#augh.. the generational trauma .

[hoofpeet]

Look at the differences in the way zoroark sleep! I’m sure you can come up with an angsty reason why the hisuian zoroark looks so alert

Gotta keep guard..<3

[kadextra]

me when the little baby empanada who already protected her slightly younger siblings on purgatory island gets to quesadilla island full of new dangers & gets very close to her older sister pomme, who is a living breathing example of the developing mindset that “you must be a soldier always prepared for danger in order to protect the happiness of you and your family” is necessary. they relate over anxiety, pomme gives her a protection helmet for her birthday and shares tips of survival. they are children.

[bluejay-of-the-west]

hello jwcc/t fandom. id like to formally apologize for not getting into this show sooner cause O HMY G OD. i am actually so fucking insane. what the fuck what the FUCK am i supposed to with these guys !!! they're literally instant blorbo just add water. you guys dont know what's COMING I have so many things 2 say about these fuckers. ohmigod.

[fortunesfavours]

astrid becke feelings tonight apparently

[helmarok]

im experiencing emotions about jessie and her pokemon

[galactichelium]

Me when I realise I'm probably actually going to have to tell my psychologist about my trauma. Shocking

[mekatrio]

mary's medusa design is so simple yet so effective, anyways i think those spine thingys that float behind her is an excellent piece of design bc theres a total of 8 of them, each of them representing every mkd member with eye powers (excluding herself)

its like so sad bc it means whenever you see her with those, it meant that her friends hv died...

[sepublic]

I cannot imagine being Camila Noceda because so much of her arc starts around her being scared for her child, wanting her to do well and succeed and being afraid she’ll get hurt. And then right under her nose, her daughter has disappeared on some adventure in another world but at least she seems fine, right?

But you still let yourself break and you end up saying things you might regret. And then it’s only when you begin to worry about her that she comes back and she is scarred. She’s hurt. There’s a cut on her eyebrow and you realize it will never heal. It always reminds you of how you weren’t there for her, you couldn’t protect your daughter from those who hurt her, and if you’d been enough for Luz then maybe she wouldn’t have needed to come to the isles to begin with and be injured. You see how she’s begun to loathe and hate herself, because of things and people entirely outside of her control, and you couldn’t have been there to comfort her when she needed it. So now it’s built up for Luz into this horrific trauma that she hasn’t even yet begun to unpack.

Camila is stronger than everyone because if I’d seen my kid come back like that, I’d have broken apart asking what happened, are you okay, etc. But instead she remains strong because she can see that Luz and her kids are scared and they really need an adult who can be strong for them. Camila probably thought about what happened in Yesterday’s Lie afterwards, and come to regret her outburst; She must’ve guessed how it hurt Luz and made her feel terrible and alas she was right! So she vowed not to make that same mistake again and be even stronger next time, and she was!!!

But man that must’ve been so scary and helpless and painful, seeing what happened under your watch. Being unable to provide a fix in getting her back home, so of course Camila goes along to the Demon Realm once she gets that opportunity, because this all started because she wasn’t there for her daughter when she needed her most. Of course she supports her in coming out, as well as in staying in the isles; She won't blame Eda for giving Luz what she wanted and needed, as Eda herself couldn't be a hypocrite by telling Luz to stay with her mom. Camila won’t let Luz face this stuff alone like last time, not when she knows and Luz feels better about trusting her (or had to, anyway) and it’s what saves Luz!!! Because when Luz relapses after failing against Kikimora, it’s Camila who’s there to pick her back up and tell her everything she needs, which leads to Luz’s palisman String Bean finally emerging!!!

But then Luz dies and just. That scar must’ve reminded Camila that she wasn’t there to protect her daughter from anyone that might hurt her. And despite helping a little against Kikimora, it still happened again. Permanently. Man I wish Camila had a “GET AWAY FROM HER YOU BITCH” moment to get back at Belos for all she did her to child. But Camila had to keep going because after Yesterday’s Lie, she knew she still had other kids to look after. She was strong for Vee during Yesterday’s Lie, only to let herself drop right afterwards in front of Luz. But not again. No time for self pity, you just have to move on after a death and keep living, just as you did with Manny. And in the end, Luz IS all right, and she’s better than she’s ever been and there’s some huge relief.

Just augh Camila Noceda. Luz went on an isekai adventure, but maybe so did her mother? And I don’t mean with the Boiling Isles, I mean with the U.S. Camila might have been an immigrant, and not just the child/descendant of one. And even if she wasn’t, she still moved to Gravesfield. So in general so much of her life has been about going to another world and trying to survive and feel comfortable in it. As it was for Luz, too; But they survived along the way and found what fellow “weirdoes” they could, with Camila meeting Manny, who could’ve also related to her as a fellow Dominican American. And now she’s found others who can relate to Camila in other ways, as Manny also related to her as a huge nerd.

[fumifooms]

I don’t like minimizing the importance and gravity of Laios and Toshiro’s fight into just being a childish squabble, even if to a degree it is framed that way, because to both of them it has a lot of personal significance and emotional weight and runs very deep to their characters… The fight isn’t nothing it’s a LOT, they made up but it’s not something easy to express and to get over for either of them which makes it all the more meaningful! I’m on both sides but there very much are sides, there’s no "they’re both having a ball, Toshiro and Laios hand in hand yay" side to the fight, that comes after

The fight with Toshiro WAS very scary to Laios, almost existentially so, but it’s moreso the "I thought I’d made a friend!!" bit and my god. My god actually

Like it’s not "just" about oh his friend liking him less than he thought, THAT IS SO MUCH. It’s a bond he thought he had being a lie it’s all the time and moments spent together either being a lie from his perspective or marred now looking back. It’s not only being upset at Toshiro for lying but upset at himself that he’s so easy to fool, it’s being upset that there’s something so wrong with you that you can’t even tell if your "close buddy" even actually likes you or not, it’s like. Holding my head. He can’t trust his own vision of events that happened do you see. There’s always this film of distrust that it could be a lie that should be there when he interacts with people there’s always this sense of cloak and dagger to expect backstabs out of nowhere because you CAN’T see it coming you CAN’T you CAN’T there’s something about you which makes it impossible so you CAN’T-

He’s so scared of not being able to read people. He knows it’s a weak spot he has, he’s always known. All of these bits are centered around social expectations and betrayals, the assumption that he doesn’t belong either in society or with other humans.

And Laios’ level of awareness is actually sort of complex to analyze, but it’s there, there’s how out of him and Falin he was the one sensitive to the ~aura of hatred~ he felt from the townspeople, there’s of course his nightmares whispering to him about the mocking looks, and how yeah actually he realizes that his gold stripper coworker was taking advantage of him. There’s of course the Winged Lion speech about his trauma and how he fundamentally mistrusts/dislikes humans to some deep seated degree, this distrust that he still keeps under control always. There’s how pre-canon he often wanted to suggest eating monsters but never worked up the courage to bring it up with the others. There’s how he gets across as stoic when he isn’t being enthusiastic…… We don’t know how aware and wary he is exactly in the moment but we do know he has some anxiety around social stuff, and looking back he does notice and aughh augh, the sense you have to hide yourself to not get hurt and be on your guard and shit and.

When you don’t know what to look out for and when to look out for it, the general ‘common sense’ of not always trusting people or noticing when someone’s messing with you becomes hypervigilance in social settings

"Man they really know what you hate huh". Being socially unaware literally plagues him, he knows, he knows it so well.

It’s so quick that it’s almost hard to digest how literal and blatant Laios summoning his monster to crush all the people who’ve hurt him is. His literal go-to coping mechanism for comfort in his literal monster-induced emotionally intense nightmares, saving him by taking away the upsetting element (the humans)

"Monsters are his coping fantasy, where they can whisk him away from humanity, all the hurt it’s caused him and its arbitrary rules" with the subtlety of a brick. Monsters are his comfort safe zone "because they kill humans" yes but no it’s because he pits them as the guardians against humans who to him are in the role of the agressors. To him they represent freedom from the shackles of what it means to be part of humanity, a fundamentally social species

[roe-and-memory]

every time someone says cars 3 is the worst cars movie another angel punches me in the stomach and pulls my hair.

this is probably just my intense special interest in the origins of nascar, but that movie feels like such a nice send-off for the main “trilogy”, and yes people can have their own opinions but i NEED to talk about how much this movie means to me

first of all, a major misconception is that lightning quit racing - he DIDNT! this is proven by both the end of the movie (where he says hes obviously going to keep racing) and cars on the road where, in the final episode, cruz and lightning wish each other “goodbye” and say they’ll see each other on the racetrack. he was only cruz’s crew chief for that one season, presumably healing from the trauma of the crash (because lets be real his ass did not mentally recover from that in FOUR MONTHS) and also waiting for a permanent crew chief to take his place.

second.. the sheer amount of detail put into that movie is INSANE. the racing center being shaped like grandstands at a track? fireball beach being both a direct reference to the daytona beach race course and also “fireball roberts”, a 1950s racer (he was actually the reason that firesuits were mandated in the sport), we meet a bunch of 1950s racers as well and just augh.. so good. also, the detail of thomasville being in north carolina is brilliant - N.C is the “racing state”, and thomasville speedway is based off of north wilkesboro, a track that was opened in 1949, and last used in 1996 (aside from the series of races in 2010), and it fell into disrepair. (fun fact, north wilkesboro is reopening in 2024 for the nascar all star race!! they fixed my bbg)

third. cars three brings so much more lore than the first movie did. yes, we knew doc raced in the 50s when the sport was getting its start, but in cars 3? they brought in characters based off of real 1950s racers (doc is based off of herb thomas, smokey is smokey yunick, lou is louise smith, junior is junior johnson, river is wendell scott, and leroy hemming is tim flock) (another reference in the movie is “jocko flockos party supplies” as macks disguise - jocko flocko was tim flocks pet monkey that was the FIRST and only co-driver in the history of the sport. he won a race with his monkey in the car with him :) )

as i was saying, the lore we learn is insane. we learn that lou and river had to fight for their place in the sport, which is similar to what both louise smith and wendell scott experienced in the 50s, they show us accurately how racing worked back then too - they didnt have fancy pits, they had a fence and a pit member with a sign that would tell them to come in the next lap for service. all of these cars are gen 1 nascar, which means that they were strictly stock - they had much more intense pit sessions than any of the other “built for racing” generations have ever needed. i recall watching a race wherein smokey yunick had to change the radiator of one of his racers vehicles mid-race due to a crash.

this isnt everything, but seriously for an animated movie about talking cars, they discuss grief and hardships and handle them so well its insane. i know cruz isnt everyones cup of tea, but (in reference to the flip scene at the end of the movie) watching cruz get shoved into the sport must’ve been insane for lou to watch. she saw herself in that girl. it wasnt some movie about lightning giving up, it was him sharing the torch with another kid who lost their way just like he had.

also i dont cry at movies but i literally bawl my fucking eyes out at the letters scene every time. its PATHETIC (its not im literally tearing up just thinking about it)

[feligayzed]

your p.ai.nter and your surface au are making me ILL (positive) im a huge huge fan ...

UM! if youd allow me to ask can you tell me all about surface au .... i need to know everything about them so i can be MORE ILL ABOUT THEM!!

HIHIHI!!! AUGH I finally have time to sit down and yap, I've been thinking about this ask all day SKJSJCJ AAAA FIRST AND FOREMOST I'm so glad you're enjoying it and it's making you deathly ill!!!! Good!!! Suffer!!! Along with me and the five other mentally unbalanced watercolor heathens here 🙂‍↕️ /silly

So!! Originally I thought it up just as an excuse to draw human(ish) Seb kissing and cuddling a robot in dire need of it, but then I Thought some more and it transformed into a hurt/comfort/healing au?? The healing being from the shared trauma they endured back at the Blacksite (working through it via various measures and expanding their relationship as a whole), while simultaneously learning how to function in a modern world they are very much unfamiliar with

The general premise is Sebastian gains most of his human form back, with Painter to help assist him in recovery, like physical therapy and reintroducing him to society XD Sebastian having a difficult time processing emotions now that he's free and it all has time to sink in, etc etc~ The same goes for Painter, however, and they're just gonna have to work it out together cuz they got BAGGAGE no therapist is qualified for. Our dear Painter has their fair share of shit too, such as the sapiency debate most people have an aversion to (because how could an object process thoughts and emotions in a meaningful way?? Unheard of! /sar)

And the rest is just domestic silliness because they're allowed some happiness 😁 and because I'm under the firm belief Sebastian would become a house wife if someone let him /hj

But that's basically it!! One big fat drawing prompt really (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) I commend you for making it through this whole yap sesh fr 🙏 if you're still interested just let me know and if I have sudden Thoughts I'm more than happy to drop them unannounced 💥💥💥 DOODLES FROM MY SHITFIC AS A TREAT‼️

[eerna]

When I think about arcane arc 2, I’m just really :/ that it feels like they dropped the ball on their generational trauma theme. Like, we didn’t properly explore Ambessa and Cait’s new dynamic and Caitlyn had no reflection on her mother’s death anymore, Ambessa forgot about Mel??, Jinx was “fixed” by Isha, we have once again sidelined Ekko and his revolutionaries plot, and Vi and Jinx, who were trying to Kill each other two eps ago, are chill now (listen the catty fight was fun but ya know. besides that.) Like what about revolution eating up innocence and your sons and daughters and toxic coping strategies being passed down! Idk, I guess has someone who is a bit of a tragedy enjoyer (tho I like optimistic/happy endings lol) and someone who really likes toxic nuanced relationship (and arcane really focused on familial too!! which I love) I feel they really lost themselves trying to go the fluff route. This just isn’t that type of show. This is also why I think Vander’s character kinda threw a wrench in season 2; was there really a point to be made in bringing him back? Kinda thought he had already served his purpose but Idk! There’s other things to critique, and even things I enjoyed too, but I think if I had to boil down the main sentiment why I didn’t like arc two, it would be losing this character thread. So much of season 1 hinged on it, so many great scenes came out of it, feels bizarre fumbling it so bad in arc 2…

Yeah T.T The Vander one hits especially hard, because like. He really is done here. There is no reason for him to exist in the story anymore. The show even agrees with us, they brought him back ONLY to take him away from the girls again, and that is just stupid and boring. Sure, Warwick has to exist bc LoL, but there was no need to introduce him into the plot - the hints in s1 were plenty enough to give him a backstory.

And the most important part: WHAT ABOUT REVOLUTION EATING UP INNOCENCE AND YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS AND TOXIC COPING STRATEGIES BEING PASSED DOWN!!! HELLO???? THE MAIN THEME OF SEASON 1???????? It was about a bunch of revolutionaries trying to do good for their families, and how good intentions don't mean good results. Vi learned the passive rejection of a revolution from Vander, Jinx learned individualistic toxic obsession from Silco, Mel rejected her mother's "kill before you get killed" policy. None of this is important in s2 anymore!! I thought Isha would die in an act of revolution, bringing home the "is revolution worth risking the people you are doing it for in the first place" theme, but no. No! Because we are abandoning that line of thought! And you're right, the reason for that is the dumb family fluff they suddenly pivoted into. I adore family stories and relationships, but I'm not buying the Vander-Jinx-Vi-Isha unit for a moment. Jinx-Isha-Sevika, which had good setups, was abandoned and for WHAT!!!! CHEAP FLUFF???? Augh. Sad.

[hana-no-seiiki]

Idk if this is a request or something but I just wanted to get it out there before I forget it. How would the batfam react to a batsis coming from the last of us universe?( the last of us is a zombie apocalypse type game.) How would they react to all of batsis PTSD from being born in a world over ran by zombie’s and learning to survive at a young age. How would they help them? How would they react if they ever were transported to there(batsis) world?

Sorry for this random ask I just wanted to get this out there before I forget about it. Anyway hope you have a great week!

SOFT YANDERE BATFAM x THE LAST OF US! READER BRAINROT

Recently had a TLOU brainrot (at this point it’s more of a heartrot with how devastating the story is eugh) so this came at a perfect timing. I’m guessing batsib (I’ll make it gn I hope you don’t mind anon) has a similar life to elle if they’re not just elle entirely.

I think Batsib would have to be close to the boys before they eventually spill their guts (aka their severe trauma out).

Like when they’re at least 60% there on the yan scale of things.

They see signs like you being hella adamant on the boys at least trying to fix their relationship with Bruce since you know the most out of everyone how it feels to lose a father figure.

You’re the closest with Jason purely because you both have baggage, and luckily you like to talk about it and sort it out.

Your whole life had been the apocalypse so going to Gotham and seeing everything in its prime fascinated you. When the Batfam first took you in due to your status as an anomaly, it took very little to impress you.

But it also took a lot to terrify you.

If we’re going full on Ellie! Reader here then them (batfam) seeing that huge bite mark on your arms, presumably after you’ve dumped info on your past and your reality, almost turned them feral.

It was that moment they decided to never let you go back.

You’re allowed to join them with their vigilante activities as long as you were under strict surveillance.

Bruce is kind of off-put by your nonchalance when it comes to beating up people to a pulp. He had to jump in and stop you from completely killing a dude.

Jason on the other hand approves. Definitely eggs you on.

The rest of the boys, as is my headcannon with any violent MC, get turned on when they see you covered in blood.

In summary, they definitely cherish you more. The spoiling is dialed up to eleven. And since you didn’t know much of the world prior to its apocalypse state, they wouldn’t lock you up like in most cases and instead bring you to explore as much as you’d like.

There is a sick part of them that enjoys your PTSD and how dependent (and distrusting of others) you can be because of it. So unless it gets really bad where you can’t get sleep at all I can see them just not trying to get help for you.

ON THE MORE WHOLESOME SIDE:

I am now imagining reader going to a museum with them all and just climbing the fossil in front of like dozens of people while screaming “LOOK AT ME I’M ON A MOTHERFUCKING DINOSAURRRR!”

Bruce definitely had to pay a lot for that

and all the younger ones + Dick cause he’s Dick throwing fedora hats on all the dinos??? please im on my knees that’s too cute augh-

If they were ever transported in your world, it’d definitely be the other way around. Say you aren’t like Ellie and are completely susceptible to the infection- oof you might as well just be in jail.

They’ll disinfect everything. Masks 24/7. Generally just extremely careful as to not get infected or infect you in any shape or form.

Tim has already researched on fungal infections so you bet he’s ready. Wouldn’t be surprised if he single-handedly ends the apocalypse with how thorough he was. Him, Dick, and Alfred focus more on taking care of you.

Jason and Damian are more with survival and the annihilation of anything that may be dangerous to you within the vicinity. May it be zombies, thieves, the military and what not.

Bruce is probably tinkering on more equipment and helping Tim with actually getting rid of the fungi. The former will definitely use his charm and looks to get more supplies.

In short, these dudes have everything on lockdown.

You’ll wish you didn’t come back to your original world.

A.N. I hope this was to your liking anon!

[antiendovents]

sophieinwonderland pushed us to the edge and made us split a subsystem because of a post she made. She said she'd take everything from anti endos and we are unlovable and everyone will leave.

and she still thinks she's an oppressed minority for being endo. augghhhhhhh I'm literally one of those splits.

hope she's happy now. now that she makes people revert to a defense mechanism from trauma. augh.

massive augh.

-velvette, luce

im really sorry that happened and I hope you're okay. That sucks and it's disgusting that she could say stuff like thst

Personally we've been avoiding reading the post because we have huge paranoia as well as trauma relating to similar things to what we've heard she's said. We don't think we'd be able to read it safely without spiraling, so I doubt we'll be able to make any proper posts on this ((as in like talking in detail about it)) <- only mentioning it incase anyone is expecting us to reply or wants us to, we'll answer asks about it ofc but we ask you dont give screenshots of it ((or at least add appropriate trigger warnings)) /not directed at you, more of a general message

[ehh-is-the-name]

I'mma be so real I didn't even realise how deep the mephone "is child, or not is child" debate was... If you don't like that discourse, might wanna unfollow for a bit or something--got some long posts queued.

Still trying to wrap my head around it tbh. Like me personally, I don't see him as a kid right now and I feel like the whole speech Cobs gave was a projection of how the writers feel about the early seasons in general. But on the other hand, if that's the case then yeah he is/was a kid. I think I've always seen him as a kid in s1 because I knew he was written by kids, but like after s1 I just... idk thought he was at least a young adult? or at least at that turning point of s2. Can't pinpoint it now, it's fucking 12 going on 1 am, mostly writing this to see if/how my thoughts change in the future. But I digress, there was definitely parts were it felt like he was older. Not more "mature", but older... Even in s3, at least to me he felt in his 30s.

Like. I can imagine him taking cracking a cold one after a recording, I dont know- That might just be showing my own biases for like age. Like I know addiction doesn't have an age limit but like.... he''s an alcoholic to me....

I don't know. He just hasn't given off "kid" vibes to me for a while, and when he did it always leaned on the side of "he's being childish af for funsies (and coping)" than "he's doing that because he's literally a kid."

And idk if it's just because I'm older now but growing up seeing him as an adult helped in a weird way? Like personally?? I feel like saying that shoots any claim I'm trying to make in the foot, but hell I don't even think I'm trying to convince anyone anything here, I'm just trynna make sense of this goddamn phone.

But for real though, thinking about him as an adult made things a little nicer... Especially for the transition of s3 -> s2. Like, despite everything- despite his trauma resurfacing, and running away again, he still made it out of his abusive home and is trying to quit a coping mechanism (hosting ii, even though he still falls into being an asshole as per ii15), it just meant a lot. It's like showing growth is possible even if you're already grown, ya know? It's hard not to get attached to that idea... I think that's partly why Cobs calling him a kid pissed me off so much. Like even if that's true, or if it were true, or whatever- reducing that message to nothing fucking augh, sucks. It hurts, to say the least.

There are so many ways to look at this show, and cobs, and mephone, and the contestants, and everything that I think I will literally have an aneurysm trying to consider all the points everyone's making. God I'm so fucking tired. Did I mention the phone makes me ill?

[inhonoredglory]

i dont know if you partake in any of the doctor who comics at all - i certainly dont. i like keeping my sanity safe (its a mess of strange stories and paradoxes from what ive been able to tell. as are most comic series). but recently there was one that elaborated a bit on rose and the metacrisis’s life post journeys end, and its one of the few pieces of media we have for them. i didnt care enough to read the whole thing, the only interesting part to me was apparently they had a little girl named mia, and ive been thinking abt that dynamic nonstop since. cant decide how realistic it is for them, but on the otherside augh its so sweet. anyway, i just wanted to ask how you feel about rose and the metacrisis in general, and whatever that entails. curious abt ur thoughts on them!

- armin anon/lesbian anon/whatever you feel like calling me lol

OMGG my anon (of many names lol)! OK first off, I drafted some of this way back but forgot to add on and post, so in the words of our beloved Doctor,

🌹 But onto the DW comics and Meta-Crisis/Rose!!

I only recently started reading the comics, starting with the ones about Gabby Gonzalez by Nick Abadzis, and I have to admit:

They make me yearn pretty fucking hard to run away and travel with the Doctor. There's some killer art by Elena Casagrande that feels so much like the Doctor we know and love (that kindness, that earnest love.... god!! my heart and soul!!).

But I warn ye (any readers of this post), DO NOT TOUCH Volume 2 by Robbie Morrison. He takes Ten blatantly out of character, making him out to be an arrogant bastard who belittles his companion and is flippant in the face of suffering. (Morrison watched too much Eleven, methinks 🙈)

I haven't read the Rose/Meta-Crisis comic yet (part of the Empire of the Wolf series), but I did see the important panel from that series, showing Rose's daughter Mia:

I think the Meta-Crisis settling down to have a family with Rose is pretty in-character and very much what the Tenth Doctor would have wanted, as much as it hurt him.

Because Ten fundamentally felt unworthy of Rose.

💔 The Doctor's Trauma

Rose was strong and compassionate and amazing, and Ten had done so much, seen so much, experienced so much tragedy and guilt. He's a man wrecked by PTSD, depression, shame, and self-blame. He felt like it wasn't fair to her that she'd sacrifice her life to someone who would go on living and changing and becoming a different person, while she grew old and died in a world without a home and away from everyone she knew.

He didn't want her to become like him, homeless and without the love of friends and family, because to be him is to be alone. And he didn't want that for her. Because he wanted her to be happy, not just momentarily, but for the rest of her life.

Ten is a man who loathes taking life, and it weighs on him every time someone sacrifices who they are because they love him.

It's no surprise Ten's entire decision about the Meta-Crisis took place after Davros massively guilt-tripped him into thinking it was his fault that all those people died. (It wasn't.) But Davros played on Ten's depression and trauma, manipulating Ten into thinking he had done unforgivable things to the people he loved. (when in fact those people died because they were inspired to be selfless like him, or were killed someplace beyond the Doctor's reach)

I've actually been doing a lot of research on Ten's trauma (including invaluable insight from Judith Lewis Herman's famous book Trauma and Recovery). This journal article about Major Depressive Disorder speaks so deeply to Ten's character, especially post-Time War and post-Davros:

"Guilt promotes altruistic behavior via acting out reparative tendencies, whereas shame reduces altruism by means of increasing social and interpersonal distance."

This explains so much about Ten's choice to sacrifice his own happiness and ask Rose to take his Meta-Crisis as her life partner. He's pushing her away, isolating himself. He's rejecting the people he loves the most because he's in a very, very dark place.

🖤🤍💜 An Asexual (Meta) Reading

There's so many reasons that Ten felt he couldn't give Rose the life she wanted (his trauma, his values). There's one angle I've been sifting around in my head in the past couple years, and it's more of a headcanon than anything: For me, because of the way the Doctor's character has been established since 1963, the Doctor's own asexuality is an almost meta-conceptual reason why the Doctor in general can't have a "normative," family life.

He couldn't say "I love you"—not because he didn't love her. (He loved her more than he ever loved himself.) But also because he knew what saying those words would mean: the expectations, the responsibility, the behaviors he felt she deserved to have from him because those words carry so much weight in human culture. All those things he could not give her.

But the Meta-Crisis could. I personally headcanon that the Meta-Crisis is not asexual like the Doctor. (Just like John Smith may not have been asexual either.) The point of both John Smith and the Meta-Crisis is showing how much they differ from the Doctor—and I think sexuality is one of those differences. It's why it was so easy for John Smith to imagine a traditional life, why it was so easy for the Meta-Crisis to promise his entire world and his entire self to Rose on that beach.

🌹 The Meta-Crisis and Rose Tyler

Which brings me back to the Tentoo himself. He was born in battle and he can die, but what does that exactly mean for his life with Rose? It's fascinating because to imagine the Doctor feeling mortality and knowing he cannot cheat death anymore—that's a horrific, terrifying thing.

There are actually two Big Finish Audios that explore this traumatic realization for the Doctor, and what that does to him. (They're both one-shots from Jackie's POV and narration, and you can listen to them here: Part 1, Part 2).

It makes Tentoo lean into his Ninth-era darkness, a ruthlessness to villains driven by the fear that he cannot protect Rose because he is not indestructible. But luckily for him, there are people he loves around him (Jackie and Rose) who keep him from that darkness.

Additionally, the Big Finish stories lean into the fact that Tentoo and Rose aren't sitting idly by. Both of them work for Torchwood and are growing their own TARDIS to continue to defend the Earth.

They don't settle down into a domestic life, at least not right away, and I think that suits them both. We know how much Rose didn't want the life of eating chips and watching telly. But listen to what RTD's Doctor Who has always tried to say: How deeply important the everyday things are, how much the Doctor, for how amazing they are, craves for a life of simplicity and the stupid little things that define humanity.

Because here's the key: It wasn't the everyday things that bothered Rose. Like she told Mickey in "Parting of the Ways":

ROSE: But what do I do every day, mum? What do I do? Get up, catch the bus, go to work, come back home, eat chips and go to bed? Is that it? MICKEY: It's what the rest of us do. ROSE: But I can't! MICKEY: Why, because you're better than us? ROSE: No, I didn't mean that. But it was. It was a better life. And I don't mean all the travelling and seeing aliens and spaceships and things. That don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. You know he showed you too. That you don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away

Rose didn't hate the domestic, everyday life. She hated how life had no meaning.

She hated how people let things happen to them, without challenging anything or standing up for anything. She didn't want to travel as much as she wanted to live, to be something and do something with her life.

And that's the magic of Doctor Who, particularly RTD's era. Because you can be amazing and you can have meaning even without the Doctor, but the Doctor shows you how.

You stand up for what you believe is right and you choose to give meaning to what you do in life. You don't need to travel the stars to do that. You can make choices that give your life meaning right here and now. You can believe in something. You can find meaning in your place in the universe. You can give your enthusiasm and time to something that is important. Meaning and purpose comes from how we see the world, and that change in perspective is what Rose finds with the Doctor.

If Rose is with someone who can fill her life with meaning, who inspires her to see life as a beautiful adventure, then it really doesn't matter what she's doing with them. In The Impossible Planet, Rose was completely willing to settle down with Ten to "find a planet, get a job, live a life, same as the rest of the universe." Why? Because she'd be with him.

ROSE: This lot said they'd give us a lift. DOCTOR: And then what? ROSE: I don't know. Find a planet, get a job, live a life, same as the rest of the universe.

If I imagine Tentoo as a dad, I can't help but imagine him like Tennant himself. Kind, giving, selfless, and loving. I think Tentoo would be so afraid of letting someone hurt his child, because he hasn't had a family in so long, and he isn't the same man he was in those ancient days when, as a completely different man, he had a family.

He's a man still afraid of himself, still keenly aware of the inhuman things he's capable of. I think this fear would drive Rose and him closer together, like it did when he was Nine. But Tentoo is more self-aware now, more willing to grow and change and be different. Because he's the Doctor who was given a second chance, to live the life he thought he'd never have with the person he loves. He wants to be different to make this work.

I also think Tentoo would be the Doctor who passes on his title after he's gone. Not that I like to think about Tentoo dying one day, but let's be real: Where would his TARDIS go? As a half-human, I think Tentoo could imagine Mia taking on the role of Defender of the Earth when he and Rose have passed on. She would have been there to see it grow, and she would have been there when Tentoo and Rose first stepped out into the stars with this brand-new TARDIS. Because of his mortality, I think it would make Tentoo more open to sharing the secret, sacred things of his Gallifreyan people with the family he chose to start. He's not alone anymore, he has someone to share it with, someone who will pass it on after him and keep the world safe in his stead.

Which is all to say, I think it's a gift that Rose has the Meta-Crisis. Because when Ten regenerated and became, as he said, a completely different man, she was able to stay with the person she fell in love with and explore what that life was like, to have him with her for all of her life, and all of his.