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mercurytrinemoon · 3 months ago

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on house systems and my reasoning behind using whole sign house system

As some of you may have seen from my recent posts, a couple of weeks ago a youtube/tik tok astrologer called whole sign users - including me - "lazy, non-abstract thinkers who can't think outside of the box". I dare to say it is ironic because people who use Placidus - a house system that is a default system in all astrology websites and software (aside from CHANI!) - are actually the ones leaning towards being lazy and unwilling to branch out and try something new. They are complacent in that regard. So that inspired me to talk about house systems in general and about why I personally find whole sign system the most accurate. I may do a part two where I will read a few charts to give you examples and illustrate my thought process. This part is an introduction and the theoretical reasoning behind my choice.

MY BACKGROUND

Like probably 99% of people, I've started my astrological journey with Placidus. It didn't last long (although if you count the time I've been indirectly under my mom's teachings then it's about 15 years, lol) because after a couple of months of my independent deep dive on astrology I switched to equal house system, which I found a nice compromise between an equally-divided houses and the fact that the 1st house starts at the ascendant.

And honestly, it's not like I jumped to the equal system just like that. I really didn't want to at first because that'd mean I wouldn't be able to be on the same page with everyone else - which still to this day is annoying sometimes when someone is showing a chart in Placidus and in my head I'm like "but this placement you're talking about! It would fit perfectly if you switched to whole sign!". But people refuse to keep their minds open and really stop and think about it. And I mean, really stop and think, not switch the system, look at it for 5 minutes, not really giving it a chance and then switch back to Placidus again.

So I've mentioned it ages ago but that deep dive into astrology started with synastry. I was looking at the bi-wheel of me and someone else and as much as I loved the thought of them having Venus in my 1st house, I just couldn't find logic in it: how can a Pisces Venus be compatible with my Aquarius ascendant if it's in a neighbouring sign and neighbouring signs have nothing in common??? It was a hard pill to swallow because I wanted it to be in my 1st, but it wasn't. It's two different energies, on paper Aquarius and Pisces shouldn't work together, so why is this trying to force me into thinking they do?

This is how I ditched Placidus. Because of synastry.

And to be fair, I have my rising sign at 0° so equal and whole look pretty much identical in my case. So it's not like a bit of Pisces could still be in my 1st house. But like I said, I thought that'd be a nice compromise.

But later on I've discovered ancient techniques and the most important and impactful of them all:

ANNUAL PROFECTIONS

So, in annual profections you basically use whole sign system. Helenistic astrologers had equal system and Porphyry at hand, yet they used whole sign exclusively for that technique. Even modern astrologers who use Placidus for everything will tell you: whole sign for profections. Because, just like with many things in life, there are certain tools for certain techniques and mediums. You know, you use acrylic paint for wood, not watercolor. Or, you won't use the same paint for your walls as for your steel fence, right?

So I used profections. And they were spot on and continue to be. Therefore my conclusion was, it doesn't make sense to constantly switch between houses - although, again, some people do that and that's fine but I like consistency and going back and forth became a bit chaotic. Because if certain placements get activated during certain years with profections, then why would I read these placements differently on a day-to-day basis. You know?

One thing I will say though is that sometimes I will look if a planet is cadent or angular. I guess this is also just to see if it's moving towards the angle or moving away from it.

MODERN APPROACH

So back to Placidus for a bit. Maybe this is beside the point cause we're talking house system usage in and of itself but Placidus users often value the intricacies of a "personalised" chart, where every chart of, let's say, an Aquarius rising isn't divided the exact same way. They also like the intricacies of interceptions.

Yet they don't mind using generational planets as rulers for every Scorpio, Aquarius and Pisces (wow, every Scorpio rising born between 1983-1995 has Pluto in Scorpio, how boring). They also often don't use house rulers. I've yet to see a modern astrology book that teaches about house rulers except for the ascendant ruler. Heck, my certified astrologer mom was never taught that - and she went to school for that!

And, the horror, they resort to the notion of "1st house placement is the same as an Aries placement". Which I despise bacause that is a thinking of a dummy and I have a separate article on it HERE if you want to give it a read.

Again, not all Placidus users but kind of following that default system and not looking for alternative points of view leads most of them to these ways of reading charts. Because Placidus has been closely ascribed to the modern approach.

And I think "personalising" a chart with things like traditional rulers, having MC-IC possibly fall into houses other than 10th and 4th and certainly using house rulers is far more superior than having things like interceptions, which I personally find to be a bit gimmicky.

And to quickly answer your question: interceptions are said to symbolize "blocked" energy, right? I find it a redundantly philosophical concept where you have to make up stuff in order for it to fit: and it either doesn't or the answer can be found in a different spot in the chart. I did watch some of the stuff from that avid Placidus worshipper and they blamed intercepted Moon for themes of secrecy when the Moon was in Scorpio - a sign that is already secretive. So, was it an interception specifically that caused it?

HOUSE RULERS

Such an underrated thing yet so accurate. How many times have we all seen people ask "but what if my house is empty?". Usually the answer is "look at the sign that rules that house", when in fact it should be: "look at the house ruler!".

And house rulers work best with whole sign houses. Profections are an amazing way of demonstrating that. Look at your chart or the charts of others and really pay attention to what planet rules your profection year: I can guarantee you that using whole sign you'll see a massive difference between, for example, benefic-ruled years and malefic-ruled years. It's like a night and day. Of course there's a lot of factors and sometimes a Venus-ruled year might go south on you when it's the year of Venus retrograde or Saturn is transiting your natal Venus. But that only proves that it is Venus being switched on that year, not another planet.

Or when your year is ruled by a planet that is exalted vs in detriment or in fall.

House rulers using Placidus? Or any quadrant system in general? A mess honestly. I was reading reddit, as I often do, and I've scrolled through a discussion on house systems. A user called StellaGraphia put it perfectly so I'm just going to quote them:

"house rulers are muddled in quadrant systems. There will often be a planet in a different sign than the sign on the house's cusp, and the ruler of that sign is ruling the next house, not the one the planet is in. So who is that planet relying on? That planet's whole condition, etc. in relation to who it is operating under is muddled."

TRANSITS AND SAME ENERGY SITUATION

I think even transits can illustrate it in a good way. There's a reason we have sign-based aspects because the same energies feel each other.

Let's say someone has Sun in Pisces but using quadrant system Pisces takes up two different houses. Transiting Saturn goes into Pisces, the Sun's going to immediately feel it - because it's the same sign, the same energy. And let's say that Sun is in the 3rd house and Saturn is still in the 2nd. How can it affect 2nd house issues if it's already affecting the 3rd house Sun? Personally I just think it gets unnecessarily messy.

This is kind of simmilar to that synastry example I was talking about earlier.

WHY IS PLACIDUS *THE* SYSTEM ACTUALLY?

I think the topic of quadrant systems is messy in general because there's so many of them and no one really is right in saying Placidus is better or Regiomontanus is better or Campanus or whatever. They're all someone else's idea of what a house division should look like, it's all hypothetical and the only real thing there is is ascendant-descendant degree cause that's a literal horizon and MC-IC degree cause that's a literal meridian of the Earth. Everything else? Theories. So which one is right?

The goal of a lot of scholars throughout the years was to finally crack the code what kind of system was Ptolemy (2nd century) describing in his texts on astrology. A few astrologers tried to push their own theory on what it was, including Placidus whose interpretation was pretty detailed in calculations. And so this is exactly why it got popular - it had the advantage of being an appealing old concept (or so they thought) that could finally be put into practice thanks to the technological advancement that made it possible to calculate easily.

Funnily, much later it turned out that Ptolemy was most probably using some sort of equal house division and nothing really that complex to calculate.

And so at that time in the 17th century older systems have been pushed to the side because of the excitement surrounding a system that required more nuanced math. And more nuanced math meant more advancement - at least for astrologers of that time.

Whole sign system is, for obvious reasons, tidier and simpler (as in more direct) but that does not equal to "easier to read" or, how our Placidus bully said, "for the lazy". Because there's nothing easier or more difficult about reading one or the other. It's just quadrant houses get more clunky if you want to read with house rulers and no, clunky does not mean more intricate. It's just clunky.

It's also more convenient if you don't know someone's exact time of birth but you know their ascendant. You don't really need the exact degree to divide the houses. Same thing if someone has an approximate birth time - as long as the ascendant stays in the same sign you're good to go. This is definitely an additional advantage of the whole sign houses that come in handy surprisingly often in my experience.

And earlier I said I used to find equal system a nice compromise. I think an equally (no pun intended) good compromise - if not slightly better - is Porphyry, which still retains quadrants but divides them into equal sections. So if you do like each of the axis to be the beginning of an angular house but like me, you find interceptions useless and like things to be more tidy, maybe give Porphyry a try!

So what I’m trying to say is, if someone wants to use Placidus - or any other quadrant system - then go ahead but don't be silly and say crap about other systems, especially whole sign, when it's a method that's been the blueprint and despite its simplicity (or maybe because of it) it works like a charm and it's been used by all the fathers of astrology and they didn't need such convoluted system like Placidus.

Or heck, no one said you have to choose one and stick to it for the rest of your life. Test all of them, use whole sign parallel to a quadrant system - this is what astrologers did even back in the late hallenistic times. There's a lot of options to explore when it comes to house systems.

#astrology #mercurytrinemoon #astro notes #astrology notes #house systems

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mojowitchcraft · 10 months ago

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2024 Fic Tracker

I decided to start tracking the fics I'm reading for 2024 and I thought I'd maybe do a monthly round up of my favourite fics and post on here, but I'm one week in and there's already so many great fics that I'm reading that I wanted to yell about!

Not sure how consistently I'll post these, but I love hyping up my fellow writers and friends, so here's some of my recent faves, mainly Steddie fics but some others in here!

change your mind

by helix_stomper [@pixelizedrifles] Rating: E | Words: 168k | Chapters: 13/17 | Pairing: Steddie

Summary:

After his breakup with Nancy, Steve Harrington keeps it a secret that he hasn’t made an effort to meet his soulmate. When he accidentally wakes up next to them a few days after his 18th birthday, he’s surprised to find that it’s not only another guy, but somebody else in Hawkins. Between losing all his old friends, learning how not to be an asshole, and balancing his newfound sexuality in a closed-minded town, Steve has his work cut out for him. Eddie Munson doesn’t believe in soulmates, but that doesn’t stop him from waiting in the dreamscape every night for his. Balancing life as an openly queer, drug-dealing super senior in Hawkins, Indiana is no cakewalk, especially with Billy Hargrove on his ass. But maybe, just maybe, there’s something to that whole soulmate thing after all.

📓 💭: [Read most recent chapters of this ongoing WIP] I was so excited when I saw that helix_stomper was writing a soulmate fic, and it does NOT disappoint. It's a totally different vibe from the Boots & Budweiser series but it's so so excellent. A completely fresh and interesting take on the soulmate trope with dreamscapes, a healthy dose of identity porn and some *drama*

they're going to send us to prison for jerks

by @greatunironic Rating: E | Words: 16k | Chapters: 1/1 | Pairing: Steddie

Summary:

GARETH 11.46am it’s been like five hours should we do a welfare check on him? JEFF 11.47 am why? you think it’s possible to die from jerking it too much? GARETH 11.47am ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah In which Eddie is TikTok famous, and his personal favorite creator just had an unexpected face reveal.

📓 💭: I love me some modern au / alt format / social media shinanegans and this did not disappoint! Super fun and cute

Paint & Glitter

by unhappy_peaches [@ghast1yghosts] Rating: T | Words: 2.3k | Chapters: 1/1 | Pairing: Steddie

Summary:

"face painter Steve's next in line is an excited 20 y/o Eddie who wants a dragon"

📓 💭: [Reread] This came up in covo with a friend and I had to reread it cause it's so damn cute.

Tentative

by Eddywow [@eddywoww] Rating: E | Words: 90k | Chapters: 11/? | Pairing: Steddie

Summary:

“Oookay," The woman drew out, one ringed hand sweeping at Stevie's hair. "Hey there, Uhh. You're kind of in my lap. Can you get up?" Rude. Couldn't she see Stevie was trying her best?

📓 💭: [Read most recent chapters of this ongoing WIP] I was a little late to the party starting to read this but it's SO FUCKING GOOOOOOOD!! (would we expect anything less of Eddywow? Doubtful) Love going wild with my friends about stressy depressy big tiddy Stevie. Such a fun dynamic between them in this gender bent girl band modern au.

We Can't Both Be Billy Joel

by audacity_of_bluejays [@audacityofbird] Rating: E | Words: 34k | Chapters: 4/5 | Pairing: Steddie

Summary:

Classically trained concert pianist Steve Harrington’s dreams went on pause when the world shut down in 2020. When you’re the last one in, you’re the first one out when the concert halls shut down, no matter how much time, effort, work or talent you put in. So, three years later when his adoptive father and owner of Skeleton Keys Piano Bar in Indianapolis calls him home from New York City to help save the family business, he finally has a way to use his skills and experience. Turns out you can come home again. The only problem is, the plan is to bring in dueling pianos and Steve has to work with the current piano player on staff. Eddie is stupidly talented, annoying and friendly even when Steve isn't. It's infuriating. Can they work together and save the bar from closing? Or will they both get more than they bargained for?

📓 💭: [Read most recent chapters of this ongoing WIP] love love loving my gal Birdie's modern au piano bar fic. Honestly did not expect to get turned on by them playing the piano but the 'playing the piano as foreplay' tag did not lie to me! This is super fun and sweet and the final chapter is getting posted tomorrow!

Steve & Robin

by audacity_of_bluejays [@audacityofbird] Rating: M | Words: 46k | Chapters: 8/22 | Pairing: Evental Steddie, with on and off Stommy as a treat

Summary:

It's 1995. Two sets of best friends find themselves in Chicago and in each other's orbit as they try to figure out how to best navigate the world, work, relationships, family, and friendships in their mid-twenties. Chrissy is starting a new job in a new city with only an old friend to help tether her. Eddie tries to help his band find their big break. Steve tries to get his matchmaking family off his back and Robin hatches a plan to help him do that in an unconventional and seemingly logical way. They're all finding themselves and their way to each other. So, who cares if they stumble along the way? At least they have each other.

📓 💭: [Currently catching up on this ongoing WIP] Another one that I was putting off reading and I'm now obsessed with!! Birdie has really found her niche with this fun screenplay style alt format. The way she describes the scenes and the cuts between things is SO FUCKING FUNNY and I can totally visualize it. My new fave sitcom.

stand still (so i can see your sillouette)

by audacity_of_bluejays, pizzabones [@glitterfang] Rating: E | Words: 4k | Chapters: 1/1 | Pairing: Stommy

Summary:

Immediately following the events of Chapter 7 of Steve & Robin, Tommy and Steve consummate this new version of their relationship. Will this be the beginning of something beautiful or the end of something that's run its course? Maybe Both. Tune in:

📓 💭: oh my god it's like if my favourite sitcom had a late night special. wowoowoweeeee!!! Love me some Stommy smut but also I couldn't relax and enjoy it the whole time cause I don't trust that man!!

sidelong

by Adure [@toburnup]

Rating: E | Words: 5.8k | Chapters: 1/1 | Pairing: Stommy

Summary:

Tommy draws his knees up toward him and leans his folded arms on top. He stares, unashamed, at the length of Steve's neck as he looks around. His chin. His nice smile. Tommy's drunker now that they're sitting in the brunt of the sun, and maybe that's why it takes a few extra seconds for him to realize that Steve's stopped talking. "Is there something on my face?" Steve asks, rubbing his cheek with the back of his hand. He looks confused. And he's waiting, because Tommy is slack-jawed and a little bit in love and he's really, really not ready for this shit. (Tommy can't help but look, and Steve can't stop catching him.)

📓 💭: some soft and squishy Stommy to heal the wounds that the above rec might give you. I love me some happy ending Stommy, just two dudes in love with each other trying to figure it all out!! Absolutely adored seeing my bestie Becca @glitterfang partner up with Vio and do some amazing art for this fic!!

Hungry Like The Wolf

by beetlesandstars [@beetlesandstarss] Rating: M | Words: 10k | Chapters: 1/1 | Pairing: Steddie

Summary:

“Are you a manifestation of my subconscious?” Eddie asks, tentatively shuffling closer to the wolf. He sways a little, stage-whispering, “What are you trying to tell me?” He knows the pills he took were strong but, well - he didn’t think they were ‘hallucinate a giant dog’ strong. (Or, the one where Steve turns into a wolf and befriends Eddie Munson.)

📓 💭: Werewolf Steve!! WEREWOLF STEVE!!! I need so much more of him!! Absolutely loved the identity porn of it all and wolfy cuddles. So good.

Sneaky Link

by morningberries [@morningberriesao3] Rating: E | Words: 121k | Chapters: 17/20 | Pairing: Steddie

Summary:

HailToTheKing: tell me what you look like ELMst01: tall, pale af, few tats here and there Steve lifts his eyes from his phone. He must be wondering why Eddie is smiling like a fucking idiot. He pretends not to notice Steve sizing him up from head to foot. Judging bastard. HailToTheKing: sounds hot HailToTheKing: just my type OR The only thing worse than Steve Harrington, is the fact that Eddie got paired with him for his college assignment. At least the sexy guy he subscribes to on OnlyFans is a good distraction to keep Eddie's mind away from Steve, and the annoying crush he hates that he's starting to develop on his project partner.

📓 💭: [Read the most recent chapter of this ongoing WIP] I've been loving this fic since the begining. I'm always feral for a modern au + university/college au + only fans? Come on!!! So much good soup in here. Plus the added Eddie is a thick headed dummy is so good

Slide It In

by gayhandshake Rating: E | Words: 1.7k | Chapters: 1/1 | Pairing: Steddie

Summary:

Without thinking, he yanks his hand back, Steve yelping, “Eddie!” in response. “Why does it feel like that?” Eddie asks, his mouth pinched. His voice is high-pitched and whiny and incredibly embarrassing, but seriously, why does it feel like that? He shakes his whole body out, wiggling his arms to dislodge the sensation. Steve cranes his neck to glare at him. “Like what?” “Like ‒ squishy and weird!” --- Eddie struggles with some features of the human body.

📓 💭: okay this is just pure silly crack and it made me laugh so fucking hard.

a snowfall kind of love

by @hexiewrites Rating: E | Words: 46.5k | Chapters: 7/11 | Pairing: Steddissy

Summary:

Chrissy has always been top of her class at the North Pole. She’s worked her way up to the matchmaking department, and has an impressive track record of successful Christmas relationships under her belt. This year's assignment should be easy, which is good, because if you asked her out of earshot she might tell you the whole thing is getting a bit… tired. Still: a happy but lonely mechanic meets an ornery author in the biggest slump of his career, whose bike breaks down outside of his secluded cabin in the woods where he's settled for his annual winter writing retreat. A house call, a little bit of that ‘snowed in, only one bed’ magic, Chrissy knows she’s in for an Elf of the Year award for this one. Only... what happens when the mechanic and the author are just as charmed by Chrissy as she is by them? When her little bit of snow gets a little bit out of control? With three of them snowed in, still with only one bed, and an elf fully cut off from her powers, can Chrissy still pull it off and help her marks find love? Or, can her marks help show her that there’s even more magic when Christmas ends, but the love is here to say?

📓 💭: [Read most recent chapter of ongoing WIP] Man I LOVE this, Steddissy is so much fun, plus the added hallmark cutesy christmas holiday of it all is so fun. I was howling with laughter about Chrissy being a covert Christmas elf, ducking behind things with bells in her hair wearing the LOUDEST Christmas outfits. Super cute and fun (and now smutty cause they doin the do and it's yum yum delicious)

#2024 fic tracker #mojowitchcraft fic recs #mojowitchcraft wip recs #steddie fic recs #stommy fic recs #steddissy fic recs #steddie #dividers by #eloquentreverie

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vodika-vibes · 25 days ago

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It Only Matters How You Look

Summary: It’s been six months since Shadow, the master thief, has thrown down the gauntlet against Fives. And he’s no closer to catching her now than he was six months ago. But he’s not going to give up. Not now, or ever.

Pairing: ARC Trooper Fives x F!Reader

Word Count: 3713

Warnings: Reader is a thief, heated kissing, Reader called Shadow in some parts as a codename

A/N: This is a sequel to Knew You Were Trouble and the title comes from a Miranda Lambert song called "Mama's Broken Heart". I'm still very sick, but apparently having a fever makes me want to write lots, so here you have it.

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The small office that Master Nu gave him when he agreed to start hunting Shadow is no longer big enough to contain the investigation. And that’s only in part because his group has grown by several vod’e.

In fact, they are now a squad, five strong, serving under the orders of Master Nu.

Rex hadn’t been thrilled to lose Fives and Echo. And had been even less thrilled three months later when Jesse, Dogma, and Tup were also pulled from the 501st to work under Master Nu.

To be fair, Rex’s temper was nothing compared to General Skywalker’s temper when he found out that he lost both of his ARCs, and then his third ARC only a few months later.

Fives only found out about General Skywalker’s tantrum later, after it had been dealt with. He also only found out later that said tantrum got him removed from leading the 501st and sent to a retreat somewhere.

To help him decompress from the war, General Kenobi said kindly as he took both the 501st and Commander Tano under his wing.

Recently, Fives heard that General Skywalker is still at the retreat, so he supposes that NatBorns must be more sensitive to war.

Though, if he’s going to be honest, he hasn’t thought of the war much these last few months. The only thing he’s been thinking about has been Shadow.

She haunts him every moment.

When he’s awake, he’s thinking about where she could be and where she’s going to hit next, and trying to find a clue in the mass of evidence he, and his brothers, have collected over the previous months.

And when he’s asleep, he dreams of red-painted lips, thigh-high boots, and skintight leotards.

He is, in a word, obsessed.

Fives pushes his fingers through his curls, messing up his already messy hair, as he stares at the collection of stuff Dogma brought from a lead he and Echo have been following for the last week.

“What is all of this?” He finally asks.

Dogma looks up from where he’s trying to piece together a shredded piece of flimsy, “The hint we got from Dex panned out…sort of.”

“It looks like it was a safe house of some kind,” Echo continues smoothly as he lifts something gold and jewel-encrusted, “But it also looked like no one has been there in years. We took pictures—” He sets the item - a statue of a woman- down on the table and pushes some documents to the side to find a stack of photos, “Ah, here they are.”

Fives takes the pictures his twin offers him and flips through them. Everything in the photos is covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. Though, it doesn’t look like a safe house to him.

Take away all of the treasure, and it just looks like it was someone's home.

Fives flips to the first picture, the only picture that covers the whole room, and he frowns at it. Two beds, a larger bed with a worn blanket and an even more worn pillow, and a child-sized bed with an equally plain, but thicker, blanket and a less worn pillow.

The photo of the closet shows worn clothes for an adult man and then slightly less worn for a female child. The bookshelf has workbooks designed for young children sitting in a basket low enough for a small child to be able to reach.

“You know…” Fives says slowly, “I think this safe house is where Shadow grew up.”

Four pairs of identical eyes focus on Fives and then turn to the pile of evidence that Echo and Dogma collected from the shack. Tup digs through one of the boxes and pulls out a small jewelry box, popping it open with ease.

The jewelry box is filled with rings and bracelets covered in gems, but the jewelry that’s sitting in a place of honor is a bead bracelet made by a small child. The beads read “#1 Daddy”.

“If Shadow was the one who made this bracelet, then maybe she turned to a life of crime because she grew up poor?” Jesse asks, “Who does that shack belong to?”

“No one,” Echo says, and then he pauses and makes a face, “Well, no. It belongs to the Banker’s Guild. Has for over three decades. Before that, it was an empty lot.”

“I guess the Banker’s Guild won’t help us?”

“Legally they don’t have to keep records longer than fifteen years,” Dogma notes absently as he picks up a ring from the jewelry box and squints at it.

“...why do you know that?” Jesse asks.

“I read legal texts for fun.”

“...vod, we need to get you out more—” Tup says with a sigh.

“Fives,” Dogma interrupts, as he sets the ring down and picks up a pendant, “I think this is all costume jewelry.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“I mean, not 100%.” Dogma shrugs, “But all of this stuff that we collected from the safe house looks expensive, but they feel like nickel and colored glass.”

Echo stands suddenly and moves to another box. He digs through the bags for a moment and then emerges with a small bag with a delicate-looking ring. Fives recognizes the ring even from across the room.

Shadow mailed it to him shortly after he first met her.

Echo holds the ring he’s holding next to the ring that Dogma had been looking at, and the difference is as clear as night and day.

The ring that Shadow sent him is one of the most expensive rings found on Coruscant, made of rhodium and naturally formed pink diamonds, you would need to be royalty to be able to afford it.

Shadow stole it from under the nose of Queen Breha Organa of Alderaan. Luckily, House Organa is willing to allow them to hold onto the ring as evidence, especially since it’s housed in the Jedi temple.

“So, what’s the working theory?” Jesse asks, “Shadow became a thief because she grew up in poverty?”

“Her dad was a thief too,” Fives says thoughtfully as he picks up the statue that Echo had been examining earlier, “What if he turned to theft in an attempt to make a better life for his kid?”

“He wasn’t very good at it,” Tup says dryly.

“Right. He wasn’t a good thief, so he was never able to pull them out of poverty, so his kid became a master thief to make up for his failure?” Fives offers.

“So, do we think dad’s still alive?” Echo asks.

The vod’e share a look, and then they turn to Fives, “How old would you say she was, Fives? You’re the only one who’s met her face to face.” Dogma says.

“I dunno…mid-twenties, maybe? But she was wearing make-up, and General Nu said that make-up can make you appear older or younger, depending on your skill.” Fives shrugs, “But let's say she’s in her mid-twenties for ease.”

Dogma nods and makes a note on a piece of flimsy before he pins it to the corkboard behind him. General Nu is a fan of the classics, so they they a mystery board, with a grainy picture of Shadow in the middle.

Fives stares at the picture and then pushes his hand through his curls again, “How about we take a break for a couple of hours? I need some fresh air.”

Echo smirks at him, “You’re going to visit your bookseller, aren’t you?”

Despite his best efforts, Fives can feel a blush creeping up his neck, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Uh-huh. Sure you don’t.”

“Better hope Shadow doesn’t learn about the book girl. You wouldn’t want her to get targeted.” Jesse points out.

At that, Fives glares at his brothers, “It’s not like that!”

“Oh, so you wouldn’t mind if I asked her out on a date?” Tup asks.

Fives glares even harder at Tup, “Only if you don’t mind me throwing you out a window.”

“So you don’t want her, but no one else can have her?” Jesse asks, “You know, maybe I’ll go and ask her out too—”

“I’m leaving now!” Fives interrupts, turning on his heel to leave the small room, “Maybe one of you can talk to General Nu about getting a bigger room to work in?”

“I’ll handle it,” Echo says with a grin, “Have a nice date.”

“It’s not a—You know what, forget it.”

Just down the road from the Jedi temple, squished between a liquor store and a lingerie shop, sits the Rainbow Connection Bookstore and Cafe. It’s not the biggest bookstore, but it is popular enough.

College kids like to order their textbooks through you because you don’t charge an arm and a leg, not to mention your cafe is good enough and fairly priced for broke college students.

Honestly, broke college students are your main customers.

It’s not like you need the money from the shop, your alternate revenue stream has already earned you enough money that you could retire right now and spend ten thousand credits a day for the rest of your life, and you still wouldn’t be able to get rid of all your money.

Who says crime doesn’t pay?

Your gaze drifts from one side of your empty shop to the other and then focuses on the news report playing on your datapad.

“That’s right, it’s been three weeks since the Museum of Coruscant was hit by the criminal known as Shadow, and none of the exhibits that were stolen have been recovered—”

Well, duh.

That’s because they’re not on Coruscant anymore. Your client had them shipped to the Outer Rim, so they’re long gone by now. Honestly, by the time the theft had been reported, the artifacts were no longer on Coruscant.

The bell over the door rings as the door opens, and you close the news site as you lift your gaze to the door, “Welcome to the Rainbow Connection~” You say in a sing-song voice.

“Slow day, Princess?”

Only one person on Coruscant calls you Princess, and a wide smile crosses your face as you focus your gaze on the man standing in the doorway, “Well, it’s early still, Fives.”

He looks tired, and you know it’s because he’s been skipping sleep to try and catch you.

Poor dove.

You feel bad about it. But not so bad as to stop.

“Can I get a caf, Princess?”

“Sure thing, extra sugar right?”

“And an espresso shot.”

“Coming right up, hotshot.” You walk to the back of the shop, where the cafe is, and start the caf, and then you lean on the counter, “You look tired.”

“I am tired,” Fives admits as he sinks into a chair, “I’ve been chasing Shadow for six months, and I don’t feel any closer now than I was when I first met her.”

“You’ll figure it out, Fives.” The caf machine stops brewing, and you quickly make his mug the way he likes it, then you walk around the counter to set it in front of him. You sit across from him, rest your chin on the palm of your hand, and watch him take a sip of his caf flavored sugar.

“I don’t know, Princess. I’m beginning to feel like I bit off more than I can chew.”

“Well,” You lean back in the seat, “I don’t know if you know this, but I am pretty clever.”

He grins at you, “Yeah? You fancy yourself a detective?”

“Well, I have read a detective novel or two.”

He laughs, some of the tension draining from his shoulders, “Alright Princess. Well, we got an anonymous tip and it led us to a shack on the lower levels, near the Works.”

Wait.

“We think it was Shadow’s childhood home.”

They went to my dad’s home?

“Ooh? How exciting! It should be a simple thing to find out who lived there then, right?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Fives sighs, “Turns out that the bank owns the property, and only keeps records for 15 years.”

Oh, thank the Force for minor miracles.

“Really?” You ask, “Only 15 years? That’s a…rather short amount of time, isn’t it?”

“I think so, but that might just be because their policies are ruining my investigation.” He pushes his hand through his curls, and you don’t bother to stifle your giggle, his hair is sticking up in odd directions.

He’s so cute.

He smiles at your giggle, something soft on his face, “How do you always make me feel better?”

“It’s my superpower.” You tease. It’s a shame he’d never look at the real you like this.

Everything about your civilian identity is a carefully crafted facade. The messy hair, the glasses, the massive sweaters, the calf-length skirts, and the sensible boots were all picked out to make you seem soft and harmless.

Your hair? Styled this way with hair gel and water.

The glasses? Fake, the lenses are glass.

The massive sweaters? Chosen to make you look like you’re hiding in them.

The calf-length skirts? Chosen to make it look like you’re not an athletic person.

The boots? Steel-toed for self-defense…and also designed to look a size larger than your actual shoe size.

“Well,” Fives says as he finishes his caf, “I appreciate your superpower.” He absently twists his mug in his hands, “I should get back to it, I think I’ll head out and interview around Shadow’s childhood home, see if I can get anything from the neighbors.”

Good luck with that. My neighbors growing up are all dead.

“Well, be careful,” You say, “The area around the Works isn’t safe after all.”

“Aww, worried about me, Princess?” He winks at you.

You huff and lift a single shoulder, “Well, I’m not anymore. Let me make some caf for you and your brothers to go. And maybe some sandwiches.”

“You are an angel among women,” Fives praises.

At that, you laugh. “Hardly. I just don’t like seeing people go hungry.” That might be the most honest thing I’ve ever said to him.

It takes you fifteen minutes to get the five sandwiches made up how the five men prefer and to make their travel cups. But you send Fives off with a bag of carefully labeled food and caf, and a warning to be careful.

Fives last comment to you before he heads back toward the temple is a reminder to lock up your shop before you head home for the night, and then he vanishes into the crowd.

You step back into your shop, and a small smile crosses your lips, “Well. If Fives is going to visit my childhood home, I should be there to greet him, shouldn’t I? It’s only polite.”

“What a miserable place,” Fives mutters under his breath as he kicks a piece of trash out of the road and over to an overflowing trashcan.

He’s been here for hours now, and so far he hasn’t met a single person who knows the people who used to live in the old shack down the road. Not even the oldest people living here know them.

He releases a heavy breath. Another dead end. Of course.

Fives turns to head back the way he came, then freezes when he sees the silhouette of someone sitting on the roof of the shack he had investigated.

Someone wearing a high nerftail and a long coat.

He knows it’s her before he can see any details.

Swiftly, Fives runs over to the shack and hoists himself up onto the roof. The building is sturdier than it looks, easily able to hold his weight. “Shadow.”

She turns her head, a secretive smile on her red-painted lips, “Soldier boy,”

“You’re under arrest,”

“Oh, darling, you haven’t caught me yet.” She leans back slightly and her heeled boots lightly kick against the side of the shack.

“Yeah? We’re on a roof, where are you going to go?”

She laughs, and Fives kind of hates himself when his heart skips a beat at the sound. “Won’t you sit with me? I heard that you were poking around.”

Fives clenches his jaw. He should arrest her. Or shoot her. But even as he thinks that he walks over to her and sits next to her. She’s…tiny. Sure, he’s a decently big guy, but even compared to that, she’s still tiny.

“It’s the malnutrition.” She explains, almost as if she can hear his thoughts, “If you live in starvation for long enough, it has lasting side effects.”

“So, this was actually your house growing up?”

“Mm. I lived here with father.” She leans forward, and her long hair tumbles over her shoulder, “The houses are riddled with toxic mold, every single one of them. Not to mention toxins in the water, no heat, and gang violence—”

“You were just a kid! How could your father keep you here?”

She laughs again, though this time it is a bitter noise, “He did his best, but he grew up around here too. By the time I came around, heavy metal toxins had eaten holes into his brain. The fact that he lived as long as he did is, frankly, a miracle.” She pauses, “He died when I was six, if you were hoping to find him.”

Damn, busted.

“The Devoranian seemed to think that he was still alive.”

She turns to look at him, her smile growing, “Oh, silly man. Do you think six-year-old girls can live on their own?”

The information is like a punch to the gut, “Adopted. You were adopted. And your adopted parents are the ones who turned you into this.”

She shrugs, “Believe what you like. But this is the only hint you’re getting.” She pauses and then smacks the side of her fist into the palm of her hand, “Oh! Right! Did you like the ring?”

“The ring?” Fives blinks, and then glowers at her, “You mean the ring you stole from the Queen of Alderaan?”

“...no? The other ring.” She pauses, “Hm, maybe you haven’t found it yet. Oh well! I’m sure you’ll find it eventually.”

Fives stares at her, “You stole another ring?”

“Uh…I am a thief.” She pushes to her feet and stretches, “Anyway, time for me to go. So much to do, you see.”

Fives scrambles to his feet, “Wait! You—”

He’s not able to finish his sentence as there’s a flash of red, a ribbon wrapping around his wrist to hold him still. And then her lips, warm and impossibly soft press against his, and his heart stutters.

“Until next time, darling,” She whispers against his ear, and then he’s free and she’s gone.

He can still feel her lips against his, he can still taste her on his lips, and he wants to kiss her again. And he hates himself for that, too.

Fives pulls his comm out with a shaky hand and calls Echo. He starts talking before Echo can greet him, “I need you to search the Evidence room. You’re looking for a ring that isn’t in an evidence bag. A new one.”

“Sure thing.” Echo pauses, “You good?”

“No. Not really, but I’m not hurt. Just…do that for me and tell me if you find anything.”

“...can do. Be careful, Vod.”

Fives doesn’t answer, he just hangs up. He didn’t mean to worry his brother, but he just can’t right now.

Then he dials a second number, and waits.

“Hello?” A familiar voice, soft and warm, echoes across the line, and Fives feels his heart settle.

“Hey Princess, you busy?”

“Just doing some shopping, but I’m free to talk. What’s up?”

“I just…I needed to hear your voice, that’s all.”

She’s quiet for a moment, “Do you want me to come to you, Fives?”

“No. It’s not safe here. Can I come to your place?”

“Ummm…You can. I just…I haven’t cleaned in a bit—” She sounds so upset about that, that Fives can’t help but laugh, the weight on his heart lifting.

“I don’t mind. I just need to see you.”

She’s quiet for a moment, “Alright. I’ll send you the door code and address so you can get in. I trust that you won’t do anything weird.”

“Never.” Fives pauses, “Princess?”

“Hm?”

“Thank you.”

45 minutes later, Fives is sitting on her couch.

His Princess’ home is so…her. There are bookshelves lining all of the walls and the overflow of books is piled on the floor. Not to mention cute little knickknacks sitting on open shelves and counters.

Her home is warm, cozy, and adorable. Just like her.

He stands when the door opens, and his Princess walks in carrying four bags full of groceries. “Here, let me help with that,” Fives says as he takes the bags and sets them on an open counter.

“Oh, thank you!”

She’s not wearing her glasses, but then he remembered her mentioning once that she normally wears contacts when she’s not working. It doesn’t matter, she’s still adorable.

“I’m not bothering you, am I?”

“You could never.” She reassures with a bright smile.

“Oh, good.” Fives watches her kick off her shoes and then turn to start sorting the groceries, and then he moves.

His hand comes out to cradle her cheek. She’s so soft. So soft and so warm.

Fives leans in and catches her lips with his. She tastes like strawberries, likely from the lipgloss she prefers, and Fives knows that he could lose himself in her kisses.

He wants to lose himself in her kisses if she’ll let him.

His tongue flickers against her lower lip, and she releases a faint whimper, her fingers curling around the material of his top. Then Fives breaks the kiss, realizing that he probably went too far.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, she’s still standing close enough that her breath is fanning across his face, “I should have asked if you were okay with that.”

She looks flustered, but she also shakes her head, “I didn’t mind.” She drops her gaze to avoid his, “I wouldn’t mind if you did it again—”

A relieved laugh falls from him, and then he leans in and kisses her again. All thoughts of Shadow rush out of his mind as he curls his arms tightly around his Princess and deepens the kiss.

@imabeautifulbutterfly

@n0vqni

@bad4amficideas

@justiceandwar98

@mira-loves-star-wars

@tiredbi-peach

@dukeoftheblackstar

@trixie2023

@kimiheartblade

@padawancat97

@falconfeather23435

@etod

@bb8-99

@kiss-anon

@continous-mistakes

@yoitsjay

@liz-stat

@cc--2224

@adriennelenoir

@cdblake1565

@sweater-sloot

@heidnspeak

@wax-birds

@silly-starfish

@lonewolflupe

#star wars #tcw #star wars au #arc trooper fives x reader #fives x reader #star wars fanfiction #x reader fanfiction #f!reader fic

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soupandspoonies · 9 days ago

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I think something that people without chronic illnesses/disabilities find it hard to understand is the grief that we have surrounding the lives we had before our illnesses/disabilities appeared (or got worse).

I was 10 years old when my symptoms first came about. I was an incredibly physically active kid, involved in things like track and field, cross country, softball, and competitive canoeing. After my symptoms began to get more severe, the physical activities I enjoyed and considered a large part of my identity slowly got picked off until I couldn't do any of them anymore.

I've also been playing the acoustic guitar since I was 8 years old. I've been a lover of music and art since I was young and it is something else I consider to be a large part of my identity. In the last few years with the increase in my joint pain - I have lost the ability to play my guitar, and I'm slowly losing my ability to draw and paint.

It feels like losing my spark.

It's incredibly hard to look back at the person you once were without a sense of melancholy - thinking on it always feels like a reminder of what has been taken from you. When there's no cure to what's wrong with you, you live with the understanding that your life is going to be changed indefinitely. You will feel the things you loved slip through your fingers and wonder if you just didn't try hard enough.

It's like a piece of you has died.

You can't go back to your 7 year old self who doesn't know what it's like being in pain every day. The little kid who went to regionals for their track meet and placed first in the district 800 meter doesn't know what it's like to feel winded going up the stairs. The kid who is on stage playing itsy bitsy spider at their music school's winter recital doesn't know that they won't be able to play their instrument for more than 10 minutes in the future.

We are plagued with the memories of the people we once were.

There will always be people who say "well you can still do x" - but that was never really the point. I want to be able to play my guitar, to run, to race my canoe on the water and feel the sense of accomplishment from crossing the finish line.

Even with all of these feelings, I can't help but want to keep that little kid alive. They may not have known the pain and suffering that I do, but I am so grateful they didn't have to. Everything we are is part of a mosaic created by our past selves. We should feel the joy and grief for those little kids, but feel proud of them for doing what they did.

I am very lucky to still have the control and strength in my hands to continue doing my art, even though it hurts. To honour who I was before I continue pushing forward, and I do my best to make the most of what I have. I will always look back on who I was before the pain crept up on me, I will always feel like a part of me has died, and I will always grieve what could have been.

It is okay to grieve. It is natural to grieve. People may not understand your grief, but that doesn't make it less real. Everything you feel is real.

This thought came to me as I finished my most recent sketch and felt the ache in my hands telling me I pushed a little too hard. I thought to make it feel a little bit worthwhile I would share some of my favourite artworks I have done and also encourage others to do the same. Talk about who you were before, mourn them, and show yourself and others what you can do in spite of your illness or disability - big or small. Feel proud of yourself, you deserve grace, you've done well.

Soup :)

#chronic illness #chronic disability #joint pain #pots syndrome #invisible illness #artwork #dealing with grief

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bitbybitwrites · 9 months ago

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WIP ASK ME GAME

I was tagged by @wordsofhoneydew and @itsmaybitheway. Thank you so much for thinking of me! Sorry for the delay - it took me longer than usual to think of descriptions of all the WIP I've got in the works 😂

So here are some Klaine and RWRB fics I'm working on that anyone can feel free to ask me about if you'd like:)

A long WIP list can be found under the break!

Partially published WIP:

(Klaine) If I Can Make Your Heart My Home - (Klaine Reverse Bang 2023) Life in New York City and working in the restaurant industry wasn’t exactly what Kurt Hummel had expected it would be. He’s lonely, stressed out and miserable. He’s almost ready to throw in the towel and return home to Ohio when a chance meeting with a musician in Central Park changes everything. (Warning: an angsty rollercoaster of a ride. Soooo many cameos from Glee characters! 😉)

(Klaine) Falling For You -(Klaine Secret Santa 2023 - NOW COMPLETE AS OF 4/16/24) - Successful doctor, Blaine Anderson has his hands full heading up the pediatric wing of Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital in NY City. Life with that job and his precocious 6 year old daughter certainly keeps him on his toes - so much so that he thinks he can avoid dealing with the hole left in his life from the death of his husband. Little does he know that falling in love is on the horizon, quite literally, when he meets a florist by the name of Kurt Hummel. (Kid!fic with a bit of angst but a happy ending)

(RWRB) Puppy Love - (RWRB NYE gift exchange 2023) The cold snowy day that Henry Fox discovers an abandoned beagle puppy in an alley brings handsome, flirty veterinarian, Alex Claremont-Diaz into his life. Alex is a single dad, recently moved to NY with his young son who Henry hasn't met yet - or so Alex thought. (Fluffy kid!fic)

(Klaine) Sanctuary - (Klaine Word Scramble 2023) Crown Prince Blaine has stumbled into a secluded glade, trying to escape the horrors of the bloody war his father had brought upon their kingdom. Mourning his beloved older brother and faced with the burden of taking his place in the kingdom, Blaine yearns for a place to hid from the world to deal with the issues weighing on his heavy heart. He encounters a mysterious elf, the guardian of the magical spring that Blaine has mistakenly defiled, whose growing connection to his life the young prince can't ignore. (Inspired by an idea/ artwork by @datshitrandom and @justgleekout)

Not published yet WIP :

(these are in various states of readiness: some outlined, some partially written, some still in the brainstorming/research phase)

(RWRB) I approach, and I withdraw (tentative title) - Historical fic - Alejandro Diaz was still a boy when he followed his father into the thick of the fight for Mexico's independence. A series of unfortunate events, however, led him and his family to flee his home and to adopt new identities for their own safety. Years later, after he finds himself well ensconced in his new life as an attaché to the office of the new American ambassador to England, Alexander Claremont soon finds his past catching up to him. (Inspired by these historical paintings by @stormtrooperjeff17004 as well as artwork from @artofobsession seen here and here.)

(RWRB) Shaken, Not Stirred (Spy!AU) - CIA Officer Alex Claremont Diaz is not new to working on joint operations with other foreign agencies. He does it often and he does it well, which is why his superior, Zahra Bankston, never hesitates to assign them to him. What he wasn't expecting that morning was to be put on a new assignment with his least favorite MI6 operative, Henry Fox - and that they had to use being a newly married couple as their cover to get the job done. (Inspired by this drawing by @noodles-and-tea )

(Klaine) Cuffed (a D/s and soulmate story and prequel to my first ever fic, Trick or Treat) - - Musician Blaine Anderson has always been lonely sub, yearning for a place to belong and someone to belong to. Kurt Hummel is the an overworked and high in demand designer - a Dom with no time to sit and relax and focus on what his needs are. When an old friend hires Kurt to revamp his new club, Kurt's life becomes intertwined with Blaine's in a way neither of them could ignore.

(Klaine) Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie (Day 2 /Bikini - Klaine Advent 2023/ PWP) - A casual little fashion critique while the boys are on a well needed vacation, leads to a little outdoor fun. (Set in my Trick or Treat AU)

(RWRB) how ardently i admire and love you (online auction!AU) - Alex is desperate to find the perfect birthday gift for Henry, and eventually finds himself in an online bidding war for the one unique item that he knows his boyfriend would just adore.

(Klaine) I Know You Wanna Take Me Home (tentative title) (Klaine Valentines Challenge 2024/Pretty Woman!AU) Well established business man, Kurt Hummel never thought he could find anyone of substance among the escorts at Dalton House. But after being convinced to visit the upscale club by his friend, Kurt's mind is quickly changed once he sets his eyes on a beautiful boy in a gilded cage who was up for auction that night.

(Klaine) Untitled Klaine fic (Klaine Advent 2022) - Set in my Klaine superhero AU - Under The Cover of Darkness) Blaine decides to go home with Kurt for the holidays and doesn't make the best first impression with Kurt's parents.

(Klaine) Untitled Klaine fic (Feudal Japan!AU) - based off of novel The Tokaido Road - On a personal mission to avenge the murder of his father, Kurt travels the Tokaido , braving its dangers and interesting characters on the way. As the son of a nobleman, Kurt travels in disguise, unaware that the person who sanctioned his father's murderer has also sent Blaine, a talented and deadly ronin, to find and kill Kurt as well.

(RWRB)- the phantom touch of your hand (tentative title) - (Fantasy/cursed tattoo fic!AU) Two young swordsmen are determined to vanquish a sorcerer who has laid a tragic curse on them both. The problem is, the curse keeps them from being together at the same time, doomed to travel alone, one by day, the other by night - the only reminder of the other being the cursed tattoo burned into their skin.

(Klaine) - Untitled Klaine fic (While You were Sleeping!AU) - Kurt Hummel always wanted to live in NYC - his dreams were to be on Broadway. Being on the Broadway stage that is. Not working on the corner of Broadway and 44th in one of those coffee/food carts parked out on the street. Things for him change the day that Cooper Anderson, Kurt's gorgeous repeat customer whom he secretly fantasizes about, nearly gets hit by a bus. After following him to the hospital, Kurt gets mistaken for being his crush's fiancee which should have been his dream come true - until he meets Cooper's sweet down to earth brother, Blaine.

(Sebklaine) Let you put your hands on me (PWP College threesome) - heavily influenced by "one of those movies" - wink, wink . . - Kurt's frustrated ( in more ways than one) and his good friends Blaine and Sebastian find a way to help him out.

(Klaine/RWRB) - Untitled fic (Scheherazade/ 1001 Arabian Nights !AU) - A lone traveler gets captured by a band of sex slavers in the desert. After being subjected to the horrors of slavery, the young man gets rescued by a desert prince in disguise, chosen to be his sole consort. Every evening, the consort tells his prince a story for him amusement. - planning a series of probably shorts all in the same style. Maybe it'll be a collection to do with other writers? Not sure yet. Might alternate with either Henry/Alex being the Prince and Consort and Blaine/Kurt being the characters in the bedtime tales or vice versa. Or maybe create 2 OC to be the Prince/Consort and have the other four boys be the characters in the shorter stories. I'm assuming it would be alot of mature/explicit shorts - but wouldn't mind a mix of other ratings in between as well.

Tagging ( only if they want to play): @myheartalivewrites, @clottedcreamfudge, @hkvoyage, @kirakiwiwrites, @gleefulpoppet,

@gleefuldarrencrissfan, @onthewaytosomewhere, @sarkyblueeyes, @madas-ahatters-world @rougedraconteur,

@yadivagirl @lilinas, @forabeatofadrum, @kiwiana-writes, @spaceorphan18,

@special-bc-ur-part-of-it, @fallevs @daisyishedwig @annepi-blog @wowbright

@backslashdelta @kurtsascot @coffeegleek @14carrotghoul @rockitmans

@teilo @iboatedhere, @orchidscript @welcometololaland

. . oh hell and anyone else who sees this and wants to share their WIP - go for it!

#ask game #wip ask game #bitbybitwrites

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matan4il · 1 year ago

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Just wanted to send some love your way 🩵 Im a left-ish diaspora Jew who had, up until really recently, taken the stance that the conflict between Israel and Palestine was too complex for me to fully understand. I appreciate blogs like yours because they have genuinely helped me understand and see through the narratives that both sides are equally at fault, or that Israel is some colonialist war machine bent on gobbling up all available territory at the expense of everyone else’s lives.

It’s kind of frightening for me to have a stance at all, when the people around me were all silent on October 7th but have no issue hanging Palestinian flags outside their homes and filling their social media with slogans that they claim are simply “anti Zionist” but are absolutely anti-Semitic.

I don’t know how to explain to them that YES my heart bleeds for every average human in Gaza who genuinely does want to just exist, but that doesn’t meant that I think the onus for peace lays exclusively on Israel’s shoulders, and I don’t support disbanding Israel as a country. I worry a lot about being too one-sided or simplifying things too much; I still feel very much like I’m sitting in a middle position, due to those concerns. And it’s scary that it still wouldn’t be enough for people — FRIENDS, even — around me.

Sorry for the ramble. Thank you for your informative posts. Speaking as someone who finds a lot of joy in fandom stuff, I really hope the tides turn so that kind of thing can occupy more space in your mind than worrying does 🩵

Awww, Nonnie! I am hugging you SO MUCH!

My heart aches, because you're absolutely right. It doesn't matter how much we'll denounce racism, they will still call us racist. It doesn't matter how often we state that we want life and dignity for both Jews AND Palestinians, they'll still accuse us of supporting genocide. It doesn't matter if we'll criticize the government, they'll still claim we're brainwashed to silence our voices.

So if it's not about our actual beliefs and positions, what's it about?

It's about the fact that we're Jews. And we're told that we can only be "good" Jews if we throw our fellow Jewish people under the bus, even though for every other minority, solidarity is encouraged and celebrated. We're only "good" Jews if we give up our native rights by adhering to a narrative that paints us as colonizers of our own ancestral land, even as native rights are upheld as vital for every other indigenous group. We're only "good" Jews by doubting the multiple testimonies of rape and baby beheadings, even though every victim is supposed to be heard and believed. We're only "good" Jews if we agree to give up the right to self defense, which means we give up the right to live safely, to live peacefully... really, if we give up the right to live, period. All while telling us this is due to the value of all human life. They're literally gaslighting us with "All Lives Matter," and it's the same crowd who could recognize the issue with that slogan, when it was used to silence black people demanding that very same right.

We do not have to go along with this modern "witch test," where they try us by dunking us into water, and the only way to be "innocent" is to die drowning, so if we didn't, then we're witches, and we die still, because they burn us at the stake. I refuse to collaborate with the erasure of Jewish identity, history and rights, which leaves all Jews stripped of protection, vulnerable to abuse, and I will keep speaking, even if they call me every dirty name they can think of for recognizing the Jewish right to live, and to live in our historic homeland, especially as we have always been willing to live here side by side with others. Whatever they say about me, at least I won't be a tokenized Jew, that they can use to bully other Jews into silence.

We absolutely can be pro-Israeli AND pro-Palestinian, rather than turning anti-Israeli to "prove" we're good, pro-Palestinian Jews.

I'm sorry, IDK if I'm actually helping here! Just know that you're not alone in feeling this way. Actually, the fantastic Mayim Bialik also talked about this recently, so I'll give you her eloquent words:

youtube

(this is just a part of the vid, you can find the whole thing here)

Thank YOU for the kind words! And may we all get back to just being able to enjoy fandom as the fun, escapist hobby it should be. Sending you lots of hugs and love! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

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paullicino · 3 months ago

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Six Years - On PTSD and Choosing Life

Content warning: This essay very frankly discusses mental health, trauma, gaslighting and suicide. It also links to discussions of abuse and sexual assault.

If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, know that you are not alone and help is available to you or anyone who might need it, such as the Samaritans, the Suicide Prevention Hotline, or this list of other crisis hotlines and this list of international support resources.

This was reposted from my Patreon.

There are blue skies today. The sun bounces off the mirrored windows of a skyscraper downtown. It cuts straight across my balcony and shines onto my wall. A few blocks away, the staff of my favourite café will share their latest gossip with me, as they always like to do, and maybe later tonight I will make good food and play games with friends until unwise times in the morning. Isn’t life full of wonderful things?

You can find them everywhere. And I certainly do. Sometimes I’ve found them in the intimate, up-close details of a famous oil painting, between the notes of a new song heard by chance, even in the rustling at the bottom of a dumpster, which becomes chittering and then fur and a tail and then direct eye contact with a tiny criminal whose only felony was hunger. I’ve found them amongst perfectly crafted sentences that capture thoughts and feelings and hold them forever on the page, in the silence of the impossibly wild mountain wilderness a thousand miles from home, in the first moments that I’ve taken someone’s hand and watched the gaudy lights of some forgettable venue play across the lines and the shapes of their face.

That’s so many wonderful things to live for. And I can get overdramatically passionate about the tiniest, silliest little details.

I’ve been trying to write this for a long time. I had three significant dreams during that period. In the most recent, I had moved into a dark and barren basement, with most of my possessions still in boxes. Some old friends from long ago came knocking. They pressed their faces against the small windows and tried to force the ageing door. “Where did you go?” they kept asking, their voices entering through every crack. “What happened?”

Six years ago this month I destroyed my suicide note. I burned it on a rainy August night and watched it curl into a tiny, helpless twisting of ashes and charred plastic that no longer had any power or purpose. The note was inside of a ziploc bag, a choice I’d made to ensure its integrity and survival against any of the several different plans I’d made to end my life, and this had melted into black strands of hair-like debris that reached up to nothing. One or two of my handwritten words remained half legible in this mess and tried to reach beyond the flames, to share their intent with the world, but they would never again mean anything to anyone.

I made videos of the burning and took a few pictures, a sort of ritual of recording, then I told a close friend what I’d just done, and then, for a very long time, I set the image as the wallpaper on my phone. It would be an ever-present reminder to me of my choice to stay alive. It was supposed to help me feel strong, though the truth is that I rarely did. It was the worst, most harrowing and most damaging period of my life and with help, honesty, insight, therapy, time and invaluable connection with others who have either seen the same things that I have or had comparable experiences, I managed to fumble and fight my way through it all. But I will never be the same. Six years is a long time and I am still profoundly affected by so much. I am still trying to understand things. I am still trying to figure myself out, to make sense of my identity, my situation, my experiences. To work out where I went and what happened. And I am still trying to move on.

These words are something about that ongoing experience, that work in progress, and about the dual significance of a span of six years. It is not so much about causes or causers, but instead about consequences and changes, and that’s for three reasons.

The first is because what happens after and as a result of trauma is so enduring and significant, perhaps even the most significant consideration of all, and it’s how we find ourselves discussing things like spans of six years or, for some people, far longer. I want to try to explain some of that sort of intensity and that sort of timescale.

The second is because it’s my hope that this is the most helpful way for me to talk about all this, the most illustrative to other people, the most constructive. I could have chosen many approaches, some which I believe might have been more harmful and destructive, and I don’t generally want to be a punitive or destructive person. Ultimately I think this is the most positive and productive approach.

The third is because I’m still not ready to unpack many things, as so much is still ongoing. I am not at the end of this, not out of the woods, and I think I need to know that I’ve reached the end of whatever journey I’m on before I can return to the start.

There is, allegedly, a power in choosing how your own story is told. So I’m choosing to tell it this way and, I hope, with the awareness that any exercise of power requires consideration and responsibility.

Six years is a long time, and while I’ve been trying to write and rewrite this thing for months, those months still pale in comparison to more than half a decade. A lot has changed in six years, and yet I also wish some things weren’t still the same, that I would have been able to make more progress, that I would have been able to create more distance.

Because, while I am six years from that burning note, from that summer rain, in my memory and my mind it doesn’t work like that. I still find myself beside that moment in time, like I could open the door to the next room and once again be right there.

---

Writing this has been very difficult. Writing is supposed to be one of the things that I am best at, and in the past words used to spill out of me so regularly that I wrote a tri-weekly diary, but I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that my relationship to writing has changed. It’s not just that this is a difficult topic. It’s that words don’t come as easily or as fluidly as they once did, making it much easier, all too appealing, to simply not push myself. To avoid things entirely.

But I wanted to write this, in part, because it would be another act of not giving up. I wanted to show myself what I could do, what I still can do, and that, even if I’m changed, I’m still stubborn enough to fumble and fight my way through.

---

I want you to imagine a house. It can be any kind of house, that part isn’t important. What is important is that the house is your home and you have lived there for a very, very long time. It is comfortable. It is safe. It is so intimately familiar that it is a part of your identity. Perhaps you grew up there, or you raised a family there, or you retired there. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s your home and that everyone knows you live there.

Next, imagine that you have a terrible day. The worst day. And at the end of this terrible, terrible day, on a bleak and dusky evening, you expect at least to be able to come back to your house, your home. You take the same route back to the same address, where you see the same building stood before you and open the same front door, ready for the comfort of a place you’ve made your own.

You enter this space that you’ve known for so long and you notice something is wrong. The first clue is something small, perhaps a lamp missing from its usual spot, or you collide with furniture moved somewhere unexpected. You feel for a light switch that is now on a different wall. You stumble on the stairs as you make your way to a bed that is hard and unwelcoming. In the morning, the light from the window is not only a different shape, but cast in the opposite direction.

The changes stop being so subtle. After you notice that a carpet is suddenly faded and pale, you open a closet to find it is twice as deep. Some of your possessions are missing. The spare room no longer has a skylight. The kitchen is a different colour, with different appliances, with no back door, half the size it once was because the walls have been moved. There are new rooms whose arrival and contents are both equally inexplicable. Your most cozy corner is now cold and uncomfortable. You must relearn the entire layout, from bathroom to basement, because moving around the way you once would only causes you to stub your toes, to trip, even to fall.

Your friends don’t understand why you no longer enjoy going back to your house, your home. They don’t understand why you screamed at the different closet, why the sunlight on the wall makes you nervous. Being in your own home now hurts and scares you. How can you possibly relax here? But this is still your same house, at your same address, the one that everybody knows. You can’t argue that it isn’t. And if you invite a friend inside, after ranting about everything that is different, they ask “Why did you change all this? It’s so much worse.”

What can you even say in return? “I didn’t”? That shit’s insane.

But that is how it feels, like I live in a house that isn’t my home. Sometimes I don’t recognise myself. Sometimes, on the worst days, I don’t know who I am any more.

“Where did you go?” ask the voices, entering through every crack. “What happened?”

---

Last summer, a man came roaring down my street in his flawless luxury emerald convertible. I remember him well. He had dark sunglasses and a tan suit jacket and a hairstyle slick with oil, like he was being a parody of a rich man from an eighties film. He surged through the stop sign right in front of me and I let him know what I thought of his public display of privilege and indifference.

“Go a little faster, you cunt,” I yelled. “Maybe you can hit a kid.”

He swivelled his head, looked back over his shoulder and stared straight at me.

He also slowed down.

It was then that I realised the volume I must have used to project myself, over the noise of his engine and toward a driver already continuing down the street, meant a few of my neighbours had likely heard me too.

I’m not sure I cared.

I used to be a more modest and deferential person, and often that is still the case. But often it is not. I have less patience. I have less fear. And I have less trust.

The fear thing is great. Last autumn I walked across a narrow, quivering suspension bridge with no care for the drop below. Later, I found another far narrower, far smaller one and, all by myself, alone in the woods sixteen kilometres up a trail, I jumped up and down on the thing until it shook and swung.

I used to be terrified of heights.

My sense of fear isn’t gone. But it’s both so much more manageable and also, quite often, a thrill. It’s taken me a while to realise that I increasingly seek out things that are exciting, risky or extremely stimulating. I am frank with strangers. I am quick to make decisions. I am keen to try new things.

It doesn’t sound so bad, does it? That’s because it isn’t. Not all change is bad and not every consequence of my experience has been negative. Slowly, gradually, I am learning to appreciate a few of the changes, to lean into them. While one part of me feels sad that I’m less trusting than I used to be, another part of me sees this as more practical. I’m far quicker to drop something or someone like a rock the moment I sense things that I don’t like, and my sense for such things is certainly sharper than it used to be. Am I always right? I don’t know about that. Perhaps some people have been casualties of an overabundance of caution. Or paranoia.

That might just be the new cost of doing business.

---

It was some time in early 2020, while talking with my GP and taking some evaluations, that we began to look at my behaviour more closely. A year before, I’d talked extensively with a therapist about anxiety and about a growing sense of discomfort and distrust. I had far less patience, particularly for those who pushed boundaries, violated or were exploitative, often regardless of whether these things even involved or affected me. Anything that felt uncomfortably familiar, whether it was something I saw in a film, caught on the news or heard about on social media, could ruin my day. I would become jumpy, irritable, scared, or simply unable to do much beyond lie down and try everything I could to banish the feeling that my chest was being crushed. This might take hours. One evening, an ex found me curled up on the floor, ashamed of my own sadness. On another evening, a routine trip to see an exciting film turned into a sleepless night of panic and distress.

I began taking tests and found myself either dismissing the results or retaking them over and over in an attempt to get different answers. The outcomes kept telling me I had the symptoms of PTSD. This was far too dramatic a result and there had already been enough drama in my life already. I myself was too much drama.

Anyway, I thought, having the symptoms isn’t the same as having.

Sometimes I think about how, during some of my most difficult moments, the toughest weeks and months that I didn’t really know how I was going to get through, I made a lot of haphazard decisions motivated by panic and fear and ignorance, by doing my best to improvise and cope and adapt. Some things worked out. Some things did not. Probably the deciding factor there was luck and I’m not really sure I can look back with any wisdom or insight.

I didn’t always know what to do, what to say, who to trust, or how much to trust, how to respond to new information and changing situations, or what in holy hell might ever work out. My response to all of this was to keep secrets or to be cagey, to avoid places and people, to suddenly and liberally cut others off through a mix of ghosting, avoidance and outright blocking, or to occasionally have three-day long anxiety spikes in which I remained highly activated, oversensitive and endlessly insecure. During one of these, someone teasingly pushed me to take part in something that I didn’t want to, something that wasn’t even a big deal, and I was so close to breaking down that I had to almost run from my friends and find a quiet place to catch my breath, all the emotions in my body somehow pinched into a single point somewhere in my gut. During another, a laptop accidentally nudged half an inch sent me into panic mode, manifesting a feeling like a blade of ice slicing straight through my pulmonary artery.

These sorts of responses and behaviours would happen even in spite of all the various combinations of therapy and medication and support I was cycling my way through. I don’t feel proud of how I handled many of these things. I would love to be able to say that I handle them so much better now, with the aid of wisdom and insight. Perhaps sometimes I do.

Sometimes I have simply made terrible decisions and, looking back, I am still not sure how I might have ever done any different. I am lucky that the vast, vast majority of those decisions didn’t fuck things up further.

---

It’s a magnificent day as I write this. The world is jade and azure and gold. The sky is exquisitely, flawlessly blue. Every leaf is rich with the gloss of summer. The sun is setting into the sparkling sea beside a succession of fading distant mountain ridges, each hazier than the last, the furthest so indistinct it looks almost like mist, a ghost of an idea two thousand metres tall. Container ships the size of city blocks sleep in the bay, their hulls traced and wrinkled with rust from a lifetime of global migration. As the growing shadows of slowly swaying trees reach their way toward me, the last light of the day glides over the ground, over the grass and even over my body itself, like spilled wine gushing from a glass. It colours everything the sweet shade of nostalgia. The air is gently warm and the grass is soft beneath me.

I love days like this. They are one of the reasons why I moved here, why I put so much time and effort and energy into relocating halfway around the world. Into building the life that I wanted, piece by piece.

And I love so many of those pieces. I love my little apartment, with the balcony that I always wanted, with its ragtag assortment of secondhand furniture collected one item at a time, with its shelves tucked in here or squeezed in there, never quite tidy enough to look presentable. I love my walkable neighbourhood, with its shops and cafés and cats that follow me from block to block, or critters that peer out from between bushes in the rustling dusk. I love how low cloud creeps in to cover the tips of the skyscrapers downtown, or how the jagged outline of mountains shape the horizon in almost every direction. I love trying to make things, especially with other people, and the reward of being creative, of being silly or being funny. I love all the things I’ve learned to cook, or the ways I can warm myself up on a cold day, or the late nights I can so often indulge, with no care for what might come tomorrow.

I have so much to be grateful for and so much to be proud of. So much here. So much now.

Pretty soon, the sunset will transform the whole sky into a gradient of colour. Someone somewhere will be playing guitar on the beach, and maybe they’ll be good. Stars will appear in the sky, above the familiar urban zodiac traced out by the city lights of apartment buildings. If I stay up late again, the dawn sky will turn the royal blue of an emperor’s cloak. And then all of this will happen again.

I have so much to be grateful for. So much to appreciate.

---

A few weeks ago I had my first nightmare in some time. They still happen. The specifics matter less than the broad themes. Deception. Gaslighting. Manipulation. Boundary violation. All of it in plain sight, yet still unseen, making me feel like I’m helpless, like I’m crazy, like I have no hope of ever being believed.

I thought about it all day. The situations, the faces and the fears. This is the way it’s always been and once one of these nightmares visits you, it stays for a while. It’s like a small stain, an odour that gets into your clothes, the stink of cigarettes after a party the evening before.

Can you wash out a stain? Sometimes. With the right substances, with the correct regimen. And with some aggressive, persistent scrubbing.

One summer night years ago an ex woke me up because I had been thrashing about in my sleep. I had worried her by rolling around and muttering like a madman. Was I having a nightmare, she asked, and it wasn’t just that I was, but that I had them all the time. Every week, at least, each leaving that same gross feeling of violation and abuse. The anxiety medication that I had been prescribed was helping me sleep more, but it also seemed to make my dreams more vivid and profound. It was either that or barely being able to sleep at all, woken by the slightest of noises, up before the crack of dawn because some unresolved tension in my body overpowered all tiredness and fatigue. Even with medication, the smallest of things could still turn me into a nervous wreck, and one night I cried cross-legged on my bed as I explained to my ex not just that I had interpreted a few of her utterly inconsequential actions as a sign she wanted to leave me, but also that I might always be like this. Forever.

The nightmares began a few months after I burned my note. It was right after I opened up to another friend about what was going on in my life, and their response was to tell me about something else that had happened, the full story of an event from another six years before, from distant 2012.

It’s not my tale to tell, but six years is a long time to not know the full story of something. A long time to be deceived, to find out you’ve been lied to by someone you trust and that your ignorance has affected many decisions that you’ve made. Again, I am lucky that the vast, vast majority of those decisions didn’t fuck things up further. But some did.

Six years. It hit me then how long it can take for people to feel able to talk about something, as well as continue to be affected by it. How far the ripples travel and who they touch. And now, here I am, with my own six years.

That discovery was one of several experiences that transformed me into that person having three-day long anxiety spikes, remaining highly activated, oversensitive and endlessly insecure. That person thrashing about in his sleep. That person yelling “You cunt,” down his street.

---

I’ve written before about my physical health and my relationship to my body. I was anxious about things being wrong with it long before I had thorough examinations and validating diagnoses, but as part of those treatments I wrote about, a trio of doctors warned me about how stress was worsening every condition and symptom I experienced. Stress was ruining my health. I was having so many migraines that my GP sent me for an MRI that revealed how those migraines were changing the white matter in my brain.

I would have to do something about this.

Those doctors would help me do something about this, as would other professionals, and their help was invaluable. This would be impossible to tackle alone.

Sometimes I think about people I’ve heard say such things as “It’s not your responsibility to fix someone else,” and, while I don’t disagree, doesn’t such a phrase also imply it’s surely somebody’s responsibility, in this society that we all share, built from things that help us support one another?

Otherwise we’d be suggesting that people fix themselves.

Sometimes I think about people I’ve heard tell others, or themselves, or sometimes the world via the spontaneous and sneeze-like broadcasts of social media “It’s on you to fix your shit,” and I wonder if that’s where that sentence should terminate, if that’s exactly how it should be phrased, if those are really the words that everyone, or anyone, needs to hear.

Because sometimes I also think of another clumsy analogy I once put together. It’s a scenario in which I describe a pedestrian struck by a car, perhaps one driven by a rich cunt with dark sunglasses and a tan suit jacket, perhaps even one that has mounted the curb or surged into a crossing. The pedestrian is knocked down, maybe immobile from the pain and injury that comes from a broken pelvis or fractured leg. An ambulance is summoned, a customised vehicle equipped to transport them to a hospital. In that hospital, that specialised medical facility, a team of trained experts will use skills and equipment to triage and manage, to analyse the pedestrian’s injuries, to provide relief and to chart a course toward recovery. There will be x-rays, there will be drugs, there may well be physiotherapy. I doubt at any point that the person lying in the street would be told, by someone coming upon the scene, “It’s on you to fix your shit.”

No. Not any more than they’d be expected to walk to the hospital, to interpret their x-rays or to prescribe their own medication. Indeed, if they attempted any of these things themselves I wouldn’t be surprised if someone along the way communicated to them some more polite version of “What the holy fucking fuck do you think you’re doing?” and “You’re in no state to do this yourself, let alone know what you need,” and “Fucking hell. You’re at your most vulnerable right now. Fuuuck.”

Hopefully.

Once, many years ago, I knew someone who broke their pelvis. It takes months to recover, maybe a year or more for a limp to fully disappear. And it requires all kinds of help and oversight. It worked out. Doctors and medical professionals can be remarkable.

I have read a lot of books and papers over the last six years. I have listened to a lot of podcasts and interviews. I have been recommended a lot of material by therapists, by friends, by fellow PTSD sufferers. One well-known trauma expert I was pointed toward is Canadian psychologist Dr. Gabor Maté. And he says this:

”Everybody is born needing help.”

He means that it’s a fundamental element of the human experience.

---

Sometimes I go running and sometimes I go to the gym. The reasons I do this are complex, ranging from wanting to be healthier, to wanting to feel better about my body and how it behaves, to feeling like I am making progress with something. That last one is particularly important, because I’m doing something where I’m objectively able to recognise change.

When I run, an app tells me how far I ran and how long it took. I can’t disagree with the app, because it’s entirely objective, and so when I have a bad day, feel terrible and wonder what the point of anything is, the app still shows me that I achieved a reasonable or even an improved time.

It wasn’t always like this. I was bad at these things. I run better than I used to. I perform better at the gym than I used to. I have the metrics to prove it, and while I’m not a particularly dedicated or regular person with my exercise, I still keep at it and I still see improvements.

Whatever it is I’m doing, these apps and their statistics all offer me the same, very simple analysis:

“You’re doing better.”

I motivate myself to run, to go to the gym, to go on twenty-five kilometre hikes over difficult terrain, but I don’t do these things without some kind of help that comes from either expert resources, advice or training.

I don’t exist in a vacuum. None of us do.

---

Help is important because it offers things like perspective and expertise and informed advice. And don’t all of those things sound so extremely important?

How about we imagine that our immobilised pedestrian wasn’t collected by an ambulance. Let’s imagine instead that the driver of the car that hit them stepped out of their vehicle, shook their head, put their hands on their hips and said “Look what you’ve done.”

And then “It’s okay, I know what’s best for you,” before carrying the inert person into their car and driving away. Perhaps even unseen. No witnesses.

If such a thing happened, in this society that we all share, with that person at their most vulnerable, who is responsible then? Who is responsible for what happens next? Who is responsible when that pedestrian, forever limping, says things like “It was my fault, I shouldn’t have been walking there,” or “I should have been looking out,” or “I should have been more visible,” and so on?

A lot of accidents and injuries and collisions and whatnot can be traumatic, scary, confusing. “How do I make sense of this?” asks that person, whether carried away alone in a car, or surrounded by doctors in the emergency room, or anywhere else they may happen to find themselves. “How do I deal with this?” And who might be around them at that moment to help answer such things?

And what will they say?

Perhaps you know someone who was, metaphorically, struck by such a car, before being then carried away by a driver with all sorts of ideas about what’s best, and who later blamed themselves for everything that happened. I don’t know.

I do know how important it was to receive the right help from the right people.

---

It’s hard to know exactly what to do. You may respond to your trauma with a desire for revenge, retribution or restoration. You may not have the insight or the time or the means to do anything much at all. There is the ideal of what could or should happen when harm has been caused, but there is also the uncomfortable reality of how such things actually play out, of how long justice can take, of who is granted credibility, of how complex social dynamics can quickly become, of how awkwardly and uncomfortably people can react when they discover something they would rather not have, or that they have been misled, or so much more. We’ve all seen such things play out secondhand and firsthand.

I have had six years to consider the most helpful way to respond, the most constructive, the most positive and productive. I am still considering. I don’t have much in the way of answers or advice there.

Sometimes I think about the anonymous Broken Teapot essay, with all it has to say about the complexity of dealing with abuse dynamics, of harm happening within a group or community, about social consequences. It was written over a decade ago now, but it remains a very relevant piece of writing that brings up all sorts of considerations around responsibility, about trying to come to terms with trauma and abuse, and about how people might try to use systems or processes to try to solve things in unhelpful ways or even for their own ends.

People can have a lot of opinions about how to handle trauma, how to respond to abuse and how to leap into some sort of process of justice or accountability or reparation or even plain old revenge. So many opinions.

It’s exhausting.

Back in 2020 I tried to write something about all these complications and considerations that I was going to title The Calculus of Abuse. Like much else, it rots in my drafts folder.

Sometimes I think about how many of the ways that we push people to address both their trauma and the things or people that have caused their trauma only makes things worse. I am sceptical about the practicality, value and effectiveness of processes of justice, reparation and accountability. I think a lot of people believe that they will fix things, that they will be fair, that they will spotlight situations and systems and people that cause harm. That, in this cold and unflinching exposure, justice will be done and books will be closed on long and difficult stories.

And I think that’s because we see this happen now and then. Sometimes it happens very publicly. It seems to at least occasionally all work out.

Sometimes I think about friends who were excluded from social circles because they spoke up about something creepy or problematic, because it mattered less what actions or behaviour someone had demonstrated, even what could be proven, and much more who was more popular, or that the status quo be maintained, or that applecarts not be upset. I think about how different people share or don’t share their traumas and their experiences, what they include and what they leave out. I think about people who weren’t believed, people who were misrepresented, people who were shut down. I think about people who spent so long trying to get a handle on their trauma that any thing or person they might want to stand up to already had so much time to prepare, to seed the ground, to dig in, to get a head start. And I even think about the capacity people have to improve, to feel regret, to move forward as better humans. It’s a potential that I hope exists in us all and the writer Kai Cheng Thom seems to agree, saying that even those who cause harm themselves need help to “exit harmful behaviour patterns.”

Sometimes I think about what a friend of mine said about abusive people just being "regular people with very limited tools." And that’s not so different from a child. Doesn’t that make you feel sad?

I think about all of these things because how could you not? How could you not worry about how taking action to address a terrible thing would, in fact, only make that terrible thing even worse?

There is a paper by the American psychiatrist Judith Lewis Herman called Justice From the Victim’s Perspective that touches on how many processes and pushes toward addressing abuse and trauma can be retraumatising, without any guarantee they will lead to a meaningful outcome or significant change. It touches on how legal processes and systems can be manipulated to further harm and harass those seeking redress, or how disparities of power and status and money can immediately put the damaged and disadvantaged people who try this on the back foot. It touches on difficulties presented by such things as burden of proof, especially combined with the challenge of a memory minced by traumatic events. How does someone demonstrate and prove trauma, or gaslighting, or manipulation, or anything else?

It also talks about how not everybody seeks such things as justice, restitution, revenge, or not always in the ways that we think, and for a multitude of reasons. These can vary from worrying they won’t be believed or that the process will serve them, to wanting to move on, to the idea that it may be pointless, as some “offenders are empathetically disabled… not capable of a meaningful apology, so they can never provide anything to victims that would be useful.”

Both this and the Broken Teapot essay also feature people examining how they themselves have handled abuse and trauma. I think this is probably the most difficult part of many years of therapy, reading and reflection. Sure, it sucks to have been harmed by an event, a situation, a person or a system, but at some point you also start asking yourself difficult questions like “How do I avoid something like this again?” and “Did I do anything that made this worse?” and “Was I codependent, did I enable someone or did I perpetuate something with my reactions or my responses?”

“Abuse dynamics aren’t so simple,” says the Broken Teapot essay, at one small but very important moment, not long after “I was not solely ‘a victim’. Is anyone?” And, after all those years of therapy, reading and reflection, I’ve come to believe that abusive people and systems gain at least some of their power from how you interact with and respond to them. If we were, all of us, perhaps better informed, we might understand, avoid or escape so many difficult things so much sooner.

And while both the Broken Teapot essay and Justice From the Victim’s Perspective talk a lot about sexual assault, their considerations and their examinations of consequence are more broadly applicable. This reflects how I find myself relating to so many stories of trauma and abuse, regardless of what the specifics of any incidents might be. It’s because I recognise the same things in the subsequent developments, reactions and outcomes, much like I might recognise the same chord pattern in different songs. I see people trying to understand their own changing behaviours, trying to articulate why they won’t do a particular thing or go to a particular place any more, trying to both explain and understand how their body or their health has been affected. The specifics don’t need to be the same for so many of the consequences to be. And I recognise and am much more attuned to recognising those consequences.

Both these pieces of writing are also very good at illustrating one of the most important things that you can learn about trauma, and that is, whatever happens or whatever choices you make, things can never be put back in the box.

Trauma is never erased.

---

Here’s what I think is another of the most important things we can learn about trauma, which is that people are generally very bad at dealing with it and are even worse at dealing with it if they are unsupported. And even if they have all the support in the world, they are probably still going to make bad choices, self-sabotage, lose perspective and do things they regret.

They will probably be foolish, be confused and be likely to make choices that could hurt other people. They may not have great insight or work against their own best interests. That doesn’t mean that they get a free pass. It doesn’t mean we are obliged to simply accept these behaviours. But I think these are realistic expectations that we should have.

In his pioneering book The Body Keeps the Score, the psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk writes that many trauma responses are “irrational and largely outside people's control,” coming from people who are “rarely in touch with the origins of their alienation.” An awful lot of the book is about helping such people to find ways past this, rather than disregarding them or pushing them away, even though this will be difficult. I don’t remember anything in the book that comes close to “It’s on you to fix your shit.”

---

While one part of me wishes many things had not happened, feeling both weaker and sadder, another part of me acknowledges that I have gained new skills and strengths. And one of the best things about what I’ve gained is that all this doesn’t just help me, but can also be applied to help others.

That’s a good thing.

I’m a tiny bit wiser than I used to be. A lot of reading and talking to experts and digesting all sorts of media leaves its mark. It’s not just that I know a little more about myself and my experiences, it’s that I can now better recognise parallels to those experiences in other people’s situations, behaviours and pasts. I anticipate slightly better, seeing problems further ahead, and I have a stronger sense of what I need to drop or to avoid.

I’m doing better.

---

I don’t have much that I can write here in terms of the specifics of therapy. I would describe a lot of the process of unpacking and analysing the causes of my PTSD as being extremely painful, like trying to both tidy up and then reassemble broken glass with your bare hands. The things that brought about your PTSD are shameful and harrowing. Their analysis can also be, through a process that can variously be sad, scary, frustrating, educational, validating and empowering. It takes a long time and requires expert assistance, which means the help you need can be a somewhat scarce resource and very, very expensive.

You pay for your trauma for a very long time.

---

I discovered one of the most beautiful sounds in the world some time after 2016, some unknown amount of time after I moved into this apartment of mine, with its balcony and its skyscraper views. I don’t remember now when I first heard it, but it’s been years now and I still adore it whenever it happens. It’s small and subtle and can happen at almost any time of night or day. It’s a sound that makes me think of safety and independence, of making my own space and then occupying it. Of security and stability.

I really, really appreciate security and stability. Much as I increasingly seek out change and crave new experiences or opportunities, these things feel so much better if I can enjoy them with the understanding that I have some sort of foundation under me. Something solid. No matter how small or how far away. Some place of safety.

The sound happens when it’s raining. Whatever metal it is that rings my balcony is hollow, so that when rainfall strikes it, it responds with a kind of subtle but sonorous singing. This ringing isn’t the specific sound I’m talking about, though. That sound is slightly different, something that rises above this other background arrangement.

When a particularly large drop of water hits my balcony railing, it gives a flat, gentle ping of appreciation. The background patter of the other raindrops will continue and then, again, after some irregular interval, presumably as water has collected from the balcony above into a particularly large drop, the ping will sound again.

I heard it one morning this spring, months ago now, right after I woke up and not long after I had started writing all this. I lay there in bed on a day the colour of slate and cigarette smoke and I thought about how the world is made up of so many beautiful, tiny things. Ping, goes one of them, and maybe nobody else on the planet notices or cares. But I try to remind myself of this and how my life is full of so many other probably stupid little things that I like, that I love. Don’t lose these things, I try to tell myself. Don’t forget about them and don’t forget to notice them when they happen. You gave yourself so many more of them when you chose to stay alive.

You get a lot of time to think on days the colour of slate and cigarette smoke.

---

You’ll notice I say “sometimes I think about” a lot here, when reflecting on less positive things, and you might consider this a writing device or a cheap hook or some other writer’s cheat. It partly is, but it’s also a truth. I do think about these things, and so many other things, very often. I think about one or another of them almost all of the time. I find it very hard not to think, to turn my brain off, and the unfortunate truth is that it reminds me about things to do with my trauma almost every day. It has done so for six years now and, as we’ve already established, six years is a long time.

Evenings can be the most difficult time. While I’ve always had a flippant attitude toward sleep schedules, I never used to have trouble going to bed. Some nights my brain will never switch off. My memory is overflowing. It doesn’t matter if I’m tired, it makes no difference if I’m exhausted. The rules around sleep are different now and I think I’m still trying to relearn them.

One therapist described the traumatised mind as like an overflowing wastepaper basket full of difficult memories that are constantly falling out. Any new addition can cause one or many of them to spill and scatter. Time and therapy can help to more properly sort them and make space for other, new things.

What a good analogy.

Occasionally, there might be a suggestion of ADHD sent my way. I can understand why things would look that way and a lot has been said by people more experienced than I about how ADHD and PTSD can seem similar. I think if ADHD had ever been the case some mental health professional or other member of the medical community that I’ve dealt with would have spotted this by now. But no. I’m distracted by some memory or flashback. I’m avoidant, or I’m in need of some thrill or stimulation. I might be full of nervous energy or unusually, intensely focused on something because it feels so good to be thinking about something I enjoy.

And sometimes things are bounding out of that wastepaper basket like clowns out of a clown car. I can feel like I've lost a lot of control over my mind and it's all I can do to rein it in. Some days I have coping strategies and some days I'm sick of it and wish I didn't need to have to cope.

And so I keep myself busy with the stimulation and the novelty that I crave. With people. With events. With runs, with the gym and with twenty-five kilometre hikes. Whatever it takes, whenever I can. It’s not ideal. I’m still figuring out what I need. I don’t always get the balance right. Sometimes unexpected things make me very emotional, either very sad or very frustrated, and I rarely know in advance what might do that. Sometimes I sleep less than four hours a night. Sometimes I want to be alone. Sometimes I desperately need company. I probably seem very strange.

But, let’s not forget, in the past I would lose whole days. For hours, my chest would feel like it was being crushed. I might be found curled up on the floor, ashamed of my own sadness. The nightmares would come every week. So things have clearly, obviously, demonstrably improved.

I’m doing better.

---

I still suck at writing. I don’t know how to fix that yet. I still very regularly feel like there is a gulf between me and so many other people, even my friends. I still have outsize reactions to irrelevant, immaterial things. I still lack confidence in my own personal calibration. "Many traumatised people find themselves chronically out of sync with the people around them,” writes Bessel van der Kolk. Yeah.

Toward the end of its six season existence there is an episode of BoJack Horseman where an actor reacts angrily to some improvisation and unexpected physical contact that happens during filming. Her colleagues are confused as to why she does this, and perhaps she doesn’t understand herself, but we the audience know that this a response to a physical assault by the titular character some time before. She never finds out, but this leads to her missing out on perhaps the biggest opportunity of her life, after a director discreetly describes her as erratic.

There is no further development with this plotline, no resolution to be had. Nobody finds out why she is like this, nor wants to, nor sets things on a new, better course. I try to remind myself that this sort of thing can be happening all the time, to try and grant people some grace and compassion, but also I try to remind myself that this is me. I have my versions of this behaviour. Maybe fewer than I used to, but still. I can be erratic and I have to face the consequences of that, as well as minimise it as much as I can.

I recently stopped buying fresh fruit from my local store because they would repeatedly put mouldy, furry produce on display. The last time I discovered this, I was holding up a box of ostensibly shiny, blood-red strawberries to once again discover the mass of fuzz hidden underneath. Food is expensive enough as it is, I thought, and it doesn’t also need to be garbage. Too late, the look on the face of the customer standing next to me clued me in to how vocal I’d been with my three-word expression of disgust and displeasure.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

---

You’ve read a little about my first dream, about old friends. You’ve read a little about my second dream, the nightmare. Here comes my third, from earlier this summer.

I dreamt that I was trying to get home again. I was confused about where I was, trying to remember a route through unfamiliar Vancouver alleys. It was evening, not yet dark, but the time between when you lose the long shadows cast by the last of the sunlight and begin to wear the rich, jewelled canvas of the stars. None of the people I stopped and spoke to knew the streets I named. None of the alleyways I walked down took me in familiar directions.

I never found my way home, but I never stopped trying. Perhaps this does indeed mean I haven’t reached the end of whatever journey I’m on, that I can’t yet return to the start. I think it’s both practical and pragmatic for me to accept that the next six years might still present me with many challenges. That I will have bad, directionless days. That sometimes I’m going to fuck up and fall short.

I woke up to another bright, warm summer’s day, far later than I meant to, and I made myself a fine cup of coffee and a rich breakfast that I would be foolish not to enjoy.

Sometimes I think about suicide. Those thoughts haven’t left me yet and I’m not sure they ever will. Sometimes they arrive strong and loud and insistent, from out of nowhere and with all the power of a thunderbolt in a storm. Sometimes I want to be a shining example of how to conquer PTSD and sometimes I'm so sad I can’t get out of bed and sometimes I am just pissed off and angry. Each day is still different. But tomorrow I will wake up and perhaps I will think to myself “There are blue skies today,” or perhaps I will hear ping, or perhaps I won’t need anything at all to feel great. And perhaps there will be some undeniable sign in the day’s events, in my behaviour, even in the world around me, that demonstrates to me how much I’ve improved.

Each day is still different and today the glib part of my personality says “I sure hope you’ve improved, it’s been six years! That’s six years of painful PTSD examination, therapy, medication, reading, research, specialist appointments, many thousands of dollars spent and a god damn MRI of your weird and messed up brain.” And am I being disrespectfully flippant of my own experiences when I add that having an MRI of my brain was, at least, kind of cool?

Because another part of my personality wants to remind me I’m wiser, braver and maybe even a little more able to help others, people who I will remind myself can’t be expected to fix their own shit alone. People who shouldn’t be pushed aside, in this society that we all share.

And I don’t regret calling that cunt a cunt.

It’s been six years and each day is still different and this morning, when I pause to ask myself how I’m doing, I find I have the most simple of answers.

It’s three words.

“I’m doing better.”

#PTSD #mental health #survivor #suicide prevention #writing #patreon

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