#genuinely terrified of anything math related because trauma

[tswkento]

WHY IS THERE MATH IN PHARMACOLOGY

literally like i can understand multiplying and dividing is necessary because duh, BUT INTEGRAL? LOGARITHM?

HELPP I CANT ESCAPE ITTTT

[juliarrp]

character name: Julia Rhodes age & birthday: 36, 14th December 1985 gender & pronouns: Cis female, She/her place of birth & time in Asteria: New York City, on and off her whole life District: Downtown occupation: Musical Theatre Performer / Musical Theatre audition tutor faceclaim: Michelle Dockery

BIOGRAPHY

TWs: Abortion, alcoholic, anxiety, hospital

secret: Julia had an abortion at the age of 22 without telling anyone else in her life. At all.

PAST

The oldest of the Rhodes children Julia was never far from her mother and father, especially since she was homeschool from the very beginning. Mostly in broadway theatre dressing rooms, a curious child she was never too busy to go scampering around backstage and dressing rooms to see what was going on. Everything about musicals were magical to her, the lights, the sounds, the costumes, as soon as she was offered the chance to come out on stage there was no turning back. The stars were evident in her eyes to her mother as well as everyone else in the company because the girl seemed to light up on a whole new level when she was allowed to be involved in anything performance related. Be it bringing flowers out to her mother at the end of a shows run, sitting doing her math homework in her mother’s dressing room with her siblings when they came along, or getting to play small children’s roles actually in the show she was in her total element.

When the twins came along the girl was excited to have her own real life dolls to play with, and the same went for her third sister Olivia. She happily took on the role of keeping them in line backstage while their mom was performing so naturally she was close to all three of them in various ways, but none more than Olivia who was always her special little friend from the word go. Despite the two of them being very different in that one wanted the limelight and the other wanted nothing more than to shrink into the shadows, they were often found wandering the rabbit warren of theatre hallways together hand in hand. Family life was happy for the Rhodes as far as their oldest daughter could tell because she wanted to see the good in everything. Her mother had taught her that, their very close bond had allowed Julia to nurture her natural born confidence and positivity. How could she not be a positive person when she was constantly surrounded by the magic of musical theatre? At least that was how she saw it. She didn’t notice her mother’s struggle with alcohol or the way it effected their father, because all she saw was the loving family she adored.

When she was fourteen was when Julia got her first taste of real genuine terror. Up until then she’d had fears just like everyone else but the gut wrenching terror that only comes from real trauma had never really been present. Anything that she struggled with could be figured out when all the Rhodes put their heads together no matter how complex, but that wasn’t the case when Ashton was born. The oldest child didn’t second guess her intuition to step into the role of parent when her mom and dad were in hospital following her younger brother’s birth, protecting her little sisters to make sure they had everything they needed to shield them from the fear she felt at the prospect of losing their mother. The days the matriarch spent in a coma were the most dreadful of her daughter’s life. No idea if the next phone call would be with the worst news she began to get a crippling fear in the pit of her stomach every time her father’s name popped up on the caller ID and although she never told anyone this, it is an anxiety that has never really left her. Even now, twenty two years later, when her dad’s name flashes onto the screen that same sensation of fear rips through her chest instinctively. It is something that weighs her down with a considerable amount of guilt.

At the age of 22 in the midst of her parents struggling through her mother’s alcohol problem and the rift that was tearing their marriage apart Julia landed her first Broadway leading role. She had been in the chorus and supporting roles up until then, but this was the first time she was going to get to front a show all of her own. Spring Awakening. Landing the role of Wendla Bergmann was the most exciting day of the girls life, made even better when she found out the theatre it would be located at was only a few blocks away from the one her mother would also be performing in. She lived in New York with her younger sister Olivia in an apartment they both loved. Everything was working out perfectly. Too perfectly. As the result of a one night stand after a cast night out Julia found out she was pregnant by one of her fellow cast members. Terrified to tell anyone, her family included, and worried it would derail her career if she carried on with the pregnancy the girl secretly had it terminated only a week before the curtain came up on opening night. Ironically considering her character in the show passed away in act two from an unlawful and unsafe abortion. Julia always knew she wanted to be a mother thanks to her big family, but this was just the wrong time for it, so she chose her career. It was incredibly traumatic for her to go through alone and even years later she will wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat over what she did. If she made the right decision or not.

Julia went on to play the lead in many more musicals since then which should have been testament to her making the right choice back then, but she doesn’t always see it that way. Her still ever present maternal instinct with her siblings makes her wonder what her own child would have been like. Maybe it would have been easier to put that choice behind her if she hadn’t had a medical issue not long after she turned 30, a cyst on her ovary that lead to it having to be removed. It didn’t leave her unable to have her own children, but it did make it probable that in the future she would find it much harder to conceive naturally, especially as she grew older.

PRESENT

Still a presence on the Broadway stages Julia spends her time between shows in Asteria tutoring children and teens for Musical Theatre auditions. Operating out of a rehearsal room in Olivia’s studio it’s still kept very much in the family and barely a day goes by when she doesn’t see at least one or more of them. On the whole their relationship is good but there is a small amount of bitterness harboured by her for the way she had to constantly be driving from New York to Asteria in order to check on her younger brother when their mom was going through particularly bad bouts of alcoholism. Having to split her brain and time between performing as well as propping up her family in some ways, so she never fully got to immerse herself into broadway.

Living in a small but impeccably decorated apartment Downtown the woman now splits her time between the city and her hometown in a more permanent fashion, tending to spend half the year in each place. Acutely aware of how the years are passing for her and her younger siblings have been settling down she has started to think it might be getting to the right time for her to take a break from performing and settle down to have a family of her own.

She tends to take on more than she can actually handle, a sense of duty towards supporting everyone around her, it can drive her to exhaustion when she isn’t careful. Depriving herself of what she needs in order to provide it for other people to a fault. If it wasn���t for her painfully present awareness of her mother’s issues with alcohol she might drink to comfort herself, but it’s a vice she refuses to allow herself to take on, not anymore. It has caused her too many problems in the past as is without her bringing into her life in a bigger way. Still when she gets to a level of stress she is finding hard to contain the girl can completely lose her appetite, going days without eating a substantial meal. Unless she is caught by one of her family members who have caught onto the warning signs by this point, and will try to drag her back from it. About five years ago Julia was put on medication for her increasing anxiety and trouble sleeping, some she has to take everyday and some she only takes when panic attacks flair up. Funnily enough when she is performing is the time she tends to feel the most calm.

Wanted plots & Headcanons (if any)

Her ‘vocal’ fc is Christy Altomare, that is what she sounds like when she sings.

When Julia has too much caffeine she gets the shakes, and she often has too much, it can trigger her anxiety. Especially if she drinks it on an empty stomach.

The girl really looks up to her mother, she has since she was a little girl, wanting to be just like her (in most ways….)

Has an impatient side to her, she gets frustrated over things easily, especially if she finds something she can’t do easily. She’s always hated jigsaw puzzles because of this - she said they make her head hurt.

The first show she was ever in the chorus for was 42nd Street when she was sixteen years old.

Her most recent leading role was Anastasia on Broadway.

[ganymedesclock]

ok so i just saw a post that was like "keith never defends himself". like all the times lance insults him he never bristles up enough for it to turn into a fight, and when Allura is pissed about the "half galra" thing he just... accepts it. I don't think there's anywhere in canon where he actually gets upset for himself? like even when BoM!shiro called him selfish he seemed more apologetic than anything. i really want to hear your input on this, bc your character analysis is incredible,

So this is... picking at two actually unrelated threads.

The first thread: You’re right in that Keith clearly invests less in the rivalry than Lance does. This has nothing to do with Keith sticking up for himself, and it has a lot more to do with after the third episode, they are pretty much ambivalent to each other. Their “arguments”, both ways, become kind of lighthearted and ridiculous, not things to get offended about. Because in the first episode? We do see them nearly come to blows. Because at that point Lance is bitter and he’s taking shots at Keith that really hurt. Later on in the show that hurt isn’t there so neither is the vehemence of the response.

But in general, Keith isn’t passive towards Lance. The Paper Airplane comment in s1e9, s2e5′s “very far away.” We even see Keith instigate several times: s1e6 “Hey Lance, I got your Lion back,” and then claiming his radio isn’t working, s3e3′s “I’m glad we’re all making fun of Lance.”

Keith gives just as good as he gets. The thing is, again outside of the first two episodes it turns much more to playful rivalry. And even in those first few episodes, with the fall exercise in s1e2 both Keith and Lance pile into the ground because they both were escalating it. Also, arguably the first dispensed sass between the two of them was Keith to Lance. “We could toss off some non-essential weight.”

Keith is totally sassy! It takes him a little to open up to people enough to be willing to do that, but in s2e9 he cracks a joke at Hunk that Hunk points out. The thing is, he doesn’t care too much about the rivalry because he’s not particularly mad at Lance most of the time, and he never was. This was highlighted in the first scene with them together- you have Lance, hackles up, addressing his Rival, while Keith is sort of trying to recall who this person is and why Lance is so mad at him. Especially early on, you can see several times Keith just looks confusedly towards Lance, sees an irritated expression, and gets mad himself. So they bounce off each other as kind of a:

Keith “what the heck is your problem?”Lance “what the heck is YOUR problem?”

where both of them kinda feel like the other person started it. And as they get to know each other better, they learn what to, and what not to, take personally, and pretty much none of it is actually personal because they don’t hate each other.

You can see this pretty clearly at work in s3e3, for example- Lance gripes at Keith when he feels like Keith isn’t listening to him, but when Keith, super distraught, pretty much actively crawls back to Lance talking about how Lance was totally right and he got everyone in trouble- Lance clearly doesn’t exploit that, or even consider doing so- he sets his own ego aside, doesn’t mince words (”yeah, you kind of did”) but focuses on, in effect, reassurance- the issue is fixable, they can make this work and take responsibility and Lance is there to help him. And the only reason Lance was so angry in the first place was that he felt like Keith was putting the whole team in danger, which, he had a point.

Keith opens up these vulnerabilities to Lance because he can trust Lance with them. And Lance returns the favor- consider s3e6 and the “leave the math to Pidge” conversation. Again, Keith doesn’t mince words, but emphasizes proactive motion- that it’s okay, Lance can stay with Red, they’ll figure something out that doesn’t call for inordinate sacrifice from anyone. 

They’re “rivals” but they’re rivals who trust each other enough to actually genuinely let their guard down and say “here’s what I’m worried and scared about” and trust the other person isn’t going to mount it on their wall like a trophy because getting one up on each other was never a high priority and it’s certainly not higher than the other person’s wellbeing as a friend.

Keith doesn’t defend himself from Lance because Lance isn’t attacking. They have their back and forth but it’s harmless and they both react to it like it’s harmless. It might seem like Lance has a ‘bigger’ response because Lance generally is much more surface about his emotions than Keith is.

The second thread here: as you say, Keith specifically doesn’t defend himself against Allura’s rejection, and hologram Shiro’s rejection. I phrased that in a specific way because here’s the unifying thread there.

Keith is, to a traumatic degree, terrified of feeling abandoned by people. He laid this out very explicitly in his vlog: a large amount of his psychology was shaped by that first perceived abandonment- feeling like he was rejected by his mother. Later traumas- the loss of his father, likely rejections by other people in the foster system (official bio states he lost his parents at a young age, but doesn’t have any adopted family we know of which would suggest he shuffled around multiple places before leaving the system on his eighteenth birthday)- just sort of added fuel to that fire.

The reason why Keith folds up into a little ball and turns uncharacteristically passive in the face of perceived rejection from people he cares about (especially Shiro who is still a very high value friend to him) is that he is functionally, and quite literally, being triggered. His history and trauma tell him this is all his fault, that there’s a fundamental flaw in who he is, he’s a bad person and unlovable and everyone hates him.

Which isn’t true, not at all- but frankly? The way Keith engages with the whole galra revelation and Allura’s response, the way Keith sees this, it plays directly into his cognitive biases. His attempt at connecting with Acxa in the Weblum boils down to he’s trying to convince himself that maybe there’s a scrap of good to the galra that’s not just limited to the few rebels who’ve rejected their nature.

Keith is looking at his own heritage through a flawed eye here- so he doesn’t defend himself against Allura’s feelings, that she herself admits aren’t reasonable, that she still cares about Keith, that she’s hurt because she feels like he hid this from her and her own prior trauma is lending a huge amount of heat to it.

Because to Keith? Wholesale rejecting him for being a galra is perfectly reasonable. He’s got enough internalized issues he can’t really relate to the Blade because he’s a lot more scared he’s the other kind of galra they’ve encountered. The part of his brain that says “nobody likes you because something’s fundamentally wrong with you, all of these other people get along just fine,” just found something that seems to support that conclusion. “You’re related to the murderous space conquerors” is a hell of a lot louder in his mind than “the galra as a people are more complicated, we just met a bunch of rebels attacking them, even that mysterious person that robbed you saved your life and was not very Victory Or Death about it.”

The trial of Marmora was even more direct- it’s not showing us a real situation, it’s showing us Keith’s nightmare. That Shiro, too, will reject him, over some kind of perceived inherent nature (“You’re just being selfish like always”? not anything remotely approaching Shiro’s actual feelings or the reality of the situation) and leave, and Keith will end up alone and it’ll be his fault.

This is his worst fear, paired with ‘greatest hope’- that hurt, scared, and exhausted, he wants to see his only long-term friend pre-Voltron come tell him things are going to be okay.

Which, incidentally, it’s the hope, not the fear, that we see the real Shiro living up to. While it’s cut off by the awakening of the blade and Keith clearing the trial, Shiro would sooner fight his way past a huge organization like the Blade, alone, towing an injured Keith, than force Keith to give up the weapon to appease him. His decision, in that instant is, “I’m taking Keith, he’s taking his knife, and we’re leaving.”

But look at that picture- look at how Keith isn’t looking at Shiro. There’s a cognitive disconnect for Keith about how much other people mean to him.

In s1e4, we do see Keith trying to fight a perceived rejection- he’s the one who digs his heels in and yells at Pidge for trying to leave.

He aggressively avoids, in his logic, any implication of “please don’t do this, I care about you, I don’t want to lose you.” He tries to put everything in the most objective language he can put it in, but it’s pretty clear with how incredibly upset he is, this is not just about defending the universe.

Keith is both terrified of losing people and has an internalized attitude that he’s not good enough to make others want to stay around him. And this is something he’s processing, slowly, but out of the characters, this specter of perceived unworthiness is Keith’s demon- it’s what’s keeping him from the truth of who and what he is that is arguably his birthright as the Red Paladin, whose virtues are instinct, passion, and personal clarity.

In part, Keith has been deprived accurate mirrors to know himself- s1e10′s purple hand incident and the appearances of other half-galra we’ve seen tell us that Keith has seemingly been denied his own real appearance, as well as any contact with the galra half of his heritage. He has powers he doesn’t understand or even really realize they’re there, because no one has been around to recognize these qualities in him. He has had supports- Shiro and the other paladins- but all of them are, until outside intervention, just as stumped as he is.

But another part is- Keith is hiding from these revelations because he’s terrified of the idea of becoming- or having been all along- something unacceptable to other people. Something fated to be alone. Because again, deprived of people he can relate to and the context that makes everything about him make perfect sense? He’s mis-diagnosed himself hard as an inherently unlovable person and while that’s something he can fight in many situations, certain issues and scenarios seem to feed that fire and when it does, Keith tends to just give up.

So yeah- Keith doesn’t tend to defend himself when he feels like someone is rejecting him, and it’s a particular flavor of learned helplessness and cognitive biases.

[ninthextrication]

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Tagged by: nobody

under a cut because spoilers for vlr,999,ztd :’)

FULL NAME:  Junpei Tenmyouji (tfw your last name is a spoiler) GENDER AND SEXUALITY: Male, bi ETHNICITY AND SPECIES: Japanese, human BIRTHPLACE AND BIRTH DATE: Japan, February 8th 2006 RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single GUILTY PLEASURES: His movies. This is all headcanon, but I just really love the idea that he loves movies a lot. As well, less of a guilty pleasure, but Junpei is shown to have a tendency to rely on comfort objects in 999. PHOBIAS: He’s terrified of letting anyone he cares about die. It scares him more than anything else in the world, because he knows that it’s probably going to happen, sooner or later. WHAT THEY WOULD BE FAMOUS / INFAMOUS FOR: It’s totally possible that he could gain some degree of fame as a survivor of the nonary game, a “poor trauma survivor”; but i feel like he’d do everything in his power to keep himself out of any news (and ask seven to help him with that). As for infamy, his detective stuff. I’m willing to bet money he pissed off more than just Brother, if we think about the stuff he’s said he’s done. WHAT HAVE THEY / WOULD THEY HAVE GOTTEN ARRESTED FOR: Again, the detective work. A lot of the stuff he’s done can’t have been legal. CHARACTER MOST LIKELY TO MURDER THEM: Ace, Dio, or Mira. Ace wins in terms of sheer numbers though. FAVORITE BOOK GENRE: Pre-999 i feel like he’d really enjoy mysteries, but post-999 i feel like he’d stop reading.  LEAST FAVORITE BOOK CLICHE: Happy action-hero endings. He’s jaded, bitter, and disillusioned by the world- he knows that things don’t usually turn out that happy. His own life didn’t turn out that happy, after all.

TALENTS AND / OR POWERS: “that esper bullshit(tm)”, as he puts it. He can transmit and receive, and he’s also a SHIFTer. In non-esper stuff, he’s clearly pretty dang clever, and he can do mental math really quickly for all those digital roots. WHY SOMEONE MIGHT LOVE THEM: He, despite his words and insistence, is still a very kind person. He tries to act otherwise, but he doesn’t like hurting people on purpose. If he hurts someone out of carelessness he doesn’t always notice, but unless it’s someone he hates, he never tries to hurt someone. He’ll go out of his way to protect the people he cares about, as well. WHY SOMEONE MIGHT HATE THEM: He can certainly go too far with the sarcasm at times, and I could definitely see someone hating him because of how nihilistic he is. He might be a good person at heart, but his usual personality can come across as very abrasive and rough, so it’d be easy to assume he’s just some annoying punk. HOW THEY CHANGE: Junpei has been slowly trying to learn forgiveness towards himself while being stuck in Citta. He’s not able to complete his goal, he can’t reach Aoi, so he’s being forced to confront his unhealthy lifestyle. Now, granted- he’s not changing quickly. He still drinks himself unconscious at times, he’s not planning on quitting his job any time in the near-future despite how self-destructive it is, and he doesn’t really look out for his body, but he’s still trying. He’s realized that there are people who (somehow) care for him despite how he is, and he doesn’t want them to worry about him.

WHY YOU LOVE THEM: Oh man... this is not an easy answer. I’ll just list out as much as I can think, haha.

First, he’s the protag of 999, which is my favourite game of all time. Right off the bat he gets bonus points because of this- he’s really great. He’s the reason I could enjoy that game so much, because he’s such a good protagonist.

Next, he’s always felt real to me. All his actions, his thought processes- they make him just come to life in the game. He’s an incredibly well-written character, and I adore him for that as well.

now, getting into the personal stuff.... Junpei means a lot to me. He really, really does. I think the moment I realized just how important he was to me as a character was when I was playing vlr for the first time. I was in a really bad depression that summer, I was alone at home and playing VLR because it was really all I could do other than cry or stare at the ceiling, and I’d finally reached the end of the game. From there, I got Tenmyouji’s Quote

"The survivors overcame their own misery and loss, and made the best they could of the hand they'd been dealt with. Isn't that worth something? Isn't that the best thing that humans can aspire to? Is there really any point to a world where everything is happy? Are people who struggle for a better life just idiots? Being human is about fighting even when it seems hopeless, and finding happiness even in a world that hates it."

Sitting alone in a room and hearing him- this old man who’s been though such a hell of a life- say something like this, just hit me. hard. It’s okay to suffer and struggle in life. Your hardships are genuine, and they’re hard, but if you keep going, then there’s a chance at finding hope. You can fight to reach that happiness- that blue bird.

I can’t remember if I cried, but that was what made me really adore Junpei Tenmyouji.

Being human is about fighting even when it seems hopeless, and finding happiness even in a world that hates it.

You might think it’s ironic that I then love ztd junpei so much, with how nihilistic and clearly depressed he is, but I love him because I can relate to him. I can see myself in him, see myself in the clearly self-destructive habits that are just slightly hidden away, and I can remember that it’s not all pointless. No matter what you go through, no matter how far down of a low that you’re at, you can still get better. You can still find that hope, that happiness. And, I really do believe in a world where Junpei gets to be happy. He’s going to need a hell of a lot of work after all the trauma he’s been through, but he’ll reach it eventually.

I just. You have no idea how much Junpei really means to me. I honestly can’t even explain a lot of it, and I hope that this makes sense. He’s someone who gives me hope in life, and that’s an incredibly precious thing to me. Plus, he’s definitely my biggest muse- he’s so easy to write for, and I love him for that.

TAGGING: Anyone who actually read this far, lmao

[catherineisworkingonit]

11:05pm, 2/5/18

My heart just... hurts.  I got back from shadowing at the clinic and just... I met a girl in the foster system, who has been through so much in her short 15 years.  Years of abuse from both parents.  Sexual exploitation.  Being missing for a year, some of it in Mexico, a decent bit of it likely in prostitution.  Looking into her eyes was just.... I don’t know if I have words.  She looked so fragile, and broken almost, in a way that I’d never seen in a child’s eyes before.  

Dr. H’s words have stuck with me for months: “How terrifying it must be to feel completely alone in the world.”  And knowing that she is, functionally.  Despite having a social worker/case manager, or a doctor, or someone at the “group home” aka orphanage when it’s far too late to try and find them a family, she is alone.  And it feels like there’s absolutely nothing I can do about that.  It feels like I can’t do anything about the fact that she’s almost certainly yeeeeeeeears behind in school.  Or that she has been using crystal meth for a long time, yet is 15.  I can’t go back in time and give her the love she needed to grow while she was growing up.

And that fucking kills me.

I don’t even know her name--I’m not sure I ever got it.  I complimented her anklet, and made horrifically awkward small talk about braids.  While a social worker (not even hers--this was just the woman on duty) told her story to the attending, and I just realized that I wish I could just sit with her and ask her about what she needed.  And I know that what she needed was a family that actually cared about her, and that would support her as she grew, a family like mine that loves me so so much.  And it just feels like I can’t possibly replace that.  And maybe it helps that I could stand there and look at her like a normal person/peer and try to relate and chat normally, but also maybe it didn’t.  I could tell her, me in my fourth year of university, that “it’s never too late to make your life what you want it to be”, because for me it’s fucking possible.  I have a family that would walk over hot coals to support me, that just genuinely want me to be happy and succeed.  I have the cushy safety net of a family that would support me if I did want to completely change my life around, tomorrow, if I wanted to.  And she doesn’t have that.  Does this mystery girl resent my advice?  Did she even hear it?  Would it even have helped?

I can’t even imagine the trauma she’s gone through.  It is literally so beyond my scope of experience that it is truly unimaginable.  And all I want to do is bring her back with me, and support her, and teach her the years of math and science and english that she should have been learning in school while instead she was being exploited by a society that never gave her a shot to escape.  And I want to tell her that it’s absolutely never too late to learn, to grow, to make your life better, to escape addiction, and mental illness, and find love and happiness that would make her heart sing.

But I don’t know if anyone will ever tell her that.  And that’s what kills me.  The foster system is so deeply broken, so full of cracks and devoid of love that I’m not even sure how anyone could fix it.  What can replace a family’s love?  What system in place could help children abandoned by the only people in their life that should be there for them, that brought them into the very world they inhabit?  Especially when so many have “difficult” disabilities like FASD, that make for “challenging” personalities that decrease foster/adoption rates even more.

I am rambling.  And I’m sure this is pretentious as hell--plenty of foster children must turn out well, finding foster families that love them so dearly.  But seeing the ones that life has been so deeply unfair too--how could one even believe in a higher power when these children never had a fucking chance?  I want to, I must try in my life to help this.  Mentor some when I graduate from school?  Donate whatever I can do make their lives easier?  I may never be able to have children of my own; maybe I can save some from a rotten system.

I... am sad for the children that live so alone.  And angry at the world for allowing them to stay that way.  How can I, a single person, make things better?

End rant.  For now.