#but the reality of trauma is that it warps these sorts of details

[pynkhues]

I hope they don’t make Lestat lie or exaggerate about the wolves because that’s a very early memory and would set the tone for the rest of Lestat’s interview. If he embellished how many wolves there were, who’s to say he isn’t lying about how severe his other traumas were or about Claudia and Louis? About what the Coven did to him before the Trial? Louis’s interview also started out quite grounded and Daniel didn’t start questioning what he said until after 1.01: of course, there’s some unreliable-ness in the first episode, but the show didn’t start with Daniel prodding Louis like ‘You’re saying he was hunting you? I thought he was your first love.’ It layered in those qualities in Louis’s narration over time.

Ah, I hear you, anons, I really do, but as I talked about a bit in this post it's a really normal response to trauma to alter details of traumatic events over time, and I think the show's already explored that a bit with Louis, and could do so in different ways with Lestat, because a lot of their traumas are very different. At the same time, I will also say that I think Lestat can't be positioned as the truthteller/the beacon of truth on the show. I think it runs into some very, very hairy territory in terms of the racial undertones (and overtones) to put it mildly with Louis, Claudia and Armand, and I'd even go so far as to say that it would undermine the message of the first two seasons. A personal history, a personal truth, is often subjective and compounded by time, experiences, relationships and intent, and I think that was explored beautifully with Louis and is ripe to be explored in different ways with Lestat.

When I talk about exaggeration, I'm talking about it potentially in that sort of context. It's not about Lestat bigging himself up, it's in the context of Lestat having undergone unimaginably awful things, and the details of those becoming blurry as he's had to justify himself and his traumas to the (very few) others he's told and to himself. God, personally I think it's lowkey canonical already where he talks about how much Magnus was in love with him as he 'raped him into existence' when that feeling of being loved and wanted was at best briefly felt and has been exaggerated in Lestat's head as a means to protect himself from reality. That's not about Lestat exaggerating what happened to him, it's about him applying and exaggerating feelings to Magnus. It's not deliberate. It's about survival, and the performance of survival, and to me both those things are compelling and harrowing and also just make sense with Lestat, y'know?

That can and does manifest in different ways for people, and it can make the details of traumatic events - - not malleable, but not necessarily 1:1 to teh experience itself.

And look, the show probably won't go there! This is all just me percolating, haha, but I will also add that I hope the writers never take into consideration how this fandom will receive anything, because frankly, I think fandom and the people who bring us shows should exist on different planets, haha.

[tetraharmonic]

I present to you...

An Overview about Korsa.

This post is mostly going to be backstory things and how she met everyone. Gonna hold back on some details for the sake of spicy posts, so if something is worded vaguely, it's likely why.

Info begins below the cut.

Tag list: @ceyonicember @mismatchedesox

Ask to be added or removed <3

Please note that this post will contain: haircutting as a trauma response, swearing, and naybe also spoilers? A bit of angsty thought processes (courtesy of a traumatized Korsa), mentions of injury and plant death, survivors guilt, and maybe ptsd

Before the incident

Tucked away in a little city lost to time, was a bar known as the Amber Moon. Nobody really knew who owned the place, but it took off like fire in a dry field.

Korsa has been there since the beginning; back then, she was the embodiment of feminine charm, her hair cascading to her hips as she showed off suggestive yet elegant fits. She had a preference for corsets and backless tops.

Besides her looks, though, patrons noticed that the woman only seemed to exist in the bar, rarely interacting with anyone but a very, very select few, while on her breaks. She was fully devoted to the art of performance, and so, she prided herself in building a mysterious persona.

Back then, if she liked a customer, she'd give them a single request. Once you used it, you never got another...unless she really liked you. Wolfwood got 4 requests.

After several years, regulars became pretty comfortable with her, and she to them. Her alure was undeniable, bringing traveling groups to the bar just to see if the rumors were true...and they were. She had men and woman wrapped around her finger. It was but a game to her then.

In reality, she had grown rather annoyed by the people around her, who exhausted their plant regularly. They'd managed to push the plants limits far longer than anyone else by following big pushes with cool down periods, and, quite frankly, this pissed her off to all hell.

She started sneaking in to visit the plant, singing her songs in the hopes of soothing her pain in any way that the woman could. The plant never responded, but Korsa could see the plant relax, and so, she regarded the being as her friend.

Still, her biggest weakness was ignorance and her cockiness. She'd always gotten her way with little issues, so she didn't know how to fight for it. Everything always turned out okay, no matter how reckless. Her luck wouldn't last long.

After The Incident

Survivors guilt is a hell of a thing. The first thing Korsa did when she came to was cry, far longer than her body should have allowed her. Seeing her reflection in the shards of glass ruined her. It only got worse when the Amber and blue glows caught the liquid, making it, and her own blood, shimmer with light.

The second thing she did was take that very glass to slice her hair from her head, sort of like that scene in Mulan, but fueled by her warping self-image. She didn't see herself as the performer she once was. She saw herself as a cursed wanderer with no choice but to repent for failing to save a life.

She couldn't bear to watch the town fall apart after the death of the plant, so she simply left. She didn't take anything she owned besides her money. She didn't think she deserved any memory of her past life, not after she damned not only a plant but her whole town too.

She had to learn to fight purely from desperation, leading to countless injuries and near death encounters, but it would seem that, as her adrenaline would surge, she'd heal far faster than before. It was nowhere near the healing factor of a plant or when using the restorative serum, but she wasn't aware of either at the time, so it still shocked her.

She also realized that she was beginning to feel the next attacks coming, shrugging them off as learning when they were anything but.

The next few days, she'd begin to believe she was hallucinating, but she hadn't found herself feeling hungry or thirsty, so surely, something was wrong. Even after she'd taken care of her needs, visions of strangers began to haunt her mind. It took her a month to realize they were visions.

Upon reaching the next city, Korsa promptly bought a wooden mask. It was cheap, with only one eye hole, and completely devoid of detail, but it served its purpose. Even after all her time wandering, she couldn't bear to look at herself. She also got herself a cloak to hide the blue markings that had slowly begun to crawl from her bullet scar, to her face and arms.

She visited plants along the way, realizing her presence seemed to have an effect on the production capabilities of the plants. She could also sense the emotions of the plants, and so, she refused to ever step foot before one ever again, unless she absolutely had to.

Once again, survivors guilt.

Meeting Wolfwood

Originally, she'd met Wolfwood at the Amber Moon. She'd see him around and appreciated the way he let loose at her music. She gave him one request on the night they met, only to give him another each time he visited the Amber Moon. She would be gone by the time he visited for the fifth time.

It took some time for them to find each other again. Wolfwood was checking up on the plants, purely out of a hunch, after he found the town almost desolate. The Amber Moon was nearly empty, no music playing as the last few wanderers drank away their sorrows.

Korsa was standing over the wreckage, the glass still in her hands after slicing away her hair as a trauma response. Wolfwood patched up her wounds and brought her with him to the next city.

The two of them became rather close as they traveled, their one trip becoming four months' worth. She knew him well, able to read him easily, even without the use of her abilities.

They'd have an altercation that drew them even closer after their third month of traveling together. Neither of them can discuss it without getting emotional. Wolfwood still remembers the fear and guilt from the ordeal, whereas Korsa has been bombarded by it so frequently, its merely a dull ache.

Despite having known her before she wore the mask, he adverts his gaze out of respect for her, only looking at her when she initiates it.

Meeting the rest of the group

She knew Wolfwood was gonna get hit by the car, but no! He wouldn't believe her.

Why would he believe the fortune teller who has literally never been wrong before? Surely that made too much sense.

"There aren't any cars out here, only sand."

"Suit yourself then. I'm not going to take care of your injuries when it happens."

"Whatever, Oracle."

Wolfwood gets hit by the damn car. Korsa scoffs and says she told him so.

Meryl is absolutely baffled by the fact Korsa doesn't appear to care, but in reality, she knows Wolfwood is going to be fine, so she chooses not to waste her energy fussing.

Roberto is put off by the fact that Korsa already knows everyone's name. Wolfwood has to do the explaining for her. Only after that's settled does Roberto find some humor in the situation. A fortune teller and an undertaker traveling together seems like prime scumbag scammer material.

Vash insists they're good, though. He goes on about Wolfwoods eyes. He tries to think of something nice to say about Korsa, but she scares him a little bit. There's something about her presence that he can't shake. He covers it up by saying that if Wolfwood trusts her, so does he.

As time passes, Korsa realizes that her presence also affects Vash, so she figures him out near instantly. The problem is, apparently, he can see in on her inner world too, which pisses her off. Vash doesn't think too much about it, unlike Wolfwood. Korsa can't help but feel like a hypocrite for demanding that he stop looking in on her when she can't control her own abilities and is constantly looking in on everyone all the time.

After time passes, Korsa warms up to the group, especially Meryl. Korsa admits that she used to write music way back when, and so, she had quite a lot of poetry hidden away in her head. The two talk about it when there's no one around.

Besides Wolfwood, Meryl is the first to see Korsa unmasked. Next is Roberto, then Knives (after combat with him left that huge gash up her mask), then Vash, as he comes to help a very overwhelmed and mostly blinded Korsa.

She insists she doesn't care about them, but she's constantly using her abilities to predict the best outcome of any plan they come up with. She's like a mother bear, don't touch her group, or she'll unleash hellfire upon you.

Korsa loves them all far more than she wants to admit, letting them use her as a pillow while she takes the night watch shift. Perhaps becoming the Guardian isn't all too bad.

The group catches on very fast and starts to ask for Korsa's opinions on plans more often, which always goes well. They also always agree with her when she bets, because they know she's going to win. Korsa fucks with them and bets wrong, just to tease them all, but they win back what they lost pretty easily.

Korsa isn't allowed to make bets about the group anymore because she always wins. It took the group an embarrassingly long time to come up with this rule.

[synthient]

I'm actually using this as fodder for my Big Theory of where s2 is going: I think space babies was foreshadowing that, just like the space shuttle computer, the tardis has been trying to bring a story to life for the Doctor.

The specific details of how this plays out will probably be less important than the emotional fallout, but my hypotheses so far:

The Doctor was half right in his explanation of the Susans: everywhere the tardis lands, it leaves behind some sort of "perception filter field," where reality becomes warpable (up to and including creating whole sentient people from scratch)

The tardis only "went mad" when the coffee was spilled, but because of the perception fields, she now retroactively has reality warping powers everywhere in time and space that she's ever landed

Earth in particular is a Super Reality Warping Zone because the Doctor has spent so much time there

The salt is a red herring. The not-things only got confused by it because they were confused about the rules of reality in general. And then the Doctor invested it with meaning, giving him an excuse to write off the strange things that started happening afterwards without having to trace them back to tardis

The "creating a boogeyman for the babies" thing is significant. The tardis at minimum created Sutekh, and may have made the whole pantheon (whether that means she took existing antagonists like the Toymaker and Sutekh and super-charged them, or created them from scratch and just based them on familiar enemies)

She's also trying to give the Doctor "perfect companions." She actively sabotaged their efforts to find Ruby's mom in order to create an intriguing mystery for him, and she'll probably be doing something similar with Belinda (who she might have just created wholesale, like the Susans)

Speaking of the Susans: I suspect Mrs. Merrydew just happened to be standing exactly 73 yards from the tardis when the glitch started. Replicating her was a basically arbitrary side-effect, until the Doctor noticed it and had to invest it with meaning

The Doctor has been unwittingly shaping the reality warping effects, because the perception filter is based on what he expects to see. I think that's where the patheon themes may be: the Doctor believes strongly, in, for example, the power and importance of Play

Ruby might have been granted temporary control over the perception filter in 73 yards. As she demonstrated, it's not necessarily based on what you "want" to see, and can make your worst fears come true just as easily

The tardis isn't doing this out of malice. I think it's part machine-literalism, and partly a desire to make the Doctor happy and distract him from his various traumas with fun adventures. But the Doctor will be devastated and guilt-stricken when he figures it out, and may try for the same solution as the captain in Wild Blue Yonder

Which fits very neatly with the idea that the tardis "went mad" during the coffee incident, and started perception filter-ing sutekh etc into being from that point onward 👀

[sidespart]

For the fake fic title, if you're still doing it: Why do you hate me? (I honestly don't know where I came up with this lol)

X-Men AU!!! Found Family + Anxceit friendship. TW: child soldiers, child endangerment, abuse etc

(So typical X-men universe set up: some people are born with the X gene, which typically triggers during puberty, giving that person a mutation which normally results in cool powers. Many people hate mutants for their differences (/ bad press of people using their mutant powers for the evilz) and so most mutants live in hiding. The Xavier Institute is a school set up by an extremely powerful mutant which seeks to provide a safe space for young mutants to learn to manage their powers, get a regular education and hopes to see peace between humanity and mutant kind. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants is a group of mutants who believe humans will never let mutant live in peace and do various anti-human, pro-mutant vaguely terrorist-y actions (there’s like a billion version of the x-men and these details may not be correct for all the versions all of the time because comics but this is the vague idea))

ANYWAY PLOT - Containment breach at the Super Secret Child Soldier Lab (SSCSL) - Subject VII has escaped. Subject VII is only 6-7 years old but his mutations were artificially triggered much younger than is normal. He can warp reality and create very sophisticated illusions, but has very limited control over his powers.

Cut too - Virgil and Dee, a couple of teenage mutants living on the street. They find a little boy with a buzzcut wandering around The Bad Part Of Town and Virgil immediately decides they need to adopt/help him (Dee makes more of a fuss about how this is not their responsibility and the kids barely even talking and do you know how hard I work just to keep you and now you wanna add another mouth to feed?? Huhh?? but obviously does not actually say no) (Dee is like. Barely any older than Virgil he’s just dramatic). 

Naturally, just as the three of them have had time to bond, the SSCSL and other assorted bad guys show up to try and take VII back. There’s a big fight, Virgil and Dee have a lot more experience with flight and would probably have ended up dead if the X-men (Patton and Logan) hadn't shown up to save them. 

But they lose VII.

Patton and Logan take them back to the Xavier institute to recuperate and offer to let them stay. They can go to school there, get some training and help the X-men track down VII and the whole SSCSL. Virgil says yes, Dee says no.

(So, reasoning - Virgil's mutation developed when he was 12. It was not pleasant. Various students at his school were injured and the media set up a which hunt for the mutant that caused the chaos. Virgil ran away from home because he was worried about the backlash on his family and about hurting anyone else again. So to him, this school full of mutants who can help him control his power, can offer him stability and a return to normal structures and routines, who are promising to help him get in contact with his parents if and when he’s ready?? This is like every fantasy he’s ever had come true

Unlike the other characters, Dee’s primary mutation is physical. He was born with it, its very obvious and its resulted in him being rejected for most of his life. He bounced around increasingly disturbing foster homes before running away when he was very young, so most of his memories are of living on the streets and surviving on his own. So, to him, number one: all adults are inherently untrustworthy idiots and number two: stay at a school? where they expect him to have a curfew? and, what - write essays? follow all their random arbitrary rules? rely on them for food and heat and all that shit? Completely ludicrous.)

It doesn't occur to either of them that the other one isn't going to agree with them. The resulting argument is epic and cruel, both hurling accusations at the other (Ungrateful /controlling are two of the big ones..) and both basically feeling hateful and 100% betrayed. Dee leaves and although they look for him, he’s got a lifetime experience of hiding and they cant find him.

CUT TO - 5 years later. Virgil is a (semi) well adjusted 19 year old junior X-men. He’s still a bit withdrawn, but is very close with Patton and Logan. He’s still holding out hope of finding VII one day and still firmly pretending he’s not listing out for any possible news of Dee (there were rumours some years ago of him joining the brother hood of evil mutants but then it all went quiet) who he, of course, hates for his betrayal. 

BUT THEN - mysterious knocking at the door in the night. Dee, now wearing a hat and cape and calling himself Janus, has returned. And he’s brought with him a little boy with a buzzcut and a tattoo of XXII on his foot.

Janus and Virgil need to put aside their resentment and work together to help XXII, who really does not seem interested in helping them, and hopefully use any clues he can give them about the SSCSL to track down VII. But that's difficult when they’re both still struggling with their own trauma and have no idea how to reconnect - both of them want to ask why do you hate me but are a bit too scared of the answer. ...

This already got way to long so mutant power/ extra back story descriptions under cut!

Patton - 22/27 years old. An extremely powerful telepath/empath. It takes him serious concentration and focus to not hear peoples thoughts and its almost impossible to not feel their feelings. Some people dislike him because of this as they feel he's spying on them. Grew up in the Xavier institute and 100% believes in and is committed to the future where humans and mutants live in harmony. Has pretty limited life experience in the real world. Sometimes floats. (inspired by professor X)

Logan - 21/26 years old. Fires destructive laser beams from his eyes. Was in a car accident when he was younger leaving him with permanent but apparently harmless brain damage - until his mutation developed and he slowly realised that no matter how much he trained he just couldn't control his power. Has to wear specialised eye guards at all times to keep himself from accidentally destroying everything around him. Had big plans to go to university and was angry at his mutation for a long time for getting in the way of that. Eventually enrolled online and is now a very dedicated teacher at the Institute. (inspired by cyclops)��

Janus - 15(?) / 20(?) His primary mutation is  lizard/snake like scales over most of his body, but especially the left side. Has oversized fangs, and yellow eye and a short lizard tail. His secondary mutation makes him immune to almost any sort of mental based mutation (so Logan could still knock him on his ass with his lasers, but Patton cant sense anything form him and Virgil cant whammy him). Spent a lot of his life on his own and got by being sneaky, cunning and charming. Initially took Virgil in because he saw that his powers could be useful for keeping them both safe, but eventually Virgil became his first real friend.

Virgil - 14/19. Shadow manipulation and ‘draining’. Virgil can make himself (and with practice, people he touches) literally disappear into the shadows. He can also direct shadows as powerful energy ‘blasts’, but in order to do so he has to drain any surrounding living things of their energy. When his mutation first developed  he took out half of the school hall where his exam was being held, leaving 15 students in a coma. (inspired by rouge/shadow cat)

VII - 6? / 11? Reality warping/illusion powers. One of the institutes first successful subjects. He was able to escape by changing the wall of his cell into a door. He finds it hard to talk but can project his ideas as lifelike illusions who can talk for him. One of his best is the image a handsome grown up Prince and he will often use this Illusion as an avatar to communicate. When he was 6 he did have some hazy memories of outside the SSCSL and expressed a desire to go home. Current status is unknown. 

XXI - 7.  Illusion powers  (reality warping has been removed from the program by his time as subjects proved too difficult to control). Has no memories of outside the institute and is extremely uncooperative with his new captors/guardians. He does not understand the affection they’re trying to show him and lashes out a lot, often by creating a lot of extremely disturbing and graphic illusions. Bites. 

[higheverlost]

okay so i’ve already made one general post detailing ellis’ overall mental state, but i’d really like to dig into some of the more specific parts of how he perceives the world / processes information in front of him. ellis tends to have a warped sense of reality because of a handful of things, but what possibly affects his perception of life is his relationship with schizophrenia. a few symptoms likely began to show up in his young adulthood before the fall of highever. they were few & far between, often being excused as a more adventurous nature. he’s always had a lot of trouble with perceived extremes ( surrounding his bpd, though that will be a conversation for another day ). some of these symptoms in his earlier years may be some social withdrawal, a general inability to sleep & difficulty with his studies. 

however, the events of the circle tower & his dealings with the sloth demon triggers his schizophrenia in full force. It has sort of the same affect as a bad mushroom trip, causing him to sort of imprint on the idea of deserving to rest & not feeling that he should be responsible for the fate of Ferelden, despite the necessity of his hand in it’s survival. It leaves him bitter & jaded where he may have once had idealized versions of grey wardens / fighting the blight in his head beforehand. 

He keeps himself together for most of the blight, having a brief period of disconnect / an inability to recognize imagination from fact afterwards. He still pushes through the events of awakening, unwilling to admit to the hallucinations / delusions he was going through at the time. by the events of witch hunt, he’s almost completely disconnected from reality & stuck in an obsessive ‘ fight’ state. He doesn’t really believe that the blight is over, nor that the danger the achitech poses has passed. it drives him to reject morrigan’s offer to follow her through the eluvian & raise their son together. he doesn’t fully recognize that the events really happened until she was already gone, the experience being extremely harrowing & grounding in the worst of ways.

in the years following, he goes in & out of months of clarity & doesn’t really admit to what’s going on around him. his warped perception is only fed into by his ptsd & borderline personality disorder. five years after the blight, he decides it’s best to travel --- that the end to his suffering could be found in a cure for the taint. In his journeys he meets healers & apostates who are able to help medicate him to the best of their ability, though it’s difficult for him to admit he needs that sort of support to begin with. he learns how to make an herbal mixture that helps soften some of the hallucinations  /  delusions & another one that helps him sleep at night when he feels he’s in a safe enough space to do so.

by the time inquisition rolls around, he’s learned a great deal about his mental illness & how to coexist with it. his demons become a part of his every day life, making it difficult for him to take in information & apply it immediately. it takes him longer than it used to to make decisive decisions & he’s less confident than he once was in making them.

okay, so i’m going to talk about how it actually affects his daily life 

Ellis experiences a lot of social withdrawal. he finds it exceedingly difficult to make social connections & over time finds himself avoiding them. he can fake it through a lot of situations via mirroring those around him, but he doesn’t go out of his way to maintain any connections that don’t immediately serve him. When he surrounds himself with people, he often finds himself looking too deeply into little nuances of his interactions with them. he finds it much more easy & much more appealing to keep to himself rather than risk an imagined catastrophe

He often has difficulty sleeping though that’s from a concoction of things. It’s normal for grey wardens to have a spotty sleep schedule, especially after the trauma associated with a blight... but sleep has been a challenge for Ellis since he was 14 & he sleeps less with age. this, of course, doesn’t do a whole lot of good for his mental state. It’s his sleep habits that most often trigger his episodes of disconnect from reality.

He has a lot of difficulty focusing on new information as time passes. It’s not a symptom that is immediately noticeable but as the years pass it becomes more apparent. If there’s something going on around him that he doesn’t find mentally stimulating he can’t really??? keep his brain in check, either. there’s a lot of difficulty concentrating the first time around on anything which definitely gets in the way of interactions / the decisions he has to make for ferelden’s grey wardens at the war table by the time inquisition rolls around.

Ellis’ temper flares much easier than what he would like. Often before he can even process information, he will perceive some kind of insult / slight to himself & kind of take that feeling & run. It’s not until after that emotional extreme that he’s usually able to recognize the extremity of his reaction. 

He keeps a journal full of excessive thoughts. every page has some sort of meaning to him, but if an onlooker were to read it they would find gibberish. He has in depth analyses of dreams, hallucinations & delusions he experiences. There are also many pages where he will go on & on about a hyperfixation, but none of the information will line up. It’s more of a series of passing thoughts than a real account of anything going on in his actual life, which can get relatively disturbing depending on where he’s at internally at the time.   

ellis experiences a lot of hallucinations /  delusions as time passes. at first, it’s something that doesn’t happen often. He will hear something that isn’t there or see something dance in the shadows around his camp. As he ages, the delusions get worse & his hallucinations turn into a constant chatter that feels as though it comes from right behind him all the time. he has to take a herbal mixture to keep them at bay, though he doesn’t always take it correctly. 

he loses things left & right. he’ll set something down on his bed & be looking in his desk for an hour before he realizes it’s behind him.

ellis’ range of available emotions kind of shrinks with time. this isn’t to say he doesn’t experience them, but he does have a handful of default emotions he tends to sift through on the daily. this is a mix of his schizophrenia & an internal defense mechanism, he generally limits himself to empty, fast, interested or spiteful. if a situation doesn’t call for one of those default modes he’ll usually resort to mirroring whoever is in front of him. 

ellis suffers from a general inability to draw the line between his delusions / hallucinations & real life if he can’t medicate his disconnect away. this leads to spirals where he will believe his warped perception of reality over the facts being presented before him in faily life. during these episodes it’s not unusual for him to completely dissapear & go off the grid for months at a time, with no word as to where he is or what he’s doing. this being said he’s not always super aware of what that may be either. 

he has a very warped perception of the past. he only remembers the worst parts of his decisions during the blight & has catastrophized the effects of those actions, rather than acknowledging the good he’s done for ferelden. over time he learns how to come to terms with the fact that he was a hero, but not until after the hero of ferelden is old news. 

now! i’m going to talk about how it looks from the outside looking in. 

visually, ellis has a lot of repeating body movements  /  gestures. he’s very physically expressive, though the same can’t really be said about his expressions / how he speaks. if someone wants to read his stance on something, it’s better done through watching his gestures. he’s not as expressive via his face or voice unless he’s mirroring someone around him in an attempt to mask. 

sometimes he might seem kind of air headed because of his inability to stay focuses. he often needs information repeated a few times or to review information after meetings to be able to retain / apply said information anywhere. it’s something that’s pretty apparent as it’s one of the few things he’ll blatantly admit to if he’s working with someone.

he’s known to be reclusive, though he feels he can hardly be blamed for the fact. ferelden doesn’t need to know his face to know his story.

his inability to sleep is often attributed to the fact that he is a haunted man & most people don’t look into the fact if they know it about him.

he will absolutely fall off the face of the earth if he feels an episode of psychosis coming on. he won’t elaborate or tell anyone, instead opting to dealing with his demons on his own turf. he’ll usually hole up somewhere in the wilderness until he feels real again & then step back into the world for long enough to tell someone he hadn’t died quite yet. that someone is usually leliana, as she is one of his closest friends & one of the only people he’s ever confided his troubles in... as she is the only other person he knows that hears voices. 

time to talk about the sorts of things he does to combat the symptoms

he has an herbal concoction he learned how to make around five years after the blight that help take the edge off of some of his symptoms. they don’t totally erase the wordless whispers or senseless trains of thought, but they do keep his delusions to the shadows which is all he can really ask for. 

this being said, he’s not very consistent with medicating himself. he’s not responsible & has the attention span of a worm & will go in & out of phases of proper medication. there are also times when he doesn’t have access to the proper herbs / ingredients to keep his delusions at bay & by then he basically has to raw dog mental illness. these are some of the most difficult times for ellis, as he has no way out. these times do tend to get pretty dark for ellis, but that’s a conversation for another day

now! i’ll talk about how the symptoms progress over time. 

so in his teenage years / young adulthood ellis suffers from slight symptoms of schizophrenia. he has terrible memory, difficulty in his studies & difficulty sleeping. he fancies himself a writer when he’s young, though his writing rarely makes any sense. 

during the fifth blight, more symptoms are triggered when ellis is trapped in the fade by the sloth demon. it affects him similarly to a bad mushroom trip, trapping him in a loop of ‘ i don’t want to deal with this, i want to rest ‘ that follows him for a lot of the blight. his hallucinations begin to worsen, though he thinks it’s due to the call of the archdemon

during the events of awakening he begins to really struggle with the fact that his hallucinations are still happening. he doesn’t admit to them right away, instead throwing himself at the problems at hand revolving around the architect / the mother. he’s sure it will be over when the fighting is done & this is where his spiral begins

during the events of witch hunt, ellis experiences his first break from reality. his decisions are relentlessly erratic & he has difficulty connecting his actions to the reality playing out before him. he’s stuck in the ‘fight’ part of his fight or flight reflex & rejects morrigan, despite having promised her he would find her. he thinks it’s a trick, just like all the other ones his mind had been playing on him. it’s not until she’s gone that he realizes the weight of his decision & what had actually just happened. it’s an extremely harrowing & grounding experience

ellis spends the next few years after rebuilding vigil’s keep & struggling to keep his mind at bay. it takes four years to rebuild the keep & he spends tentatively peaceful year overseeing the progress of ferelden’s grey wardens. he names someone steward of the grey wardens & sets out in search for a cure to the taint, thinking that doing so may relieve the madness that threatens his reality.

six years after the fifth blight, he finds an apostate who knew what the fade could do to a non-magic user’s mind. she shares with him a recipe for a tonic to keep his delusions at bay & she helps him get used to taking it. he spends six months with her before moving on, thankful for her help. 

seven years after the blight & he still relies on the tonic to keep his mind at bay. he’s not entirely consistent with taking it & so his state of being is not entirely consistent either.  for the next three years he travels all of thedas in search of a cure for the taint & more information on his mental ailment & how to keep it from dictating his life. he makes some progress, but not as much as he may like. 

he does make a habit of writing to vigil’s keep, though any messages meant for him often go through leliana’s hands first.

ten years after the blight & the sky tears in half. it’s during one is his episodes of psychosis & at first he doesn’t think what’s happening in real. as he comes out on the other end of his episode, he realizes that the threat the breach posed was very real & began to hear whispers of a (false) blight on the horizon. he offers the inquisition the assistance of ferelden’s grey wardens with the ulterior intent of calling upon them as allies against the blight. he takes a seat at the inquisition's war table as warden-commander, being in charge of the grey warden’s forces & resources

[system-of-a-feather]

“The Inner World Isn’t Real”; Personal Comments from a Gatekeeper

So I have been looking around and I know that a lot of people who like to complain about people with DID and how they should “know the inner world isn’t real” and “take the inner world too seriously” and similar things. I know there are some that say “inner worlds don’t even exist” which to that I am not even going to comment on since I really don’t care to argue that. 

[[DISCLAIMER: This post is entirely based on our system and my perspectives as a gatekeeper that spends a lot of time understanding the inner world and how that works with our trauma memories and compartmentalization and stuff. This is not based on science. This is based on our experiences and as such, take it with a grain of salt. I’m not good with the science shit, that is Lucille and Riku’s things but what I do know is how our system and trauma work so this is coming from my experience.]]

Okay, now with that out of the way, the inner world isn’t real. It feels very real, it is a mental image / symptom / aspect of DID that is real, but the inner world itself is not real. If I am remembering Riku’s readings right, it is a form of coping through fantasy / daydreaming to help interpret and process trauma and understand the disconnect / dissociation between parts. Don’t quote me on that since I am remembering that from a layer or two down, but I believe that is probably founded - if not, that is my take on the inner world.

With that being said, I really very very much dislike people commenting on how systems “take the inner world too seriously” or “should know that it isn’t real and should stop taking aspects of it seriously” or “need to focus more on reality and less on their inner lives” and I find those claims absolutely ridiculous.

Firstly, at least in our experience, the inner world is primarily a safe place where a lot of parts retreat to in order to be able to relax, process trauma, process emotions, and internally go through events to either help process or come to terms with things that had happened. It is a “form of escapism” if used too much - that I understand - but more than not, it is a place of self regulation, relaxation, and being able to find peace in a mind that is full of trauma and mental health issues. It is a place that allows us to process things in an easier manner and in a more controlled environment. It allows parts to communicate and understand one another more - and if “dating” comes out of it, then so be it. That isn’t a problem and it is two parts understanding one another better and a form of self love. 

There is a reason a lot of therapists encourage the creation of an inner world if one is not inherently present. It helps to make sense of the disorder, the amnesia, the parts, and create an environment where one can relax and breathe. 

Secondly, for people that get upset about how specific and hyper fixated people can get on aspects of the inner world, they also do have to remember inner worlds, again at least in our experience, are conceptualized perceptions often built with trauma in mind. 

Yes, it might sound silly to be stressed about what one alter is doing in one part of an imaginary world and how that might affect how the imaginary world is functioning. Yes it might sound silly to get worried about how a part of the inner world is blocked off when it “isn’t really a real world anyways”, but a lot of what an inner world is is an intense and detailed metaphor / personification for parts of a whole that are not understood. 

Our inner world is structured and divided and have rules and universal laws (similar to physics) that apply to it as it is important to how trauma is processed, internalized, and structured. We have parts of the inner world that can’t change for specific trauma reasons. We have parts of the inner world that *shouldnt* change for specific trauma reasons. Some areas are known to hold heavily traumatic parts. Some areas are known to store memories that would upset others. Some alters are stuck behaving in a way or are unable to interact because of how a trauma had impacted them. 

Of course these aren’t “real” things and it sounds silly to be concerned or think much on them since they are “just an imaginary world” but they are very directly linked to the nature of the trauma and understanding it.

Thirdly, for those that comment on how “memories from the inner world aren’t real and shouldn’t be taken seriously” or anything similar, again, do remember a lot of what happens in the inner world is a conceptual understanding of trauma. If someone has very intense emotional memories of something that happened in the inner world, it is likely associated to something unprocessed from the real life. That applies similar to psuedomemories and any other sort of substitute belief. To shirk those off because “they didn’t happen in the real world” and “shouldn’t be taken seriously as real emotions” is ridiculous as - while they are likely twisted and turned to be easier to process / handle - they are almost always based in actual events that had happened to the system.

And in that regard “innerworld trauma” and “exotrauma” and “source trauma” aren’t real in the sense that “I got traumatized from my backstory”, but they ARE real in the sense that “inner world trauma” and “memories from one’s source” are able to feel real and be taken as genuine traumatizing events that happened because it was a reinterpretation and warping of actual trauma that had happened to the system. To say someone is wrong for “being traumatized from their source” and to try to push them into saying they are faking or wrong is problematic since it is very often that those “traumatic memories from a source” are warped / twisted / substitute memories personifying an aspect or type of trauma that is not ready to be digested or taken in through its truest and unadulted form. 

I have “innerworld abuse / trauma” that means a lot to me - and I know exactly where it came from in connection to our real life and I am aware that is what I am *actually* working with, but the truth is that what happened in the inner world is how I have best processed it as it is. I will likely pull away from the substitute belief, but that isn’t now and currently as it is - the inner world version can be a lot to handle. Its an elaborate re-wrap of an actual traumatic aspect of our childhood that I was gifted to hold. Yes, it isn’t real and it “didn’t really happen” but the core event did - just how it was encoded was different.

Anyways, this is getting a bit lecturey and rambly, but the point is - if people want to try to minimize the complexities of having an inner world while having DID, they should really stop. Inner worlds aren’t just some “imaginary world” or “just daydreaming” even if they are in a way. They have multiple purposes and work in a lot of different ways that are often hyper personalized to each system based on what they have gone through.

Also, for those that don’t have an inner world or have a small inner world or whatever - that is 100% valid and this post IS NOT to say that you HAVE to have an inner world or that it has to be a complex inner world. Inner worlds are not mandatory to being a system.

This post was just put out here to talk about inner worlds a little more seriously from our own experience and my knowledge of it.

((EDIT: Also, while I do say and talk about the inner world in a much more clinical-detached manner - other alters in the system would likely describe it differently. I have a particular relationship with the inner world as a large part of my job in the system is maintaining it and learning about it and how it connects to our life and trauma history. Riku and a few alters would probably consider it a lot less clinically.))

-Ray (Gatekeeper)

[everyone-needs-a-hoopoe]

I wasnt sure to brother u with this. I dont see many analysis of asriel on this site. Can u make a post on the lil goatboy

hehe brother

a pretty big ask, but sure, i’ll give it a shot! i’m lazy so i’m not going to bother with screenshots. i’m going to try to keep away from headcanon and only talk about what canon supports.

we don’t have a lot on asriel himself prior to his death but we DO have a pretty nice amount on his family, and that’s very handy for getting an idea of how he might’ve been. asriel’s birth marked the date his parents began to die. we don’t know how aware he was of that, but i’m sure he can’t have been totally oblivious. he was marked from the beginning as the eventual sole leader of a deeply, deeply hopeless group of people, and that’s a whole lot to heap on a little kid’s plate! no matter how much toriel and asgore tried not to make it weigh on him too heavily, there’s no way he could totally avoid the awe, respect and hunger of his to-be subjects. if asgore “you are the future of humans and monsters” dreemurr treated asriel anything like he did chara, asriel was very aware of how much rested on his shoulders. 

but we also have some less heavy stuff from toriel and asgore! toriel loves reading so much it’s very likely she fostered a love of it in asriel as well. (it’s very good to me imagining flowey on the service trying to live in the local library because he’s so excited about all the new books.) “a perfect day for a game of catch” is likely asgore thinking about how he used to play with his kids, so it’s possible that asriel was pretty active as well. there’s no computer or tv in home or new home, so he’s probably not very familiar with technology.

we know from the tapes that asriel was very keen on making home movies - he’s probably an aspiring director! the tapes have a lot of other fun details to them, like the fact that asriel is the one initiating play in each of them, not chara - asriel was never a passive follower after them. if anyone was a follower in their relationship, it would’ve been chara! i’m of the opinion that they were on more equal terms than that, but i think it could go either way.

from this it’s easy to extrapolate that asriel is generally a pretty confident person. he knows his position in the world, and it weighs on him, but also makes him feel powerful. you could take that further into bossiness and egotism and it would make perfect sense, i think. he’s a twelve-year-old prince, it makes a lot of sense for him to be a lot brattier than most people give him credit for.

it’s very common to portray asriel as a very soft and weepy sort, but i’ve come to disagree with that interpretation a lot. that comes from how he is at his absolute lowest point, after frisk has just turned him into a god and torn him down to mortality again, wrenched him out of his endless loop of torment and thrown him back into reality. he’s quiet and solemn and mournful because his entire world has come crashing down around him. he’s just properly processed for the first time ever that he’s a serial killer. this is how he gets in that type of situation, but it’s not a fair assessment of his general demeanour.

flowey’s behaviour doesn’t just come from nowhere. the mischievousness, the brattiness, the superiority complex, the curiosity - it all already existed, and was warped and blown out of proportion by a deeply traumatic situation. asriel threw away his old name and the persona of the prince who would save the world, and decided he would be the god of it instead, and play with it as he pleased. 

once, he thought he could kill for his people, but in the end he was just a child and he died thinking he’d failed them all - and his parents, and his sibling, who died for nothing. guilt must weigh so heavily on this kid.

i got a little off track there, but i’m running out of steam so i’ll leave off with a pet peeve. one reason i really don’t like “resurrection” AUs for undertale is that, not only is asriel still around, i can’t imagine it being healthy for him to return to his old identity anyway. to him, the name and body of asriel is tied to so much trauma and failure and pressure - he wouldn’t be able to escape how his parents used to treat him. i think he deserves to move on from that, not be forced back into it. my ideal post-paci situation for him is getting a new body with hands and a new name, and being allowed to move forward rather than go back.

i don’t think he needs a soul either. trauma did a bad to him. he’ll be fine without empathy.

[seijch]

So I’m ngl I’ve been a fan of your blog and writing for a bit now and genuinely enjoy your content but idk man the way you have been going about handling this inter-blog drama I guess? It’s just kinda disappointing... like no hate or anything, I see your points but idk you just seem really hateful toward these bloggers that you said write about this stuff cause they have trauma right?? but then you are holding them to all these expectations? As trauma survivors who are exploring coping mechanisms? I’m just kinda confused about your goal when you make these types of posts and attack these people. You’re worried about others seeing it and romanticizing it right? Specifically minors? But what about your followers who read all the hateful and judgmental posts you’ve been making lately? Are you worried about romanticizing the kind of attitude you have towards people you don’t agree with? What about the minors who see your posts and start thinking it’s normal to spread hate on the internet? Genuinely asking dude cause like as a follower I’m tired of seeing blogs I like defending the negativity they spread under some kind of misplaced god-complex.

OK HI tumblr crashed on me when i tried to answer this so let’s try this again (the first two paragraphs are copy pasted from my original answer)

hi! first of all thank you for liking my content JFJSJS but the only negative feeling i really hold to the bloggers themselves is the normalization of the dark content being posted, specifically how minors that might be more impressionable might internalize these kinks/fetishes and think that it’s normal (i go into detail abt one such example — though it’s minor in comparison to what’s being posted — in a previous ask).

looking back at the asks, the only ask i’ve answered that i can really see as hateful is the one where i go “poggers” ? of course i’m pretty biased but i think in my other asks i go over my stance pretty clearly and with relative civility; that one offered nothing really for me to respond TO other than an insult to my person LMAO

in the case of trauma, i’m willing to accept this sort of content so long as it’s tagged (though specific trigger tags vary from blog to blog and it does get hard to catch them all, hence why i tend to block these folks outright)! but considering how normalized it seems to be (once again from an outside perspective; it does seem to be leaking out a lot), people might internalize this sort of content as Okay and thus warping the original intent of people using it as a means to cope. this ofc is where that old argument of whether fiction affects reality comes in.

in regards to potentially normalizing hate spread on the internet, it largely stemmed from a few posts (aka The Post that brought this ask up at all) in which i took an aggressive stance — this is due to the frustration i had about how much of it i was seeing. cut one head of the hydra off, and two more grow in its place, so to speak. i’ll pretty freely admit i wasn’t expecting that post to take off and there are DEFINITELY some words in there that could have been reworked ... i don’t regret making the post per se, but i can see how the original post might have been baiting people with potentially like . not gonna say Offensive but in a way that calls the ppl who produce and consume that sort of material out! that’s definitely on me and i’ll take full accountability for that.

in the end, of course, you’re also allowed to curate your tumblr experience to how you like. if you’ve seen a part of me that no longer vibes, then i do apologize and will be sad to see you go, but you’re free to unfollow! i’m not going to hold you to any kind of unfair or unreasonable standard yk?

[blaugreen]

Nine Albums Later, Tegan and Sara Are Finally Ready to Discuss High School

In a new memoir and an album of songs they wrote as teenagers, the feminist pop stars look back at their traumas, triumphs and life as identical twins.

By Jenn Pelly and Liz Pelly Sept. 24, 2019 Updated 6:33 p.m. ET

To be a twin can be a psychological house of mirrors. And so where better to meet up with Tegan and Sara Quin — feminist pop heroes, freshly minted authors, and, like us, identical twins — than at a kaleidoscopic infinity room in Chelsea? As we left the small mirrored room at the kitschy Museum of Illusions, where our likenesses warped and refracted, we encountered a third set of twins. Reality grew ever more psychedelic, and we snapped a photograph of the six of us to commemorate it.

In their new memoir, “High School,” the Quin sisters alternate chapters to detail their teenage years. Growing up in Canada, they worshiped Nirvana, Green Day and the Smashing Pumpkins. They discovered and explored their sexuality. They sneaked out to raves, dropped acid, fought authority. When a classmate spewed homophobic statements during a lesson on STDs, Sara hurled a chair across the room. In the end, the twins competed in a life-changing battle of the bands. “If we don’t win tonight,” Tegan said onstage, “our mom is going to make us go to college.” They won.

While gathering their research for the book, Tegan and Sara found cassettes of some of their earliest songs. And so “High School” is accompanied by a new album, “Hey, I’m Just Like You,” featuring polished-up re-workings of those unearthed demos. Some of the songs evoke the ’90s indie pop of the band’s Lilith Fair era, while others could be the seeds of electronic-dance bangers. The connective thread is the unguarded emotionality of a teenage perspective.

This multimedia set is yet more experimentation from a band that, across nine albums, has moved from folky indie rock into synth-driven dance tracks and mainstream pop. Tegan and Sara sang “Everything Is Awesome” (“The Lego Movie” theme song) at the 2015 Oscars, and have performed with Taylor Swift. In 2016 they launched their Tegan and Sara Foundation, to benefit organizations committed to health, economic justice and representation for L.G.B.T.Q. girls and women.

During a conversation at a downtown cafe, Tegan was forthright and unapologetic, while Sara was analytical, using an app to astrologically survey our twin-by-twin dynamic. They frequently chipped at each other’s memories and perspectives to hone the truth and soon turned the questions on us: Did we feel ever competitive with each another, or encroached upon, as twins with the same career? These are excerpts from the conversation.

JENN PELLY As identical twins, we have strengths and weaknesses that are different but complementary. I often think: If you put us back together, we would be a perfect person. Do you relate?

TEGAN AND SARA QUIN 100 percent.

SARA I wouldn’t be as extreme, if Tegan wasn’t Tegan. I would have balanced myself differently. When Tegan would go through a dark stage, and be a little more chaotic, I would straighten up and be more disciplined. When Tegan went through a punk stage and started getting tattoos everywhere, I was like, I’m going to wear tailored clothing.

LIZ PELLY I think some twins learn early on that collaboration requires compromise and patience.

SARA A lot of people will say, “I have mommy issues” or “daddy issues.” I have Tegan issues. A lot of my hangups or dysfunctions in relationships are based on our primary relationship as children — what worked for us, what didn’t, how difficult it was to share the same face.

Most people sort of break up with their mom or their dad when they go out into the world and become adults. With us, it’s like we broke up, but decided to co-parent our music career.

TEGAN I believe there is a deep desire in Sara to define herself outside of this duo, like she’s cutting off an appendage. It’s not sad for me anymore, but it was at first. We are better together. Our songs are more developed together, and we stand out in a crowd together. It’s very complicated, to want to sever and tether at the same time, this mix of emotions that’s feuding inside of you at all times: We desperately want to be apart, and be our own people, but I need her to thrive and survive.

JENN Explain the mirror on the cover of “High School.”

TEGAN The mirror is distorted, and so is our perception of ourselves, and of the past, and of each other. In writing the book, it was like: That’s what you remember? That’s what you thought was happening? Over the years, I’ve realized there’s this unfair weight put on our shoulders to represent both of us. It’s a psychic burden; you’re responsible for each other.

JENN One passage that shocked me was when you discover you’ve both been playing music alone. Liz and I talk about cryptophasia a lot, a secret language that some twins share. Is that how it felt?

SARA When I discovered the guitar, I didn’t need to know Tegan was also discovering the guitar. When I figured out I was attracted to my best friend, I just assumed Tegan was figuring out she was attracted to her best friend. I assumed there was this parallel experience happening at all times.

TEGAN I was shocked you had been doing the same things.

SARA Discovering the guitar and writing songs felt like an epiphany, like a miracle. I had been so bad at so many things. This was the one time in my life I picked something up, and I knew how to do it. It felt like a gift, like it saved me. I wanted to protect that for a second, in that little tiny moment where I was doing it alone. But playing with Tegan, I knew it was bigger and better and more special and more seductive to people.

JENN You write about not fitting in with the punks, while also offending people in school because of the way you dressed, like outsiders among outsiders. Did you embolden each other?

SARA I felt alienated at punk shows. I walked in with that chip on my shoulder — “I don’t belong” — and Tegan threw her bag on the wall, walked into the pit, banged her head and thrashed.

TEGAN I always felt, if you want to be in that room, go in that room. If you want to be invited there, go. If you want to be a part of things, be a part.

JENN I wonder if some of this confidence comes from having a built in support system — the us against the world type thing.

TEGAN I never needed an external source to inspire me. It’s inside of me. I want to make my own rules. I don’t want to ask permission. There were long stretches of our career where I felt Sara dwelled on meaningless things. But she was finding a way to work through, and I worked my way around.

There were certain criticisms made of us, early on, that felt unfair. They did not feel like musical criticisms. They felt borderline or blatantly misogynist. My reaction was to design a T-shirt with all of the quotes — Spin magazine: “Wicca-folk nightmare.” Pitchfork: “Tampon rock.” I wanted to sell it on our website, and embrace the part of our history that made us as tough as we are now — not hardened, not bitter, but thrilled to be a part of this still. Because we got around it, and she got through it, and we’re still here.

SARA I always had a more institutional perspective. It wasn’t “tampon rock” that bothered me, it was sexism that bothered me. It was homophobia that bothered me.

The only reason I’m still making music, in this band, is because Tegan was championing me and cheering me on and trying to get me past these obstacles. But I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I felt furious at the industry, at the institutions that were inherently flawed and discriminatory. Even as a young person, I thought: If we’re the ones making it, and I feel this bad, Jesus, what does it feel like to be the artist that isn’t breaking through? I appreciated Tegan going around the obstacles, but I was like: I want to put dynamite under the obstacle and blow it up. We really have struggled with that dynamic.

A lot of that was planted early in our lives. Tegan’s coming out story is so different. She didn’t face the same type of homophobia. She didn’t have the same type of trauma as I did. Tegan holds her girlfriend’s hand on the street. I don’t. I’m afraid. I don’t care how big WorldPride is or how many cool new queer artists are on the covers of magazines. My experience informed how I react to the world. And that sometimes is hard to reconcile.

JENN I was thinking about your song “Nineteen” from “The Con,” which also describes your teenage years. Do you feel you’ve been reflecting on this part of your life for a while now?

TEGAN When we started talking about other songs that could be included [on our upcoming tour], the first song I thought of was “Nineteen.” I thought about how much of our music harkens back to that high school period. We’ve been diminished over and over throughout our careers for only writing love songs. But what we were really writing about was relationships, including the ones with ourselves — about family, friends, work. You talk about everything when you’re talking about relationships. There’s something about tethering the old songs to the modern age that becomes very cinematic for me. It starts to tell a bigger story.

LIZ You’ve described “You Go Away and I Don’t Mind,” from the new album, as being about the futility of fame. What is it like to reflect on that now that you are famous?

SARA I think that is the most strangely prophetic song. It was very surreal to read those lyrics all of these years later. Because for me, it’s very coherent. Since we were little, we had drawn undeserved or unearned attention. We would go to the mall as little kids and people would touch us. And that’s very disorienting and destabilizing as a young person. I think we did feel popular but it felt false. And in a lot of ways that echoes what it feels like to be famous or to be a celebrity in some ways. It can feel very empty.

JENN In part of the book, a friend’s brother asks you to jam, and you talk about how badly you wanted to be taken seriously. Was there a point in which you finally felt like you were taken seriously?

TEGAN To this day there’s a part of us that doesn’t feel like we’ve been taken that seriously, and I think all women probably feel that way. But we’ve now spent the majority of our adult life doing the thing we love, and we’re approached every day by people who are like, “I exist because of you.” Things like the Grammys become less important when you have an entire generation of people who are grateful you were bold and open about being gay before it was cool.

SARA We want journalists and fans, and culture at large, to reconcile how we see young women as artists — and when we begin seeing art as valuable. With our new songs, there are going to be people who say, “Oh, isn’t it cute? They released songs from when they were in high school.” But we want this music to be taken seriously. Not because we’re 38 years old and rerecording these songs, but because we were 15, 16 and 17 years old when we wrote them. And as 38-year-old women who have been around the world, who have experienced so much, I still think there is value in what I had to say. I went back and listened to that music and decided it is valuable.

TEGAN Actually I did first and then you did two months later.

SARA We are challenging people to see this work as sophisticated and mature and ahead of its time.

When we were teenagers, our music was written about as “rudimentary, but geez, there is something there.” It wasn’t rudimentary. There was something remarkable about what we were trying to say. There is something so profound about your first experiences. I fell in love multiple times. I was depressed. I was suicidal. I was passionate. I fought with my mother. I broke up with my sister. Those are some of the biggest moments of my life. How am I supposed to just write them off, like, “Oh who cares, I was a teenager.”

LIZ We’re taught that thinking in an emotionally-charged way is something for your teenage years. But actually, that sort of emotional intensity is powerful to carry with you throughout your life.

SARA I have a visceral memory of sitting down to write the song “Hello” at the end of grade 12. I had been devastated by this girl, Zoe, in the book — I loved her, and she was like, “I don’t like girls.” I was grappling with all of these big things. And I remember thinking, “I wish I was older. I wish I knew how to get through this.” I’m 38 years old, and every time I sing that line, I feel that right now. I wish I knew how to do this better. I don’t understand why I’m still suffering. I don’t understand why I’m still not better.

TEGAN It’s powerful to acknowledge that you don’t have all of the answers yet.

SARA When I sat down and listened to the demos, I just thought: I’m so glad little Tegan and Sara wrote all this music. They were better at addressing my feelings than I am right now.

[duckapus]

Danny Phantom Ghost Origin Categorization

First, for the sake of my sanity I’ll be limiting this to things shown or said on the show. Widely accepted fanon and wiki knowledge unfortunately do not count, and as usual Butch gets no say.

The categories are as follows: Confirmed Dead, which is self-explanatory; Presumed Dead, since most of the ghosts don’t have defined backstories; Naturally Formed, which were made from the Ghost Zone’s ectoplasm without any spirit attached; Artificial, which is also self-explanatory except for a minor detail that I’ll bring up when it becomes relevant; Concepts, which are the physical manifestation of a particular idea or natural force; and Other, for ghosts that I don’t have enough context to put in the other categories. And also Boxed Lunch. Boxed Lunch is weird.

With all that said, let’s begin.

Confirmed Dead

Desiree (died of old age, trauma of broken heart created ghost form) 

Sidney Poindexter (suicide)

The Dairy King (cause of death unknown, confirmed due to picture of his living form in Vlad’s mansion)

Cujo the Ghost Dog (euthanized, the only ghost known to have changed his obsession)

The Lunch Lady (cause of death unknown, confirmed due to her knowledge of Casper High’s cafeteria menu and room layout marking her as having either worked or learned there in the past)

The Flying Dutchman (cause unknown, likely drowning via shipwreck, yes I know he’s a Spongebob character but due to the Nicktoons games he and Danny have technically met, confirmed due to admitting it outright)

Danny Phantom (electrocuted by ghost portal, instantaneous, only half)

Vlad Plasmius (electrocuted by ghost portal, succumbed to wounds in hospital long afterwards, only half)

Half-ghost Jack Fenton (electrocuted by ghost portal, succumbed to wounds in hospital long afterwards, only half, exists in alternate timeline)

Hotep RA (cause unknown, confirmed due to originally serving Tucker’s ancestor/former self, Pharaoh Duulaman)

Presumed Dead

Ember McLain (likely burned to death, fears being forgotten)

The Box Ghost (likely crushed by rectangular containers, considers them powerful weapons)

Penelope Spectra (cause unknown, lives off the misery of others, masquerades as a living human)

Nicolai Technus (probably electrocution, might actually be the Concept Ghost of technology though it’s unlikely)

Youngblood (cause unknown, dislike of and inability to be seen by adults may imply neglect)

Walker and his men (likely law enforcement who fell in the line of duty)

Lydia (cause unknown, loyal to crime lord Freakshow the Ringmaster for reasons unknown)

Elastica (cause unknown, trapped under Freakshow’s control for an indeterminate amount of time)

Goliath (cause unknown, trapped under Freakshow’s control for an indeterminate amount of time)

Green Kid (cause unknown, trapped under Freakshow’s control for an indeterminate amount of time)

Ghost Writer (cause unknown, might actually be Concept Ghost of literature)

Jonny 13 and Kitty (cause unknown, likely a motorcycle accident)

Baby Face Boyle (cause unknown)

Klemper (cause unknown, very lonely)

Some background ghosts

The Kingdom of Aragon (specifically its people)

Naturally Formed

Ectopi

Other ghost animals

Blob Ghosts

Some background ghosts (look at the happy green ghost that shows up sometimes and tell me that he doesn’t look sort of like an advanced ectopus)

Skulker (it just seems that way)

Artificial

Ecto Food (Jack Fenton is making carnivorous green macaroni and cheese and will continue to make carnivorous green macaroni and cheese unless we stop him)

Danny Clones (created by Vlad using Danny’s ghost form DNA, unstable)

Dani Phantom (created by Vlad using Danny’s ghost and human form DNA, stabilized by failed prototype of ghost weakening serum created by Jack Fenton)

Shadow (an extension of Jonny 13’s power, has a will of its own)

Lydia’s tattoos (extensions of Lydia’s power)

Sleepwalkers (extensions of Nocturne’s power, I think)

Nightmerica, Femalien and Terminatra (created by Desiree due to Sam Manson unintentionally “wishing” to hurt Paulina Sanchez)

Sayonara Pussycat (created by Desiree due to Paulina wishing to be as popular as the character, extracted from host by Danny Phantom)

Tucker Phantom (created by Desiree due to Tucker wishing for ghost powers, extracted from host by the Fenton Ghost Catcher)

Dan Plasmius (created by combining Danny Phantom and Vlad Plasmius after splitting them from their human halves in an alternate timeline, exists in the current timeline due to complicated Time Stuff)

Freakshow (created via the Reality Gauntlet, existed for all of a few minutes)

And now we get into that other part I mentioned. Basically, if something has the ghostly aura (that white outline we all love so much) without being directly affected by a ghost, I register that as the thing having its own ectoplasmic field, and thus technically a ghost itself. The Fenton Exo-suit’s Phantom form doesn’t count, since it only has the aura if a ghost is piloting it. This is mostly just so I can add more things to the list, honestly

Red Huntress 2.0 (created via a combination of the Red Huntress 1.0 suit and Technus’s power, you can pry this idea from my cold dead ectoplasmicly charged hands) (note: this does not make Valerie a ghost, just her suit)

Skulker’s Body (created by Skulker; a robotic suit of armor infused with his ectoplasmic signature; motor functions, sensors, physical projectiles and flight system do not require ectoplasm to function)

Car-Puter (remote controlled robot created by Technus, I know it’s from Phantom Planet but it was really cool guys)

The Sphinx (I think. Maybe. It seemed that way at least)

The Flying Dutchman’s Ship (an echo of his original, currently wrecked ship)

Youngblood’s Ship (possibly an extention of his power, I’m not sure, fueled by manual labor)

Jonny’s Motorcycle (the thing can fly)

Concepts

Clockwork and the Observants (spirits of Time)

Pandora and her kingdom (spirits of Greek Mythology)

Undergrowth (spirit of Vegetation)

Vortex (spirit of Weather and Natural Disasters)

Pariah Dark (the Ghost King, not actually a Concept Ghost but very similar)

Fright Knight (spirit of Fear in general and Halloween in particular, right-hand man of whoever wields the Crown of Fire and Ring of Rage, usually Pariah Dark)

Nocturne (spirit of Dreams, far less powerful than the other concept ghosts without aid)

Other

Frostbite and the Yetis of the Far Frozen

Wulf (seriously, he’s cool, but Esperanto-speaking Wolf-man doesn’t exactly give me much to work off of)

Monster Cat

The Behemoth

Vlad’s Vulture Lackeys

Ember’s Band

Poindexter’s Classmates (are they extensions of Poindexter’s power turned inwards or just the ghost versions of themselves, just as consumed by what happened to him as he is?)

Pariah Dark’s Skeleton Army

Youngblood’s Skeleton Crew, especially the Parrot

Bertrand

Amorpho (shapeshifters in general, since I can’t fall back on my Warp Core theory during this)

Boxed Lunch (oh, very much Boxed Lunch)

Most of the background ghosts, especially the butcher with an eyeball for a head

Edit: Can’t believe I forgot the title. I should’ve just gone to bed.

[cero-blast]

Your post about Gin "messing with people's heads" makes me think, doesn't this also apply to Ulquiorra? He also psychologically tortured Inoue, don't you think it's hypocritical to say Gin's actions don't nullify the bad things he did, but say that UH is good/not toxic? I'm not trying to hate on you, I don't ship anything in Bleach, I just wanted to know why Gin is considered a bad inexcusable guy but Ulquiorra's relationship with Inoue is glorified?

This will get… really long. I’m genuinely sorry it’s this long.

I never said Ulqiorra did nothing wrong (though it’s fair to say I didn’t happen to specifically point it out), or that UH is a ship with many positive feelings associated to it. That would be… an interesting take. I hope you don’t think I think that. But I also need you to understand that I don’t base my taste in ships on what I desire/consider healthy in real life. They exist in the context of the canon — not interchangeable with reality considering the existence of superpowers, ghosts, semi-human creatures and time warping — and that’s where it ends for me. Applying the dynamics in my ships to any situation other than the precise one of Bleach’s canon would make them fundamentally different.

I’ve wanted to mention this about Ulquiorra for a while now and I’ll take the occasion to do so. It’s a mistake to put him in the same framework as a human or shinigami. (The latter two also have their differences but based on observation shinigami seem to behave in a much more human-like manner compared to hollows/arrancars.) He’s practically incapable of understanding what empathy is or find any good reason not to hurt other people, which is why it’s surprising when he manages to grasp even a shred of the concept right before dying. Hollows are born from experiencing such severe pain that it distorts their whole ‘essence’, so something has gone terribly wrong with them emotionally by definition, whether they evolve to arrancar form or not. Ulquiorra’s aspect of death, his ‘theme’, is emptiness — characterized by complete neutrality towards everything. Since a person with a healthy mindset tends to focus on danger and negative events, neutrality often comes across as immoral for being equally conceding towards moral right and moral wrong. The point is, Ulquiorra’s motivations for provoking Inoue had nothing to do with him taking joy in causing pain to her. In fact, it’s hinted he’s not even fully aware he’s doing it, like the scene where he tells Inoue he’d laugh at her friends’ foolishness in her place. He’s unaffected by most things AND has difficulty placing himself in others’ perspective, which results in him assuming everyone around him would be unaffected. The only thing that factored into him doing just about anything was curiosity, the need to fill the void, however you want to put it. If a human or shinigami behaved the same way he did around Inoue, it would come across in a vastly different way and I’m not sure it would even interest me as a ship. Ulquiorra is not only a hollow, but a hollow with a particular impediment in understanding how others feel, and this is an integral part of him as a character, of his interactions, of UH, of anything regarding him. I know it’s funny as a fandom meme to act as if he were human, but he’s NOT and this needs to be kept in mind.

This applies to any arrancar or espada, really. It’s tempting to judge them on the same basis as enemies who are closer to humanity, mainly because of their appearance and intellect. But this is the trick itself the narrative plays, a progression that has been present in Bleach since the start: it created a human/monster (shinigami/hollow here) dichotomy, then spent the longest arc deconstructing it by blurring the lines between the two. It doesn’t matter how smart and eloquent the espada manage to get, the only productive way of interpreting them is as people who are missing a very core part of their personality, so someone severely psychologically ill. (I say this as someone who has their own problems, before it gets misinterpreted as condescension.) Should this absolve them from punishment? Bleach says a very clear no. They almost all get killed by shinigami, in Ulquiorra’s case Ichigo specifically — Ichigo, who, by his own admission, empathized with everyone he fought and even gets angry at Yammy for speaking ill of Ulquiorra after his death. (I don’t want to start arguing about how he was in hollow state when he defeated him. He would have killed Ulquiorra either way if he continued to stand in the way of protecting his friends.)

In summary, the espada aren’t human. Ulquiorra isn’t human. It’s unrealistic to expect him to behave like a human. You’re free to pick who you want to have compassion for among Bleach’s positive and negative characters and if you decide Ulquiorra is irredeemable in your opinion, that’s fine — many characters would agree. But at the very least it can be objectively said that Bleach spends a lot of time presenting ‘evil’ characters’ perspectives as nuanced and explicable instead of writing them off. It gives the audience a choice in the matter. A core message of the entire story is that we’re subjective and maybe we’ll never manage to see the world the same way as someone else, but that’s fine and it doesn’t make us all that different; hollows can become *almost* shinigami, shinigami can become *almost* hollows, and they both have ways to relate to one another while retaining the insurmountable differences and even fighting and killing each other.

Now, onto Gin. First off, you seem to be under the impression that I don’t like him as a character. That couldn’t be further from the truth; I only said it in the tags because I figured saying it in the post would have sounded like making excuses, which is not what the post was about. I don’t know if I would call him a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ person. All I know is that I really enjoyed him as a character and I could see how he evoked sympathy — in the tragic way antagonists do when they get some sort of redemption. I noticed it’s a common tool in fiction to make an impact on the audience, I suppose because we’re happier when we see ‘bad people getting fixed’ rather than someone already good doing more good things. It’s a Prodigal Son type of thing; can be argued about but it definitely makes an impact.

Gin is a quintessential ‘mysterious type’; he has a long-running plan that he executes throughout almost his entire life without ever consulting with anyone (an important detail). He had a hypothesis on what would be the most effective way to kill Aizen and constructed a convoluted plan based on it — a plan where the ends would have justified the means in many, many situations, and that required causing problems to a lot of people. He had, however, no certainty that what he was doing would lead to the desired results (which it then didn’t…). A lot of his provocation was a means to create a certain image of himself and there’s a big question of where to draw the line there, whether all of that was absolutely necessary. Leaving to Hueco Mundo and technical demonstrations of loyalty were, sure, but mocking Rukia on her way to being executed? He considered keeping everything a secret a prerequisite for things to work out — presumably because if he talked to anyone, Aizen could have noticed — but was it, really? Many of his actions were based on his personal judgement on what would and wouldn’t have ruined the façade, subjective and hunch-based since he didn’t know the outcome for sure.

Gin isn’t inexcusable, but I noticed a lack of emphasis on the damage his actions caused among fans, both because of the chronological order of the story and his affiliation with the protagonists’ side. Because the last thing he did was a good thing, that’s what he’s remembered by, without taking into account the sum total of his interactions with others. He posited himself as vicious until the last moment and did so consciously. Ulquiorra had a very, very gradual progression in the way he talked to Inoue, which doesn’t make it less rude and traumatic, but there’s a difference between him showing up and telling her she ‘has no rights’ and later taking an active interest in her views on the Heart. It would be equally reductive to interpret him by his last moment and nothing else, but all he did before led to that moment progressively, while Gin’s was a very abrupt twist.

My post was a comment on psychology on the most basic, technical level, not a moral judgement. The two are separate in the way we process trauma and that’s exactly what I find interesting. Having strong negative emotions associated to a memory (what I think Kira, Hinamori, Hitsugaya or Rangiku could have had with Gin’s betrayal) creates a very subconscious reaction that can hardly be fixed by suddenly finding out it was necessary for a positive cause, which is why healing from trauma requires years of therapy. Because *in that moment* you didn’t have that knowledge, the pain remains in your memory and it’s not a matter of logical reasoning. Now, I’m not saying Ulquiorra’s interactions with Inoue were numerous or productive enough to properly process the trauma he caused her — the canon info is ambivalent on how comfortable Inoue was around him towards the end of her captivity because there’s both scenes like the famous slapping one *and* her seeming more light-hearted towards Ulquiorra in Unmasked, plus no one has any idea of which came before which. All things considered, I think repeated discussion and an attempt at mutual understanding does a better job at elaborating something traumatic than one single piece of information on why what traumatized you was justified. And note that the *only reason* the understanding between Ulquiorra and Inoue could have been mutual is because Inoue was exceptionally patient, empathetic and willing to face discomfort, way beyond the base level or what should be expected from anyone. Even if it was a *small amount* of *not very productive* discussion, it’s better than one act in my opinion (which most of the people who had some sort of issue with Gin didn’t even directly witness). Which of them is *morally worse* depends on how you draw the lines and define morality and that’s not something I feel qualified to decide.

So, in the end;Ulquiorra:-working towards enemy goals overtly-motivated by curiosity, which can be considered self-oriented-gradual improvement-not fully conscious of the emotional impact of his actions-Inoue considers him an ambivalent presence but “Isn’t afraid”, in her words-half-succeeded, as in: failed the goal of killing Ichigo but sated his curiosity

Gin:-working towards enemy goals on the surface and soul society goals covertly-motivated by attachment to Rangiku and/or revenge, less self-oriented but still focused on close acquaintances -long-running façade of being a terrible person followed by a sudden twist towards the good side-completely aware of everything he’s doing, plan laid out hundreds of years in advance-Gotei 13 don’t interact with Gin throughout HM arc, consider the traitors a lost cause-failed to kill Aizen

Instead of this encyclopedia I could have just written “Gin isn’t irredeemable, I just said he did bad things before”, but I thought too much about it. And I might go through spelling mistakes once I wake up.

[infpisme]

9 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You’ve Been Abused By A Narcissist

1. Constantly doubting your self-worth. Where once you were self-confident and assured, you are now in people-pleasing mode. Your friends and family notice that you are always on edge, doubting your strengths and experiences. You’re constantly explaining yourself, deflecting compliments or evading opportunities to shine. You obsess over whether you’re worthy, attractive, appealing or desirable enough. You begin to wonder if you’re the one who’s toxic and abusive when you start reacting to the abuse (after all, narcissists are prone to projecting their own behavior and calling us narcissists as a defense mechanism). You start to think that you must be the problem if you’re being treated in such a horrendous manner. This sort of self-blame is common after abuse, but it is one that is rooted in the effects of trauma, not reality.

2. Questioning your ability to make the right decisions or perceive reality correctly. Narcissists are masters of warping our reality and inviting us to play in their funhouse (more like torture chamber) of distortions, falsehoods, smoke and mirrors. When you’ve been gaslighted for so long into believing that what you’re experiencing isn’t real, you doubt whether you’re even perceiving your own reality correctly. You second-guess your decisions and feel a tremendous amount of conflict about doing what’s right for you versus what you’ve been conditioned to do for the narcissist. You develop a sense of cognitive dissonance (conflicting thoughts and feelings) about the toxic relationship as well as other major facets of your life.

3. Chasing after toxic people. The more toxicity a narcissistic partner brings into your life, the more likely you’ll gravitate towards people who subject you to similar trials. It’s because you’ve been subconsciously programmed to abusive behavior as a new normal. As a result, you might have a very distorted perception about what healthy behavior actually entails.

Instead of searching for healthier alternatives, those who have been abused by narcissists try to “search for a rescuer” but wind up encountering more people who are toxic. These experiences can compound the trauma you’ve experienced. It can mirror the self-sabotaging beliefs the narcissist has trained us to believe in. It perpetuates the vicious cycle. When we feel alone and abandoned, we’re less likely to know we deserve better.

4. Self-sabotaging. Narcissists program you to self-destruct. They subject you to cruel insults, harsh put-downs, subtle sabotage and taunt you with perceived flaws, manufactured insecurities and a hyperfocus on your shortcomings. By doing this, they commit covert murder with clean hands. You’re so taken aback by their attacks that you suffer from anxiety about your competence, your skill sets and even your God-given talents.

Why? Because the narcissist has convinced you that all your strengths are actually weaknesses. They do this on purpose to rob you of your sense of confidence and independence. Once you believe all the cruel things they say about you, you’ll start to sabotage yourself in the areas you naturally flourish in. When you catch yourself sabotaging yourself or engaging in negative self-talk, always ask yourself, “Do I really believe this about myself? Or is this what the narcissist wants me to believe?”

5. Being people-pleasing and perfectionistic. Every time the narcissist criticized you, they planted seeds of self-doubt which burgeoned into full-blown insecurities after the relationship ended. You did everything to please your abuser to gain their approval or even just a moment of peace from their crazymaking. So it’s no surprise that when the relationship has ended, the pattern of trying to please people remained. People-pleasing and perfectionism are survival mechanisms that developed early on so that you could try to ward off any form of violence (be it physical or emotional). So long as the abuser approved of you (even just temporarily), you felt in the clear.

The challenge in the aftermath is to become the observer of your perfectionistic tendencies as well as your habit of people-pleasing. Instead of judging these habits, mindfully observe your thoughts and feelings whenever you’re tempted to do something that is not authentic to who you really are.

Ask yourself, “Why am I really doing this? What do I think I have to gain?” Examine the root of each compulsion as it arises and find a healthier alternative that honors what you really want and what you desire. To start overcoming needless perfectionism, start to self-validate and approve of yourself. When you’ve done something well, give yourself some healthy praise instead of waiting for someone else to validate it for you. Habits can be hard to break, but new habits can form to replace destructive ones.

6. Withdrawing from others and isolating yourself. Abusers isolate you so you begin to isolate yourself as well. The narcissist is so charming and likeable that they are able to depict themselves as the sane ones while they provoke their victims into becoming unhinged. With a perceived lack of support from others, you start to feel as if you have no one there to help you. Your body, mind and spirit is reeling from the trauma and is trying to process it.

Although a period of hibernation is normal after abuse and sometimes much needed to begin the healing process, don’t isolate yourself from professional support or validating people who understand what you’re going through. Reach out to those who can help you, those who’ve been there and those who have a solid understanding of what narcissistic abuse feels like.

7. Falling into abuse amnesia. When the narcissist tells you they miss you, you’ll start to romanticize the relationship. When the narcissist shows good behavior, you’ll be tempted to fall into “abuse amnesia” as a coping strategy and rationalize that they were good, upstanding partners all along. You might fall prey to their “hoovering” attempts to get you back into the abusive relationship.

To counter abuse amnesia, it’s important to have a list of abusive incidents or at the very least, behaviors you experienced with this person. This will help you to reconnect to the reality of the abuse and keep you grounded in what you experienced. Confiding in a therapist and/or a trustworthy friend can also help to increase social accountability; when you find yourself rewriting the abuse, they’ll be there to help you get back on track and remind you of what you’re not missing out on.

8. Protecting your abuser. Being abused means that we become trauma-bonded to the abuser. This is very much like Stockholm Syndrome; we were taken emotionally “hostage” by this predator and we’ve learned how to protect them, defend them and cater to them in order to survive. That is why survivors often feel compelled to talk about how happy the relationship is, even when they are suffering behind closed doors.

That is also why survivors of narcissists may not come forward right away to friends and family members about the abuse; they fear that they are overreacting, too sensitive, or imagining things, just like the abuser has told them. Even after you break free of a narcissist, you might still be prone to protecting the abuser’s image at the risk of your own welfare.

This can manifest in many different ways, from the major to the minor. You might refuse to cooperate with law enforcement on revealing the details of abuse or become argumentative with loved ones who call out the abuse for what it is. You might refuse to get an order of protection even if the narcissist is stalking or harassing you, for fear of retaliation as well as a warped sense of loyalty you developed to the narcissist during the relationship.

When fighting the urge to protect the abuser, remember that the abuser never protected you. They never protected you from the pain they inflicted upon you or the consequences that came with it. Your only duty after leaving an abusive relationship is to protect yourself, first and foremost.

9 . Having a warped sense of boundaries. One of the effects of being abused is that our boundaries become extremely malleable. We’re more compelled to say “yes” to things we desperately want to say “no” to. We’ve lost our sense of agency and control over our lives, so it takes time to rebuild our boundaries and reclaim our power. It helps to remember your basic human rights after you’ve been violated. These include the right to say no, the right to protest unfair behavior or mistreatment, and the right to feel angry and express it non-abusively.

You can also create a list of emotional and physical boundaries you commit to honoring in the future with any relationship or friendship. These are customized to your needs can include boundaries like, “I don’t tolerate anyone lying to me” and “I don’t respond to threats or ultimatums.”

Take small steps to practice your new boundaries and follow through with them. When a toxic person tries to put you down, stand up for yourself in whatever way you can – even if it just means walking away from the interaction. Being assertive doesn’t always require a grand gesture – it just requires your willingness to prioritize your safety and wellbeing. When a friend tries to take advantage of you, start calling them out – even if it’s just in a polite but firm manner. Start asking yourself every day whether you’re doing something to please someone else or because you really want to do it.

It takes practice, but you will get there. No matter what you are struggling with now, you can reclaim your life and your power after being abused by a narcissist. In fact, you can thrive.

Source: though catalogue

[baenxietydad]

Bae Mu-yeol/Marlin Bae Personality Profile

Slytherin Primary, Ravenclaw Secondary, Hufflepuff Secondary Performance - Type 5 - ISFJ-T - Neutral Good - Taurus Sun, Aquarius Moon, Libra Rising

Psychoanalyzing Marlin is interesting because there exists two Marlins - if not three - inside the same person at the same time. There’s the Marlin that he originally grew up to be and in some ways still is underneath all the layers of grief and trauma that have warped him into a different kind of person as a base, and that warped version of him has been further twisted by both himself and all of the lies he’s telling Nemo, and by fairy society’s stipulations for being allowed the safety of a Hollow.

 To talk about Marlin, you have to talk about him like Shrek. Bitch got layers. And all of his layers are there for a reason. Some are like a peacoat, worn mostly for the Look ™ , but kept safely in the coat closet when not necessary. Others are are permanent as the bones beneath his skin.

 What is your character’s Hogwarts House/Hogwarts Houses? What trait do they most relate to? What trait do they least relate to? 

 Slytherin Primary, Ravenclaw secondary, with a Hufflepuff Secondary Model (or Performance hm)

 Y’all. I straight wasn’t even gonna touch Sorting Hat chats because it honestly confused/es the hell out of me. But I braved it and holy COW did I come up with some stuff for Marlin! Actually. It more jumped out at ME like “HEY HELLO YES.” So now here’s my super extra ™ analysis.

 I initially through Marlin was a Ravenclaw Primary with a Puff Secondary, but it quickly became clear to me that a bitch was way off.

 The below excerpt from Sorting Hat Chats is what made me realize Marlin was very much a Slytherin primary.

 A Slytherin does not generally feel guilty for valuing themselves [...] or for sacrificing other things for the safety and happiness of the people they love […] An exception to this is a Slytherin who’s managed to kick themselves out of their inner circle. For whatever reason, they don’t feel like they deserve their own help or kindness. Their “me and mine” priorities are still apparent but now it’s only “mine.” They fiercely and selflessly prioritize the individuals they love, value, or feel responsible for, while excluding their own self.

 Marlin’s “mine” is only one person right now. His son, Nemo. Nemo is his entire world and everything he has done since losing his wife has been in an attempt to keep Nemo safe and make him happy. Marlin is perfectly content with living a lonely existence in a Hollow where few fairies want much to do with him, if it means Nemo is safe. He misses his parents, cousins, siblings, and friends from his Hollow in South Korea, but he feels no guilt for literally ditching all of them to whisk Nemo away to Swynlake’s Hollow because he deemed Swynlake a safer place to raise his son.

 As a Constructed House, Slytherins build a morality system to follow and make judgements with. Unlike the Ravenclaw, who holds this built system at the heart of the way they interact with life, this is a supplemental thing for the Slytherin. Their core morality is felt, an empathic need to protect and support their own, but that strong sense of personal loyalty gives little hint about what to do in situations that don’t involve the Slytherin’s people directly.

 Marlin’s self-sacrificing nature led me to believe he’d be a Hufflepuff at first. But it soon became clear to me that Marlin would only help the bleeding man on the road to Jericho if doing so would not cause any harm or any potential for harm to his “mine”, to Nemo. If presented with the hypothetical of pulling a lever to heal all the sick in the world at the cost of Nemo, Marlin wouldn’t pull the lever and would not at all regret it. While Nemo would probably beg his father to trade him to the literal rest of the world, Marlin would never even consider it.

 Regarding his Ravenclaw secondary which I thought was his Primary:

Ravenclaws’ efficacy often relies on what situation they are in: what the problem is they have to solve and whether or not they’ve prepared the proper tools for that problem. [...] Do they know how to ride horses? Speak Greek? Do they have contingency plans for earthquakes, zombie apocalypses, or a surprise visit from the in-laws?

 If they’ve already built themselves a tool set for a situation, they’re likely to excel at it. If they have not, they’re likely to blink a few times while they try to either invent something new for themselves or to cobble up something approximate from their existing resources.

 Marlin is a jack of many trades and a master of few. He has a wide set of skills he’s picked up largely out of necessity. In order to make enough human money to pay for his son’s dance classes, Marlin has to occasionally find work outside of the Hollow. Over the years he’s done yardwork, has worked some construction jobs, was a seasonal laborer on a farm in Besydus, occasionally works with temp agency in NTO primarily at banquet halls, and has thrown himself into learning new skill sets all the time because he needed the money to make Nemo happy.

 While he’s learned few of these skill sets to perfection, he learned them well enough to get what he needed. 

 Socially, Marlin can navigate the social politics of fairy society and talk with humans about topics he’s versed in - literature, music, East Asian particularly Korean culture, philosophy - but he would (figuratively) die if asked if he supported Liverpool or Manchester.

 He isn’t an improviser at his core, he likes to have a plan, but he can sometimes improvise by pulling on his previous knowledge. 

 As for his Performance/Model of Hufflepuff Secondary. Fairies are communists. They put community first. And Marlin is a very bad fairy communist. He values him and his above the rest of the community. His being his son. And having lived in mundus Seoul for years with his wife, he became accustomed to treating community as important but not the end all be all. But in order to keep being allowed to live in the Hollow, he’s crafted a nice respectable fairy of himself.

What is your character’s Enneagram? How does the “basic fear/desire” influence their actions? 

 Enneagram Type 5w6 - The Problem Solver

Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated

Basic Fear: Being useless, helpless, or incapable

Basic Desire: To be capable and competent

 Fives are alert, insightful, and curious. They are able to concentrate and focus on developing complex ideas and skills. Independent, innovative, and inventive, they can also become preoccupied with their thoughts and imaginary constructs. They become detached, yet high-strung and intense. They typically have problems with eccentricity, nihilism, and isolation.

 Honestly, this Type 5 page read Marlin for filth, y’all. I believe that this is probably the most...consistent one. Meaning, he’d still have been this personality type even if he hadn’t lost his wife and developed the depression, PTSD, and anxiety following that. Because while current!Marlin has given into isolation most, ideal!Marlin would have more of a nihilist streak, and both versions of Marlin are/would be quite eccentric. 

 Negative-to-neutral qualities of Type 5s would have manifested in less severe ways in Marlin without his big trauma, but have just run wild in him now. 

 The basic fear and desire bit is interesting because like. Marlin in the state he is now literally only cares about Nemo and taking care of him. Untainted Marlin was just so vibrant and chased after several interests outside of his son, but now, he only cares about being a good father. So literally every action is an attempt to be good to Nemo because that’s the only thing, to him, he is even capable of being good or bad at is being Nemo’s father. He has no worth or purpose apart from raising his son. 

What is your character’s MBTI? Out of the four elements, which is strongest and which is weakest? 

 MBTI: ISFJ-T- The Defender

Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others. - Brian Tracy

 I- 81%

S - 51 %

F - 60%

J - 69% (nice)

T - 68%

 Damn, so honestly I feel like Marlin’s personality type either changed over the years, or, his inclination toward certain traits changed. Particularly, the introvert v. extrovert one. Marlin has always leaned more toward the introvert side, however, 81% is high for Marlin in his natural ,untraumatized state.

 He has always been someone who needed to rest after being extra social and recharge, but he used to genuinely enjoy things like parties, events, concerts, and even hosting groups of people at his and So-yeon’s home. Like, I’d say he naturally would exist at about 60% introversion, but because of over a decade of isolation and extreme loneliness on top of his depression and PTSD amplifying his need to not be too drained too often by other people/fairies, it’s got him at over 80% now.

 His lowest being  Sensing v. Intuition at 51% toward the Sensing side honestly tracks. Because he does lean more toward that side but not strongly. He’s damn near in the middle here. From myersbriggs.org, 

Sensing (S)

 Paying attention to physical reality, what I see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. I'm concerned with what is actual, present, current, and real. I notice facts and I remember details that are important to me. I like to see the practical use of things and learn best when I see how to use what I'm learning. Experience speaks to me louder than words.

 And

 Intuition (N)

 Paying the most attention to impressions or the meaning and patterns of the information I get. I would rather learn by thinking a problem through than by hands-on experience. I'm interested in new things and what might be possible, so that I think more about the future than the past. I like to work with symbols or abstract theories, even if I don't know how I will use them. I remember events more as an impression of what it was like than as actual facts or details of what happened.

 Marlin leans toward the first just barely. 

What is your character’s moral alignment? How does this affect their decision-making process? What about their relationships to authority, their family, their friends? 

 Projection: Lawful Neutral

Self: Neutral Good

 Fairy society is Lawful Neutral and you can’t change my mind:

 Lawful neutral is the philosophy that law and order are desirable ends in and of themselves. It is a philosophy of pure equitistic collectivism. This philosophy holds that the best way for all beings to pursue a rational self-interest is within the framework of a strong social order. By putting the needs of the state or social order ahead of individual desires, each being can advance the self-interest of the collective as a whole. Lawful neutral can also be associated with ethical equitism and natural law philosophies. As the philosophical "average" of altruism and egoism, equitism holds that harm to others should be minimized when advancing the self and that harm to the self should be minimized when advancing others.

 Lawful neutral philosophers generally maintain that there is metaphysical order in the multiverse and thus may support doctrines of hard determinism, predeterminism, fatalism, predestination, and/or necessitarianism. They may believe in fate or destiny. They tend to be moral objectivists, holding that values exist in the external world independently of and external to our comprehension of them; that they can be found and known; and that they must be used as principles for human judgments and conduct.

 Marlin himself, however, is Neutral Good, which can sometimes conflict with expectations from fairy society.

 Neutral good is the philosophy that goodness should be advanced by using whatever means provide the most benefit. It is a philosophy of altruistic consequentialism. This philosophy holds that people should behave altruistically and balance the needs of the collective as a whole and the needs of the individuals making up the collective. Neutral good can also be associated with act utilitarianism and ethical altruism.

 Neutral good philosophers generally maintain that there is metaphysical balance in the multiverse and thus may support doctrines of soft determinism, pragmatism, conventionalism, and/or instrumentalism. They may believe in free will or choice. They could also embrace skepticism or suspend judgment on philosophical issues. They tend to be moral relativists, holding that values differ from society to society, from person to person; that they are conditioned by the peculiarities of the society in which they arise; that they are not universally applicable at all times or in all places; and that they are correct or incorrect, desirable or undesirable only relative to whether or not they conform to a common norm or to common acceptance.

What is your character’s sun house? What trait do they most relate to? What do they least relate to? 

 Taurus Sun short description:

 He is strong-willed. He has charm, and he is tolerant and stoical. He likes pleasure and the

good things in life. Appreciates the Arts.

 Weaknesses: obstinacy, laziness. He can be materialistic.

 Aquarius Moon short description:

He is sociable, intelligent, and lucid. Thanks to great sociability, he has many friends. He is

modern, original, inventive, non-conformist, and is likely to bring new life to everything he does.

Potential issues: He is eccentric with sharp mood swings. Complex love life.

 Ascendant is Libra

 Everybody seems to like Libra Ascendant natives. They just come across as nice, pleasant, and fair. Look a little closer at their lives, and these nice people may have had quite a few problems in their relationships. Some of them have had a string of relationships, and it can be hard to imagine why! These natives attract others to them effortlessly. Besides, they simply don't know what to do with themselves without a significant other. Libra rising generally appear to be smoothing everything over. They have charming smiles, a gentle approach with others, and an easygoing image. Even if they were not endowed with good looks, they are attractive. Most pay a lot of attention to their personal appearance -- the colors they wear, their hair, the way they walk. 

HONESTLY. Marlin’s entire natal chart read him for filth. 

 Like

 -81 Opposition between the Sun and Lilith

There is a self-destructive side to you that should be managed by confronting your fears.

 FFS this is an ATTACK.

[scripttorture]

(pt 1 of 2) So I've got a character (A) that gets snagged by this group of mercenaries/assassins in the hope of drawing out this other character (B) they've been trying to kill. B is telepathic, so the group is hoping that by torturing A he'll have to come and save her. It doesn't work, and A goes through about three days of torture (beatings, mostly) before she's rescued by another character, C.

(pt 2 of 2) C and A are from different races that are mortal enemies, but C saves A because torture is something he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy. Granted, he does the bare minimum to save her, but could that sort of thing be enough to shake A's firmly held beliefs about C's whole race? Secondly, how do I patch things up between A and B? I've got a lot of people being unreasonable, especially in the short term, but I'm not sure how reconciliation should go, since A is mad and B is ashamed.

Whenit comes to strongly held beliefs I don’t think there are many firmanswers.

Evidencealone generally doesn’tshake our beliefs and we have a marked tendency to pick and choosethe evidence we cite, emphasising and giving more weight to thingsthat support what we believe. We do this even when we’re aware ofthis effect. It seems to be a universally human trait.

Butevidence coupled with emotional appeals canchange people’s minds. People can also gradually change over time.

Thekey word here is ‘can’. It is possible.That doesn’t mean it happens every time.

Thingslike de-radicalisation programs domake a measurable difference in the broad sense. But they don’treach everyone they interact with.

Andthe things which trigger a change of heart are not always fastacting. They can be things that gnaw at a person over a course ofyears, gradually prompting them to shift their stance.

Essentiallyyou could choose to take this either way. You could have A’s viewof C’s people changing, either abruptly or gradually. But you couldalso have A write the incident off as an exception to the rule orotherwise dismiss it. Either response can happen in real life.

Let’sstep back from the success rates of organisations like After Hate fora moment and address this as writers.

Ifyou wantA to have a massive change of heart then however quick the change itcan’t feel like it comes out of nowhere. The readers have tounderstand the process A goes through emotionally.

Whichmeans the reason behind this has to be more than C’s actions: itneeds to be the feelings and thoughts those actions prompt in A.Otherwise the change is going to come across emotionally flat.

ShowA struggling with these thoughts and feelings, swinging betweendoubting what they were taught and what they experienced. Don’t betempted to make this change easy and don’t be afraid to show Afalling back on old, toxic patterns occasionally.

Movingon from these sorts of hateful idea isn’t easy. It means aconcerted choice every day to address your own toxicity and dedicateyourself to being a better person.

Thatsort of introspection, judgement and emotional work is always inprogress. People often slide back a little even if they’re makingprogress over all. That isn’t unusual.

AndI honestly think that this change will read better if it involvessome internal struggle. The best way to present that will vary withhow you write. If it’s from A’s point of view you can show it asis. You might be able to work it in to conversation with C.

Youmight find having B pick up on it works as well, because that thengives you a way to tie these separate sub-plots together. It mightwell be easier for A and B to argue about how A feels about C/C’speople then it is for them to address their problems with each other.

Whichleads us to A and B’s relationship.

HonestlyI think this is something you should be tailoring to the charactersbecause the ‘right’ answer is going to vary with the individualsinvolved. It might be helpful to unpack some ‘logical knowledge’vs ‘emotional assumptions’ on the part of both characters though.

Let’sstart with A.

NowA probably knowsthat rescuing her wasn’t just a question of skill or bravery. Arescue mission is a difficult and risky prospect, highly likely tofail and extremely rare in reality.

She’dknow that B would find it difficult to rescue A. If B doesn’t havean organisation backing them up then a rescue would have been almostimpossible to pull off successfully.

She’dknow that a rescue attempt could result in B being captured andtortured too. She’d know that an unsuccessful rescue attempt couldeasily lead to A herself being killed.

AdditionallyA would also be aware that torture was warping her perception of theworld. A would probably not always be awareof where She was being held or many of the details of herimprisonment.

Ifall B has to go on for a rescue mission is A’s thoughts then A mustknow that B would have had trouble finding her.

Awould also know that the more B connected with A’s mind the moreimpaired B would be. Because B would also be experiencing thedisorientation, confusion and delirium the pain of torture causes.This sort of confused thinking would leak through and create animpairment even if B couldn’t experience A’s pain.

Bwould also know, logically, all the reasons they couldn’tpractically have rescued A.

Bwould be in the unfortunate position of having a second-handexperience of A’s trauma throughout. The threat of torture is veryreal here. It’s immediate. B’s fear of that is legitimate andshouldn’t be dismissed.

Butthat logic doesn’t trump the emotional side of all this.

Andthe emotional side is that B probably feels like they let A down. Aprobably feel betrayed and hurt and abandoned. They bothprobably feel isolated from each other and like it’s harder totalk.

Neitherof these sets of feelings are logical or rational. But there’s anextent to which that doesn’t matter.

Ithink the best way to address it is directly. Which doesn’t providean easy resolution.

Thething is- most torture victims don’texpect to be rescued. They are not in a position to…. think there’sany possibility of rescue. A’s position here is unusual and thatcomes in part from her being privileged enough to know powerfulpeople. Contact with other survivors might help A realise this andprocess a little of how she feels emotionally. It might help heremotionally accept that the expectations she had of B wereunreasonable.

Havingthem talk about it, the reasons why A expected something and thereasons B couldn’t provide it is an important first step. But thisisn’t something that’s going to resolve overnight. Oneconversation, even if they do listen and understand each other, isn’tgoing to resolve everything.

OnA’s side it’s a case of rebuilding trust. I think that’s ofteneasier to write because we see so many examples of it in literature:trust lost and rebuilt. It’s something that’s best built upslowly over time with a lot of actions on B’s part rather than withsome kind of ‘Big Damn Heroes’ moment.

Agood starting point would probably be helping A with her recovery.Consistent help with the little things she’s struggling with (whichinitially may include eating, getting dressed and moving about) wouldgo a long way.

Shemight not forgive B quickly or at all. She may stop relying on B toprotect her. But care is important too. It’s possible to trustsomeone with some things, some aspects of life and not others.

Partof this depends on how deep you want their reconciliation to go. It’sperfectly possible for them to completely rebuild their relationshipso it’s just as strong as before, but it would take more work thenrebuilding something shallower.

Ithink in some ways B’s side of this emotional problem is harder. Acan meet other torture or trauma survivors and learn that theexpectation of rescue is a fantasy out of most people’s reach. Shecan gradually come to trust B again if they both communicate honestlyand B takes the time to try and care for her, to try and build thatfriendship back.

ButI get the impression B has lost their trust in themselves and that’sa lot harder to regain.

Angerruns out of steam eventually. And sick angry people still need to eator help getting out of bed.

Shamecan eat at someone for the rest of their life.  

Myhonest instinct is that if these were real people they’d both needtherapy. A lot of therapy.  And while that’s not something that wecan work in to every setting emotional support definitely is.

Bis going to have to forgive themselves for what happened. A big partof that means accepting their own powerlessness in this situation,which is a terrifying thing. It create a sort of emotional push-pulleffect, forgiving themselves means accepting something incrediblyfrightening so it’s easier to avoid those feelings and hold on toarrogance.

Itcan sometimes be easier to tell ourselves we’re cowards or badpeople then it is to accept our own limits.

EarningA’s trust again may not necessarily combat these feelings, B mightcontinue to feel unworthy of that trust.

Thereare a lot of ways to write a set up like this convincingly and well.I think you’ll get the best results by trying to tie thecharacters’ progress to both the overall story and the charactersas individuals.

They’reprobably going to go mess up a few times. They’re probably going toheal at different rates and be ready for different things atdifferent times. Try to be aware of how other things that arehappening in the narrative might effect the characters emotionally.Because the other things going on in their lives could be useful toprompt this kind of emotional growth.

WhenI’m trying to reconcile characters I often try to think about whatthe root of the problem is. It’s often not what the characters areexpressing or consciously aware of as the ‘problem’.

Inthis case I’d guess that it’s ideas of safety and security on A’spart and ideas of duty and bravery on B’s. Those ideas are thingsall of us can understand but the ways they’re expressed areparticular to your characters.

Ihope that helps. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[jedwashere]

A Billion Years Away - Chapter One

Empty In The Valley Of Your Heart.

***

It’s empty in the valley of your heart,

The sun, it rises slowly as you walk,

Away from all the fears and all the faults you’ve left behind.

***

Stardate 2507.03.22

U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701-I.

Whether deliberate or not on the part of several generations of Starfleet engineers, the Starships Enterprise almost all looked like ‘the’ Enterprise. There were design features that were common across the board: maybe not common to all ships, but there was always one of the key features present in every design. A saucer section, an elegant neck leading down into a sleek stardrive section, long nacelles swept back and extending out from the body of the ship. Oh, sure, a ship might miss out the long nacelles, or the swan neck might be shorter and more integrated, but there was never any mistaking the Enterprise when you saw her.

The U.S.S. Enterprise-I was the latest in that illustrious lineup of ships, and in many ways harked back to an older age. Starfleet, after a century of crises that had ranged from temporal manipulation to renewed hostility with Klingons to an invasion from outside the known universe (hadn’t that been a fun way to spend the 25th century?), had made a conscious effort (and not for the first time) to return to an age of exploration, hope, optimism. This was reflected in the classic lines of the I: her elegant swan neck leading from a round saucer to a cylindrical stardrive section, a glowing orange deflector array and thin, elegant pylons leading backwards to a pair of nacelles that were short, but stretched just far enough back to give the impression of length, movement, and speed.

This ship, Captain Alyn Jallistra had thought, when she first saw the Enterprise in drydock, was built for boldly going.

She had held onto that thought for the ten years she had commanded her, never letting it go. An unjoined Trill, Jallistra had always preferred the notion that life was short, to be lived, and then to be ended. Where all her colleagues and friends on Trill had been so eager to go and join with symbionts (or at least try to), she had been content to go to Earth, go through Starfleet Academy, and get her commission the old-fashioned way. Not that people still didn’t occasionally think she was a joined Trill.

It was an old irritant. Any time one of us is competent, or calm, or thoughtful, it’s never on our own merits, it’s because a symbiont’s doing it.

Still, she thought as she sat at her ready room desk, reading an old book. She had served as the Captain of this ship for a decade. Any old issues she might have had, she had long since gotten over.

The book was an older one, a prose adaptation of a holonovel: Captain Proton and the Dark Mirror. Written as an homage to science fiction books of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by the late Tom Paris in the mid 25th century, it told of Captain Proton’s Encounter with an ‘evil universe’, and a gripping battle against dark forces.

It was all make-believe nonsense, of course. Real parallel universes, even the most extreme examples that Jallistra had read up on, were never so simplistic. Still, it was entertaining in its - what did they call it? ‘Campiness’?

Her computer beeped just as she reached a climactic moment where Proton had cornered his mirror self, the evil Captain Neutron (these names are ridiculous). Sighing, she marked her spot and put her PADD down, before tapping her computer's control panel.

“Authorisation Jallistra, Three Six Beta Upsilon,” she said with practiced ease.

A moment later, the image of a striking woman with brown eyes, greying hair, pale skin and the barest hint of a set of forehead ridges popped onto her screen, a soft smile upon her face.

“Captain Jallistra,” Admiral Kathryn Paris said evenly. “Good to see you,”

“Admiral Paris,” Jallistra replied evenly. “What can we do for you?”

“We’ve picked up something strange near your neck of the woods,” Paris replied. “It’s some kind of anomaly, originating in the Harlak system.”

“An anomaly?” Jallistra repeated. “What kind of anomaly?”

“We don’t know,” Paris replied quietly, “but it’s off the charts. You’re the nearest ship to the anomaly, so we’d like you to go take a look.”

Jallistra smiled. “Of course, Admiral. I’ll have us divert course immediately.”

“Good,” Paris said. She paused. “Be careful, Captain. If it turns out to be more than just a standard anomaly, I want you to pull out.”

Jallistra nodded. “I will take all the precautions I have to, ma’am.”

Paris smiled. “Good. Good luck, Captain. Paris out.”

Her image disappeared, to be replaced by the Federation’s symbol. After a moment, Jallistra let out a sigh, and tapped the intercom.

“Bridge, this is the Captain,” she said. “Please redirect our course to the Harlak system, warp six.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” the voice of Liam West, her alpha-shift Conn officer, said.

Well, there we go, Jallistra thought. Now we just have to see what happens next.

***

Erlös.

Lorca wasn’t used to comfortable beds, and so perhaps could be forgiven for making full use of it. He was lying down, the cover sprawled over his pyjama-clad body, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. The diffused light was brighter now, and he was forced to wince, but the light change was slower, so he accepted the pain.

He was lost in a flow of thoughts. One minute he was thinking of how he was going to pass off who he was - again - and the next he was remembering Michael Burnham, her eyes staring at him with…

… with what? Horror? Pity? Revulsion? All of the above?

I should never have gone back, the thought came, too quickly to be strangled in the crib. I should have stayed. Had medals pinned on me. Kept doing… what did they call it? Kept ‘boldly going’. Taken the hard jobs and won them for the Federation. I’d have been a damn legend.

And Burnham… Burnham with her gratitude, Burnham with her intellect, Burnham with that human heart that even a lifetime among Vulcans didn’t quell… she would have stayed with him. Been his officer. His protege. He’d have been able to leverage her commission, been able to win anything for her. In many ways, she was much easier than the Michael Burnham he had loved: his Michael had demanded an Empire, but all the Federation’s Burnham wanted was freedom, exploration, space.

All the things I love, Lorca thought. Or rather, all the things he had come to love. Perhaps it was the same thing.

There was a knock at his door, and before he could answer, a woman in more elaborate robes than Laurien’s entered the room. She was just as pale as Laurien, with white hair: despite this, however, she didn’t look a day over thirty. Lorca sat up.

“Captain Gabriel Lorca,” she said evenly. She looked around the room, before meeting his gaze. “I trust that the accommodation here has been sufficient for your needs. We have had few of your ilk here.”

Lorca gave another of his winning smiles. “Well, that bed’s certainly comfier than any starship billet I’ve ever been in. Any Starfleet Officer who doesn’t think that’s up to scratch probably needs a bit of a reality check.”

“I am glad,” the woman said. She smiled. “I am Eloise. I am the leader of the settlement here on Erlös.”

“Pleasure,” Lorca said. “I’m grateful you found me.”

“Perhaps you are,” Eloise said coyly. Before Lorca could ask what that meant, she continued. “Laurien reported that you say you command the starship Buran.”

“That’s right,” Lorca said, keeping his face neutral. Don’t give them an inch.

“Our people eschew technology,” Eloise said. “Dannik - did Laurien mention him?” At Lorca’s nod, Eloise continued. “Dannik is the one among us chosen to work with technology. I wanted to be sure of the details of who you are. And where you came from.”

Lorca found it was an effort not to frown, but he persisted. “Is there some confusion?”

“A little,” Eloise said. “When we found you, you had a stab wound that was quite severe, to the point where we had to have Dannik use our medical technologies on you.”

The way she said ‘technologies’ sounded like she was talking about magic. And yet she knew what Starfleet and the Federation was.

“You were also clad in clothing quite distinct from that which we are accustomed to Starfleet people wearing,” Eloise continued. “Much of it was burnt or otherwise damaged, but it was definitely not a Starfleet uniform.”

Not one you’d recognise, anyway, Lorca thought. Time to try out a story.

“That’s because it wasn’t one,” Lorca said grimly. “It was… it was the sort of attire my captors wore.”

“Your ‘captors’?” Eloise repeated.

“It’s… difficult to explain,” Lorca said. Gotta sell it, Gabe. “They were… it was…”

He shook his head, trying to give an impression of trauma. He’d certainly played that role before, thanks to his time playing Lorca of the Buran to Cornwell (damn her), Terral and just about anyone else.

“I understand,” Eloise said, apparently buying it. She smiled. “If you like, we can show you around while you’re waiting here for your people.”

Lorca nodded. “I’d be much obliged for a tour. Though, uh…” He motioned to his clothes. “Maybe if you’ve got a spare uniform lying around, I could swap into that? Walking around half naked doesn’t seem right to me.”

Eloise nodded. “Dannik will replicate a uniform appropriate to your rank, after he has sent the transmission. I will send Laurien with it shortly.”

“Thanks,” Lorca said, inclining his head. “I’m grateful.”

And despite himself, he was. These people had apparently patched him up: they didn’t have to, and if it had been his world, they wouldn’t have.

“And when we speak again,” Eloise continued, “we will speak of the means of your arrival.”

With that, she turned and exited the room, leaving Lorca to his thoughts.

‘Speak of the means of my arrival’, he mused. Be nice if I knew that myself.

***

Next Chapter

Previous Chapter

[anyatra]

9 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You’ve Been Abused By A Narcissist

1. Constantly doubting your self-worth. Where once you were self-confident and assured, you are now in people-pleasing mode. Your friends and family notice that you are always on edge, doubting your strengths and experiences. You’re constantly explaining yourself, deflecting compliments or evading opportunities to shine. You obsess over whether you’re worthy, attractive, appealing or desirable enough. You begin to wonder if you’re the one who’s toxic and abusive when you start reacting to the abuse (after all, narcissists are prone to projecting their own behavior and calling us narcissists as a defense mechanism). You start to think that you must be the problem if you’re being treated in such a horrendous manner. This sort of self-blame is common after abuse, but it is one that is rooted in the effects of trauma, not reality. 2. Questioning your ability to make the right decisions or perceive reality correctly. Narcissists are masters of warping our reality and inviting us to play in their funhouse (more like torture chamber) of distortions, falsehoods, smoke and mirrors. When you’ve been gaslighted for so long into believing that what you’re experiencing isn’t real, you doubt whether you’re even perceiving your own reality correctly. You second-guess your decisions and feel a tremendous amount of conflict about doing what’s right for you versus what you’ve been conditioned to do for the narcissist. You develop a sense of cognitive dissonance (conflicting thoughts and feelings) about the toxic relationship as well as other major facets of your life. 3. Chasing after toxic people. The more toxicity a narcissistic partner brings into your life, the more likely you’ll gravitate towards people who subject you to similar trials. It’s because you’ve been subconsciously programmed to abusive behavior as a new normal. As a result, you might have a very distorted perception about what healthy behavior actually entails. Instead of searching for healthier alternatives, those who have been abused by narcissists try to “search for a rescuer” but wind up encountering more people who are toxic. These experiences can compound the trauma you’ve experienced. It can mirror the self-sabotaging beliefs the narcissist has trained us to believe in. It perpetuates the vicious cycle. When we feel alone and abandoned, we’re less likely to know we deserve better. 4. Self-sabotaging. Narcissists program you to self-destruct. They subject you to cruel insults, harsh put-downs, subtle sabotage and taunt you with perceived flaws, manufactured insecurities and a hyperfocus on your shortcomings. By doing this, they commit covert murder with clean hands. You’re so taken aback by their attacks that you suffer from anxiety about your competence, your skill sets and even your God-given talents. Why? Because the narcissist has convinced you that all your strengths are actually weaknesses. They do this on purpose to rob you of your sense of confidence and independence. Once you believe all the cruel things they say about you, you’ll start to sabotage yourself in the areas you naturally flourish in. When you catch yourself sabotaging yourself or engaging in negative self-talk, always ask yourself, “Do I really believe this about myself? Or is this what the narcissist wants me to believe?” 5. Being people-pleasing and perfectionistic. Every time the narcissist criticized you, they planted seeds of self-doubt which burgeoned into full-blown insecurities after the relationship ended. You did everything to please your abuser to gain their approval or even just a moment of peace from their crazymaking. So it’s no surprise that when the relationship has ended, the pattern of trying to please people remained. People-pleasing and perfectionism are survival mechanisms that developed early on so that you could try to ward off any form of violence (be it physical or emotional). So long as the abuser approved of you (even just temporarily), you felt in the clear. The challenge in the aftermath is to become the observer of your perfectionistic tendencies as well as your habit of people-pleasing. Instead of judging these habits, mindfully observe your thoughts and feelings whenever you’re tempted to do something that is not authentic to who you really are. Ask yourself, “Why am I really doing this? What do I think I have to gain?” Examine the root of each compulsion as it arises and find a healthier alternative that honors what you really want and what you desire. To start overcoming needless perfectionism, start to self-validate and approve of yourself. When you’ve done something well, give yourself some healthy praise instead of waiting for someone else to validate it for you. Habits can be hard to break, but new habits can form to replace destructive ones. 6. Withdrawing from others and isolating yourself. Abusers isolate you so you begin to isolate yourself as well. The narcissist is so charming and likeable that they are able to depict themselves as the sane ones while they provoke their victims into becoming unhinged. With a perceived lack of support from others, you start to feel as if you have no one there to help you. Your body, mind and spirit is reeling from the trauma and is trying to process it. Although a period of hibernation is normal after abuse and sometimes much needed to begin the healing process, don’t isolate yourself from professional support or validating people who understand what you’re going through. Reach out to those who can help you, those who’ve been there and those who have a solid understanding of what narcissistic abuse feels like. 7. Falling into abuse amnesia. When the narcissist tells you they miss you, you’ll start to romanticize the relationship. When the narcissist shows good behavior, you’ll be tempted to fall into “abuse amnesia” as a coping strategy and rationalize that they were good, upstanding partners all along. You might fall prey to their “hoovering” attempts to get you back into the abusive relationship. To counter abuse amnesia, it’s important to have a list of abusive incidents or at the very least, behaviors you experienced with this person. This will help you to reconnect to the reality of the abuse and keep you grounded in what you experienced. Confiding in a therapist and/or a trustworthy friend can also help to increase social accountability; when you find yourself rewriting the abuse, they’ll be there to help you get back on track and remind you of what you’re not missing out on. 8. Protecting your abuser. Being abused means that we become trauma-bonded to the abuser. This is very much like Stockholm Syndrome; we were taken emotionally “hostage” by this predator and we’ve learned how to protect them, defend them and cater to them in order to survive. That is why survivors often feel compelled to talk about how happy the relationship is, even when they are suffering behind closed doors. That is also why survivors of narcissists may not come forward right away to friends and family members about the abuse; they fear that they are overreacting, too sensitive, or imagining things, just like the abuser has told them. Even after you break free of a narcissist, you might still be prone to protecting the abuser’s image at the risk of your own welfare. This can manifest in many different ways, from the major to the minor. You might refuse to cooperate with law enforcement on revealing the details of abuse or become argumentative with loved ones who call out the abuse for what it is. You might refuse to get an order of protection even if the narcissist is stalking or harassing you, for fear of retaliation as well as a warped sense of loyalty you developed to the narcissist during the relationship. When fighting the urge to protect the abuser, remember that the abuser never protected you. They never protected you from the pain they inflicted upon you or the consequences that came with it. Your only duty after leaving an abusive relationship is to protect yourself, first and foremost. 9. Having a warped sense of boundaries. One of the effects of being abused is that our boundaries become extremely malleable. We’re more compelled to say “yes” to things we desperately want to say “no” to. We’ve lost our sense of agency and control over our lives, so it takes time to rebuild our boundaries and reclaim our power. It helps to remember your basic human rights after you’ve been violated. These include the right to say no, the right to protest unfair behavior or mistreatment, and the right to feel angry and express it non-abusively. You can also create a list of emotional and physical boundaries you commit to honoring in the future with any relationship or friendship. These are customized to your needs can include boundaries like, “I don’t tolerate anyone lying to me” and “I don’t respond to threats or ultimatums.” Take small steps to practice your new boundaries and follow through with them. When a toxic person tries to put you down, stand up for yourself in whatever way you can – even if it just means walking away from the interaction. Being assertive doesn’t always require a grand gesture – it just requires your willingness to prioritize your safety and wellbeing. When a friend tries to take advantage of you, start calling them out – even if it’s just in a polite but firm manner. Start asking yourself every day whether you’re doing something to please someone else or because you really want to do it. It takes practice, but you will get there. No matter what you are struggling with now, you can reclaim your life and your power after being abused by a narcissist. In fact, you can thrive.