off as “stupid teen girls and their silly little feelings.”

This is where the Angry Teen Girl trope comes in. There is so much history behind women’s treatment, so many valid reasons for a teenage girl to be pissed, but this character is almost always played off as a joke. Either a joke or something to fix.

Back to Touka, let’s run through this again, this time through her eyes. Her family was perfect until it was taken violently away, she had to become violent against her dead fathers wishes to protect her little brother, that little brother who she was forced to sacrifice her bloodless life for left her for having a single friend, she lived her whole life knowing that no matter who she is or what she does the world hates her and she’s going to be murdered by the state. She has to deal with all of this, and then she meets Kaneki, who tells her to her face that he’s better than her because he was human, not realizing that not eating people is a privilege from birth that she never had. Touka is angry, and Touka is a child. A traumatized child who isn’t in the right for her violent reaction, but isn’t an adult with a peaceful world who knows better

Now if people just hated her for that then fine, but there is a huge overlap of the people who hate Touka for her aggressive personality, and people who love ayato. For every “she’s a bitch who’s so mean and super violent and shouldn’t be killing investigators when she doesn’t need to and deserves getting hurt” there’s a “he’s a sweet boy who’s trying his best and he killed all those people because he’s traumatized.” More and more, it’s clear that the same sympathy given to ayato, the much more violent and aggressive sibling, is not given to his sister. Right off the bat, she’s easy for many to dismiss because the misogynistic tropes that made her are fully reinforced

She is established as a complex person who simultaneously resents humanity for how ghouls are treated and doesn’t want them dead. She’s aggressive to her loved ones as a way to protect them and kills investigators so they don’t have the chance to threaten them. She’s angry because of how she spent her whole life just barely avoiding death at the hands of a genocidal government, she’s angry that she has to live this way, she’s even angry that she had to become violent at all and couldn’t live the peaceful life she could have had

But because she is an Angry Teen Girl, nothing matters except “But She’s such a bitch”

Now Touka at this point is still a great character, but things go south fast. The focus shifts from the world and complex relationships to Kaneki. Out of nowhere, Touka is pining after him. Out of nowhere, she has feelings for him. It was more convenient to just Insert Romance instead of developing them. Even if it stopped here Touka would still be a great character, but it didn’t.

After she fled anteiku, her character died. Not only was she completely cast aside during Ken’s Plot Convenience And Honestly Lazy Amnesia arc, but everything behind her character was stripped to its bare bones

You see, the Angry Teen Girl is only a teen for so long, and she can become one of two things: Hysterical sad evil woman or Calm Momwife. It’s a problem a lot of male authors have of only seeing a woman’s anger as a character flaw. In order to keep her as a hero, her anger needs to be “fixed,” and even that isn’t done well.

Suddenly, her drive is gone. Her love of Yoriko is completely abandoned, as is her reason to care for average humans. Her ambitions of collage and success are cast aside. Her complicated feeling towards her brother become “oh I get it it’s all cool I love him and just want him safe no hard feelings haha.” By the time we see her in Re:, she is no longer Touka. She is just the Momwife personality she got crammed into because Ishida just couldn’t think of a use for this previously complex character than “Wife And Mom.”

I’m not saying that she should have stayed angry and aggressive, but she should have stayed consistent, she should have changed over time and for coherent reasons. Such pivotal parts of her character are unceremoniously thrown out, we don’t even get a good explanation for why she turned out that way. Yes, she could rebuild her family with her brother, but it should have been built up to. Yes, she could leave Yoriko behind, but it should have any reason for it at all. Hell, I’m a die hard Hidekane fan, but I’d say she could have had a great romance with Kaneki if it didn’t come out of nowhere

She was “calmed” by having her dreams stripped from her after losing anteiku. She was given her “happy ending” by getting knocked up from desperate and uncomfortable pity sex. She was a girl who wanted to go to collage and protect her loved ones, she had queer undertones of being in love with her human fried, she had reasonable aggression as a self defense mechanism. Any one of these things could spring into an arc of their own.

But all that was thrown out in favor of being the most convenient straight love interest for Kaneki, though her personality was so incompatible with him that it had to be stripped bare to even pretend it works

If she had been given the same treatment as her brother and had her anger treated as a byproduct of the way she’s forced to survive rather than a self caused character flaw, she could have been perfect. If she’d been kept in the focus and not shoved aside for so much of Re:, she would have been good. If any part of her character at all stayed in tact, she would have been fine. But instead she’s reduced to either a Bitchy Child or Momwife. She was so interesting, and I wish her character didn’t get gutted for the sake of her male family and rushed love interest

[opinions-of-loki]

Loki - Episode One, Summary bullet points in form of an unnecessarily detailed opinion

- What I found sort of funny was Loki, who immediately hit the dessert and immediately hurried to the next higher stone, as if this were the pedestal that was his equal, only to be able to explain / present himself to the Mongolian inhabitants, only that they did not understand him and asked again who he is. It kinda gave me Hela vibes. Black haired Odin children have a tough time getting heard.

ALSO! THE SASS! Yet staying polite despite him being confused of what is going to happen to him - Trying to be all intimidating, but nobody takes him serious, as always! You can’t scare the time space cops my boy :/ Finding out how the company works and being all confused was honestly a very sweet and funny moment

- What’s up with the soundtracks??? Someone give this dude a raise who composed these Blade Runner-que music for the TVA followed with those cool bagpipes traditionally used for Scandinavian folk music? FUCK YES! Also the end credits music, it’s just excellent!

- Loki questioning if he’s a robot or not! I mean, he was told to believe he was an Aesir but in the end wasn’t. So who knew if Odin adopted a robot son? Better check on this one - I kinda got cute vibes from Mobius and Renslayer, they seem to perhaps have a closer connection towards another, especially after he greeted her with a formal Hi and talking to her on a somehow personal level - Mobius at first seemed like a very kind man and being patient with Loki, even supportive, but he is an experienced cop and knows how to handle complicated people, especially Loki variants. Mobius gives off a vibe of an older Blade Runner who takes his job very serious. But in the middle I kind of started to hate him a little

- The story of why Loki is an American crime legend D.B. Cooper just because he lost a bet to Thor when they were younger! Hilarious! Most of the most legendary pranks ever! I would have been more happy about the details of why Thor demanded this, or if it went like ” Loki! Cause some chaos on Midgard. Humans are easy to impress.” ” Say no more, Brother!” - Though Mobius seemed like the only person ever who had the ability to call out Loki to his actions: That he isn’t a God of mischief, because he confronted Loki about if killing innocent people is part of his fun, if it brings enjoyment to him to torture people who had nothing to do about Loki’s past. Loki denying that it’s not true, Mobius harshly confronts him about his earlier maniac like expression when removing someone’s eyeballs, if this is still harmless mischief-making. - BUT! Where is it mentioned he was controlled by the mind stone and the thriving fear of Thanos to get killed??? Loki was under pressure, to get killed by the Mad Titan, and he wasn’t thinking rationally when he invaded New York? For someone who studied Loki’s life so well, Mobius sucks to get a point to this one, or it will be mentioned in the future, I better hope so - Loki doesn’t trust easily, because “Trust is for children and dogs.” Gave me Natasha vibes. Because she and him were sharing a quite similar conversation a few hours earlier.

- SEEING FRIGGA’S DEATH! Loki giving great speeches about wanting to free everyone, being a ruler of the Nine Realms to hide away what he truly desired and that nobody would understand his thoughts and emotions, but seeing 2012 Loki seeing that HE gave the coordinates to the Dark Elves, unknowing Frigga would be on this very wing, you can see how hurt he was and panicked! He completely lost all trails of thoughts, asking where she is, if the TVA also kept her, if she is okay! He wanted to save her so badly, he doesn’t want to become the version who will kill her once again. - Mobius saying that there is nothing he can change and that Frigga HAS to die to get back in the flow of time, OUCH! - I get more TTDW vibes when everything that has been explained to Loki, that he will only bring death and chaos no matter what he does, that not only Frigga is destined to die, but Loki is about to die at some point, it made me think of Odin’s words:

Mobius said the same things, Loki’s destiny is to bring death or to ultimately die himself, no matter if he goes the bad or good path. It left me with weird vibes about Mobius being like Odin, just less of an abusive father mentor thing. He was made to cause pain, death and suffering. It hurt. Knowing those weren’t Loki’s goals, he came to the realization that Mobius is right, but doesn’t want to admit it, or at least denies it, but agreed in the end in a very subtle way - MOBIUS AND LOKI FIGHTING!! ” Do you enjoy killing?” “I will kill you!” “Like you did to your mother?” MOBIUS! FUCK YOU! At this point, he lost any sympathy from me towards him. He was guilt-tripping Loki, perhaps even gaslighting him. But this is also part of his job. He isn’t supposed to be Loki’s friend, he is a cop after all. Loki is an emotional and vulnerable being, so hitting him at the worst spot to get out more of him probably wasn’t the kindest thing to do, but probably the most effective for Mobius. Loki likes to pressure other people, but doesn’t like to be the pressured one. - Loki’s purpose is to bring those together he ultimately tried to remove according to Mobius, Loki brought together a team of legendary superheroes together that barely knew each other, and they grew strong together thanks to Loki’s wrongdoings. It somehow hurt a lot, but in the end, Mobius was speaking the harsh truth -  "I will gut you out like a fish!” “What's a fish?!” BLESS CASEY!

- Endless Infinity Stones! I am in love with this idea! I don’t know why I saw people getting confused by it because even though the Stones are what hold the universe together, the TVA doesn’t live in that very universe, they are beyond that very space and time we don’t know and can’t grasp, they visit timelines after timelines, so of course it happens they find stones and keep them, either knowing or not knowing what they are, or they simply don’t care, because they have no purpose in the TVA. Perhaps these stones are variants too and don’t belong to a certain timeline and needed to be removed, such as Loki’s Tesseract

- What got me the most, and we all know what I mean, Loki crying privately when he once again viewed the life of his alternative self, viewing the loss of his family, the loss of his own life. I don’t really know if he mourned over Odin too, but in this series, Odin never threatened to kill or imprison Loki which perhaps didn’t cause any damage towards his anger. Though he was aware that Odin took the other Loki in a cell, but it was a destiny he could avoid now that he knew how things will turn out when he returns to Asgard. He will never get arrested, Frigga probably wouldn’t die because of him, though I get a feeling the Dark Elves will come nevertheless, but this time, it shall be Thor’s problem not to screw it up. Though it was a relief to see him smile soon after when he realized Thor was the only one believing in him, even though their relationships always has been kinda weird, as Loki always was jealous of him being everyone’s first choice, but in the end, Thor was alive, everything that was left, and Thor didn’t hate him - End of File - I don’t know why, but reading this, Loki himself reading this, the very end of his life, it made me shiver. He saw his memories of what could be, what MUST happen to him, and that there are more happy memories. But in the end, there are no memories anymore - end of file. That’s it. That was his life. - I can’t imagine how many thoughts must have been go through his head to see Thanos again, Loki’s try to kill him, just to see his neck and wind pipe getting cracked. He currently recovers from the effects of a full year of torture, both mentally and physically, just the same he would treat his ‘Children’. I can imagine Thanos promised him the world, something small to rule over to expand over more realms. Thanos triggered Loki’s fear and anger, who had to deal with the information he never belonged to Asgard in the first place. Whenever Loki would try to flee or play games with Thanos, I can imagine Loki got punished for it, he never even spoke sassy with Thanos during Infinity War.  Loki is terrified of him for good reasons. I imagine this young man, feared, terrified, trapped on a rock with daily mental manipulation and pain. Loki became obedient and would have done anything for Thanos, whatever he ordered, including an exchange of power. Even if Thanos never fully was on his side and used Loki as a puppet with power and sorcery, being useful, I get a feeling Loki clung to his words and promises to rule over Earth as a savior and liberator, which completely went wrong - His laughter following after could have many reasons, relief, stress or disbelief. He was still crying between those laughs, which could be taken as desperation about no matter what he does, his actions will lead to harsh consequences. Disbelief of what he just saw, as if it felt so unreal to even believe what he had just witnessed, that it was all real, a destiny that was meant to him. But what else did Loki do during serious situations? He avoids them, he doesn’t want to acknowledge problems and shoving them away with a sassy comment or a smile to cope with it - which could mean this laughter could be part of his coping mechanism

- Him opening up, addressing why Loki hurts people, was honestly the best scene to me. He spoke about his inferior complex, his fear of not being strong enough to survive, building up a facade, a fake personality to survive also with the help of his magic. He thought he can be superior to anyone if he could scare everyone, gaining respect and love in form of war and destruction, as he perhaps thought of Odin being a former warlord, he would prefer a son who is able to conquer, being merciless. He doesn’t want to get hurt, he doesn’t trust anyone easily, that’s why he has to hurt people, to avoid of getting hurt or betrayed in the end. He became a double-edged sword I’m open for opinions and private chatting if you guys want to add something ! :DD

[whump-town]

Take Me to Church

Here it is: my religious!Hotch fic turned Bisexual!Hotch fic. I hope you enjoy my hard work, tears, and disaster bi-thoughts  

Warning: language, sex, homosexuality **there’s no real need for a warning for that but I’d just like to market this to my fellow gays**, religious trauma, Catholic guilt, child abuse, smoking, mention of AIDS in passing but no one has it, character death(s) **not anyone major**, Aaron Hotchner’s mega big boy grande sized guilt complex, ooc bc Aaron Hotchner has the proper emotions, and just general all around intense feelings 

The only Heaven I'll be sent to, Is when I'm alone with you, I was born sick, but I love it, Command me to be well

Word count:  5,794

Praying never made much sense to Aaron Hotchner. 

As a child, he’d prayed with crimson teeth and a bleeding tongue for his mother to be spared in his father’s rampant beatings. The priest always said that prayer shouldn’t be selfish. As he sat on his bruised knees and whispered between sobs, he hadn’t been thinking about himself. He’d been thinking about the little brother in his mother’s womb. About the pregnancy that wouldn’t survive if his father didn’t stop hitting on her. About his poor mother who looked sicker each day.

He must have done something wrong because when God had answered his prayers...

“Come on now son. Don’t be difficult,” the priest’s heavy hands pull him away from his mother’s grave. His suit hadn’t fit well that morning but logged with the rain pouring overhead, it now hangs from his bones. They make their way back home. Back to his miserable son of a bitch father. 

That night, the priest had tucked him into bed and Aaron rolls over in his bed to put his back to the man. As the old man turned to cut the lights, Aaron finally speaks for the first time all day. He’d found his voice deep within his chest and laced it with his father’s unhinged anger. “I killed her,” he whispers, hot tears running down his cheeks. 

The priest shakes his head. “No.” And, the old man could never know this, but what he said next would stay with Aaron for the rest of his life. “It was her time, son.”

God had killed her.

That day was the first time Aaron had ever seen his father cry. He’d stood in the hallway and watched his father sob on his knees, cursing God and swearing up a storm. At seven-years-old, he wondered if God had a sense of humor. He must, after all, to leave Aaron all alone. 

Ten-years later he stood in the same spot his father had kneeled in. He’d looked up at the ceiling and prayed again. He’d begged for his father’s life to be spared. “Just this once, okay, just this once---” but his father had never been a good man. A shitty excuse for a dad but Sean thinks he’s a good man. That’s what mattered: Sean. That’s the only thing that had ever mattered. “For Sean, please? He’s never done anything wrong.”

His father died two days later. A heart attack. The doctor’s called it mercy. For who? The man who beat him senseless for fifteen years before he just sold Aaron off to a boarding school. Calling Aaron’s inability to make friends and emotional outbursts the product of the devil and not his senseless beating. The same man who called Aaron writing with his left hand the simplest proof that his mother had been a whore. She had to have cheated to have created a bastard like Aaron.

Mercy? Is that really what he’d deserved?

He has bible scriptures carved into his back. Thin white lines left by his father’s heavy hand and the black belt he wore to court each Tuesday. The only mercy he’s ever known is the black surrounder right before he falls asleep. That twisted hope that maybe his dad hit him too hard. That he won’t wake up this time. 

It felt like communion-- Eucharist, standing to receive his bread and wine. 

The body of Christ.

“Daddy please-” he makes no sound as the belt comes down over his shoulder. Any noise is a symbol of greater guilt, a better reason to keep hitting. He doesn’t cry, he doesn’t move. 

Amen.

Remember, God is always watching. No bullshitting, he knows.

Aaron cums with a cry. A sob really. 

Sam lifts his head from where he’s buried it in Aaron’s neck, leaving the hickey he’d been sucking to die on its own. He sits up, his arousal forgotten as his heart pounds in his chest with fear. “Are you alright,” he asks, pulling them apart with a quick jerk. His hands are traveling down but he stops when Aaron’s hand grabs his wrist. “Baby, if I hurt you---”

Aaron shakes his head but the tears streaming down his face says otherwise. “I’m sorry,” he gasps. He buries his head in his hands, shoulders shaking as he can’t stop the tears. Sam moves out of the way of his legs, giving Aaron the space necessary to curl into himself.

Sam still has no idea what’s wrong. It had been fine. Things were fine. 

It occurs to him a moment too late.

“Fuck,” he curses, seething. Not at Aaron or the mood now officially lost--- but for the boy that Aaron never got to be. To the God that Aaron believes so feverishly and unwavering in. “It’s alright,” he soothes, moving along the bed to where Aaron is. He pulls his boyfriend into his lap, holding Aaron to his chest. “Nothing is going to happen, Aaron. It’s going to be okay.”

Sam has never been religious. It wasn’t something his parents had considered important. Standing at over 6’5 and two hundred pounds of just muscle, no one even suspects he’s anything but straight. People who do know… no one’s going to say anything to a guy like him. The same thing goes for Aaron. He may be a little on the scrawny side but he’s 6’2 and no one blinks an eye at the two of them spending so much time together. 

It’s not people they have to worry about. 

They can be cruel and unaccepting but AIDS is still rampant through-out not only the college’s campus but through-out the gay community. 

But Aaron’s a little too preoccupied with God. 

Sam’s not even sure if there’s such a thing.

“Aaron!” Picking him up by his shoulders, he pulls Aaron upright. They’ve passed sobbing and moved to a panic attack. “Alright,” Sam fails to soothe. He pulls Aaron off the bed, holding him close when his legs shake beneath him. “Easy,” he mumbles, his heartbreaking--- Aaron can’t walk. It takes a great bit of work on Sam’s part but with a grunt, he lifts Aaron off his feet.

Stumbling in the direction of the bathroom, he carries Aaron. “It’s gonna be alright,” Sam promises. This isn’t the first time this has happened. Sam would like to think he’s a good boyfriend (he is). He did as much research as he could. So that he would know how to help Aaron the next time one of these events started happening.

Into the freezing shower they go. 

Clutched, naked body to naked body, they rock until Aaron’s broken sobs die down. Until Sam can feel Aaron’s breathing steady out, hot exhales washing over his goosebump riddled flesh.

Against the bare skin of Sam’s shoulder, Aaron whispers Hail Mary to himself. His long fingers tapping against his thumb like counting rosary beads, “---of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now---” It’s the only coping mechanism he’s ever learned. 

Sam presses a kiss to his temple. Aaron hates that he turns his head for more. Turns his head until Sam’s hands are tangled in his hair and holding him tightly. Sam kisses him softly, full of love. He doesn’t deserve that.

“Sodomy is a sin,” he whispers, against Sam’s lips. 

Sam smiles, shaking his head. He doesn’t care. “Did you like it,” Sam asks, voice husky. He wraps himself back around Aaron, shaking from the cold of the water still pouring down over them. Fingers moving up Aaron’s back, he tangles them in his hair. 

Aaron… knows the answer. He also knows that sin is often appealing. Sam is the sin that Aaron can never walk away from. What he always comes back for. “Yes,” he answers, honestly. He had liked it. He’d liked it a lot. Sex with Sam is gentle and overwhelming and--- sin. It’s still sin. 

“That’s all that matters,” Sam presses kisses back to Aaron’s neck. Smiling against his skin when Aaron arches into the touch. 

Aaron can never make Sam understand that this principle isn’t that simple. It’s a black and white morality. Heaven or hell. 

But, maybe… 

Sam reaches around behind him and cuts the water off, Aaron shivers against his chest leaning closer to the touches that are trailing down his body. Sam pulls him closer so that Aaron’s in his lap. With a grunt, Aaron allows Sam to push into him and mouth open in a silent cry of pleasure he falls into Sam’s shoulder. 

“Jesus,” Sam curses, pulling Aaron closer. “You---” he moans, tilting his head back. This time, Aaron’s sets the pace. Slow and steady. It hurts but it’s an ache he’s familiar with. The lube from earlier mostly washed away but he’s prepped and anything is better than thinking about Hell. 

His doomed eternity. 

“You’re so good, baby boy.” Sam holds him close, his fingers digging into Aaron’s hips. “Fu-Fuck---”

Why is it that the only thing that has ever made sense to him a sin?

Sam dies in the middle of first semester their Junior year. Though it’s never stated, it’s Aaron’s fault. Sam wouldn’t have been on the road that if Aaron just prayed harder or been a better man. Panic attacks are a product of a shaky relationship with God and Aaron wouldn’t have had one, he wouldn’t have called Sam freaking out, if he’d just… believed harder. 

Aaron knows it’s his fault. He never gets over that guilt. 

He marries Haley at the end of Senior year and they invite Sam’s parents to the wedding. No one knows the true extent of Aaron and Sam’s relationship but Haley knows something was going on between the two. They’d been high school sweethearts, separated by his years spent away at college. Separated by Aaron’s love for a man.

He comes home different but she loves him. She also knows that her mother approves of Aaron’s God-fearing ways. Religion is good in a man like him, her mother had warned, you can see the darkness in him. She bites her tongue and moves on. 

Until she sees the darkness too.

The divorce breaks him. 

He starts having panic attacks again, worse than the ones in college. No one notices. He knows they just write him off as a dick. He’s just a robot to them. Emotionless and he can work with that. So, he is a robot. Just marching through life and flying by the seat of his pants, hoping that it all goes well. 

But he knows… each night as the panic bubbles in his chest and has him falling to his knees that hell is the only place he’s going. It’s going to take more than prayers to save a sinner like him.

“Hotch?” He jumps at the sudden intrusion. Looking to his left, none other than Emily Prentiss is standing on the balcony. She’s grinning from ear to ear and shaking her head. “What are you doing up so late?”

The cigarette trapped between his lips should answer that well enough.

The thing is, he’s not as slick as he thinks he is. She’s noticed him pulling away. Dave has noticed--- hell, everyone has noticed something is wrong. So, when Emily Prentiss had been tossing and turning in her own bed and smelled the wafting, faint scent of cigarette smoke she’d gotten curious. She certainly hadn’t expected to find him.

“Mind some company?”

And with those three simple words she’d pulled him from the edge. 

That night they burned through four cigarettes. Sin, that night, had been just as he remembered it once being. For a moment, as he stood--- her leaning against him and him leaning against her--- he had managed a smile. With a cigarette between his teeth, he’d taken his first real breath in years. 

Foyet attacks him in his apartment and as he lies bleeding he hopes this is it. That the world will flicker out, he’s just a candle drowning it’s wax. Will there be a light or…

He wakes up in the hospital and he’s never been this cold in his life.

It’s Emily’s voice that pulls him from the white walls and the pain. She’s saying something about cigarettes and the seasons changing. He smiles, drugged and submissive, when she proposes the team go to Dave’s and get drunk. He doesn't’ even think about God, about the sin and the eternity in hell waiting for him. He just thinks about his team and the only family he’s ever really been a part of. 

He wakes up thrashing--- a broken sob on his lips. There’s so much pain and he can’t think about anything other than death. Death and Hell and sin and the pain, oh fuck the pain. 

Thin fingers wrap around his, squeezing and he looks up and finds JJ softly soothing him. Her fingers are ghosting along his forearms, rubbing circles into his pale skin. “Just breathe,” she instructs and he’s reminded of Sam and that freezing shower and the---

“Aaron!” she calls and the fortitude, the conviction in her eyes sobers him. “You have to stop,” she tells him, her touch turning hard and that he can focus on. That pulls him back down. “Breathe,” and slowly he relaxes again. She’s softened and he watches the tears pool in her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that,” she chides, softly.

He manages to squeeze her hand.

“We almost lost you,” she whispers and that hadn’t occurred to him. His death happens to other people. It’ll just be… nothing. He must be very high or maybe broken because he thinks of nothing. The nothingness that happens after death and not raging, flaming pits of hell. 

JJ presses a kiss to his temple and he closes his eyes. It’s a tender love he… he’s forgotten. “Don’t ever scare me like that again,” she says, her thumb rubbing against his hand. “I don’t like job hunting.”

He doesn’t know how to tell her that the team wouldn’t fall apart if Foyet had chosen to kill him.

She doesn’t know how to tell him that isn’t true.

Foyet does kill Haley and for a long time, it’s like he’s killed Hotch too.

“Hotch!”

The last he’d seen of Emily, she was displeased with his decision to decline his invitation to girl’s night. First, of all, he’s not that dumb. He knew damn well that they wanted him to tag along because Emily had told them about his date with the cute blonde at the coffee shop had gone tits up. Of course, she’d chosen to leave out that his date had failed because she’d entered the shop and wolf-whistled at the sight of him.

But, she has chosen to blame the entire thing on him because he should have told her.

Ah, silly him.

Now, he’s waiting on his front porch for Will to drop her off at his place. Does she have an apartment of her own? Yes. But she’s a clingy drunk and it’s custom for her to come to sleep in his bed. Besides, who else is going to hold her hair up while she pukes?

He smiles when he sees her. God… leave it to him to pick Emily Prentiss, of all people, to be his best friend. Well, he’s not really sure he chose or picked her so much as ended up within her mercy. “Emily,” he greets softly, smiling when she walks right up to him and headbutts his chest. She just falls straight into him. 

He shuffles to accommodate her weight but they do this little dance frequently. With one hand on the back of her head, he raises the other to wave to Will that he’s free to go. The detective nods and pulls the car into reverse, JJ and Garcia in the back shouting their own goodbyes.

“Alright,” Hotch rubs her shoulders, shivering from the night’s chill. “Pigging back ride?” 

She nods and it’s only with practiced ease that they manage this so easily. 

As he stands, he gives her a second to adjust herself before he starts walking back towards his porch. This is the exact reason he does squats at the gym, so his thighs don’t shake as he carries her up the stairs. 

“Oh,” Emily whines into his back, where her face is buried. “I hope I didn’t wake Jack.”

He’s overly careful to make sure he doesn’t hit her legs as he steps into the door. Stopping to shut the door behind them he tells her, “he’s not here.” He scowls with concentration as he moves down the hall. “He’s spending the weekend with his cousins.” He’d told her this earlier, too many times. It is one of the smaller reasons she’d invited him to girls night: so he wouldn’t have to be alone in his house. 

They share many secrets. He’d been the first person on the team to know she’s gay. He still remains one of the few who know. JJ and Garcia know-- tequila always makes her lose her grip. He also knows that she wants to have a family and about her giant crush on JJ. 

Just like she knows that sitting in his empty house stresses him out. He turns into the empty walls and all he can think about is being completely alone while Foyet was trying to hunt down his son and Haley. She knows this and… she’d left him here all by himself.

“Emily,” he whispers, feeling her hot tears soak into the back of his shirt. He’s not mad or even frustrated, he’s just sad. He can’t do anything about it just yet. So, he takes her back to his room. He helps her out of her blouse, replacing it with his George-town hoodie so she can curl her legs into. 

Only once she’s situated, his back turned so she can hiccup and dry her tears while she slips into a pair of her own shorts he kneels down in front of her. “Emily.” He shakes his head, she’s still inconsolable, so he pulls her to his chest. “Emily, I’m a grown man.” He rubs her back, “I can handle being in my own home.”

She only cries harder and it hurts him because whatever it is that’s really bothering her he can’t fix. 

“Would you love me more if I wasn’t a lesbian,” she asks, sobbing into his shoulder.

Well… he blanks. What is he even supposed to say to that? Now she’s really crying and he’s-- he can’t think of a single thing to say. “Emily…” he shakes his head. “I--I don’t care that you’re a lesbian.” And why would he? How many times have they had the ‘it would be like kissing my brother/sister’ conversation? Or the ‘even if I were straight…’? He doesn’t feel sexually attracted to her. 

He just… he loves her because she’s his family. 

“You don’t,” she asks, sniffling. She pushes his shoulders away from her so that she can see his eyes. So she can see if he’s lying. “You don’t hate me?” Because she’s certain that he does sometimes. Like he can stand the thought of her. 

He shakes his head. “It would be very hypocritical of me to hate you for being gay,” he says, without really thinking about what that means. At what he’s admitting.

Though she doesn’t say anything, the admission sobers her. With tender care he tucks her into bed. Smiling softly when she pulls him down beside her.

They fall asleep on their sides, facing one another. He falls asleep first. Too exhausted to wait her out. Between them, she gently reaches over and brushes her thumb over his cheek bone. Trialing it along the facial hair he’s let grow over the course of their long weekend off. 

He breaks her heart.

“So, are we just not going to talk about it?”

They’re watching a basketball game from earlier in the week because it’s Tuesday and she gets to pick what they watch on Tuesdays. Granted, it’s sports and he hates sports which means that he gets to pick whether or not they sit close. She knows something is wrong because he puts the entire couch between them. They’re not even sharing a blanket and he always lets her have some of his blankets.

She gets cold easily. 

“Talk about what, Emily?” The way he says her name… it’s not right. He always says Emily kindly, loving. He says her name and it makes her proud to be Emily but this time it’s a reprimand and she sees it for exactly what it is—- an attempt to push her away. To make her feel afraid to push on.

But she’s been gay for so long, openly gay. It takes more than a little bit of attitude to scare her off. “You,” she says, softly. “You’re gay, Aaron, and—-“

He flinches at the word gay. Recoiling. “Emily,” his tone shifts to pleading. 

“You—-“ she shifts too. She turns her body to face her, no longer relaxed. “Aaron, there’s nothing wrong with being gay.”

Sodomy, Aaron thinks. First and for most, there’s sodomy and it’s a sin to love a man. A sin to love men in a way he could never love Haley. Which Emily would understand if he told her about his sex life with Haley. Rather, his nonexistent sex life with Haley. He loved Haley so much but he could never love her the right way. The way God had intended.

By the time he manages to raise his eyes to hers, there are tears streaming down his face. He’s so helplessly broken and he can’t even hide it.

“Oh, Aaron.” Emily pulls him against her chest, rubbing up and down his back as he sobs. “I…” she doesn’t know what to say. She knows it’s the Catholisim here at play but her youth was so very different from his. Matthew had saved her from the fate Aaron had succumbed to. Matthew had shown her the churches many faults and…

Aaron had no one. 

No one but the Bible and a God who never answered back.

“There’s nothing wrong with being gay,” she whispers, rocking their bodies gently. “There’s nothing wrong with you Aaron.”

He sobs even harder. He wishes he could believe that. He does. He wishes he could but…

They agree to never talk about it. Meaning, Emily begrudgingly lets it go.

The universe isn’t ready for Hotch to shove it under the rug though.

There’s this barista at the coffee shop downtown--- more than a barista, he’s the owner, actually. He’s a giant. He almost makes Hotch feel small in comparison. In college, he’d been a football player but he’d messed his knee up pretty bad Junior year. He became dependent on the painkillers he’d received after surgery. He’d dropped out of college a few months later.

Hotch learns all of this only after two coffees.

One that he has Monday with the man’s phone-number and name scribbled onto the side of his cup. His cheeks had turned a furious shade of pink when Morgan had asked who Charlie is and if she was pretty. For some reason, despite coaching himself over and over in the mirror that he’d never go back--- Hotch goes back to the coffee shop Thursday. 

This time as Hotch is handing the other man a five dollar bill he adds his own phone-number and name attached with a simple sticky-note.

He’s not even out the door yet when his phone vibrates. 

“I thought I’d scared you off, mysterious FBI man.”

It makes him stop in his tracks. A smile tugs at his lips and there isn’t a single thought in his head about church or God or his father just this impossibly good feeling in his chest. It’s been so long since he’s done the flirting thing but he replies: “As good as mysterious FBI man sounds, I typically go by Aaron. Besides, it takes a little bit more than a phone-number to scare me off”

The texts keep coming and Hotch doesn’t mind.

Charlie tells him about college and Hotch tells him about the team. It’s out of character for him to be so open but it’s just coffee and flirting and a really hot barista. 

The feeling is very mutual.

“Kiss me, g-man.”

Hotch shakes his head, chuckling when Charlie throws his hips over Hotch’s waist. “You’d better---” whatever threat he’s making half-heartedly turns into a groan when Charlie starts planting open mouth kisses along his collar. Sucking a hickey under his ear where it will be painfully obvious to the team. 

When Hotch lets out a grunt, his hand grabbing at Charlie’s shirt and the other going to his hair Charlie laughs. He buries his face in Hotch’s neck, his hand traveling down to the front of his pants. “Is that your gun?” he pulls back with a smirk. 

Lightly, he pushes Aaron back on the bed. Charlie’s nimble fingers wrap around his jeans, pulling the tight fabric off of his ass. 

“I don’t remember asking for this,” Hotch grunts, fist clenched tightly in the bedsheets. It’s the only way he can assure that he won’t go bucking into Charlie’s palm the minute he starts touching again. He’s not going to cave like that.

To his credit, Charlie stops. He plants his hands on both sides of Hotch’s hips, his mouth sending a dangerous gust of warm air over Hotch’s straining cock. He lifts an eyebrow, “say the word, Aaron.” Say the word and it stops. They don’t dance along fancy lines like that. Charlie wouldn’t do that. 

Sitting up, Aaron wraps his legs around Charlie’s hips. He runs his fingers up through Charlie’s hair, kissing him. With a smile he pulls away and whispers, “fuck me, Charlie.”

And he’ll be damned if he doesn’t do just that. 

Sodomy is way better than Aaron remembers.

They’re about three months into this when Charlie learns that Hotch hasn’t told a soul about him. At least, not really. Not past the point of passing in conversation. Hell, he hasn’t even told them that Charlie isn’t some bombshell blonde woman but a 6’4 black man who owns the coffee shop. 

“Fine,” Hotch caves despite the anxiety leaving him so unnerved he’s shaking. “Do you want to come with me to Dave’s this weekend?” He’s got an edge to his tone. He’s hoping Charlie takes the bait and rolls his eyes. He almost hopes for a fight.

Charlie nods his head, “I would like to, actually.”

Fuck. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

It’s not okay. It’s far from it. 

He sits on edge for the rest of the week. Begging for a case. None come.

If Charlie has anything to say about Hotch letting go of his hand when they step out of the car, he doesn’t say anything. He does offer him a supportive smile, reaching between them to squeeze Aaron’s bicep.

“Dave,” Hotch breathes the other man’s voice and Charlie can hear the panic seeping into his deep tone. But then he just blanks. 

Charlie stretches his hand out, “I’m Charlie.”

Dave gets over his momentary shock very quickly. “Charlie,” Dave shakes his head with a smile. He avoids the hand being offered and pulls the younger man in for a hug. “I have heard so much about you! I was just a little shocked. I was expecting--”

Charlie laughs, “a woman.”

Dave claps him on the back. “Well, yes, I was.” He smiles at Hotch next, pulling him in for a hug too. Dave can feel just how unnerved Hotch is but he doesn’t comment. He just squeezes him a little tighter. “More so,” Dave says, “I was expecting a blonde. He really likes blondes.”

Charlie glances back at Aaron, keeping his smile in place even when Aaron can’t look up from his intense battle with the floor. 

“Well, come on in! I’ve got enough bourbon and food in here to feed a small army!”

Charlie steps inside first, Aaron hot on his heels.

Charlie turns around, to look back at Aaron. Calling the other man’s name for attention. “Aaron,” he calls softly, grabbing his hand. “Show me to the bathroom.” 

Hotch nods his head, eyes vacant as he moves on through the room. Ghosting. “It’s, ugh,” Hotch points lamely to the door. 

Charlie pulls him into the small room. Aaron making a small grunt of protest. “Look at me,” says, stern but not overbearing. “Aaron, please.”

It takes a moment but Aaron pulls his eyes off the floor. He grimaces when a tear falls down his cheek, ashamed of this display of emotion. This vulnerability.

With a sad smile, Charlie wipes it away with the pad of his thumb. “They didn’t know did they?”

Leaning forward, Hotch buried his face in Charlie’s blue t-shirt. It’s old and soft and it does nothing to slow his tears. He shakes his head. “They didn’t.”

Fuck. Charlie wraps his arms around Hotch, pulling him close. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

What other options are there? If Charlie hadn’t forced his hand Hotch would have happily died in the blissful lie he’d created. He could have died alone. No need to come out. Hell, if he’d just found another blonde woman he could have married her and died “straight”. 

Anything is better than this in-between. 

“Aaron,” Charlie breathes his name sadly. He doesn’t know what to say. His family had disowned him. So, he can’t just reassure Aaron it’ll be okay but Dave took it so well. “Have you even given them a chance?”

Well… Dave did take it very well and Emily already knows. 

“No,” he answers honestly. 

Charlie presses a kiss to his temple, asking, “maybe you should give them the benefit of the doubt?”

A knock at the door makes them both jump. 

“Hotch,” Reid whines from the other side. “I really have to go.”

Hotch smiles and that makes Charlie smile. “Good?” he asks.

Hotch nods, “good.”

The pair step out of the bathroom. 

Reid blushes and slides past. 

“You don’t think he thinks we were…”

Hotch nods, “more than likely.”

Heading back down the hall, Charlie leans into Hotch’s side. “Which one was that?”

“Reid.”

Charlie hums his understanding. Cuter than he’d imagined. Aaron had said tall and thin but it really did the genius no justice. He’s an attractive young man. “You didn’t tell me he was cute.”

Wrapping his arm around Charlie’s waist he pulls the other man closer. His heart is beating hard in his chest but he kisses the other man, closing his eyes and enjoying this moment. Separating just enough to say, “I think he said he plays for your team. If you’re interested.”

“My team,” Charlie repeats. He runs a finger along Aaron’s brow, sweeping his hair back. “My team is you,” Charlie rolls his eyes. “Doofus.”

Hotch’s jaw drops. “Doofus?” 

Charlie smiles, “my doofus.”

Emily stops at the mouth of the hall, having heard the dee rumbling sound of voices “That’s fucking adorable.”

Hotch groans, pushing his face into Charlie’s chest. 

“Don’t groan at me,” she says. “You’re the bastard that came out to me. Ghosted me. Then went and got a boyfriend.”

Hotch grimaces, “Emily…”

She waves him, turning her attention to Charlie. “You,” she sticks her hand out and they share a handshake. “You got yourself a good one. He can be an ass though.”

Charlie chuckles at that, “he really can be. Also, insufferable.”

Emily opens her mouth in happy shock. “Right? What about him being a know-it-all?”

Charlie nods, “don’t forget being a tight ass.”

Hotch feels a comment about their sex lives attempting to roll of his tongue. Something along the lines of Charlie saying he’d liked his ass last night— instead he just grunts. “Enough about me,” he grumbles. 

Emily smiles at both of them. She really is happy. Hotch deserves to be happy. With a smirk she motions for them to follow her. “Come on, drinks?”

Somehow, despite everything Hotch had convinced himself, everything is fine.

Charlie ends up wondering off with Morgan. The two deep into a conversation about a beam Morgan’s building around. Hotch had watched Charlie gag down Garcia’s awful shots and listen to Reid talk about thermodynamics.

And when Hotch’s anxiety started getting bad again, Charlie was right there. Hotch hadn’t said anything, he didn’t even close himself off. Emily had just excused herself to go yell about something with JJ, leaving him leaning against the bar in the kitchen. But Charlie had come up and squeezed his hand. Winking for good measure. Hotch’s anxiety, like his heart, melted into a puddle around his feet.

“Goodbye,” Emily wishes them a farewell. She kisses both their cheeks and holds on to Hotch a moment longer than she normally would. “So, does this mean we’re back on for movie nights?”

Hotch nods. He’s missed their movie nights. He’s missed hanging out with her. 

In the end, it’s the two of them and Dave.

Hotch’s anxiety rears it’s ugly head. Another painful reminder of the childhood he’ll never escape. Of God and sin and hell. The Catholic Church is solid force in Dave’s life and he’s askin Dave to choose. And Aaron knows he’s not going to be chosen.

“You boys good to drive home?” Dave hands Charlie a Tupperware container of leftovers.

Charlie nods, “we’re okay.”

Well, Charlie is. Hotch is little tipsy and one wrong word away from throwing up on the porch. 

“Be safe,” Dave says, pulling Charlie in for a hug first. He pats his back, lowering his head to whisper. “Take care of my boy, you here?”

It makes Charlie smile. They’d briefly discussed Aaron’s real father but Charlie can see exactly what Aaron had meant when he said Dave had been the man that raised him. He’s gentle and firm and Charlie is glad Aaron was able to find a father. “Of course,” Charlie responds. “Someone has to.”

That makes Dave chuckle. Damn right. 

“Come here, son.” Aaron’s always been bigger than Dave, not that he minds. He pulls him down into his arms, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Lowering his voice he whispers, “I’m glad you brought Charlie. He’s a good man. I’m proud of you.”

Hotch feels the dam break. He wraps his arms tighter around Dave, all of his youth and sexuality and feelings finally making sense. He doesn’t have to chose. He can be himself and be happy, it’s allowed. 

Aaron Hotchner didn’t kill his mother or his mother. He’s always done his best and that’s all he can do.

“You’re a good man,” Dave whispers, rubbing his back.

And… Aaron might just be starting to believe him. 

[bakugouisabitch]

Ziggy i work two jobs now and the second job is retail where i'm on my feet all day.

If you feel up to it, tell me how yb and malik would help each other relax after a hard day.

Omg this is so fucking cute of you 🥺 i sure can!!

((i’m so sorry to hear that that sounds so exhausting :(( i used to work in retail too and my sister still does work in retail where she’s on her feet all day and she always tells me how tiring it can get.. i can imagine what you’re going through might be even harder... i’m so sorry 🥺))

okay hc time:

hmm let me think 🤔

I can actually see Malik working in retail in a classy clothing store. But only as a “last option.” As the pretentious little bitch that he is, he’d actually be the type to aim in what is generally seen as a “higher option” in the working environment. I can see him wanting to do a job where he gets to feel important, like an office job for example. Whether it’s just as a secretary or an accountant, i can see him working in more “conservative” places, where he can put on a neat suit and walk around feeling classy and bossy, or feel a sense of accomplishment by communicating with customers in polite ways and telling them what to do 💆‍♀️ But if his choices are narrowed down i can picture him working in a clothing store as well. But that’s like the only retail he’d work in, otherwise he’d feel far too “above it all”. It’s like his last option because, pretentious as he is, he wouldn’t enjoy a job where he has to “serve” people in any way - and that also includes packing their clothes in a bag behind a cash register.

Bakura, on the other hand, is much more laid back with that like,,,,, he doesn’t give a fuck as long as he gets money sgsjhs If it was up to him he wouldn’t be working at all. He’d survive by just stealing what’s necessary to live (but ofc that would be impossible - unfortunately for him). Like, less communication with people and more manual labour is what he’d pick. I can even see him working in really “easy jobs” (also because it’s easier for him to adapt as a human in society after having been a spirit for so long) like for a fast food chain or delivering the mail or even just as a dishwasher. You know... working in places where he might even get the chance to steal something >.> (i might draw him in working clothes one day 🤔 the idea really amuses me)

Now, coming to your post-work relaxing HCs:

When Malik comes home after a hard day’s work I can totally picture him complaining. And like, a lot. He wants Bakura’s full attention and he wants him to listen so he can talk and talk and complain and lament how everyone is wrong and he is right. Yk at the end of the day, he is no boss or CEO in the office or whatever working place he chooses (unless he really builds his way up but that would take a lot of time) and that in itself frustrates him. No matter how much he can keep up the illusion of being the one who orders his colleagues around, as a matter of fact he isn’t. He also has superiors to listen to and he has to collaborate with others and, because of all of his complexities and issues he had growing up, he'd low-key feel humiliated by something so mediocre. So, as soon as he gets home he has to let it all out and complain about everyone. He mostly overdoes it in his stories tho’ and is quite the drama queen for even just minor things that didn’t go as he planned at work...

Bakura kind of sees through all of this, ofc, but he’s totally here for Malik in these moments. He gives him his full attention and nods and agrees to whatever Malik says, even if he knows he’s being a tiny bit extra with his tales. But he knows Malik needs his attention and a lot of praise and reminders of how good he is. Most of all in these moments. So he complies ofc to please his distressed boyfriend.

(kinda angsty HCs:) When his working day goes really bad, there are even moments where Malik would take out his whole anger on Bakura and start accusing him of being the problem (shameless self-promo: kind of like in the beginning of my fic here) . And it’s in these moments where Bakura stops with all the sympathetic demeanour and actually fights back. Because enough is enough, and Malik has a tendency to go too far with his words and his insults at times. But even if they end up arguing it’s a coping mechanism for Malik as well to let out some of that pent up rage he’s been feeling all day. And with Bakura actually fighting back instead of just caving in, Malik gets a low-key unhealthy sense of high/satisfaction too: One, because he has Bakura’s full attention that way, and two, because he longs for that kind of conflict. He’d even go as far as provoking Bakura on purpose to rile him up and get him to direct his whole anger back at him. And Bakura never fails to put him back in his place so Malik gets exactly what he wants at the end of the day. Yes this would also lead to a lot of steamy fucking but i‘m trying to keep these HCs sfw and it’s really hard with these two sdfghjkIn Whatever their way, they make up for it at the end of the day anyway and it’s like nothing happened once the stress leaves them so, no worries.

When Bakura comes home after a hard day‘s work he hates everything. But more in a grumpy/don‘t-talk-to-me kind of way. Unlike Malik, he won‘t be complaining about his job because he doesn‘t want to waste another second thinking about it now that it‘s his free time. He won’t be mentioning the “W” from work unless it’s totally necessary. As soon as he’s done working, he wants to pretend it doesn‘t even exist and like, use every second out of work for his own personal benefit. Being a thief/cheater of rules in life, he always makes sure to do as little duty as possible and he would even be the type to falsely call in sick and do stuff like that to not work. ANYWAY (sorry for digressing) once he leaves work he wants to make the best of his time and as soon as he enters home he‘d throw himself on the sofa and take his favourite drink (beer) and make sure he‘s as relaxed as possible. He‘s also particularly needy to have Malik on his lap in these moments and would love for him to just stay close to him and cuddle and caress and touch him. Ideally he’d want Malik to be his perfect nice malewife in such moments and when Malik is in the right mood he even complies - he’d do anything to hear more praise from Bakura over how good and perfect he is and would even prepare him a nice non-vegetarian meal just to please his boyfriend.

Unlike Malik, Bakura would love to have less conflict possible in his post-work moments and craves to touch and just have Makik all to himself in his arms. But if Malik happens to be in the wrong mood as well and kind of neglects Bakura in these moments, Bakura could become petty enough to scowl and brood away for eternity. He’d be low-key/indirectly demanding that Malik makes up for it later on. And this would lead to nsfw hcs as well sfjhdj sorry Malik would be like “hey what’s up?” and Bakura would just grumble with his arms crossed and looking away. Malik would have to tip-toe his way slowly in to not let him be moody and disappointed for the rest of the day, calling him “Habibi” or “Bakura-sama” (since he adressea himself with ore-sama so gladly) to soften him up, until Bakura can’t help but let a smile form on his lips and they would end up cuddling and fucking ofc and everything is fine once again.

Idk i just really like them exactly because they seem to clash for being so different but they always find a way (sappy as it sounds) to be perfect for each other at the end <33

((I hope these were the kind of HCs you asked for 🥺 sorry if they got far too long or psychological sgksjak I wish you good good luck and i hope in future you may find something that is less stressful for you 💙💜))

[ahhhsami]

TLOU2 and the Stages of Grief

To begin, here’s a quick crash course into the 5 Stages of Grief. 

There are five stages of grief; Denial & Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Although these are the identified stages, they are not experienced the same for everyone. People experience them occurring in different orders, experience each stage to different degrees, and in some cases people don’t experience all of the stages. Often times people in real life experience these stages without full completion due to how quickly the world moves and the responsibilities that society has put on an individual. Throughout the whole process, our own feelings and thoughts of mortality is brought up. But there is a common thread in each of the stages and that is Hope. While you may have lost someone you are still alive and there is hope that you will continue to live, or in some cases just survive.

Now that we’ve covered some basics to the 5 Stages of Grief, let’s really get into it in regards to The Last of Us Part II. There will be spoilers ahead.

1. Denial & Isolation

The obvious trigger to this first stage for Ellie was the killing of Joel. We can see this particular event beginning the thoughts of “This can’t be happening.” Denial is a buffer, a protection mechanism against tragic events. This then moves onto the feeling of helplessness and a lack of hope. Often times this stage is shorter, a more immediate response to the loss. Ellie clearly experiences this stage quickly, this can be seen through the audio distortion as soon as Joel is killed. The stage has begun and continues to be present as the scene cuts to Ellie, Ellie who has isolated herself and who is clearly going through the stage of Denial & Isolation. It’s the first wave of pain.

2. Anger

This is the stage that Ellie stays in the longest. Denial & Isolation, as mentioned before, is a defense mechanism. This wears off though and what replaces it is the realization of what has occurred and pain. Absolute pain. We are vulnerable creatures and to protect ourselves we express ourselves in different ways. A very common way is Anger. Anger can be expressed in different ways and towards different people and objects. In Ellie’s case, the Anger is supposedly focused on Abby, the killer of Joel, and the people of WLF. But when we delve into it further, it’s not just about Abby and the WLF. Ellie expresses Anger at Joel, at her life and circumstances, and even herself. 

The reason for feeling anger isn’t always obvious. Her anger towards Abby is. This woman has taken someone that Ellie cares for. But when it comes to the other things that Ellie has anger towards, it’s not as obvious and definitely isn’t fleshed out or recognized unless you’ve completed the game. Ellie resents Joel to an extent. That is clear. It stems from him lying to her about the Hospital Incident from The Last of Us Part I. But it also comes from him leaving. Although it was out of his control, Joel is still gone. Resentment and anger can be rational and irrational, just like all of the other emotions and thoughts people have. Ellie also feels resentment towards herself. She continues to struggle with the fact that she was saved. That with giving up her own life, she may have been able to save humanity. That’s a lot for one person. But what makes this even harder to endure, is the fact that Joel made that choice for her. On top of all of this, it’s easy to be angry, and then feel more angry for feeling angry. It’s a vicious cycle that Ellie gets trapped in.

In the world of TLOU, this stage is the most prominent due to the circumstances. Anger allows someone to survive and that’s what the people of this world do. They don’t have the luxury to sit back and go through the Five Stages of Grief properly. Ellie has learned anger and survival from the very beginning and Joel just reiterates it. He cements it in TLOU when Henry and Sam die. Not everyone gets to see or hear this interaction, but here it is; Ellie “I want to talk about it.” Joel “No.” Ellie “Why not?” Joel “How many times do we need to go over this? Things happen. And we move on.” Ellie “It’s just-” Joel “That’s enough.” Ellie “Alright.” Survival does this to you. It suppresses normal feelings and thoughts to allow someone to survive. On top of this, Tommy prolongs this stage too. He’s also trapped within it, taking Ellie with him. 

Let us not forget the hopeful part of this stage though. Again each stage has the underlying fact that you are still alive. That although you have lost someone, you can still live. That hope begins in the presence of Dina. She is Ellie’s rock and someone who almost pulls her out of the stage of Anger, but unfortunately isn’t enough. Ellie is still grieving when she leaves JJ and Dina. She’s dealing with PTSD, depression, regret, anger, denial, and so much more all at once. She’s not living, she’s surviving. She’s putting her own family at risk. And although people would have loved for her to stay with Dina and JJ, she wouldn’t have been happy. She wouldn’t be living.

When Ellie does leave, she is still in the stage of Anger. It was clear that she had thought that she was past it, done with grieving, but with her reliving Joel’s death, she had not progressed through all of the Stages of Grief. This also brings to light the fact that you can also experience the stages more than once. By having an episode like this, it can restart stages such as Denial and Isolation. Grieving is not linear.

3. Bargaining

This stage is honestly one of the most interesting to me. Bargaining deals with the “If only” ideas and statements that people think of when grieving. For Ellie a big one I believe is “If only I had found him sooner.” You can see that from her flashbacks from her PTSD and depression. You can see it in her actions of trying to get revenge on Abby and the WLF. She continues to think and act on these “If only” and “What if” statements and questions. But not just about the specific moment that Joel is killed. She thinks about “What if Joel had let me die? Had let the Fireflies find a cure,” “What if I had stayed with Dina?,” “What if I hadn’t convinced Tommy to also get revenge?,” “If only we didn’t live in this type of world,” “If only I had been able to kill Abby when I had the chance.” 

Ellie is plagued by guilt throughout TLOU2. This stage can eat away at someone mentally. And it does for Ellie. Often times she experiences the Stage of Anger and the stage of Bargaining at the same time. But also experiences them separately. 

4. Depression

There are different types of depression and when it comes to grieving, there are two main types. One is related to more practical implications, like feeling sadness and regret for not spending time with others due to isolating oneself from the grief. It can also be linked with your worries, such as how are we going to bury them, what do we do with their belongings, or in Ellie’s case, how to get revenge. The second is more emotional and private. It’s based on inner feelings of sadness, helplessness, hopelessness, and guilt. 

This stage is something that Ellie suppresses. She pushes these feelings and thoughts down and instead it’s replaced with anger.

5. Acceptance

This is the stage that people may find the most controversial in regards to the game. Many people never reach this stage. Often stuck in Anger and Denial. When this does occur, that’s okay and that’s life, but in Ellie’s case, she does reach acceptance. 

Some people may expect acceptance to lead to instant happiness and moving on. But that is not the case. Acceptance is often marked by withdrawal and a sense of calm. Acceptance is coming to grips with what has happened, who you have lost, and also accepting your own mortality. It’s coming to the conclusion that “I’ve lost someone important, but I’m going to be able to survive, I’m going to be able to continue to live my life.” 

I truly believe that Ellie would not have been able to find acceptance if she had killed Abby. If she had, her own anger would have continued to consume her and she would never make it through the Stages of Grief that she had needed to. Ellie ended a cycle of being driven to only survive. She wasn’t living and that was clear. 

The way that I personally felt from the ending was withdrawn, but also calm, just like the stage of acceptance should feel. Ellie put down Joel’s guitar and left. She didn’t just accept his death, but all of the other things that she was struggling with inwardly and outwardly. A huge thing being the fact that she was kept alive by Joel. She didn’t just accept his death, she forgave him. She continued to live, finally fully grieving for the loss of Joel. She will continue to miss him, but the stages of Denial and Anger probably won’t be present again. She may feel sadness, but it won’t be to the same extent. She may think of those “what ifs,” but will then be able to counteract those thoughts rationally. 

Grief is complex and so was this story. To sum this all up, the writing in TLOU2 is human, it’s real, it’s tough, it’s uncomfortable, and not everyone will like it. If you do struggle with this story, try to be self-reflective. Try to be empathetic towards the people who have enjoyed it, to the writers, to the team of creators, and just to people in general. There’s a reason why TLOU2 makes people uncomfortable, just like The Last of Us Part I did.

[libermachinae]

Fault Lines Under the Living Room

Part IV: Touch - Chapter 12: Stumble and Lost His Grip

Also available on AO3! Summary: Knocking on the front door didn’t work, so time to try the back. Word Count: 3,437

---

Scorch might have been as pleasant as the rust ruined dregs at the bottom of an oil can, but damn if Spur wouldn’t mind feeling that arrogant crackle of a laugh at the other end of his spark. A few jabs about how he’d teamed up with Autobots just like Grrder always warned he would with too-easy remark about how he got distracted by a smooth tread. Anything but the emptiness of stasis lock chilling him from the inside out. Add in the fact that they were racing narrowly by a straight plummet to a grisly death and this could easily rank among the top five worst days of his life.

He clung tighter to Drift’s roof, optics offline. If this was the end, he didn’t want to see it coming.

“Watch it,” Drift warned. Spur ignored him.

He’d had an alt-mode once, so long ago it was hard to remember now. He and Scorch had worked in construction setting up new plumbing infrastructure and had hated it. Even though he couldn’t remember what form he’d taken to do the job, he could still smell the insides of those tunnels and feel that wet heat weighing down on him. When the representative for Triple M had shown up on site, it hadn’t mattered that the foreman dragged him off before he could introduce himself. Spur and Scorch had been among the handful to roll up to the ramshackle unformatting clinic.

He justified the decision with a simple fact: everyone did stupid slag when they were young. His dumb idea also meant they weren’t in Ultrix when the sinkhole opened under the Ioreian neighborhood, and that they were among the first to know when Triple M leadership decided the Decepticons had the right idea. Or at least were on a better track than the Senate. Spur hadn’t paid much attention to the politics, that was more Scorch’s thing. Spur was more interested in survival, a simple goal that had become more complex the moment Drift had realized he didn’t have any wings or wheels of his own. That was how he found himself now with his fingers tight around the edges of Drift’s roof, squished flat with the wind tearing at his back plating, wishing for the untold time that he was about to wake up in his closet-sized hab back on the lunar base.

“Acknowledged,” Drift said. 

“What’s happening?” They hadn’t offered to patch Spur into their comm channel, and he hadn’t asked.

“Rodimus says we’ve got incoming.”

“Pitslag,” Spur muttered. He was so tired of getting shot at and beaten up and chased—

“Just keep your optics open.”

Which sounded like an awful idea, except Drift was very much in control of the momentum of Spur’s poorly armored body. He brought his optics online slowly, peering through a staticky haze, but nothing could disguise the depth of the canyon’s shadow, nor the sheer drop, which Drift’s tire edged along like a battlefield medic’s torch across a wound.

Against the ludicrously powerful engine underneath him, Spur failed to catch the moment the echoes started up from behind them, only realizing he was hearing something when Drift briefly slowed for a tight turn. The sounds overlapped, feeding into each other, but when he listened close he picked up a pattern: the ripple of a spring releasing, followed by the harsh thunk of a metal body hitting stone. He twisted, trying to catch a glimpse, but the darkness of the canyon hid its secrets well.

“On their way,” he said.

“I know.” Drift pulled a tight corner faster than he should have and started to tilt toward the edge; Spur felt his spark seize and threw his weight in the opposite direction.

“Gonna fraggin’ kill us!” he snarled.

“If not me, then it’ll be them. You want to choose which one?” Drift asked.

Another day, Spur might have considered the Decepticons. With the ground under his pedes and a blaster in his grip, he could handle himself. He might not have been able to fight so well, but he could make a stand, which was often all his superiors had asked of him. Something had happened to Scorch, though, and since Spur wasn’t about to reveal his biggest weakness to a bunch of pseudo-Autobots (even  one had saved his life), he was stuck with them until he could find somewhere to slip away.

The first blaster bolt that pinged off the wall behind him had him wondering if there were any right choices in this mess.

“Slag!” Drift swore as the second shot clipped his side mirror. “They’re on us!”

Spur twisted again. He mistook them for Insecticons at first, with their twisted bodies and spring-loaded legs, but as one dug its thick claws into a wall with a heavy thunk, it revealed a small pilot crouched within.

Bang!

A pilot with a decent aim.

“Scrap, scrap!” he swore, his voice tilting up as he felt Drift slow further. “No, what are you doing? Speed up! They’re shooting at us!”

“Get off.” Drift didn’t wait and transformed as he pulled to a stop, dumping Spur onto the ground. Both took evasive actions as the plasma bolts rained down, Spur wedging himself behind a boulder while Drift took up the annoying hoppy thing he’d done to evade them back on Vitrious.

“Rodimus!” Drift barked. “I know, but we’re getting shot right now!”

Spur wanted to know why that was only an unimportant detail when he was the one pointing it out, but his attention was quickly grabbed by another sound pushing into their canyon, drowning out even the blasterfire: an interstellar speeder descending directly on top of their pursuers.

The Decepticons, startled by this new development, broke formation. One released his hold on the wall and dropped out of sight, apparently uninterested in dealing with Drift’s reinforcements. The others regrouped, one continuing his assault on Drift and Spur while the second twisted in his perch on the wall, apparently with the intention to latch onto the ship itself.

“Down!” Drift shouted.

Instead, the speeder tilter up and to the side, slamming into the assailant before he’d engaged his claws. He went tumbling end over end after his teammate, which would have felt more like a win if Spur wasn’t still ducking from blasterfire that rained shrapnel down on his helm.

“Will you do something?!” he demanded.

“I’m—trying!” Drift’s words were labored, popping between bursts of gunfire. Spur questioned, not for the first time, what he had done to earn luck so bad his captor was a swordsmech. “Rodimus, watch—”

Spur was still ducking, so he didn’t see exactly what happened, but there was a bang accompanied by the shriek of tearing metal. The engine swung closer before it dipped away again.

“No!”

And then the sounds of the battle fading, falling. Spur stayed frozen, hands clutching his helm, waiting for an explosion or another burst of gunfire that never came. After several minutes, he brought his optics online and peeked over his shoulder.

Gone. The lot of them all disappeared.

On legs that were still trembling from the force of the gunshots, Spur stood and stepped out from his cover. His tiptoed to the edge of the canyon but stopped before he was close enough to look down. He hadn’t heard a crash yet, which implied they were still falling; that was a long, long way down.

He hesitated, listened close. He took two steps back and turned aside, walking, at a much more reasonable pace, in the direction he’d already been headed. It was very quiet, down inside this lonely canyon on this almost empty hunk of rock. He tugged again on the thread tied to his spark, hoping that this would be the one that revealed he wasn’t alone anymore.

~*~

Drift had been accused in the past of not thinking before he leapt. It would have looked that way, had anyone been watching as he sailed through the air folded into the jet stream of the plummeting shuttle. The assumption overlooked the fact that he had considered all of this well in advance, and he had decided, regardless of their easily broken promises, he would do everything in his power to get his friends out unharmed.

Despite the damage, the shuttle’s engines were still functioning, and it was fighting to stay airborne, bucking against its unwanted passenger. Drift almost shot past but managed to grab a service handle, wincing as the shuttle’s violent movements wrenched his delicate repairs.

“Rodimus!” he shouted, not sure comms would cover up the roar of the air and the shuttle’s engines. “Calm down! I’m taking care of this!”

“Slag, Drift, hurry!”

Drift startled. He wasn’t used to hearing Rodimus like that. As if sensing his confusion, Ratchet chimed in.

“That thing’s nearly punctured through the shuttle’s inner walls,” he said. “Rodimus is scared the rider’s going to find his way inside.”

Which was, of course, the one thing they could not allow to happen and the entire reason Drift had told them not to come. It was only concern for Rodimus’ safety that got him to withhold his anger for later, focusing on what he could do instead of what he wished he’d done. The shuttle stopped its thrashing, which gave Drift an opportunity to pull himself against its side and start climbing the short ladder. He was almost to the top when he ducked, just avoiding a blaster shot between the optics.

“Frag off!” he yelled.

No response from the canyon crawler pilot. Drift didn’t understand why he hadn’t disengaged yet and wondered if it was a mechanical failure. The rigs weren’t designed to bore into spacecraft, and it was possible he had accidentally fused it to the shuttle.

“Rodimus, what’s he doing?” Drift asked.

“I don’t know; I can’t see! Half your cameras are busted!”

Drift switched to his other channel.

“Calm him down,” he demanded.

“I’m trying,” Ratchet said. “The kid’s stressed.”

Drift bristled.

“He’s not a kid,” he snapped, then cut the comm and launched himself over the shuttle.

The tick wasn’t expecting another attempt so soon or so suddenly. His shot landed somewhere behind Drift, the gun ripped from his hand before he’d finished releasing the trigger. He cowered within his metal exoskeleton, the entire contraption shivering as it tried to pry itself from the inner workings of the shuttle.

Drift didn’t stop to think about it. He wrapped his hands under the upper jaw of the crawler and wrenched it open, griding its fangs back through the punctures it had made. Freed of his captive, the small Decepticon immediately tried to reengage, snapping the crawler’s trap shut and almost crushing Drift’s fingers in the process. Drift tried to hold on, but in his effort to save his hand, he accidentally aimed the crawler’s spring legs at himself. They kicked into his abdomen, causing him to stumble and lose his grip entirely.

“No!”

The metal cage went flying, sucked into the air current before tumbling down into the abyss, Drift watching it go from his place atop the shuttle.

He hesitated a nanoklik. Then it was too late to do anything. Drift stared at the place the bot had vanished and turned on his comms, but he didn’t know what to say.

“Drift?” Rodimus said. “I kinda saw what happened. You alright?”

It was a long drop, and the shuttle wasn’t moving slowly. If the crawler came with an eject function, the bot might get lucky and land on something pliable, but more likely he was riding it all the way down. Drift tried to muster up an answer to Rodimus’ question, but nothing came to mind. The exhaustion that dogged his frame came back in full force, but that was so normal he doubted it was worth mentioning.

“Are you injured?” Rodimus pressed.

“No,” Drift said honestly. He sunk down, reattaching himself to the side of the speeder. “I—I don’t know what I’m doing.” He had spent months practicing the most rigid self-control of his life, keeping slavers and imperialists and megalomaniacs alive long enough to deliver them to justice. He’d made every thrust with precision, every grapple a little less than his full strength, and now that it appeared his efforts were at an end, he felt nothing. He’d thought that his first kill—because it had always been inevitable that he would go back to his old ways eventually—would provoke guilt or grief. But he didn’t feel anything.

“You’re going to get Grit,” Rodimus said. “You’re protecting Vitrious.”

Allegedly. If he didn’t care about this, had he ever cared about Vitrious? Was all that scrap about slavers and the betrayal of the Cause just an excuse for him to indulge the anger he had kept hidden under a red badge?

“Why are you here, Rodimus?” he asked. “Forget Ratchet and the Enigma. Why did you agree to come?” He wasn’t sure that answer would matter any more than the rest, but he was tired of being in his own head. He needed something else.

“To bring you back to the Lost Light,” Rodimus said.

“But why?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Rodimus.” If there was a growl in his voice, it was because he couldn’t be bothered to hold it back anymore.

“W—what do you want from me?” Rodimus asked. Despite the stress in his voice, the shuttle kept on a smooth course. “Do you want me to say that it’s for some selfish reason, that I was doing it for myself and my personal glory again? I’ve gotten a lot of practice with—I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

“I want you to be honest with me,” Drift said. “If we’re going to risk our lives for each other, I need to know why.” Everything had a price. He’d learned that years ago, and that the only way to get anywhere in the world was to set your own as high as you could. This was probably the most he could ask of Rodimus, and he still didn’t know if it would be enough. And yet for a moment, it didn’t seem like Rodimus would be able to pay. The silence stretched out, waiting, until Drift very nearly told Rodimus to carry them back up to the ledge so he could drive himself the rest of the way.

“I thought about being a hero,” Rodimus said. His voice was quiet. “I had dreams about bringing you back to the Lost Light and telling you everyone had forgiven you and giving you everything you deserved afterward. I would give you your life back, with interest. Anything you wanted. But it wouldn’t be like that, and I knew it. So then, I was afraid.”

Afraid simply of disappointment, or something more specific? Drift didn’t have a chance to ask, because Rodimus barreled on.

“That’s why I didn’t come to get you sooner,” he said. “I was scared. Getting you back would mean facing up to all of my mistakes, when before you were always the one who let me feel like I was doing everything right. When Ratchet told me he was coming to find you, it made me realize that I needed to get over that. Much as I appreciate what you did for me before, I wanted you back more than the things you did for me.”

“I already told you I didn’t leave for you,” Drift said, because Rodimus sounded sincere, but it wouldn’t mean anything if he was still sequestered in the fantasies Drift had built around him.

“I know,” Rodimus said, “but I’m talking about all of it: the Lost Light, the speeches, just telling me that I was doing a good job. You did so much for me.”

“I didn’t,” Drift insisted. “It was—it wasn’t about you, Rodimus. It was about everyone else. They needed you to be someone and I did everything in my power to make sure you were that person. I…” Fear and shame and something like self-loathing curled inside Drift, but he shoved past them because fuck it. He couldn’t go back to the Lost Light under more false pretenses, and if that meant he couldn’t go back at all…

He already knew better than to rely on himself first.

“I needed you to be that person,” he said. “I did it for me.”

A longer silence descended over the comms. The canyon was narrowing around them; Rodimus would need to ascend soon.

“Ratchet’s right,” Rodimus finally said, apparently unaware that Drift hadn’t been privy to whatever conversation the two had just shared. “I don’t have any room to complain when I was doing pretty much the same thing. You were doing what you had to, right?”

“I’m not sure how you want me to answer that,” Drift said honestly.

“Right, never mind.” Rodimus still sounded nervous. “What I really want to say is that, um, I get it. I think. We all set off on this quest for our own reasons, and most of them don’t really align at all. And—Prowl aside—it’s because our goals were so different that we—us two, but I guess Ratchet also a little bit—that we ended up out here. If we want to find the Knights, or save Vitrious, or just watch out for each other, I think we could stand to be more honest with each other about why we’re doing those things.”

Rodimus sounded reasonably confident about that, but Drift wasn’t so sure. He had no way to know whether Rodimus could handle the version of him that was more honest. Rodimus cared about his crew; Drift had seen that and knew it to be true. But he also cared about himself, and his tendency toward inflating his own ego wasn’t something that would be fixed by promise alone.

“You could start by answering my question,” he said.

“Question?”

“Why you came out here.”

“Oh. I mean, I think it’s straightforward: it’s because I missed you.”

“You don’t really know me,” Drift warned. Rodimus had asked for honesty.

“I’ve learned a lot recently,” Rodimus said. “And I want to get to know you more. Even if it’s not what I was expecting, you’re still my friend and my crewmate. No matter what. You could tell me you step on organics for fun and you’d still have a place on my—on our ship.”

Drift pulled a face.

“Ew.”

“Yeah, bad joke, bad timing,” Rodimus agreed, so casual Drift knew it had to be an act. “But that’s the other thing: Ratchet’s going to be on my aft this time. He’s looking out for you, too, and he’s not going to let me make the same mistakes twice.”

Drift and Ratchet might have only come back on speaking terms in the last few years, but Drift had trusted Ratchet for just over five million. Maybe it tipped the scales unfairly in Rodimus’ favor, but when Drift imagined the scenario Rodimus was building, it sounded good. Good enough that it was risky to trust. Good enough that he might never stop watching out for signs of the end. But maybe, if they were working together, he could trust the three of them to try.

“Okay,” he decided. “I can try. That’s all I can promise, though. I’ve got all the same hangups you do in making a commitment. That’s going to mean a lot of different things, and some of them aren’t so easy to manage.” It was possible that just stepping back onto the Lost Light would cause him to try to fold back into the third in command role he’d built for himself, though he didn’t know for sure; it was rare for him to be able to return to a life he’d left behind.

“Have you met me? Or Ratchet?” Rodimus asked. “None of us are ‘easy to manage.’ Doesn’t mean we’re not worth the effort.”

“You’re starting to sound like him,” Ratchet cut in. “Drift, you staying back?”

“I’m fine, Ratchet,” Drift assured him. The shuttle had begun to rise, bringing them back up to the level they’d been on when the patrol found them. They were nearly within sensor range of the base. Soon enough, he’d be on his own again.

“Stay that way,” Ratchet warned. “Don’t need you getting wrapped up in this mess.”

In a way, he already was, Drift mused, and that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not yet. As the ship crested near a reasonably drivable cliff, he stood, preparing to dismount.

[thebluelemontree]

Is it wrong to say that Sansa uses an out of sight out of mind coping mechanism? I noticed it because it's what I do a lot. I know some ppl say she rewrites traumatic memories to make the memories bearable but it doesn't make sense. If that was how she coped, wouldn't she have been telling herself lies about Joffrey still in acok? Or found a way to erase/rewrite Marillion's attempt to rape her?

Yes and no. She does that except all the times she doesn’t. ;) I think that characterization is extremely reductionist (and ignores character complexity and  growth) when it’s applied that broadly to every situation Sansa has been in. You have to take these things instance by instance because they aren’t all the same. Sometimes that labeling doesn’t fit at all. In many cases, it feels more like the fandom pathologizing the act of romanticizing or trying to push aside or reframe something unpleasant or even traumatic when that’s just something most human beings do now and then. Some do it more than others, but its all within the realm of typical coping behavior and being older or more educated or more “logical” doesn’t make one immune to it. So I hope you don’t let those interpretations make you feel abnormal or more fallible for identifying with Sansa in that way. Romanticizing doesn’t even have to be about coping at all, but simply expressing desire through daydreams. People imagine being in idealized scenarios with crushes all the time.  

You also hit the nail on the head. Sansa just doesn’t go around making up false narratives about every objectively awful thing that happens to her. In fact, her actual responses to those moments can be a useful basis for comparison when we’re analyzing the unkiss, for example. Misunderstanding the unkiss is usually where a lot of these assumptions stem from. That’s a whole other can of worms in itself. The unkiss is just too long of a discussion to put here, so I just recommend this post as to the reasons why it isn’t about trauma and take a browse through my unkiss tag. It does bear repeating that Sansa factually remembers every scary thing that happened during the Blackwater and why it happened, indicating she has processed it honestly and critically, before any incarnation of the unkiss happens. The unkiss is a mismemory added on to the facts, which began as her being the actor that kissed him first. It’s not a lie to deny the facts or to excuse his behavior. It’s regrettable to her that Sandor was not able to be the person she could rely on to get her out of KL at that time. Nonetheless, this repressed desire is just so strong in her that it manifested in a kiss so real she could remember how it felt after the reality of his leaving KL for good sank in. 

Early AGOT Sansa tended to want to move past unpleasantness rather quickly. Just sweep those red flags under the rug so everything can go back to blissful harmony. Sansa is naturally averse to conflict and just wants her present with the royal family to be smooth sailing into a bright future. Ned had a very similar tendency when it came to concerns over Robert’s true character. He saw things that disturbed him, but he hoped and clung to his idea of Robert anyway. For Sansa, this resulted in some misplaced blame and rewriting events so she could deal with the aftermath. This is mostly seen in her processing the Mycah incident after Lady’s death and how her perception of all the characters involved shifted in varying ways. This is after she knew perfectly well what really happened, because Ned says Sansa had already told him the truth of what Joffrey did while Arya was still missing. However, it would also be unfair to completely chalk this up to Sansa’s idiosyncrasies. We have to put her flip-flopping in the context of the situation as well. She’s also experienced a gutting loss with Lady’s death and the fact that the first blow to her innocence was her father volunteering to put Lady down. She doesn’t have Catelyn to go to with her confusion and hurt, and Ned has largely been silent. She’s also still engaged to Joffrey through all this, this is still a patriarchy, there are political ramifications to speaking against a crown prince, and she doesn’t know how to deal with seeing such cruelty and vindictiveness in her future husband. Especially when he responded to her tender concern and wanting to help him with venom and hate. 

I mean, jeez, she’s 11. I don’t expect an 11 year old to understand how to identify the signs of emotional manipulation or see how this situation can escalate into domestic violence. Just because Sansa can’t articulate what is happening within her relationship with Joffrey, doesn’t mean she has blocked out any notion that Joffrey can turn his anger on her. Part of the reason she misplaces blame on Arya (and rewrites what happened) is because Joffrey turns scornful of Sansa for being a witness to his emasculating shame. He punishes her with the cold shoulder because she didn’t immediately take his side and pretended not to see instead. He regains power through making Sansa feel small and fearful of his moods. 

“He had not spoken a word to her since the awful thing had happened, and she had not dared to speak to him.” -- Sansa II, AGOT.

Sansa looked at him and trembled, afraid that he might ignore her or, worse, turn hateful again and send her weeping from the table. -- Sansa II, AGOT.

This is coming from someone who is supposed to love her and someone she will spend the rest of her life with. To fix things, she must be unequivocally on Joffrey’s side going forward or suffer the consequences, which we can see happening as her story completely flips over breakfast sometime later. This is not saying Sansa is fully exonerated from not supporting her sister when she needed her, but that it’s understandable how she arrived at this point. Even when things start to get really bad after Ned’s arrest, Sansa still holds out some hope that she can appeal to Joffrey’s (and Cersei’s) love for her to get him to be merciful. Is it really her fault she believed a part of Joffrey really loved her (and thus was reachable by her pleas) if he also heavily love bombed her and treated her like she was the most special girl in the world? Love bombing is a classic feature of the seduction phase leading up to abuse.  

So we can see Sansa does ignore truths and rewrite events sometimes and her personality is a factor; however, the context surrounding it matters a lot. Post Ned’s execution, Sansa does a full 180 regarding Joffrey and Cersei.

Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. "I hate you," she whispered. -- Sansa VI, AGOT.

Once she had loved Prince Joffrey with all her heart, and admired and trusted his mother, the queen. They had repaid that love and trust with her father's head. Sansa would never make that mistake again. -- Sansa I, ACOK. 

"A monster," she whispered, so tremulously she could scarcely hear her own voice. "Joffrey is a monster. He lied about the butcher's boy and made Father kill my wolf. When I displease him, he has the Kingsguard beat me. He's evil and cruel, my lady, it's so. And the queen as well." -- Sansa I, ASOS. 

There’s also her conscious efforts to push away thoughts of her dead family and Jeyne Poole, but she states why she does that. It’s traumatic, the tears start flowing uncontrollably, and she is desperately trying to avoid falling into another suicidal depression. Her survival in KL depends on her holding it together and appearing loyal and obedient to Joffrey. Mourning her loved ones would imply to Joffrey she is plotting treason. Besides, she knows that even if she did ask Cersei or LF about Jeyne, she has no reason to believe they’d do anything but lie to her face in a patronizing way. There’s no point being plagued with wondering what the truth might be when she can’t do anything about it. Still, she prayed for Jeyne wherever she might be. She genuinely thought Arya had made it to WF on the ship and was safe at least until she got word of her brothers’ deaths and her home being sacked by the Iron Born, though there was initially a touch of projection and fantasizing about Arya being free while she remains captured. As of Feast, she believes she is the last Stark left alive and she has no one but Littlefinger to help her. So while she is suppressing her grief, it’s done with good reason, and it’s not being replaced with any false narratives to cope. 

We also cannot ignore that her relationship to Sandor Clegane has instilled in her an appreciation for the un-sugarcoated truth now that she has experienced betrayal and injustice first hand. In his own way, he’s encouraged her to listen to her own inner bullshit detector. The rose-tinted glasses have become a lot more clear compared to where she started. This is a newly learned skill though, and her self-confidence has been wrecked by internalized verbal abuse. She’s also been left on her own to figure out people’s intentions by herself, which runs parallel to her mounting desperation to get out of KL as Joffrey’s violence escalates. Developing a touch more of a jaded, skeptical side does sometimes clash with her enduring idealism and faith in other people (like with the Tyrells). This struggle is not a bad thing. The goal isn’t to become as cynical as the Hound, but to arrive at an earned optimism that has been tempered by wisdom and practical experience.

Her situation with Littlefinger is much more challenging than anything she faced in KL. He moves her where he wants her to go with complex web of lies, manipulation, grooming, isolation, coercion, dependence, guilt and shame. Her safety and desire to go home are tightly bound to being complicit in his lies and criminal activities. She feels indebted to him for getting her out of KL, even though his methods push her past her boundaries and force her to compromise her moral integrity. The thing is, there are things Sansa does know about LF, but she doesn’t seem to be ready to try and put the puzzle pieces together. She’s not daring to ask probing questions about Lysa’s reference to the “tears” and Jon Arryn or about the possible dangers of Maester Colemon prescribing sweetsleep for Robert’s convulsions. While the subject of Jeyne’s fate is still one she doesn’t want to revisit, somewhere in her mind she does know LF took custody of her friend. If it feels like this is somewhat of a regression back to her early AGOT self, there’s probably some truth to that; however, it’s perfectly okay for positive character arcs to be an imperfect progress. There can be relapses, regressions, setbacks, missteps, and misguided actions. All that growth isn’t lost. Everything she knows is just stored in the back of her mind, not forgotten completely. The general trend line moves her toward successfully confronting Littlefinger with the truth when GRRM is ready to pull the trigger. She’s definitely aware of Littlefinger lying to her more than she lets on and she knows his help is not out of the kindness of his heart, but motivated by what he wants her to be to him. But it’s not like she has the option to go anywhere else, does she? She’s a wanted criminal with a bounty on her head and has no other friend or ally in the Vale she can trust with the truth of her identity. Confronting LF without any means of neutralizing his power over her isn’t the smartest thing to do when he’s shown her he can literally get away with multiple murders. Again, it’s not just her personality that makes her hesitant to pull back the veil and face the horrible truth head on. The outside forces pressuring her perceptions and behavior cannot be discounted either.