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CHARACTER PROFILE: Kirsi Solaan-Rayo

FULL NAME: Kirsi Mireya Solaan-Rayo AGE (As of 10 ATC): 18 GENDER: Nonbinary (They/Them) SPECIES: Human/Cyborg

CLASS: Sith Inquisitor COMBAT STYLE: Lightning Sorcerer (Through KOT** expansions), Seer Sage (Onslaught and onward)

LEGACY: Solaan-Jyoti SERVER: Star Forge

Full bio below the cut. cw for child abuse, human experimentation, slavery/human trafficking, parent death, cults, and brainwashing.

Early Life

Kirsi was born on Nar Shaddaa to Mico Solaan, an Engineering Chief at Deucalon Spaceport, and Alita Rayo Satara, a researcher working on a cure for the Rot. They spent their early childhood with their parents in a nice, upper-middle-class apartment, up until they were nearly seven years old.

Unbeknownst to the Solaan-Rayo family, Mico’s estranged brother, Tera Solaan, had accrued a massive gambling debt that he couldn’t pay off. Tera reached out to Mico, stating that he wished to reconcile, and Mico agreed to meet him, but did not return home from the meeting. The following day, armed thugs arrived at the Solaan-Rayo apartment, seizing Alita and Kirsi. Tera, unable to pay his debt, had sold his three remaining family members to get the credits he needed.

The three of them were brought to the Erolux Sentient Research Center, where they were placed in a small apartment. Various forms of psychological conditioning and drugs were used on Kirsi’s parents to manipulate their perception of the world around them, and their interactions with one another, as well as their child, were monitored as part of a twisted experiment.

Kirsi, who was still too young to fully understand what was going on, was thrown into a life of instability. One day, everything would be fine. The next, their parents would be yelling, fighting, or hurting one another or Kirsi. Then they would disappear, then be brought back, remembering nothing of what had happened before.

Kirsi spent three years in this unstable ‘household’, quickly growing to distrust their parents, unaware of what was making them behave that way. For all they knew, they had just moved to a smaller apartment, Then, one day, there was a miscalculation by the brainwashers-- Mico was made a little too aggressive, and struck Alita a little too hard. Kirsi watched their father kill their mother at the dinner table one night, turn on them, and then watched him be promptly struck down by a blaster bolt to the neck.

The ten-year-old was extracted from the apartment and, with the experiment effectively ended prematurely, and with the trauma of their parents’ deaths seared into their mind, Kirsi was deemed unsuitable as a specimen for further research.

Erolux sold Kirsi with a group of other “failed experiments,” where they were purchased by a small Imperial Laboratory that was working on a Super-Soldier Project. There, Kirsi was brutally trained in combat to use an arsenal of weapons, and underwent painful cybernetic augmentations, including the replacement of all four of their limbs. They spent eight years ‘in development’ at the laboratory. Where, with Erolux, Kirsi had had the illusion of living a normal life, here, they were treated like an object, a project-- less sentient than a droid.

Then, their Force Sensitivity was discovered when a Sith Lord overseeing the project came to inspect the subjects. The Sith, Lord Veratan, realised that Kirsi was surpassing the other subjects not only because of their augmentations, but also by using the Force. Veratan was, however, less than pleased with this-- Kirsi’s Force Sensitivity would skew the data-- and ordered that Kirsi be sent to Korriban, either to become Sith, or to die.

Sith Acolyte

GEAR Head: -- Chest: Neophyte Robe Wrists: -- Hands: Series 614 Cybernetic Hands Waist: -- Legs: Neophyte’s Lower Robe Feet: Neophyte Anklewraps - Dye: -- Weapon: Sith Practice Blade - Crystal: -- It was difficult for Kirsi to transition between research specimen and Sith acolyte. They spent the voyage aboard a small cruiser with a handful of others in a similar situation-- former slaves of the Empire sent to Korriban to become Sith with no say in the matter. Kirsi became rather close to one in particular, Kory, the first being to speak to them like a person in about as long as they could remember. By the time they reached Korriban, Kirsi had opened up a bit and gotten used to speaking and holding conversations again.

When Kirsi arrived on Korriban, they were assigned to Overseer Harkun, who took an instant dislike to them, and tried to get them killed at every possible opportunity. Though initially unenthusiastic about being forced to become Sith, Kirsi gained much more ambition simply because of the pushback from Harkun. They quickly developed a sharp tongue and haughty attitude in response. This infuriated Harkun more, which only stoked Kirsi’s own resolve. With Kory’s death and a budding rivalry with another acolyte, Ffon Althe, Kirsi was pushed to success, rather than beaten down.

Though Harkun hated them, Kirsi became the favorite of Lord Zash, their potential future master. Though distrustful of Zash, as they were of everyone, Kirsi enjoyed the respect that the Sith Lord offered them-- something nearly unheard of before now.

As a part of their final trial, Kirsi freed the Dashade, Khem Val, who begrudgingly vowed to serve them. Knowing how it feels to be seen as a tool, Kirsi felt a kinship with the Dashade, and vowed to treat Khem as a person-- hoping that eventually, Khem would warm up to them.

As the only successful Acolyte of the group, much to Harkun’s despair, Kirsi became the Apprentice of Lord Zash and left Korriban for Dromund Kaas.

Sith Apprentice

GEAR Head: Pragmatic Master’s Helmet Chest: Saber Marshal’s Robe Wrists: Covert Wrist Energy Armor Hands: Series 614 Cybernetic Hands Waist: Nathema Zealot’s Clasp Legs: Nathema Zealot’s Lower Robe Feet: Nathema Zealot’s Boots - Dye: -- Weapon: Sorcerer’s Lightsaber - Crystal: Imperial Crimson

Important Story Notes

Dromund Kaas

Completes the Revanite questline along with the class story, becomes a Revanite and does not betray them. As someone not particularly fond of the Sith Empire, they don’t mind undermining it.

As someone on a similar level to Darth Skotia in terms of cybernetics, they find the whole affair rather uncomfortable, and don’t particularly like knowing that Zash has the ability to cripple cyborgs to that degree.

Doesn’t much care about Lord Kallig’s claims of ancestry. Kirsi has long since given up caring about family.

Defends Zash from Kallig, and wants to be able to trust her, though in truth they remain wary and heed the warnings.

Balmorra

Completes the Planetary Series and Planetary Bonus Series with mostly Light Side choices. Kirsi is not particularly fond of Darth Lachris.

Frees Hiran Bessiker, not without trading a few insults though. Kirsi is not fond of Hiran, and doesn’t free him to be a good person-- they free him because they have grown a bit attached to Major Bessiker.

No stranger to being injected with strange substances, being given the Colicoid DNA Serum is uncomfortable, but not unordinary for them.

Kirsi leaves Balmorra quite fond of both Major Bessiker and Iannos Tyrek, and lets both of them live and allows Tyrek to leave the Empire.

Nar Shaddaa

Kirsi chooses to cure the Rot to gain support. During the process, they find out that the cure is the same one that their mother, Alita, had begun work on. It’s both bittersweet and traumatic, being so close to something from their early life.

They complete the second portion of the Nar Shaddaa Planetary, working with the Imperial Reclamation Service to enter Revan’s Vault. They spare the Ongree and take a piece of the Infinite Engine back to the Reclamation Service.

Kirsi kills Lord Paladius and gives the cult to Destris Veran and Rylee Dray before leaving Nar Shaddaa. They don’t have too much interest in it after their mission is complete.

They were incredibly uncomfortable with the way that Paladius managed to sever them from the Force, which is part of the reason they killed him. Otherwise, they just found his behaviour distasteful.

Kirsi then goes to Korriban at Kallig’s behest and duels Lord Khreusis for Kallig’s Countenance. They still don’t want to believe that Zash will betray them, but they are a bit concerned by Kallig’s news, so they want every advantage they can get. Khreusis is incredibly irritating, and they have no qualms killing him.

Tatooine

At first, Kirsi doesn’t get along very well with Andronikos Revel, but bonds with him while hunting the artefact and his crew. In the end, they’re very happy to have him.

Completes the Tatooine Planetary Arc. Is fond of Darth Silthar, and a little upset when he dies.

Is deeply upset by the Imprisoned One’s cybernecrotic soldiers and chooses to destroy the Mind Prison.

Goes to find Veshikk Ur with Khem Val.

Completes the Tatooine Bonus Series.

By the time they’re finally able to leave Tatooine, they are very tired of it and never want to go back. Each additional questline is yet another failed attempt to leave the planet.

The First Meeting

While working with the Imperial Reclamation Service, Kirsi’s search leads them to a vault in the Dune Sea. There, while attempting to infiltrate the abandoned vault, they run into Jedi Shadow Nairah Jyoti. The pair debate on fighting one another, neither really wanting to do so, but decide to team up on a spur of the moment when they are attacked by the Imprisoned One’s cybernecrotic minions. After the battle, Nairah and Kirsi both agree that the mind prison holding the Imprisoned One must be destroyed. A bit battered and tired from the fight and from wandering the desert, the pair accompany one another back through the Dune Sea. As they near civilisation, Sith and Jedi part ways peacefully-- deciding that, if they do have to fight, they will do it another day.

Alderaan

Kirsi is not fond of dealing with the political climate of Alderaan. They find themself rather ill-equipped for it.

Kirsi attempts to reconcile Nomar Organa and Rehanna Rist-- they don’t see a reason to kill Organa, as they have nothing in particular against the Jedi, and they find it a bit entertaining to subvert their expectations of a Sith.

They really thought that Organa was being genuine, but they didn’t mind killing him after he broke Rehanna’s heart again.

When Elana Thul asks for help stopping House Organa’s attack on House Thul, Kirsi agrees and fights them back.

When Kirsi goes to retrieve Kallig’s lightsaber, they spare Mia Escalus without any torture, allow Gyl Rosen’s mercenaries to flee, but kill Rosen himself.

Zash’s betrayal is not unexpected, but still deeply upsetting to Kirsi. Despite their wariness, they had wanted everything to turn out alright. Instead of a normal battle, Zash used the device that Kirsi used against Skotia to weaken them during the fight, an event that traumatised Kirsi even further. When Zash’s consciousness ends up inside of Khem Val, they vow to find a way to get her out.

Sith Lord

GEAR Head: Pragmatic Master’s Helmet Chest: Nathema Zealot’s Robe Wrists: Covert Wrist Energy Armor Hands: Series 614 Cybernetic Hands Waist: Nathema Zealot’s Clasp Legs: Nathema Zealot’s Lower Robe Feet: Nathema Zealot’s Boots - Dye: Black & Dark Red Weapon: Lord Kallig’s Scorching Lightsaber - Crystal: Imperial Crimson

Important Story Notes

After Zash’s betrayal Kirsi changes quite a bit, becoming more interested in gaining power for themself, so that they cannot be bested as they nearly were by Zash. They inherit Zash’s power base, including her apprentices Corrin and Kaal, and take on the mantle of Lord Kallig.

Unlike with Zash, Kirsi distrusts Darth Thanaton from the beginning, but sees no choice other than to follow his orders. Their true station within the Empire, despite being a Lord, becomes apparent. Kirsi is not surprised at Thanaton’s attempt to get them killed, just bitterly proven right.

After learning the Force Walking ritual and binding Darth Ergast, Kirsi creates a pact with Darth Andru, rather than binding him forcibly.

Taris

Though embittered now, Kirsi is not cruel or manipulative toward Ashara Zavros, and doesn’t seek out confrontation with her or her masters. Their bitterness is personal and not applied to everyone. There is still a degree of discomfort to their relationship, and Kirsi thinks that they are genuinely helping Ashara by teaching her to use the Dark Side.

Binds Kalatosh Zavros forcibly due to the way he spoke to Ashara.

Between Taris and Quesh, Kirsi becomes involved in an operation dealing with the escape of Revan from the Maelstrom Prison, working with three others in an Imperial Strike Team. They defeat Revan at the Foundry.

Quesh

Kirsi was extremely upset by the deaths of Corrin and Kaal. This became a tipping point-- they fly into a rage and kill Lord Cineratus, the first time they completely lose control in battle.

A Friendship Forms

In the aftermath of losing their apprentices to Thanaton’s machinations, Kirsi runs into an old acquaintance. Nairah Jyoti, now a Jedi Master at (by her own admission) far too soon, has been having some struggles of her own. Both struggling with recent events the two of them spend the night camping together, speaking freely this time about their struggles and offering one another some small comfort. Unknowingly, Kirsi in their despair encourages some of Nairah’s doubts about her place with the Jedi, while her seemingly steadfast commitment to the light doesn’t do much to soothe Kirsi’s rattled emotions. Still, they find that they enjoy one another’s company and, rather than putting off their fight further, decide to become friends. They generate a private frequency, and promise that, when talking or spending time with one another, they will not think about their allegiances.

Hoth

Initially, Kirsi is a little irritated and impatient with Talos Drellik, but Talos' prescence proved balancing to an increasingly-agitated Kirsi, and they quickly became fond of the lieutenant. So much so that they allowed Talos to take the time to make a record of the tomb they needed to desecrate.

Binds Horak-Mul forcibly because his requests caused Talos distress, and Kirsi isn't fond of people who make demands of them.

When the ghosts overtook Kirsi’s body, and they began deteriorating, they became extremely depressed, and considered giving up entirely. It took the encouragement of their crew, as well as Nairah, to keep going and find a way to control it and recover.

Belsavis

Kirsi chose to free the Mother Machine, Ashaa, and allowed her to eradicate the Rakata. They don’t have much sympathy for the species that wishes to enslave the galaxy. In addition to restructuring Kirsi’s body to be able to withstand Force-Walking, they also requested that their natural limbs be restored, a request that Ashaa granted. Though Kirsi kept their neural implants and monitoring systems, their body was no longer made up of a majority of outdated mechanical parts and, thus, would no longer be able to be targeted by attacks specifically meant to damage droids or cyborgs.

As a result of their rebuilding, Kirsi’s ability to channel Force Lightning was both reduced and enhanced-- as they had had a habit of using their cybernetic limbs to increase the strength of their lightning, but doing so also caused quite a bit of pain and damage to themself. Now, because they were able to use their abilities without simultaneously harming themself, though a bit weaker in the moment, they are able to sustain a fight for far longer.

While on Belsavis, Kirsi also completes the Planetary Series and frees the Dread Masters.

When attempting to contact Nairah after their mission is successful, Kirsi finds that they are unable to get through to the Jedi. They are rather concerned, but do not have the time to attempt again, as they are contacted by Moff Pyron.

They are initially very distrustful of Pyron, and keep their guard up, but eventually realise that they will need Pyron’s support to take down Thanaton and secure their position in the Empire. They obtain the CN 12 chip on Nar Shaddaa, while Force Persuading the members of the Veil to join them, rather than turning over control of the cult on Nar Shaddaa.

Voss

Kirsi binds the spirit of Mar-Da.

When leaving Voss with Hadrik, Kirsi Force-persuades Sor-Nak into believing that Hadrik is not there, wishing to fulfill their promise to the Gormak.

Kirsi leaves Voss with a very negative opinion on the Voss overall, based on the way they treated them, as well as the way they treated the Gormak.

While a little concerned about Xalek’s “unconventional methods”, Kirsi was quick to take the Kaleesh’s side over Harkun’s, and gladly took Xalek as an apprentice and killed Harkun.

When testing the Silencer weapon, Kirsi has Darth Achelon’s flagship destroyed along with the Republic Fleet. They eagerly accept Thanaton’s challenge to a Kaggath on Corellia.

Corellia

Not only does Kirsi complete the main story, but they also complete the Corellia Planetary Series and win Corellia for the Empire-- a suggestion made by their crew so that the public opinion of them in the Empire is improved, and thus turned in their favour.

Kirsi defeats Darth Thanaton for good on Korriban and gains the title of Darth Nox and a Dark Council seat as the head of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge. Though they have achieved all they fought for, they refuse to free the ghosts they have bound-- a decision they will come to regret as time goes on.

Darth Nox

GEAR Head: -- Chest: Hallowed Gothic Vestments Wrists: Covert Wrist Energy Armor Hands: Covert Hand Energy Armor Waist: Hallowed Gothic Sash Legs: Hallowed Gothic Lower Robes Feet: Nathema Zealot’s Boots - Dye: -- Weapon: Lord Kallig’s Scorching Lightsaber - Crystal: Black-Red Striated

The first thing that Kirsi does as a Dark Lord of the Sith is to get rid of Zash for once and for all, trapping her inside of a mind prison and freeing Khem Val from her influence.

The Beginnings of a Change

No more than a few days later does Kirsi receive a message from Nairah-- after months of silence. Nairah is on Corellia, fighting a friend that is under the control of the Sith Emperor. She hadn’t contacted Kirsi for all this time due to their allegiances, but after hearing that Kirsi had succeeded in gaining control of the ghosts in their mind, Nairah turns to them, hoping that they might be able to help.

Kirsi travels to Corellia in secret to meet Nairah, who has changed greatly since they last met as she drifted closer to the Dark Side. Their discussion leads to a disagreement, which leads to a fight between them-- a fight that ends in a stalemate, in which Kirsi realises that for their friendship to remain, and for Nairah’s own sake, she must hold on to the light and save her friend. They end their battle, Nairah finds peace and a new resolve, and Kirsi tells her that they are her friend first, Sith second. Before they leave Nairah to complete her mission, she asks them, “what about you?”

Kirsi refuses to renounce the Dark Side for themself, claiming that it is the only way for them-- but insisting that, at least for Nairah, she can still hold onto her hope for the good in others.

The False Emperor

Kirsi and Nairah meet once again on Ilum, after Darth Malgus declares himself Emperor. Much to the surprise of everyone, Kirsi suggests a temporary alliance-- a strike team made up of both Imperial and Republic fighters-- and enlists Nairah’s help to create it and accomplish the mutual goal of defeating Malgus. Their statuses as members of their respective high councils aid them in gathering enough support for this, and Malgus is defeated.

Though the Dark Council is not entirely pleased, Kirsi defends their choices-- claiming that, if they are able to use the Republic’s resources to accomplish their goals, why not? They can always go back to spilling one another’s blood the very next day.

The Dread Masters

Not long after, the alliance continued as the Dread Masters went rogue and began terrorising the galaxy. Feeling somewhat responsible, Kirsi led the hunt for them. When Nairah was assigned to the campaign on the Republic’s side, the pair shared information, until they actually met up together on Oricon, working in tandem to stop the Dread War.

The Revanites & The Sith Emperor

With their reputation for forming unconventional alliances now more well-known, it isn’t surprising that another pair of unconventional allies would seek their aid. Sith Lord Lana Beniko and SIS Agent Theron Shan worked with Kirsi and Nairah to uncover and defeat the new Revanites-- a group that Kirsi was once a part of. The pair went undercover on Rishi and helped to spearhead the joint coalition on Yavin 4.

The coalition defeated the reborn Revan and stopped the Revanites’ plans, but not before the Emperor’s spirit escaped to Ziost. Despite their best efforts, Kirsi and Nairah were unable to stop the Emperor from destroying all life on the planet.

The Rise of Zakuul

After Ziost, the Emperor fled, and the Coalition’s forces went in search of them. While Nairah was on the flagship with Darth Marr, Kirsi was on another warship, commanding a portion of the Coalition’s forces. As the Eternal Fleet destroyed the Coalition’s fleet, Kirsi and their crew narrowly escaped death or capture by this strange new force. Nairah was lost-- presumed dead, but due to their Force Bond, Kirsi claimed otherwise. Still, they could not find her. As Zakuul’s forces descended upon the galaxy, conquering both Empire and Republic, Kirsi’s stubborn insistence that they search for Nairah set them at odds with the Dark Council, though this conflict was cut short as most of the Councillors were killed by Zakuul. Kirsi, for their part, abandoned the Empire entirely. In the chaos, they found themself alone, heading into Wild Space in search of anything that could lead them to Nairah.

The Outlander

GEAR Head: -- Chest: Remnant Yavin Inquisitor’s Chestpiece Wrists: Covert Wrist Energy Armor Hands: Covert Hand Energy Armor Waist: Hallowed Gothic Sash Legs: Nathema Zealot’s Lower Robes Feet: Nathema Zealot’s Boots - Dye: -- Weapon: Lord Kallig’s Scorching Lightsaber - Crystal: Black-Red Striated

While on Zakuul, Kirsi finds themself captured by the Eternal Empire. They spend several months in prison. Eventually, they were sprung from prison by Lana Beniko, and spent the next few years by her side, along with Koth Vortena, searching for information about Nairah and opposing Emperor Arcann and the Eternal Empire.

Once, during their time on Zakuul, Kirsi came into conflict with Vaylin. Though their battle was cut short before a victor could be decided, Vaylin divulged some information to Kirsi that would prove useful, referencing a “special prisoner” that Arcann kept frozen in carbonite in a vault. Kirsi took that information back to Lana, and their group looked into it.

Five years after the Eternal Empire’s first attack, Kirsi, Lana, and a Republic Droid that had joined their efforts, T7-01, mounted a rescue mission and extracted Nairah from her carbonite prison, escaping into the wilds of Zakuul. There, they found an ancient ship, the Gravestone, capable of taking on the Eternal Fleet.

Reunited with their long-time partner at last, Kirsi was overjoyed, but less so to learn that Nairah’s body was playing host to the consciousness of the former emperor Valkorion. They vowed, as someone with a lot of experience in the matter, to help Nairah to either control or expel him as needed.

The pair soon became very close-- even closer than they had been during their coalition days, and their force bond became even stronger, much to the mockery and concern of the spirits residing within both of their minds. As they fled from and fought the Eternal Empire side-by-side, they became highly attuned to one another, stronger together than alone.

The Alliance Commander

GEAR Head: -- Chest: Scion’s Vestments Wrists: Covert Wrist Energy Armor Hands: Covert Hand Energy Armor Waist: Scion’s Belt Legs: Scion’s Lower Robe Feet: Nathema Zealot’s Boots - Dye: -- Weapon: Odessen Lightsaber - Crystal: Frost White

As joint Commander of the Eternal Alliance, alongside Nairah, Kirsi’s outlook began to shift. Working to oppose the Eternal Empire, with old and new friends and allies by their side, as well as forming a new community on Odessen, caused them to finally begin to truly heal. Being able to be with Nairah openly, too, was refreshing.

With the Alliance, Kirsi began to turn away from the Dark Side, and with Nairah’s guidance and help, turned their focus fully away from a grab for power and to the betterment of the galaxy.

The pair spent some time in the wilderness of Odessen, where they were taught to find balance by Darth Marr and Satele Shan. They forged new lightsabers together.

When Arcann attacked Odessen, Kirsi and Nairah confronted him aboard his flagship and brought him down, but didn’t kill him. As they left, they learned that Senya Tirall had taken her son and fled. Kirsi, angered at Senya’s betrayal, wants to strike out at her, but Nairah convinces them that they don’t need to-- that even Arcann deserves a chance to heal.

Having been through a healing process themself, Kirsi relents, and allows them to escape.

Vaylin takes the Eternal Throne, and the Alliance continues their fight. While on Voss, they meet with Senya and Arcann once again-- where Senya uses her own life force to heal her son from the Darkness within him.

Kirsi is surprised by the arrival of the Empire to aid them, and somewhat mistrustful of Acina’s motivations, having known her while a part of the Empire themself. However, they agree to meet with Acina on Dromund Kaas to discuss an alliance. Nairah, meanwhile, has received a similar offer from her old allies in the Republic. The two split off to their former factions. Kirsi and Acina are betrayed, targeted by Republic Chancellor Saresh. After they survive the assassination attempt, Kirsi returns to Odessen to find that Saresh has been preparing to take control of the alliance. They kill Saresh, falling back into their former Dark Side ways before Nairah returns from what was a diversion meant to split the two commanders up, and hopefully to convince her to betray Kirsi. Nairah is displeased by Kirsi’s actions, but forgives them, though their relationship is a bit strained.

Later, the two travel to Nathema, where they learn of the horrifying conditioning that young Vaylin underwent and feel the desolation of the force-void planet. Though more so for Nairah than Kirsi, this journey fosters some sympathy for the Empress within them.

When Vaylin attacks Odessen, Kirsi and Nairah defend their Alliance from her, splitting up to save both of their allies that she’s pinned down. While aiding Torian Cadera, Vaylin arrives, and she and Kirsi begin to duel. Vaylin beats Kirsi back to the Alliance’s base, with Kirsi forced on defence but holding their own. At the base, they are joined by Nairah, Senya, and Arcann. With their partner by their side, Kirsi quickly defeats Vaylin and prepares to deal the killing blow as Vaylin’s power storms out of control, but Nairah stops them, and-- with great effort-- performs a modified version of her shielding ritual on Vaylin to contain-- but not bind-- her power.

With Vaylin shielded, her control over the Eternal Fleet lapsed, and the fleet began firing on planets across the galaxy. Nairah falls unconscious as a result of the ritual leaving a distraught Kirsi to travel to Zakuul to claim the Eternal Throne. After seating themself on the throne, Valkorion, who had jumped from Nairah’s mind to Kirsi’s through their force bond, attempts to seize control. Kirsi, shocked by the sudden development, has some difficulty fighting him off, but with the aid of Valkorion’s family, as well as Nairah’s consciousness having followed Valkorion into Kirsi’s mindscape, Valkorion is ultimately defeated.

The Eternal Fleet and the planets of Eternal Empire space became absorbed into the Alliance as a new galactic superpower alongside the Republic and the Sith Empire. While both sides prepare for war, the Alliance remains neutral, focusing on helping the galaxy to rebuild and creating a new government consisting of Odessen, Zakuul, and other Eternal Empire worlds in what was formerly Wild Space.

On Iokath, the Alliance comes into conflict with the Empire and the Republic, and Kirsi and Nairah deal with their former factions in order to prevent them from seizing a superweapon on the planet. They manage to prevent Jace Malcolm and Empress Acina from accessing the weapon, but in doing so revealed that they had been playing double-agent in trying to prevent both factions from gaining the superweapon. Nairah claimed that “such a thing doesn’t need to be unleashed upon the galaxy.” While none are too happy about it, Acina is particularly upset, and claims the Iokathi throne, awakening the Old Gods and being seriously wounded.

Kirsi, remembering that Acina had aided them against Zakuul, attempts to heal her-- and, surprising everyone, manages to save her life. Nairah convinces Malcolm that a temporary truce is advisable, and all three factions join forces to stop the Old Gods from decimating the galaxy.

The crisis averted and the temporary truce dissolved, the Alliance returns to its uneasy state in the galaxy-- a bit at odds with both other factions, but because of the Eternal Fleet, neither of them desire to attack.

This changes when the Order of Zildrog rises. Theron’s “betrayal” hits Kirsi hard. After things seemed to be getting better, another betrayal threatens to send them spiralling back, but Nairah tempers them with the thought that there might be more to it-- and when Theron proves to have only betrayed them in name, Kirsi is relieved, though a little wary of him for some time.

A far more pressing concern is the destruction of the Eternal Fleet, the Eternal Throne, and the Gravestone-- leaving the Eternal Alliance without its greatest power sources, and vulnerable.

Defector from the Empire

GEAR Head: -- Chest: Remnant Resurrected Consular’s chestpiece Wrists: Covert Wrist Energy Armor Hands: Covert Hand Energy Armor Waist: Scion’s Belt Legs: Scion’s Lower Robe Feet: Nathema Zealot’s Boots - Dye: -- Weapon: Odessen Lightsaber - Crystal: Frost White

No longer a Galactic Superpower, the leaders of the Eternal Alliance meet to discuss which faction to support-- as they can no longer remain neutral and trust that they will not be targeted.

Having seen both factions’ good and bad, Kirsi and Nairah decide to join the Republic. The decision is a bit difficult for Kirsi, but not too difficult-- and far better than joining the Empire that had tormented and enslaved them. While the Republic and the Jedi are initially wary of Kirsi’s path as a Dark Councillor, Nairah assures them that they have no need to worry.

Kirsi begins developing their Force Healing skills, something they are surprisingly good at. Though they work with Nairah and other Jedi to unlearn their reliance on the Dark Side, they elect not to become a Jedi yet.

When Vitiate/Valkorion/Tenebrae makes an appearance yet again, Kirsi and Nairah must confront him yet again, this time along with Kira Carsen, a Jedi and former Child of the Emperor (a fact that Nairah has some concern with) and Lord Scourge, the former Emperor’s Wrath. Joined by Arcann, Senya, and Vaylin, who has recovered substantially and begun to heal from her trauma and injuries. Initially skeptical of allowing Vaylin to come along, Kirsi vouches for her, as the two had been working together for some time to heal from their pasts.

Together they get rid of Tenebrae forever, and once he’s gone, the Alliance-- and their Republic allies-- turn their attention to dealing with the new threat that a rogue Darth Malgus poses to the galaxy.

#swtor #star wars the old republic #swtor oc #sith inquisitor #solaan jyoti legacy #kirsi solaan rayo #nairah jyoti #oc: kirsi solaan rayo #character profile #this was a doozy

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poisonheadcrabsalesman · 4 years

Text

More therapy thoughts part 1/?

Behavior Theory Frameworks/Conditioning and What the fuck does Master Chief talk about in therapy?

Ramblings below - like a lot, like I spent too much time writing this and you should not read this

Behavioral Theory could work well as a framework with rehabilitating Spartan IIs if the case worker focused on Operant Conditioning Theory and Cognitive Social Learning Theory, which I talked about in this ask because I think I’m funny and this blog is an archive of me applying human behavior theories to video games.

Spartans have always been taught the mission comes first! Always! The 2s are indoctrinated from age 6-14 and then have that reinforced the rest of their lives. From the beginning they are taught to push themselves to the limits, earn their food by winning, form bonds with teammates but be ready to sacrifice them for the mission. The whole lives wasted vs spent conversation between John and Mendez after the augmentation surgery!

What the UNSC/ONI wants comes before their lives, the lives of other soldiers, civilians, AI etc. This constant conditioning of expectations and rewards has created the norms cemented in their minds. This becomes standard operating procedure.

Spartans are also an entirely separated social group, other people have made really great posts on how they are Othered and have their own way of communicating with body language. ODSTs hate Spartans, marines see them as cyborgs or saviors, and while they’re allies, Spartans are not seen or treated as human, by literally everyone. They are a means to an end, with the original goal being to maintain the UNSC’s position of power and crush the insurrectionists in the outer colonies, but uh oh Aliens!

Maybe the 2s aren’t as expendable as the 3s but the mindset and reinforcement of “mission first, people second” being repeated their entire lives is going to stick. So is the constant mistreatment and abuse from their fellow soldiers and handlers.

Addressing the cognitive distortions that come from their upbringing while also balancing the fact that Spartans are so fundamentally different from the way they developed to survive would be so much work, especially considering how much information on them is given to their therapist. The main distortion I would apply is minimization, making large problems small and not properly dealing with them, and specifically for John, personification, accepting blame for negative events without sufficient evidence.

Like these are grown ass super soldiers who can kill you in less than a second and calculate the amount of gravity in a room on the fly but then also can flounder when trying to comfort civilians or make small talk because their experiences and values are so alien to adults who had more developmentally “normal” lives.

Literally applying therapy to Spartans would be like, what was done to you was wrong, the ends do not justify the means, you were children and the adults in your life failed to protect you. You are a human person who is fallible and did the best you could with what you had. And the Spartan would say, “sounds fake but okay, can I pass my psych eval and go back to war now please?”

Jumping back to Behavior Theory

Different approaches to therapy under the Behavior Theory umbrella help modify negative behaviors with treatments like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical behavior therapy that teach individuals adaptive coping like emotional regulation, distress tolerance, cognitive distortions, and interpersonal communication. And that’s just one framework under the umbrella of human behavior theories.

Social work therapy is different from psych as it approaches individuals with heavily researched, evidence-based theories and frameworks in a holistic viewing of person-in-environment, instead of a strong focus on internal psychology.

Social work looks at all the interacting systems, environment, history, and internal and external factors affecting an individual. One of the most useful frameworks is the Biopsychosocial-Spiritual Frameworks (BPSS) when helping a client. It helps with identifying all the intersecting factors, both risk and protective, that shapes a client’s lived experiences. The most important thing to remember is that the individual is an expert in their own life, they know their experiences best.

The hardest part is applying this to Spartans because they Are So Fucked, their lived experiences, their environments and systems and institutions interacting with them, and the amount of their personal information that is probably so classified.

BPSS is a tool to help social workers assess individuals and their situations by collecting info that is related to the presenting issues and current and past circumstances. Info like medical history, hospitalizations, substance abuse, mental illness, personal relationships, family history and background, culture and norms, education, legal history, spirituality and participation etc. is all under this framework.

For Spartan 2s most of this info is lost or classified and helping someone who has repressed every negative emotion they've had for the sake of the mission would be so much to unpack but that’s also why you’re reading the mad ramblings over an over caffeinated nerd on the internet.

Life Course Theory which looks at developmental milestones and the individual’s experiences versus the socially expected markers, how do you apply that to children who were taken and have lived such different lives?

While early adolescence is when “normal” development of thoughts of self and identity take place alongside the physical changes of puberty, Spartans were being turned into emotionless calculating weapons. Sorry John, no forming a sense of identity and peer bonds for you, go kill that Watts guy who betrayed us and joined the insurrectionists.

And now that I’ve gone this insane and opened 2 whole textbooks up, let’s get to Master Chief thoughts. If you’ve read this far thank you, I swear I’m normal, 2020 has just been a weird year.

Why the fuck did I think I could write a therapy fic on a guy with 20 minutes of actual dialogue across almost 2 decades of games?

I make fun of him and call him a himbo, but he’s smart, he knows he’s being used and there is resentment there that’s been building for years.

There’s also decades of trauma and combat experience, physical, and emotional abuse, the lack of a support network, lack of an identity, the biological factors and aftermath of the augmentations and injuries he’s received, a whole lot of grief and self-inflicted guilt.

The loss of a third of his peer group with the augmentation surgery, Sam’s death, the loss of Reach (the only place he’s considered home), Keyes, the Pillar of Autumn crew, Miranda Keyes, Johnson, Cortana. He cares about the marines who fight with him!!!

He just stands there and takes it and rarely snaps, and even then it’s just small cracks on the surface with fissures running deep. The few details I will pull from Halo 5 are Blue Team’s reactions to John pushing himself so hard from the beginning of the game, and the literal crack in his armor from the fight with Locke. Like dude.

John’s a leader and will get the mission done but he tugs on the leash. He’s earned enough of a reputation and uses it to get his way.

Halo 2’s “Permission to leave the station” with Mr. “I’m going to hand deliver a bomb to the fusion reactor of a covenant supercarrier and hope my friends catch me”.

Halo 4 is when we see him say no to a superior officer and then 5 is him going AWOL. Palmer literally points out that no one is going to stop him.

Halo 5 kills me for many reasons but John bringing up Halsey and what she did to him and also pointing out that he knows Halo 5 Cortana is trying to manipulate him with psychological tactics hurts.

He knows what’s been done to him!

I cannot remember which book it was but John isn’t used to working alone. He literally takes fire because he was expecting someone to have his back!

He’s lost without Cortana! She was in his brain! Y’all! I played Halo Combat Evolved on the original xbox when I was like 8 and I knew these two were meant to be together. From the moment they met they had great chemistry and relied on each other! Cortana literally goes after people who have it out for John! John wants her approval and shows off for her in one of the books.

I’ve already written too much here but like all of the games have John showing off for Cortana, making dry jokes, jumping out of things he shouldn’t.

The whole point of this rambling is to try and get my thoughts about how to approach John’s character under control.

And that’s the thing. He’s lost control. He’s lost people, he’s losing his position and being phased out as an aging spartan, a relic. John’s used to following orders and making some decisions on the battlefield but it was always short term.

He has no identity beyond being a weapon. Complete the mission, clear the LZ, get put in cryo. Rinse, repeat.

The timeline of the games are what I'm most familiar with but with the comics and books too it’s one long run from Halo 2 to Halo 4. Cairo station to the Dreadnought to the crash landing to Forward Unto Dawn to Requiem to “The Didact is Dead but not really but we’ll deal with him off-screen”.

I know Hood apparently gave John R&R orders before Halo 5 that he ignored and kept running himself into the ground. This is a man who has to keep moving and keep being useful.

I imagine him giving in and seeking help as a last resort to fix any problems he has with performing his duties rather than helping himself be healthier.

Any professional he sees is going to have to approach him like they’re approaching a self sacrificing feral cat, with lunch meat and quiet. This man needs to have his support network closer, set up long term goals, and do some serious, and most likely incredibly painful, self reflection on where he’s come from and where he wants to go. Get him out of that tin can and into therapy. I don’t have a nice neat ending because this was a ramble and also therapy is not neat and tidy. Thanks for reading my words about mr halo

#this is not coherent but it needs out of my brain #John - has different characterizations based on what media he's in #Me - my writing must be in character or I Will Die #also me - we don't talk about halo 5 but i will loot its corpse for bits of lore I like #im sorry for being like this #my writing #Therapy time #John 117 #this is not a halo blog #haha this was peer reviewed nonsense #thanks yall for enabling me #i have even more ideas for the infinity sitcom folder now

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neochatarra · 3 years

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8 Untold Signs Of Narcissist People

Sometimes the signs of narcissism aren't so obvious and narcissists fly under our radar. Not every narcissist may be a puffed-up addict or a Mean Girl like Regina George. If they were, we could see the signs from a mile away and steer clear. No, many narcissists are sensitive, thoughtful, and generous – until the charade wears off, of course.

That's why it's so important to know the subtle signs of narcissism that you simply won't notice until it's too late and they've sucked you into their region.

What's the Difference Between an Overt and Covert Narcissist?

Many people tend to consider narcissists as having extroverted personalities. They're flamboyant and demand to be the middle of attention – how are you able to miss them?

The truth is, introverts also can be narcissists. These are those who fool us into their web of manipulation.

"They're not self-absorbed – they're just sensitive!"

"They're not a nasty friend – they're just misunderstood!"

After forming a relationship with a covert narcissist, you realize that this sensitivity and isolation were, in fact, signs of narcissism. Since the signs weren't so obvious, however, you completely misjudged things.

8 Signs of Narcissism You Can't-Miss

Since the covert narcissist is best at hiding their abusive behavior, it's important to know the subtle cues that give them away.

1. They'll Never Utter the Phrase "I Don't Know"

I once knew a narcissist who was so averse to the present phrase that he would rather give someone dangerously incorrect answers than admit to not knowing something. He was confident in his woefully wrong answers, too.

Why do this?

Answering an issue with "I don't know" deprives the narcissist of important attention. The person seeking a solution will simply advance to somebody else who might help them. That's an enormous ego hit.

That's why you'll often find narcissists rambling on about topics they need no business speaking on.

2. They Are A Nasty Friend

The narcissist is usually a nasty friend but you'll typically find them playing the victim. confirm to urge all sides of the story if you're unsure.

What are some red flag signs of narcissism that indicate the suspect may be a narcissist?

• They get irritated when their friends invite help or advice.

• They don't bother to call or text their friends on birthdays or holidays.

• They don't return borrowed items. (A sign of entitlement.)

• They owe their friends money. they'll downplay this as "not an enormous deal."

• They embarrass their friends ahead of others.

• They hunt down or entertain their friends' partners or love interests.

They also treat waitstaff or service workers poorly. This is a dead giveaway. run the hills. Anyone who disrespects waitstaff or service workers views people as "beneath" them. Soon, you'll be a part of the inferiors also.

3. They Need To Insert Themselves Into Every Story

A covert narcissist might not demand everyone's attention. They will, however, still find how to form everything about them. an outsized part of this strategy involves inserting themselves into every story.

Is a coworker talking about their experience with homelessness? The narcissist, too, features a story about being poor.

Is a lover talking about his amazing trip to Vietnam? The narcissist also had a friend who visited Vietnam. And guess what? She heard it wasn't so great.

No matter the subject, the narcissist features a remarkable skill for turning the eye their way – regardless of how innocuous it'd seem.

4. They're Sensitive

At first, you'll appreciate their ability to freely express emotions. this is often an excellent tactic narcissists use to lure empathetic people into their trap.

Maybe a fast-food worker got their order wrong and therefore the narcissist hasn't shut up about it all day. Maybe their boss asked them to prevent playing on their phone such a lot and now the narcissist is crying about it over dinner.

As time goes on, you'll realize that the narcissist isn't vulnerable and sensitive: their fragile ego can't handle honest mistakes and valid criticism. To the narcissist, these are personal attacks.

5. They Form Relationships Based On What Someone Can "Do for Them"

If you're at a celebration and therefore the suspected narcissist suggests you ask someone because they will help together with your career or financial situation, don't ignore it. They aren't trying to assist you: they're letting you in on their game.

Narcissists tend to make shallow friendships that supported what people can do for them. You'll often find narcissists make friends with horribly toxic people simply because these folks have money, own bars, or offers career opportunities.

6. Their Stories Don't Match Reality

Both the overt and covert narcissist has an inflated sense of self. The thing is, they believe their lies. As a result, you'll often find they recall stories much differently than the situations played out.

If you notice that the suspect constantly reframes stories to form themselves the hero or victim, retreat fast – this is often one among the various signs of narcissism. By changing the story to suit their narrative, the narcissist is gaslighting everyone else involved.

It's not cute or funny to constantly need to correct them. Sooner or later, they'll start gaslighting you, too.

7. They Observe and Judge

"There's no way she will be a narcissist. When we're out with friends, she barely says ten words!"

I hear it all the time. By sitting back and observing everyone, however, the covert narcissist is silently taking notes and judging. I'm sure you heard all about her observations on the car ride home.

The narcissist must feel superior to everyone around them. this is often easy to try to do once you don't open your mouth to interact in conversation and instead sit back to require notes about everyone's shortcomings.

8. They Only Hear Bits and Pieces of Your Stories

Does it desire the suspected narcissist just isn't. listening? They're probably not. And if they're, they don't care.

Maybe you spent ten minutes venting to your mother about how you didn't get that promotion at work because you showed up late one solitary time with a legitimate reason. How did she respond? "Well, maybe you'll remember to point out up on time from now on."

You can't be the victim. Only the narcissist is often the victim.

You see this ton with narcissist parents or partners who listen only enough to toss stuff back in your face later.

How to Turn the Tables on a Narcissist?

Perhaps you've gone on a couple of dates with someone or a replacement coworker joined your team. you think they'll be a narcissist but you aren't entirely sure.

After all, the covert narcissist is especially cunning at hiding the more obvious signs of narcissism. Here's the way to turn the tables on a narcissist and obtain them to show themselves.

• Play along. Don't give the suspected narcissist room to regulate their manipulation tactics – play stupid and pretend you completely believe them. Use this chance to document their behavior.

• Remain indifferent. If you want to continue handling an overt or covert narcissist for reasons out of your control, act indifferent to their behavior. The narcissist wants to use your emotions against you. If you don't give them anything to figure with, they'll seek their fix elsewhere.

• Find Support: this might only include one or two people you trust. open up to someone who will validate and believe you.

At the top of the day, the sole thanks to truly turn the tables on a narcissist are to chop them off completely. If that they had any real intentions of adjusting, they might have done so already.

The narcissist won't suddenly see things your way. If they ever do, it's – a) for a fleeting moment and b) to use against you later. Don't believe the conflicting information you would possibly see from other websites or therapists – the narcissist will never change.

With a mental disease, a chemical imbalance within the brain may cause different disturbances that manifest as depression, anxiety, and lots of others. Although complex, mental illnesses tend to reply well to medication because it targets the physical root of the problem: like a chemical imbalance. Though it's been determined that a lot of mental illnesses like depression and anxiety are frequently caused by unresolved emotional trauma, often dating as far back as childhood.

Personality disorders occur due to a repetitive stimuli-reward environment. At some point in their life, the narcissist realized they might elicit specific reactions and emotions from people – and it felt good and helped them achieve their self-fulfilling agendas.

Anything but cutting them out of your life will offer you a mental and emotional breakdown.

No Contact is that the Only Way to Packing Up A Narcissist

Many narcissists have always been this manner – whilst far back as their teenage or childhood years. If you're handling a narcissist, you can't and will not expect them to vary their behavior now or ever.

Treatment for personality disorders often involves things like cognitive behavioral therapy. In many cases, a narcissist can also suffer from other mental illnesses like depression or substance use disorder. (You've probably heard extensively about these problems, too, when the narcissist needs your sympathy or someone responsible .)

ىDespite this, there's little evidence to suggest therapy works for narcissists as personality disorders are notoriously difficult to treat. the primary step to getting assistance is to admit a drag exists – the narcissist will never believe they need or are a drag.

No Contact is that the only option.

Trust in yourself and your network. Because once you get to the opposite side and stick with No Contact, you'll be amazed by all the amazing belongings you can accomplish.

#narcissitic #narcissist #covert narcissism #narcissismawareness #narcissus

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missingbruises · 4 years

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[2] --- jamie experiences a devastating condition known as C-PTSD, or complex PTSD. this greatly affects his life, relationships, personality and how he responds to certain situations. this is in response to the years of abuse suffered throughout his childhood and young adult life.

after running away from his final foster family at 13-14 (he still keeps in touch), he was detained in a juvenile detention centre (a her majesty’s youth offender institution) for seven months for possession (marijuana), attacking a peace officer and “anti-social behaviour”. during this time, he was diagnosed with both MDD, major depressive disorder, and C-PTSD. during the seven months in the centre, he received excellent treatment and managed to obtain several GCSE’s. this was a rather happy period in his life and he speaks almost fondly of his time there. unfortunately, upon release, he relapsed into more violent behaviours and ceased taking his medication. the lack of enforced order or immediate consequence

at sixteen, he is again briefly jailed for battery against a close friend. the friend elected not to press charges stating that he was partially at fault for the incident. the court agreed but mandated that jamie see a therapist until his anger and C-PTSD became self-manageable. at eighteen, he was considered an adult and released from the mandate.

COMPLEX-PTSD: What additional symptoms are seen in Complex PTSD? An individual who experienced a prolonged period (months to years) of chronic victimization and total control by another may also experience the following difficulties:

Emotional Regulation. May include persistent sadness, suicidal thoughts, explosive anger, or inhibited anger.

Consciousness. Includes forgetting traumatic events, reliving traumatic events, or having episodes in which one feels detached from one’s mental processes or body (dissociation).

Self-Perception. May include helplessness, shame, guilt, stigma, and a sense of being completely different from other human beings.

Distorted Perceptions of the Perpetrator. Examples include attributing total power to the perpetrator, becoming preoccupied with the relationship to the perpetrator, or preoccupied with revenge.

Relations with Others. Examples include isolation, distrust, or a repeated search for a rescuer.

One’s System of Meanings. May include a loss of sustaining faith or a sense of hopelessness and despair.

Survivors may avoid thinking and talking about trauma-related topics because the feelings associated with the trauma are often overwhelming.

Survivors may use alcohol or other substances as a way to avoid and numb feelings and thoughts related to the trauma.

Survivors may engage in self-mutilation and other forms of self-harm.

Survivors who have been abused repeatedly are sometimes mistaken as having a “weak character” or are unjustly blamed for the symptoms they experience as a result of victimization.

C-PTSD - What it Feels Like:

People who suffer from C-PTSD may feel un-centered and shaky, as if they are likely to have an embarrassing emotional breakdown or burst into tears at any moment. They may feel unloved - or that nothing they can accomplish is ever going to be “good enough” for others.

People who suffer from C-PTSD may feel compelled to get away from others and be by themselves, so that no-one will witness what may come next. They may feel afraid to form close friendships to prevent possible loss should another catastrophe strike.

People who suffer from C-PTSD may feel that everything is just about to go “out the window” and that they will not be able to handle even the simplest task. They may be too distracted by what is going on at home to focus on being successful at school or in the workplace.

C-PTSD Characteristics:

How it can manifest in the victim(s) over time:

Rage turned inward: Eating disorders. Depression. Substance Abuse / Alcoholism. Truancy. Dropping out. Promiscuity. Co-dependence. Doormat syndrome (choosing poor partners, trying to please someone who can never be pleased, trying to resolve the primal relationship)

Rage turned outward: Theft. Destruction of property. Violence. Becoming a control freak.

Other: Learned hyper vigilance. Clouded perception or blinders about others (especially romantic partners) Seeks positions of power and / or control: choosing occupations or recreational outlets which may put oneself in physical danger. Or choosing to become a “fixer” - Therapist, Mediator, etc.

Avoidance - The practice of withdrawing from relationships with other people as a defensive measure to reduce the risk of rejection, accountability, criticism or exposure.

Blaming - The practice of identifying a person or people responsible for creating a problem, rather than identifying ways of dealing with the problem.

Catastrophizing - The habit of automatically assuming a “worst case scenario” and inappropriately characterizing minor or moderate problems or issues as catastrophic events.

“Control-Me” Syndrome - This describes a tendency which some people have to foster relationships with people who have a controlling narcissistic, antisocial or “acting-out” nature.

Denial - Believing or imagining that some painful or traumatic circumstance, event or memory does not exist or did not happen.

Dependency - An inappropriate and chronic reliance by an adult individual on another individual for their health, subsistence, decision making or personal and emotional well-being.

Depression (Non-PD) -Depression is when you feel sadder than your circumstances dictate, for longer than your circumstances last, but still can’t seem to break out of it.

Escape To Fantasy - Taking an imaginary excursion to a happier, more hopeful place.

Fear of Abandonment - An irrational belief that one is imminent danger of being personally rejected, discarded or replaced.

Relationship Hyper Vigilance - Maintaining an unhealthy level of interest in the behaviors, comments, thoughts and interests of others.

Identity Disturbance - A psychological term used to describe a distorted or inconsistent self-view

Learned Helplessness- Learned helplessness is when a person begins to believe that they have no control over a situation, even when they do.

Low Self-Esteem - A common name for a negatively-distorted self-view which is inconsistent with reality.

Panic Attacks - Short intense episodes of fear or anxiety, often accompanied by physical symptoms, such as hyperventilating, shaking, sweating and chills.

Perfectionism - The maladaptive practice of holding oneself or others to an unrealistic, unattainable or unsustainable standard of organization, order, or accomplishment in one particular area of living, while sometimes neglecting common standards of organization, order or accomplishment in other areas of living.

Selective Memory and Selective Amnesia - The use of memory, or a lack of memory, which is selective to the point of reinforcing a bias, belief or desired outcome.

Self-Loathing - An extreme hatred of one’s own self, actions or one’s ethnic or demographic background.

Tunnel Vision - The habit or tendency to only see or focus on a single priority while neglecting or ignoring other important priorities.

REFERENCE: 1, 2, 3, 4

#Headcanon #jamie #complex ptsd #tw; mental health #somewhatdamaged.txt #a post i made over 4 years ago on my other blog #putting it under a read more cuz i know some people dont like this on their dash

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jamiebluewind · 5 years

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Fantasy High Theory: Fabian has an eating disorder

TW: eating disorder symptoms, anorexia symptoms, abuse mention, death mention, violence mention, gun mention, alcohol mention, drug mention, trauma mention, smoking mention,...

Word Count: about 2100

I know this is a big assumption to make with what we have, but I couldn't ignore all the data and the warning signs. In fact, I think that even if Fabian does not have an eating disorder at this time, he's certainly at risk for one and needs the issues addressed before it gets worse.

Before I get into it, let me remind everyone that I am about to talk about a very heavy subject. Remember, stay safe and consider the warnings before you continue. You can always message me for a summary of the red flags or for an edited version if you need it. I would rather you be safe than to have you're like on my theory.

Okay? Okay. Let's start by defining a few things.

Eating Disorder: Any of a range of psychological disorders in which people experience severe disturbances in their eating behaviors and related thoughts/emotions. People with eating disorders typically become pre-occupied with food and/or their body weight/shape.

ARFID: Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder is an eating disorder characterized by eating very little food and/or avoiding eating certain foods. It does not include having a distorted body image (as occurs in anorexia nervosa) or being preoccupied with body image (as occurs in bulimia nervosa). People with avoidant/restrictive food intake may not eat because they lose interest in eating or because they think eating has harmful consequences. They may avoid certain foods because of their color, consistency, or odor. When it becomes more severe, it can cause substantial weight loss, slower-than-expected growth in children, difficulty participating in normal social activities, and sometimes life-threatening nutritional deficiencies.

Anorexia nervosa: Diagnosed when patient BMI (body mass index which is a rule of thumb measuring body size vs mass) is low for their age and height. Severity is classified as mild (BMI of greater than 17), moderate (BMI of 16–16.99), severe (BMI of 15–15.99), or extreme (BMI of less than 15). Hallmarks of anorexia include limited food intake, excessive monitoring of the calorie and fat content of food, fear of being “fat”, problems with body image, denial of low body weight, excessive exercise, food rituals, cold intolerance, mood swings, sleeping issues, chronic fatigue, distorted body image, and many more. Eventually, the body goes into starvation which cause a lot of bad symptoms.

Atypical anorexia nervosa: All of the criteria for anorexia nervosa are met, except the individual's weight is within or above the normal range.

Again, ANY BMI can still mean a person has an eating disorder. It is NOT confined to those that are underweight. The BMI is only there as a red flag and to help classify severity of anorexia. I want to make this very clear, not just for my theory, but for the people reading this who recognize parts of it in themselves or others. I'm about to give an example that gets... personal in order to show that people who don't fit the stereotype of being underweight can still have an eating disorder. How personal? My own.

I am overweight to obese (depending on the doctor and the range). I don't exercise much. I eat pretty well around friends. But I have an eating disorder. I just... don't get hungry most of the time, so I forget to eat a lot more often than is healthy. A LOT more. I've been to the hospital a few times due to dehydration. I've collapsed because I literally forgot to eat for two or three days. I could have died at one point because despite being overweight, I was eating so little that things just... stopped working. Again, I was overweight. People and doctors thought I was just lazy. I was told to eat less and exercise more. Even my blood tests came back fine until one day, they didn't. And even then, nobody listened. Somebody doesn't have to look how you expect them to in order to have a problem. Also, don't be afraid to reach out for help if you feel like some of this hits close to home or someone you know is showing symptoms. It's okay to need help.

So remember, eating disorders can affect anybody with any body. The important thing is to be kind, supportive, and encourage professional help such as cognitive therapy.

****

Now to list Fabian's risk factors (I only listed the ones I believe he has)

Dysfunction family: This is a big risk factor for Fabian. His father is chaotic evil and (despite loving his son) puts massive pressure on him and tries to make him conform to his ideal for most of Fabian's life. Fabian has seen his father abuse his crew and snap at the drop of a hat. His mother has been a heavy alcoholic and mostly absent his entire first 16 years and when she gets off alcohol, she puts an extreme amount of pressure on him herself.

Abuse: This is another big one. His parents have been verbally abusive, emotionally abusive, neglectful in a variety of ways, controlling, manipulative, isolating, and his mother rested his food intake. He could have also been physically abused in the guise of sparing.

Genetics: Fabian's mother is very slim. Using images of weights and comparing it to her shape, she in fact fits the underweight shape which may or may not imply a genetic component depending on if the normal body shapes are different for high elves or not.

Exposure to warped body ideals and weight stigma: Exposure to "body ideals" in places like the media (especially if at a young age) can increase body dysfunction and eating disorder risk. Weight stigma can make this worse due to discrimination and stereotyping based on a person’s weight. Fabian has actually been exposed to this a lot due to his father and the crew. He's a kid around very strong muscular people and he feels pushed to get stronger to live up to his dad. It's also very easy to imagine that crew members who were not strong or active enough got a very bad reaction from his father, which would reinforce the ideal. Some of this is conjecture, but it's not so far outside the realm of possibility to be impossible.

Participation in sports: He's on the Bloodrush team and is a fencer.

Pressure to have a certain body shape from family: I think this risk factor is there too, especially when his mother takes over training.

Bullying/Teasing: Fabian was actually bullied by peers when he first starts school, but I believe his parents were bullying him long before that.

Trauma and PTSD: Oh boy, is this solid. He was most likely traumitized by his parents before high school. He saw two new friends die the first day of school and nearly died himself, only saved by Riz. He watched two teachers die by gunshot right in front of him (and a staff member killed by bludgeoning). Fabian mentions having nightmares about Riz killing Daybreak which might have been due to it being via gunshot. He was forced to kill people due to the situation he found himself in. The person who was supposed to have been helping them the entire time (Biz) turned out to be an evil dude who trapped one friend in a palimpsest and wanted to capture another. He was stuck in jail for weeks! His family was attacked, his home was damaged, and his dad died (and by his hand no less). He and his friends almost died to a dragon. That's a LOT of trauma for a kid to try to process and Jawbone mentioned that he never came to visit him, so he probably dealt with a lot of it on his own.

Low self-esteem: This is unfortunately something else he has. Despite all the bravado, he doesn't know how to be a friend or have people like him for who he is (instead of who his parents are or how much money he has). He tries to put up a cool front, but he judges himself very harshly.

Perfectionism. One of the strongest risk factors for an eating disorder is perfectionism, especially self-oriented perfectionism, which involves setting unrealistically high expectations for oneself. If they fail to meet their high expectations, the person becomes very self-critical. Fabian has this type of perfectionism.

History of an anxiety disorder: This one is reaching, but possible. People often show signs of an anxiety disorder (generalized anxiety, social phobia, OCD,...) before the onset of an eating disorder and Fabian stays on edge a lot, worries excessively, puts up a front, and deals with nightmares.

Substance abuse: Fabian has had alcohol and drugs before the age of 16, his parents almost encouraging it. He smokes regularly. Addiction runs in his family as well with his mother being an alcoholic and his father doing multiple drugs. Neither parent even hides the fact that they take drugs and drink alcohol to excess, the crew probably took drugs and got drunk in front of a young Fabian, and Bill offered drugs to his friends upon meeting them.

History of using weight-controling methods and dieting: Fabian exercises a great deal. He skips meals. He has a limited number of things he will eat. There is a lot of evidence to back this up.

Limited social networks: This was a HUGE issue before high school. Fabian was very isolated. He had no friends, limited social activities, and lacked proper social support. Recently, he's been skipping class exclusively which on top of smoking a lot, puts distance between him and other people.

Long story short? Our boy is at risk. Big time.

****

List of common signs of eating disorders (including anorexia)

Limited food intake: Seen when he has mostly protein smoothies, his mother tries to give him limited rations, and when he refuses to eat with his friends more and more as the series goes on. The first incident of it was in Cool Kids, Cold Case where Fabian refused the food he was offered on two separate occasions, passing it to Riz both times. Once was after the battle with Daybreak and being stuck at the police station a good while. The other was when the teens were hanging out at Riz's appartment when Sklonda got takeout. Fabian's mom also makes him earn food as seen in the live show. This mentality could have very well been internalized, even with Cathilda there to try and give him more.

Excessive monitoring of the calorie and fat content of food: He worries about empty calories, how fattening something is, and removed the cheese from a slice of pizza and dabbed the oil

Fear of being “fat” or in a shape that is not the ideal: In episode 1 of season 2, he is very preoccupied with staying trim and tight.

Excessive exercise: He exercises who knows how long every morning plus for Bloodrush plus the times outside of that

Food rituals: This is interacting with food a certain way (like small bites or how it's prepared) which causes anxiety when not followed. The pizza event might be one, but it's hard to say without a pattern.

Sleeping issues: Fabian has issues with sleeping, dreaming, and nightmares. His father confirmed this and he himself mentioned his nightmares.

Weight loss: By comparing his previous official artwork with his new official artwork, it's easy to see that Fabian looks visibly thinner. He's also VERY cut. (very defined muscles requiring very little fat) for his age. He was muscular last year sure, but his chest and abs are much more defined this year. Being that cut means that despite how muscular Fabian is, he has been eating less and probably doing fat burning exercises, getting a lot of his nutrition from multivitamins and whey, and would have less energy than normal.

Negative energy balance/chronic fatigue: This is only a possibility, but it deserves being mentioned. If this is going on, it puts a spin on some of Fabian's other actions in season 2, episode 1. He showed up late on move in day and didn't really move anything (just carried a book), which might have been a character thing, but could have also been because Fabian is running on empty and capable of things like adrenaline fueled busts of energy, but otherwise dealing with low energy and fatigue.

Also, Fabian is smoking now which works as an appetite suppressant as is common among those with eating disorders.

(Signs with no evidence as of this post: problems with body image, denial of low body weight, cold intolerance, mood swings)

~*~*~*~*~*~

TLDR: Fabian is showing a lot of symptoms of an eating disorder and also over a dozen risk factors. The number of both is substantial enough to see a pattern. Enough that I sincerely hope that it's acknowledged during the season because if Fabian does not have an eating disorder, he is at substantial risk of developing one.

PS: I know it's data heavy, I might have missed a few things, and it could be totally wrong, but I seen enough there that I thought it might make for a solid theory. D20 is no stranger to heavy subjects and I think if they do cover it, they will do a good job (as always). If they don't, I still learned a lot making this theory and maybe a few of you will as well. ^_^

#fantasy high #fabian seacaster #d20 theory #dimension 20 #d20 #theory #tw eating disorder #tw anorexia #tw anxiety mention #tw abuse mention #tw violence mention #tw trauma mention #fantasy high spoilers #tinfoil time

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galadrieljones · 7 years

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Writing question time! I remember you said at one point that you use Abelas as a foil for Solas. Can you elaborate on that? What does a 'foil' mean, technically? How do you go about developing a character to fill that role? And, expanding further, how do you develop characters to be complementary to each other? Is there certain steps you think of, or does it come naturally? I am thinking of Revesan and Rasha, and also of Mythal and Lea? (and personally, I need a friend for Iwyn in modern AUs)

Hey! Yay thank you for the writing question. I am all about this!

A foil is basically a character that is, in some way, complimentary to the protagonist, or just to any other main character in a story. They can be dramatic opposites in many ways, or they can be very alike but just dissimilar in really key ways. The point is that the foil’s traits, in some way, highlight certain important traits in the character they’re foiling. I actually just looked it up on Wikipedia to learn the etymology of the word, and it seems to come from an old-fashioned method of placing foil behind gems inside of jewelry, to make them shine more brightly.

In terms of inventing and developing strong, interesting complimentary characters, here’s one way to boil it down:

You realize that a main character needs to change, or their character needs to be developed in some way You might not even know how they need these things, but you just know they need them. Change and development don’t have to be dramatic. This can just be about deepening character development in some way.

So you introduce a new character (or you reintroduce an old character) as a way of propagating that change/development in some way, as a foil. Usually they come bearing a veiled choice of some sort, or a question, or an opportunity, though not always. They could merely be a consequence of circumstance.

BUT, and this is the really important part: you MUST give the foil character their own life and characterization, independent of the main character. They must be given traits and development of their own, even if it is minor. They must not exist solely for the development of the main character. They cannot be made JUST for the story. They must be a character of their own–one that can also be “foiled.”

The easy mistake to make: The problem with a lot of foil characters is that, too often, they don’t seem to exist for any other reason than to compliment the main character. This sort of thing can be found in a lot of romantic comedies, ie: the “best friend” character. The best friend usually exists only as a sounding board, to offer encouragement and resources to the leading lady, and to be a quirky, off-beat comparison who never exists in competition. She is not a true foil, though she’s acting like one in the story. But she has no actual characterization of her own (beyond the most surface-level traits). So she’s not really a character at all. She’s just like, a symbol. She’s just furniture. Very comfy furniture for the leading lady to sit on whenever times get rough.

How I write complimentary characters: I am usually, to some extent, aware of how characters foil each other when I write them. Especially in the beginning. I develop the relationship between the two characters using scenes in which they talk and cooperate, sometimes in which they argue, depending on their dynamic and/or where we are in the plot of the story. I am usually pretty conscious of what kinds of characterization I need to develop with each scene, as well as what kinds of plot or actions I need to address, and so I choose the situation for each scene pretty carefully, and I try to vary my scenes as much as possible, and also to choose off, unexpected situations for my scenes, as a way of exploring characterization in new, challenging ways. So like, not every scene can be a conversation over a meal, or driving in a car. There has to be something else. I also pay close attention to the dialogue between foil characters, to make sure that they’re not just talking back and forth, answering each other one-to-one, but that they speak in accordance with their own individual agendas and interests.

Sometimes, I also develop my characters and their relationships by having them do something very mundane together, something that’s off-topic, occupying themselves, but together. Being alone together, and letting their actions communicate their individual characteristics, and how those characteristics are complimentary to one another. Sometimes, you can have a third character there as a sort of anchor. This kind of scene, I’ve found, is especially useful when writing romantic relationships–making sure that complimentary characters exist independently, without constant verbal interaction, and developing their complimentary traits via action, and also separately, not always in conversation with one another. Even if characters are talking to each other, they can be doing separate things. This is a really good way to make sure that foils (and secondary characters in general) are not just like, sounding boards there to serve the main character.

Basically, at some point, foils must be more than foils in order to be interesting. They must be real. They must have backstories and lives, wants and desires and fears, even if those things are only implied in small ways. I think that’s the hardest part, and the part to be most aware of when writing ALL characters, ie: to NOT just think of them as foils, but as simply characters. Most characters are complimentary to the protagonist, and to each other, in SOME way.

Abelas and Solas

Abelas is a foil for Solas because he is a lot like Solas, but he is drastically different from Solas in very important ways that call attention to Solas’s vulnerabilities. Both Solas and Abelas were recruited by Mythal when they were teenagers. They are huge ancient elves with a lot of power, and they have tragic backstories involving the deaths of one or more immediate family members. They were ranked #1 and #2 in Mythal’s armies during the Great War of Elvhenan, and in The Dead Season, they are both, at some point in the story, attracted to Sene. One could also argue that Sene is attracted to them both at some point as well. They both abuse substances to cope with their problems, and they both have a lot of trauma that they’re trying to overcome.

But Abelas is simpler than Solas. At some point, Mythal describes him as a “uncomplicated.” She says that “he is not like Solas” because “he sees things for what they are, and he goes right to them. He is practical.” Abelas is hyper-literal, where Solas hyper-analytical. Abelas knows how to let go of control. He understands that happiness is a state of mind, and that all he must do is reach that state of mind, and then, he can be happy. Solas is highly controlling. He overanalyzes every last step he must take on his journey toward happiness, and he must do this because it allows him to feel in control. So when Abelas and Solas meet in Crestwood, and Abelas begins interrogating Solas on what is going on with this Dalish girl, he is literally just asking. He just wants to know. But Solas is overanalyzing the entire situation, and he’s reading all sorts of things into Abelas’s questions. He distrusts Abelas, becomes defensive, gets angry, then realizes he has lost, and gives up. These are vulnerable moments for Solas. It was hard for me to write Solas’s vulnerabilities at first, because he’s so confident in his exterior, and so charming and intelligent, and so strong. But when seated across from Abelas, who is exactly like him in almost every way, except for in this one key way–his ability to just see and deal with things for what they are, WITHOUT over-complicating–he turns to mush in like half a scene. It felt great to write it lol.

Revasan and Rasha

With Revasan and Rasha–they are foils for one another, because Rasha is HIGHLY docile where Revasan is HIGHLY willful. Also, Rasha is incredibly patient where Rev is incredibly impatient. With her, however, he is suddenly both calm and patient. She brings out the best in him, or at least the quiet. Meanwhile, Revasan is a challenge for Rasha. She is a little too submissive at times, too indecisive, too unsure of herself. But Rev is assertive and confident, and he believes in her, and she wants to meet his hopes and appreciation for her hidden strengths, because she loves him, so with him, she is stronger.

Lea and Mythal

Lea and Mythal are also good foils. They are very similar in many ways. Both were born into extraordinary wealth and bred to be the heads of their houses. But where Mythal took up her mantle, forgoing love and a normal life for status and power, Lea escaped, giving up her and status and power for love. Meanwhile, Lea is funny and lighthearted and playful, where Mythal is serious and dour and easily offended. Lea is practical where Mythal is highly impractical, and extremely high maintenance. Lea makes Mythal laugh and provides her with perspective on her petty dramas, while Mythal allows Lea to feel needed (a compulsion just like her son’s), and her seriousness reminds Lea that all they have experienced is real, and that she cannot hide forever behind her humor and her charm. Mythal is a reminder of Lea’s particular darkness as well–maybe more so to the reader. Lea is an evanuris, and while she may have been hidden away in the attic before, she lives now, full power in a world that, if they knew everything, would fear her. Meanwhile, for Mythal, Lea is a reminder that life is full of second chances–something that Mythal desperately needs to believe if she is to go on. They are foils.

Random foil-y scenes from The Dead Season that come to mind:

Solas and Abelas (first meeting in Crestwood) - Abelas is foiling Solas

Sene, Solas, and Kieran (peeling potatoes at Suledin Keep) - Kieran is foiling them both

Sene and Solas (right before closing the rift in Crestwood) - Solas is foiling Sene

Solas and Dorian (at the tavern in Sahrnia) - Solas is foiling Dorian

Solas and Daniel (outside the Hanged Man in Kirkwall) - Daniel is foiling Solas

Solas and Deshanna (at the Lavellan farm in Ansburg) - Deshanna is foiling Solas

Solas and Revasan (at the Lavellan farm in Ansburg) - Revasan is foiling the literal shit out of Solas

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theticklishpear · 7 years

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Hey pear! I sent you an ask like 100 years algo but i think tumblr ate it, in one of my stories i want to get a Mother and her 17 y/o son to rebuild their relationship. She used to be alcoholic and violent, so he ran away and returned 6 years after to see that she managed to turn her life around and is deeply ashamed and sorry for what she did. How can I make them fix their relationship without it feeling forced? Alcoholism and abuse are delicate topics

Oh gosh, Anon, I’m so sorry! Tumblr must have eaten it because I don’t recall having seen this question and I do a pretty good job of staying on top of my asks. Thanks for being patient and sending in again! Let’s see what we can do for you. Answer is below the cut for those who may not wish to see it.

You might consider taking a look through @scripttraumasurvivors for some additional perspectives and information.

The relationship between a parent and child is built on trust. Society informs us of what, exactly, it’s supposed to mean to be a parent as we grow and interact with each other, with media, and with our families. We head into our relationships with our parents with this expectation that they will fulfill certain responsibilities, and when they don’t, there’s a certain level of trust that evaporates from the child when considering their parent. How badly that trust is damaged and what it would take to mend it is different for each person–child and parent–and each relationship.

How bad were things? Those with alcohol addiction tend to have dysfunctional behavior that varies widely from person to person and situation to situation. You’re going to need to know exactly what kinds of things the mother was doing not only in terms of the violence, but other areas as well. What situations did she use alcohol to avoid? What sorts of things would she forget to do? What were her drinking habits throughout the day? What other relationships aside from their own suffered from her drinking? Knowing these details will help you form a foundation for what kinds of scenes or mentions you’ll need to have upon the son’s return.

For the abuse, you’ll need to understand its depths as well. How far did it go, and how has it impacted him now that he’s moved on? What has his emotional processing looked like in the years following? Has he gotten professional help to deal with the trauma?

When he returns, it’s likely that his guard will be up. He’ll be looking for all those tics that plagued their relationship. The bailing on things and the straight-up forgetting things, the early morning drink, the bottles by the trash. He’ll likely be suspicious, even if he’s shown right away that the house is clean, she’s put together, she meets him on-time (heck, even early) for a lunch outing. It’ll feel like a front, like a lie, a facade to hide the truth.

For you, you’ll have to break past that barrier of hurt, that broken trust. You’ll need to show his questioning and his poking and his prodding at her “facade” to see if it falls. Her alcoholism became his truth for her. Now she needs to show him that it’s not her truth anymore, which of course means you’ll have to know what her new truth looks like.

What has her journey been like through the years he’s been away? What’s her emotional journey been? Where is she in that healing process now? What techniques is she using to help keep her from falling back to alcohol as her comfort? It’s not as easy as that classic line, “I don’t do that anymore. That’s not me.” How? What precautions is she taking? Is her medicine cabinet devoid of any medications that have alcohol as an ingredient? Does her NyQuil have the Alcohol Free flag across it? What kinds of things has she changed about her house, about her work and social lives that he can outwardly see?

How did his running away impact her? How does she see him in light of it, and what kinds of emotions does she harbor about it? What does she believe is the reason for it? What kind of responsibility does she take, if any, and has she done anything about it in the six intervening years?

The key for you is going to be pacing.

Don’t try to mend this too fast. People were hurt by this activity, both physically and emotionally. Six years won’t have fixed it all. There’s going to be hurt on both sides, and the mother may feel that the emotions are disproportionate. He feels hurt because of the obvious things, but she’s hurt because he ran away. Both are victims and both may feel they have the greater right to be angry about it. They need to talk about it.

Plotting out the emotional journey they both need to take will be vital to getting the beats of the story worked out. Plotting emotional arcs are similar to figuring out plot and character arcs, but with the added wiggliness that is human feeling. It’s more abstract, more of things like, “They realize [this thing].” It’s your job to turn that into visible, quantifiable things.

What do they each need to hear, see, or experience in order to move past their trauma? How likely are they to actually hear, see, or experience that? What does the other person have to overcome in order to be able to offer that to them? What kinds of scenes can facilitate these realizations they need to come to? How many ups, down, complications, and events do they need to have for their understanding of each other and the situation to grow?

Remember that their growth doesn’t mean they have to forget, accept, or even move on. Heck, it’s 14 years since a foul interaction with my mother occurred and it still comes roaring back to me sometimes while she doesn’t even remember it happening. Have I forgiven her for that? No, but I understand what she was going through that caused it, and I understand where she is now, and I understand that she’s human. I’ve figured out how to move past it, live without it plaguing every interaction I have with her. Some people can do that and some can’t. Know your characters and their arc–where they need to go to get where you would like their relationship to find its way to. It won’t be perfect for a long time.

Good luck!-Pear

Additional Resources:Effects of Parental Substance Abuse on Children and Families from the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic StressChildren of Addicted Parents: Important Facts from the National Association for Children of AlcoholicsThe Social Effects of Alcoholism from Promises Treatment CentersHow You Can Rebuild Your Relationships Destroyed by Alcoholism from Recovery.orgParenting from Addiction.comRebuilding Relationships After Alcohol Treatment from Alcohol Rehab Guide

#tw #writing #writing tips #relationships #posts by pear #pear responds #anonymous #night of asking

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ewinglogan93 · 4 years

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downsbeatrice · 4 years

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oathkeptroxas · 8 years

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I loved your story on dean & laurel but I'm curious what's your take on those who say that Laurel is a gender-swapped version of Dean? If you agree I would love to get your take on the similarities between Laurel and Dean it's the only similarity I can think of is they are the oldest sibling.

Thanks so much for reading it!! :)

I don’t necessarily agree with referring to Laurel as ‘gender-swapped’ Dean because a) I don’t like that term and it’s implications that there are only 2, binary genders, and b) I feel it discredits Laurel’s individual development and dismisses her as ‘oh a female equivalent of something that’s already been done’.

However, there are a TON of parallels between these two that I believe would make them able to understand each other so well! There’s a difference between a similarity/parallel/comparison and ‘they are the same’.

Though Laurel and Dean are of course both older siblings, that’s not a similarity, that’s a narrative fact, a way in which they are the same. It’s the dynamics with their siblings and their individual personalities in how they deal with them that matter.

Dean would do anything for Sam. He’s sacrificed his life for Sam multiple times, Dean is willing to die for Sam at any given moment, no questions asked. When Sam died Dean did what he had to in order to get him back, consequences be damned. He gave up his childhood so that he could dedicate himself to preserving what was left of Sam’s. Keeping Sam safe is his priority.

Keeping Sara safe growing up was Laurel’s priority. Sara was free-spirited, a rule breaker. Laurel did things by the book, was studying to be a lawyer. Sara was prone to getting herself into trouble, Laurel got her out of it. When Sara died Laurel did whatever she could to bring her back, consequences be damned, no questions asked.

Both Sam and Sara took their older siblings for granted.

Now, in Sam’s case it’s more than forgivable. Dean felt betrayed/deserted by Sam when he left for college, Dean just wanted his family to stay together and hated being alone. However, it’s necessary and healthy to put yourself first sometimes. Sam removed himself from a toxic environment and took the chance to better his life. Yes, it hurt Dean. But it was necessary for Sam’s well-being, even if Dean didn’t understand. Sam may have been far too young when all this started to realize how much Dean gave up for him, and even as the series goes on Sam learns new things about their childhood that allow him to appreciate Dean a little better. Sam’s ‘betrayal’ of Dean is justified and forgivable and not really a betrayal at all (though it felt like one to Dean).

Sara resented Laurel. When Sara told Oliver about how Laurel shut down that party Sara went to and then Sara got grounded and then Oliver and Laurel were dating and Sara said that Laurel only did that to be spiteful and steal Sara’s chance with him. That’s so fucking immature and short sighted?? And totally out of character for Laurel. Now, if you remove Oliver from the equation, Laurel’s actions would have been the same? Her underage sister was lying to her parents, going to a party with older boys where unknown substances were being passed around. Of course Laurel got it shut down? She was being responsible. The fact that Sara made that about a boy because she was jealous is absurd. Laurel had Sara’s best interests at heart and Sara dismissed her as being spiteful. She thought ‘Laurel doesn’t want me to have fun or be happy’, Laurel thought ‘My little sister is putting herself in dangerous situations with people taking advantage of her’.

Laurel and Oliver and Tommy were friends their whole lives. They grew up together. Laurel and Oliver were essentially childhood sweethearts. I’m an older sibling. I know younger siblings follow you around like imprinted ducklings and think that hanging out with the ‘big kids’ makes them cool. Younger siblings having puppy love crushes on their older siblings’ friends is common af. Thea had one on Tommy. So, any ‘feelings’ that Laurel may or may not have known Sara had for Oliver, she could have easily written off as just that? There was no malicious intent on Laurel’s end. Yet, Sara betrayed her by sleeping with her boyfriend to prove a point? And then when Sara returned she started sleeping with Oliver again before she had worked to build the bridges between her family, and then invited Oliver to a family dinner at Laurel’s home when she knew Laurel was going through a hard time?

Now, Dean and Laurel also had similar dynamics with their fathers. John neglected/abused Dean, he took him for granted and made Dean shoulder the weight of his responsibilities. John even acknowledged ‘you shouldn’t have had to do that, it should have been me saying that to you’. Due to the circumstances, Dean was conditioned to believe that Sam’s well-being was his responsibility, and anything that happened to Sam was immediately his fault.

Laurel’s father emotionally abused her and her mother neglected her because they couldn’t handle the fact that Sara was gone. So, Laurel, not being given the chance to grieve her sister and boyfriend (who died whilst fucking behind her back) then got deserted by one parent and mistreated by another. Laurel became Quentin’s carer through his alcoholism and shouldered his responsibilities, despite her own trauma. Quentin even said ‘she was my rock’ because he used Laurel as a emotional crutch and leaned on her constantly whilst offering her constant criticism for her choices. He blamed Oliver for what happened to his family, and in a way blamed Laurel by association, because if it wasn’t for her relationship with him, Oliver wouldn’t have been in the Lance’s lives.

Alcoholism is another comparison. Alcohol is a huge coping mechanism for Dean. We see him wake from nightmares and immediately reach for a bottle, regardless of what time of day it is. Dean is drinking beer or whiskey in almost every episode. It helps him deal with his trauma. It’s not healthy but he’s dependent on it. Despite this dependency though, Dean is a high-functioning alcoholic, in the sense that his addiction does not hinder his ability to live his life and do what he needs to.

Laurel’s alcoholism hit her harder. She was never a big drinker, she didn’t even drink socially very often and not excessively. She went from 0-100. And with an alcoholic father (addictive personalities and substance dependencies can be hereditary) it was almost inevitable that she would become dependent, and that it would become a vice. She couldn’t control it, whereas Dean was able to control his to the point where, though he drank a lot, he did so to cope. Laurel started drowning her sorrows only for it to overrun her entire life, she lost control. Dean’s experiences with the mark of Cain and the first blade are a prime example of an addiction gone wild. Both Dean and Laurel have addictive personalities. This is also shown in their steadfast determination in doing whatever they can to reach an end they’ve set themselves.

Dean saw Charlie as an adoptive sister, they had a lot in common, he loved spending time with her and Dean is a big believer in finding and building a family. Laurel was exactly the same with Thea. Laurel was there for Thea more than Oliver was.

Dean uses meaningless sex as a coping mechanism for his trauma, his lifestyle doesn’t afford him the opportunity to commit. Yet, despite this, Dean has never forgotten the name of any of his one night stands. Dean wanted to build a relationship with Cassie Robinson, she was the first person he came clean about his life to. It was Cassie who turned him down, she knew they would grow to resent each other if they pursued something long distance and didn’t want that for them or herself. Dean was so enamored by Lisa Braeden after their weekend long fling literally years prior, that when he was given a year to live and found himself in her hometown one day, he tracked her down. He thought he was on borrowed time and didn’t want the opportunity to see her again to pass him by. When he found out she had a kid, he was shocked but not in any way upset that child could be his, was even disappointed when Ben wasn’t. He left them without attempting to pursue anything because at the time he believed he was going to die and didn’t want to allow Lisa and her son to become attached to him because he wouldn’t be around much longer. Dean had recurring dreams about a life with Lisa where he adopted Ben.

Laurel (as far as we know in canon) has only ever dated two men: Oliver and Tommy. Two boys that she grew up with and knew her whole life and trusted implicitly. We don’t know how exactly Tommy and Laurel first hooked up, but we know that during the time Oliver was gone it was strictly casual. It was more than likely a coping mechanism, they trusted each other, they comforted each other over the fact that they’d both lost Oliver and one thing led to another. She took comfort from someone who knew what she was going through instead of finding meaningless sex elsewhere. We see in flashbacks how Laurel had planned her and Oliver’s lives together and imagined getting married, how she told Oliver she wanted to move in together. Both Laurel and Dean are ‘all or nothing’ types. They are able, and often want to, commit. They love with every part of themselves, but sometimes other things just get in the way.

Which leads me to my next comparison, perhaps the most important one: Dean and Laurel are both loyal to a fault. They have forgiven people who never deserved it countless times. They’ve always put the well-being of others before themselves. They’ve been walked over and disregarded by people they loved yet they can’t help but still love them. Their sense of loyalty and family is unfaltering, even at the detriment of themselves. And despite this, they fight to keep the people they have and they don’t think they are deserving of the love they receive. Dean once said “sooner or later everybody’s gonna leave me.” Laurel once said “What is so wrong with me that everybody leaves?” They both fear abandonment because the people they devoted themselves to never showed that loyalty in return.

These two would honestly be perfect for each other because their beliefs are cemented in the same ideals. I think they’d have an incredible dynamic and they’d understand each other so well. I’m sure there are things that I’m forgetting but this got long as hell and this is just the big ones that jump out at me. I’m sure @laurelwinchester would know more about this :)

#dean winchester #laurel lance #dean x laurel #anti sara lance #meta #anon #long post

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idreamtofmanderleyagain · 8 years

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Hellraiser as a Horror Fairy Tale

So for a while now I’ve been struggling to come to a clear, concise take on what I feel the classic Hellraiser’s are actually trying to be about. There’s a lot of themes here that are easy to emotionally grasp, but it’s been a bit of a struggle to try and build a coherent logical analysis on what all of these layers are conveying when properly understood all together (let alone figuring out how to verbalize what I was seeing). This is going to be a MASSIVE post, so buckle up for a long ride.

This has been especially frustrating because so many people have already asserted so much. There’s a lot of analysis out there that feels very unfocused and vague, or focuses far too much on very specific aspects that someone has isolated, like the unsettling theme of “pain and pleasure, indivisible.” The problem of course being that these aspects isolated like this are taken out of their full context, divorcing them of the very necessary emotional/psychological depth of the narrative, resulting in a rather simplistic, confused, or vague understanding of what kind of story we’re actually being told. This is problematic because it’s very clear that these films, the first two (and even three!) in particular, are deliberately using these horror elements as metaphor and analogy in a way very similar to traditional, dark and bloody fairy tales (see the outright fairy tale themes and references in H2). These are films that seem to function with a similar kind of gothic unreality that say, Angela Carter’s works do. And in any good fairy tale, a wolf is not a wolf.

Overall, I feel like the classic Hellraiser films are narratives discussing the nature of physical versus spiritual experience, the intersections thereof, and how this applies to the complexities of human suffering, trauma, abuse, etc. First, I should clarify what I mean by “spiritual.” I don’t mean “spiritual” in a faith/religious/superstitious sense, but as in humanity; in other words our personhood, the part of us that experiences emotion, empathy, craves human connection and emotional intimacy. So in turn, when I speak of “physical vs. spiritual,” I mean “physical” as the body divorced from it’s humanity. With me so far?

The first two films cover this this topic in different ways, with the second adding layers of spiritual complexity to the initial ideas laid out by the first film (and the third film, while extremely flawed, adds a few more intriguing elements that kind of bookend the themes for me), so there’s a lot of ground to cover. But hopefully, this will clarify my take on the themes of these films and how they suddenly became some of my favorite films of all time. I was actually quite surprised I enjoyed them so much, because I kind of expected something more akin to Nightmare On Elm St., or worst case scenario the subject matter would completely repulse and offend me, but instead I found something rather sophisticated and more fitting on the shelf where I put Cappola's Dracula, Labyrinth, Legend, In The Company Of Wolves, etc. It's much more like a gothic dark fantasy series than your general 80's horror franchise. I felt like I was watching a long-lost classic that nobody told me about, and nothing has really given me the same feeling I had back when I first watched all those nostalgic cult classics. Hellraiser 2 might even be ripping Labyrinth off a tiny bit, actually. If you're only familiar with Hellraiser because of the awful sequels (movies 3 to 9), you don't really know what the originals are like at all.

So without further ado, here’s my long-winded, [TOTALLY SPOILERIFIC, YOU WERE WARNED] analysis under the cut. ;P

[Warning for discussion of difficult subject matter from the films, including implications of past child abuse, attempted sexual assault, objectification of women (intentionally depicted, not as a failing of the films), allegorical kink-themed demons, etc. In the films It’s all imo presented rather tamely/tactfully outside of the over-the-top 80′s gore, but we’re talking a bit about all of this under the cut.]

I see the first Hellraiser film as dealing specifically with the evils of selfish, consumptive physical gratification, devoid of spiritual substance/humanity. Frank opens the door to Hell through a desire to reach new pleasures, because he’d exhausted all other avenues. He’s unsatisfied with what this world can give him, so he seeks out “the pleasures of heaven or hell,” he doesn’t care which. And I feel this speaks to what is at the heart of Frank, namely nothing at all. Frank is a being that exists purely for his own physical gratification. He is a textbook sociopath; essentially empty, devoid of emotional substance, and so he seeks to fill that void in him with physical pleasure. In that endless consumption Frank dehumanizes women; they become objects who’s humanity he disregards entirely. I’ve seen people try to call Frank a somewhat “sympathetic” villain (in the literary sense, not the ~redeemable~ woobie sense) even if he’s revolting, because apparently people can relate to his (and Julia’s) dissatisfaction with the banality of life, but Frank’s dissatisfaction comes from a place of spiritual emptiness. He is disconnected from his own humanity and the humanity of others, and so he wanders endlessly in search of the next base, physical high (so uh, personally, I find it hard to relate).

This is mirrored in Julia, who abandons the “emotional” roles of wife and step-mother in order to resurrect Frank, who gave her the physical gratification she holds above all else in her life, including her own morality and the lives of others. Julia is slightly more sympathetic because her dissatisfaction seems to stem from a sense of being pushed into traditional female roles that give her no fulfillment, so there are interesting elements of women’s oppression creating a human disconnect for Julia (particularly when it comes to the ways in which men dehumanize/use her). That said, I think it’s clear from Julia’s behavior across the board that her disconnect from her humanity is exacerbated by her obsession with the physical fulfillment she finds with Frank. There is an interesting line in the film from Frank, where he describes the relationship they have as being “like love, only real,” implying that he rejects the highly spiritual, emotional concept of “love,” as though he perceives what is purely physical as the only thing of real value. For Julia, I’d imagine that this has become a truth for her, because the traditional “loving” relationships of “wife” to Larry and “mother” to Kirsty brought her no fulfillment.

The men in general of the film seek this same selfish gratification - Julia seduces men home to feed to Frank, all of them seeking to consume her. You can see this underlying consumptive menace when the first man she drags home reveals his true colors, spitting angry words under his breath at her when she starts to seem hesitant. (it is interesting that she in turn is “consuming” them; they serve a material purpose to her that has nothing to do with their personhood. She’s feeding them to Frank, who literally consumes their life-force.) Larry also reveals a consumptive side when Julia tries to distract him with sexuality; she starts to shout “no!” (at Frank, who is looming menacingly in the shadows ready to strike at Larry), and it not only takes him way too many “no’s” to actually stop kissing her, he gets indignant at Julia’s “hot and cold” behavior, as if he was owed her body and denied. There’s little regard for her needs; he does not ask if something had hurt her, if she was okay, he only says with indignation that “he just doesn’t understand her,” rather than make any attempts at understanding.

H2′s Dr. Channard is another case of a consumptive soul, single-mindedly obsessed with his pursuits. However, unlike Frank, Channard’s obsessions are, for the most part, non-sexual. Channard has a sadistic, clinical fascination with the mind, endlessly consumed with a need for knowledge and discovery. But while Channard’s obsessions are focused in a mental space, it could be said that this too is a soullessly physical pursuit; he views the mind as an object to viciously plunder, and so human beings become objects for his purposes. So, like Frank, he is a character utterly incapable of empathy, humanity. The sexualized Male Gaze is unnecessary for dehumanization.

Despite all this objectification and abuse, despite the heavy underlying sexuality in these two films, they both seriously lack any Male Gaze whatsoever. In fact, all images of sexuality are pretty much entirely given to us from the perspective of women. There is a single exception of Male Gaze bullshit in H2, where there's a woman hanging topless for no justifiable reason in Julia's murder room, though you could actually blink at the right moment and miss it entirely (and we don't see a man or monster perpetrate violence against her, it's just Julia who promptly eats her). While Clive Barker directed the first film (and is a gay man), the second film was directed by Tony Randall (who is I believe a straight man), and it's things like that one little topless moment and the mild focus on Channard's enchantment with Julia that makes H2 lean slightly further away from H1's Male Gaze-less track record. That aside, Hellraiser 1 and 2 are rather unique for their time period in this way, because it's such a hard-hitting focus on women's experience of sexuality, or how women experience male sexuality in particular, which in Hellraiser is almost always predatory, un-self-aware, or in Steve and Kyle's romantic designs on Kirsty, a little bit too self-focused and limp. This is starkly contrasted with Hellraiser 3 and pretty much all Hellraiser films after it (particularly the constant callous objectification and violence perpetrated against women in Revelations, which surprise surprise, is the most recent film. Thank's modern cinema. Don't fucking remake Hellraiser you sociopaths). Hellraiser 3 was the first film to feature Pinhead committing violence agains a woman (that fact right there? that's fucking amazing for an 80's horror franchise. Especially one featuring these themes.), who in the moment is scantily clad and just had somewhat graphic sex with J.P., and the visceral and negative reaction I had to this dumb, cringey scene is very different than any of the reactions I had to the gore of the first two films. It's nothing too hard to handle (he rips her skin off with a hook in a bad effect and then the evil pillar eats her, so it's very gory but nothing shocking), but I mention it because the first two films really stand out as horror films that managed to deal with the abuse and objectification of women as a subject without actually objectifying them or showing us gratuitous, fetishistic shock-value surrounding that abuse, the way so many contemporary horror, thriller, and crime-procedural media does.

Beyond Frank and Julia, the other half of this story deals with Kirsty and the Cenobites. First of all, Kirsty is someone directly harmed by the consumptive, selfish gratification of both Frank and Julia - with Frank, there are fairly blatant implications of child abuse that may have occurred years prior (and if not, most certainly he intends on abusing her now). As for Julia, Kirsty likely wanted a mother figure after the death of her biological mother, and she was denied this emotional connection from Julia. Later, Julia becomes a direct agent facilitating Frank’s attempt at abusing Kirsty. Julia doesn’t seem to care who is harmed in the wake of Frank’s consumption, as long as she can still receive gratification.

Kirsty is the major character who breaks this mold of reckless obsession with the physical. All of Kirsty’s dilemmas are focused in a spiritual, human place. She lost her mother years prior and is still struggling with her grief. Her relationship with Julia is strained, so any hope of a mother-daughter connection after that loss has been entirely torn asunder for her. She loves her father dearly, but she’s just gained her independence and is dealing with worry over her father. Her father wants her to play mediator in his strained relationship with Julia, who she dislikes. She’s starting out a new relationship with Steve, possibly her first adult relationship ever. She’s dealing with either a secret abuse trauma and/or traumatized over Frank’s re-appearance and physical assault of her. Where Frank and Julia are obsessively absorbed in their need for physical gratification, Kirsty deals with many layers of spiritual/emotional realities, positive and negative.

The Cenobites, as we know them in the first film, are cosmic beings that exist in extreme, grotesque excess of sensory experience, far beyond any human comprehension of “pleasure.” All they truly understand is pain. Their function is to reap the souls who intentionally open Hell’s door and enact literal eternal torture; Hell consumes souls like meat to rend and tear (an interesting juxtaposition of flesh and spirit that I’ll discuss more when I get into H2). These creatures seem almost devoid of anything recognizably human in terms of emotionality (in the first film anyway), they are Borg-like. But again, a wolf is not a wolf. These beings, and Hell itself, are supernatural allegories for the human character’s dilemmas. In this film, they are the looming threat of eternal consumption devoid of humanity, given face. The oblivion on the other side of the threshold. You invoke their presence, they come at your call.

There’s more to say about how all this plays out in the first film, particularly when it comes to how Kirsty is the second person (after Frank) to summon the Cenobites and how she uses them against her abuser, but first I want to bring up aspects that are more prominent in the second film to pull this whole picture together (the films really are a “Part 1 and Part 2,” to me).

The second film (my favorite, if you couldn’t tell) focuses much more heavily on spiritual themes. It’s set almost entirely in either a mental hospital or Hell, respectively. So immediately, we’re given two pictures, one of a place of spiritual/emotional healing, and one of eternal spiritual and physical torment, the lines between the two blurring and distorting as we get further into the story. This is important because this film seems to focus much more on the experience of psychological/emotional trauma.

“The mind is a labyrinth,” Channard says, as he artfully performs a grotesque procedure on the brain of a patient. And so too is this reflected in H2′s depiction of Hell as an endless cthonic Labyrinth, where lost souls experience hallucinatory reflections of their traumas and vices, subjected to psychological and physical punishments eternally under the watchful eye of Leviathan, the “god of flesh, hunger, and desire.”

Leviathan as an entity is a rather interesting and ambiguous being. Certainly, it is a “god” of baseness and physicality, but it’s realm is made of psychological torment, perhaps more so than it is a place of physical torture. Whether you are a “good” or “bad” person is utterly irrelevant; if you are in Hell, your soul gets reflected back to you, often with a heavy focus on traumas of your past. For Kirsty this manifests in her childhood home and images of her mother, which begin bleed and transform into an image of Julia - and perhaps it manifests in Frank’s presence. Although according to Frank, Kirsty has stumbled across “his” little corner of hell which manifests “his” punishments, the first time I watched the film (before he explained where they were) I initially was convinced that behind this second door was another reflection of Kirsty, that it was another trial for her to face. It looked to be the exact same door as her own, and well, the writhing ghostly women under sheets seemed to be an image of sexual repression or fear of sexuality (the brief glimpse of the woman who Kirsty pulls the sheet off of has her hair, as well). Is this piece of hell reflecting Frank’s punishments, or Kirsty’s fears, trauma, possible repression, etc? Or is it reflecting both simultaneously? It’s still rather ambiguous to me, actually. But I digress.

The point is that there is this heavier focus on trauma in H2, where H1 was much more tightly focused on the folly of reckless, single-minded physicality without human connection. This focus on trauma adds a whole new layer of dimension to the narrative because “pain” itself is something much more complex, here. Here, it is revealed that the Cenobites were once humans, and that humanization of these creatures that were once presented to us as allegory and pure cosmic evil is very interesting. Rather than present the Cenobites as the ultimate culmination of personalities like Frank when consumed by Hell, it’s presented as if these Cenobites were perhaps relatively innocent people. Why then, do some people become Cenobites, while others stay as tormented souls? To me, the answer is still unclear. I'm not sure there actually is an answer, beyond the whims of Leviathan. (Channard is the obviously monstrous person who was changed, but he seemed to me to have been chosen as a tool in the moment and then discarded. ) That said, “suffering” itself is more than just the experience of physical pain; the psychological nature of hell implies that this is also internal suffering, and the Cenobites aren’t just entities there to enact physical torture. They are beings that exist in this eternal, perpetual suffering of all kinds, who speak of that experience as something sublime.

The Cenobites spend the majority of their time in both films popping up periodically to speak to Kirsty, from ominous threats of eternal torture, to invitation of joining them, to mocking her with insinuations that some part of her wants their world. For Kirsty, they are demons that reflect back to her all those fears and repressions, all her internal confusion and torment, which is what they spend most of their time doing in the first two films. In Hellraiser 3, there's more of this element of Cenobites as psychological reflections: Pinhead acts as a tempter, using the psyches of the humans he encounters to ensnare souls, which is why with J.P. he's literally consuming women, and for Terri, he switches gears to be the voice of female vengeance.

Earlier in the film, we are given multiple references to fairy tales, usually as used by older adults to mock and belittle Kirsty. The detective mocks her for making up fairy tales about “demons,” and Julia mocks her by comparing Kirsty to Snow White and herself to the Wicked Stepmother/Evil Queen. These side characters demoralize Kirsty in her idealistic efforts to rescue her father from Hell and fight back against forces much larger than herself that a more cynical person could scarcely imagine overcoming. Later, quite similarly to the west wing sequence in Beauty and the Beast (I think coincidentally so, Disney’s BATB came out a few years afterwards), Kirsty explores a dangerous place (Channard’s home) and finds an old, faded picture of a man who she recognizes as the monster she has previously encountered. Ultimately, Kirsty saves herself and another girl through an act almost unbelievably idealistic and naive, especially for such a dark story. She finds a way to transform a monster back into a human being. This was a victory won not with physical violence, but through humanity; a fairy-tale-esque triumph that flew in the face of those who tried to demoralize or deny Kirsty’s reality. Furthermore, this victory is not about the tragedy of Pinhead, but the triumph of humanity and empathy overcoming darkness.

There are a few expressions of human connection and empathy in these two films, like the care between Kirsty and her father, or the attraction between Kirsty and Steve, Kyle’s attraction and care for Kirsty, or Tiffany holding Kirsty as she cries over her father, But for me there was never quite a moment as striking and emotionally raw than when Kirsty and Spencer are looking at each other across the darkness once his human face is revealed. It feels like very artful, deliberate visual contrast to the circumstances and surroundings. But I digress.

So to clarify this picture: Kirsty is faced with monsters personifying everything that represented her trauma and fears, etc. They represented all-consuming physicality without humanity, they represented the things in herself she may have tried to suppress (sexuality, trauma, etc.). Monsters that wanted her to be as consumed by their world as they were. She then utilizes her demons to destroy her abuser, and later recognizes the humanity in her demons and transforms them, frees them from their spiritual and physical eternal torment, and in turn is saved from the same fate, herself.

The third film (which I enjoy despite the fact that it is admittedly a raging trash fire) features a cast of characters all dealing with similar situations. J.P. is our endlessly consumptive user, and Joey and Terri are two women dealing with spiritual trauma. Joey through the loss of her father, and Terri through a broken home life and later abuse at the hands of J.P. The reason why I include the third film in this is because of those additional elements and the insight it gives into Pinhead’s human self, Captain Spencer, and how he perfectly bookends the narrative. Spencer is another person who once opened the box, but it was never clear why he did so in the second film. In the third film, he explains that he was trying to escape spiritual suffering (war trauma/PTSD) through physical means ("forbidden pleasures,” aka kink). At some point he came across the box and opened it. While there are plenty of monstrous men in all three Hellraiser films, and Pinhead himself is a literal monster bent on taking any soul who opens the box with some form of desire in their hearts, my take away from H3 was not that Spencer himself was ever an abuser like Frank or J.P. (and indeed his behavior when lucidly himself in H2 and 3 is decidedly in immediate defense of women he cares about, up to and including two counts of total self-sacrifice), but that Spencer was perhaps pushing his explorations into unsafe realms of self-harming. He was punishing himself, and was thus made into a cosmic punisher of others by Leviathan. So, unlike Frank or Channard or J.P., people who are susceptible to the box/Hell’s temptations because of their need to endlessly consume, Spencer was susceptible because he was so effected by spiritual suffering that he turned towards unhealthy physical means of escape. In my mind, there is something in this idea of self-punishment/self-blame that is also potentially true of, say, Kirsty. How else would she be genuinely susceptible to the box (beyond basic desire having opened it initially), if not that she was teetering on a similar edge, herself? (However, I think perhaps her darkness also veers into a streak of sadistic vengefulness.)

This actually makes the extended cut of the H6 Pinhead/Kirsty reuinion scene a lot more tragic and distressing for me, because underneath all the bullshit, there’s this subtext of Kirsty still running from her Hell and yet still encountering consumptive, abusive men and being pushed off the deep end into untempered vengefulness and violence. And Spencer, who once was freed by her and in turn sacrificed himself to free her from Hell, trapped once more in his monsterous form and obsessing instead over dragging Kirsty down with him to be as endlessly consumed by her pain as he is within his own. No thanks on that grimdark noise, H6. ...but fucking wow, tho. If you've seen Hellseeker but have never seen the extended cut of this scene, I'm linking it Right Here. Warning for...just...ugh. Badly written infuriating creepy grimdark bullshit that genuinely sounds like a bad fanfiction writer wrote it. But at least you have that one moment right at the end where you can hear Spencer's voice come through to help her get free.

In conclusion, I think Hellraiser is a story about, well, Hell. But Hell not as nebulous place where the really bad people go, but Hell as an allegory for eternal spiritual suffering, that absolutely anyone can reach and be effected by once a gateway is opened for them. Particularly so when it comes to reckless physical indulgence, or consumption, or unsafe vice overtaking one’s humanity to others, or towards one’s self. So ultimately, the “moral of the story,” if you’d like to call it that, is that in order to protect one’s self from being consumed by spiritual suffering, one must cherish and cultivate their own humanity, and in the case of people who have been traumatized and/or victimized, one must fight back against the consuming force of that spiritual suffering through confronting the hell that exists within. Sometimes that doesn’t mean blasting the darkness away and ignoring it’s existence, it means reminding the darkness that it is only human.

[Regarding the content of the films, feel free to message me if you decide to watch them but you feel you need a total break-down of what to prepare for.]

#Hellraiser #This is my meta post for this weekend #some of you are not as keen on DW or are on it less often I know #so here you go my dudes #if you see me around too often call me out on it #Horror #Meta

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aaliyahhill · 4 years

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rolandfontana · 5 years

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Aging in Prison: The Forgotten Plight of Women Behind Bars

About a decade into her life sentence, Alice Marie Johnson felt pain around a couple of her bottom teeth. A car accident 20 years earlier had led to an expensive restoration with dental implants, and special cleanings now would be needed to maintain them.

But when she went to the prison dentist, he gave her only one option: her teeth would have to come out.

Despite being a designated federal medical center, the dental office at the Bureau of Prisons facility in Carswell, Tx., where she was expected to spend the rest of her life, didn’t have the instruments to maintain her implants. In pain, and without opportunity to get a second opinion, Johnson agreed to what she called his “barbaric solution.”

Former inmate Alice Johnson, who had her prison sentence commuted by President Donald Trump in June 2018, receives congratulations from the president. White House Photo.

“When the anesthesia wore completely off, I got a mirror out and opened my mouth,” Johnson wrote in her recently published After Life: My Journey from Incarceration to Freedom.

“My teeth were gone, and I stifled a sob. I slowly realized they’d yanked out something that I loved about myself.”

Released in 2018 at age 63 and now better known as the inmate who received clemency after reality star Kim Kardashian West brought her story to the White House, Johnson’s story offers a glimpse of how policy and practice at correctional institutions haven’t met the needs of female prisoners when they require specialized treatment, preventative care and emotional support as they age behind bars.

“There’s really lack of awareness that the prison population is aging and that we might need to do something about this,” Lisa C. Barry, an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut Center on Aging, said in an interview with The Crime Report.

In a recently published pilot study conducted at a women’s prison in Connecticut, Barry concluded that in order to provide optimal healthcare, correctional health care teams need greater understanding of female inmates they get older.

“Women who are incarcerated have unique experiences, both outside and inside of prison, that may impact their health and health management during incarceration,” she said. “Improved understanding of their unique health care needs is needed.”

Women Aging Behind Bars

About 219,000 women are now serving time in U.S. prisons and jails, according to a Prison Policy Initiative 2018 report. Minimum sentencing laws along with a greater likelihood of receiving a conviction for drug and property crimes, have led to a more than 700 percent increase in the number of female inmates, particularly in state correctional facilities, over the past four decades.

A quarter of women serving time in prisons and jails are awaiting trial.

Currently, almost 7,000 women are serving a life sentence at prisons in states including California, Alaska, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland and Utah, according to the Sentencing Project.

Okahoma, Kentucky, South Dakota, Idahom and Missouri are also states incarcerating women at the heaviest levels. About two-thirds of these women will have the prospect of parole after serving two or more decades.

Data show women receive life sentences at double the rate of males and are receiving convictions later in life. Combined with the general aging of the U.S. population these trends suggest that as the years of their sentences go by, the number of incarcerated women over age 50 will increase.

“It is a relatively small population that we’re talking about—still important, but just difficult when it gets to a public health standpoint,” says Barry, one of a handful of U.S.-based gerontologists who study the mental health and physical function of older female prisoners.

Limited Research on Female Inmates

Inmate surveys conducted periodically by the Bureau of Justice Statistics have indicated prevalence of more chronic illnesses and mental health disorders among prisoners. But the difficulty researchers face in getting inside prisons means that these self-reported surveys don’t have much comparable independent data.

Out of 12,486 scientific articles published in past decade, a 2018 review found only 21 studies that include original data about the health care of prisoners over age 50 in U.S. state or federal prisons.

While the majority focused on men, a 2014 study of 327 women, average age 56, incarcerated at prisons in five states in the South found female inmates averaged four chronic medical conditions and received five daily medications, had frequently histories of victimization, high rates of mental health issues and challenges with negotiating health care.

This gap in research data appears to be reflected in the recommendations corrections health experts thus far have offered on healthcare programming and practice for older female inmates.

In a position paper, adopted in 1994 and reaffirmed in 2014, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care advises correctional health staff to make sure women over 50 receive diets with reduced sodium, recommended amounts of B-12 and calcium, as well as treatment for menopausal hot flashes.

The 1976 Supreme Court decision on Estelle v Gamble gave inmates a constitutional right to health care. Federal facilities guarantee female inmates treatment for childbirth related care as well as for physical, mental, and substance-related illness. Most states have policies regarding reproductive health care for incarcerated women.

Nonetheless, “there is no comprehensive review of how these policies are implemented across the states and whether the care and services provided meet [national standards],” The Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights has observed.

Presidential Campaigns Take Notice

Calls to address women’s needs have gained some traction over the past year. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) along with U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) this spring, reintroduced the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act, legislation that would improve programming and visitation policies for inmates who also are parents with provisions aimed at helping women better prepare for returning home.

Improving conditions for female inmates also has been trending since the passage of the First Step Act. The Department of Justice in July announced that it would use part of the $75 million Congress allocated to the agency to implement the December 2018 law to expand programs to meet the needs of female inmates.

But thus far, none of these proposals reflect insights into the health care needs of older female inmates found in past research or revealed in Barry’s pilot study.

The data indicate that women aging in prison, like their male counterparts, are sicker than non-incarcerated women. Because of this, the National Institute on Corrections and some state prisons systems classify inmates at “elderly” when they turn age 50. Incarcerated females have higher rates of chronic medical disorders, psychiatric disorders and drug dependence before receiving a prison sentence than men. Once inside, they seek medical care two and a half times as often of male prisoners.

Many justice-involved women have had traumatic life experiences and present with trauma-related conditions that may obscure recognition and treatment for other chronic medical illnesses, according to some studies.

But not much is known about their health care needs as they get older on the inside.

Prof. Lisa C. Barry

To move this research forward, Barry led two focus groups with female corrections health care providers at York Correctional Institution, the only women’s prison within the Connecticut State Department of Correction. In 2008, York was named facility of the year by the NCCHC for its excellence in health service delivery. During the period of the study, UConn Health managed care at Connecticut prisons.

“In order to frame what some of these individuals are going through, I thought that it might be helpful also to get the perspective of the health care workers who are actually dealing with them on a day-to-day basis.” Barry said.

During conversations with prison nurses, social workers and other health care staff, Barry learned that perceptions of aging among their patients have more to do with the incarcerated woman’s health than her chronological age.

“I have a lot of patients in their 40s who are at higher risk or have more illnesses than a lot of older people do probably out in the community,” one focus group participant said. “We have some 40-year-olds here that can easily pass for 60 or better.”

“I am often shocked when I finally realize what an inmate’s age is.”

The participant added: “When I think of old inmates, for me that’s not necessarily a number as much as it is a complete mental and physical condition. When you look at them physically, I am often shocked when I finally realize what an inmate’s age is.”

Among the patients they considered “older,” the correctional health care providers in the focus group described lower cognitive functioning, which they attributed to years of abuse and trauma.

“With the elderly inmates, they seem to have cognitive deterioration a lot faster than the general public because of all the substance abuse, head injuries with domestic violence, crime on the streets, all of that,” said a focus group member.

“[Female inmates who] are 50 and above have such a higher rate of cognitive deterioration and all the other symptoms that go with that and it gets hard sometimes to actually diagnose,” another commented.

Focus group members also told Barry that they need to spend more time with their older female prisoners, which they said, is difficult in the prison setting.

“I take time to explain it to them, I repeat it, I speak louder. I feel like I drop things to make sure I spend time with them, which ends up being probably longer than I would have normally spent,” one said.

“The older they are, I think the more their needs are. It’s not, ‘Okay take your pill and be quiet.’ You really need to listen to that person, you need to give a little bit more of attention.”

Existing Policies Don’t Reflect Patient Challenges

Even as the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) acknowledges findings that the majority of justice-involved women have experienced trauma, practice and policy even at federal correctional institutions hasn’t reflected these insights.

“We found that BOP may not be able to provide its trauma treatment program to all eligible female inmates until late in their incarceration, if at all, because BOP has assigned only one staff member at each institution to offer this program,” according to a September 2018 report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

And although BOP requires its staff to undergo trauma-informed correctional care, “BOP does not require the same training for its executive staff. As a result, officials may develop policy and make decisions that affect female inmates without awareness of their needs,” the OIG found.

Negative perceptions of therapy among inmates also may delay facilities from offering and women from accepting mental health services and for some inmates result in a lifetime of cycling in and out of prison.

“Therapy is taboo…If you’re incarcerated, it’s taboo,” said Natalie Venegas, a mental health case manager for Los Angeles-based reentry program HomeBoys Industries. Venegas served four convictions during her twenties completing her last prison sentence in 2008.

“I didn’t know I had trauma,” Venegas said.

As justice-involved women get older, unresolved issues related to trust, grief, loss and never seeing themselves anywhere but inside a prison cell continue, Venegas said.

These unresolved external issues combined with prison policies that aren’t informed by research may hinder optimal care. In her study, Barry found that protocol at York Correctional Institution didn’t appear to acknowledge the cognitive declines and traumatic experiences incarcerated women have experienced. Some of the logistics at the prison made it difficult for health care staff to administer preventative care.

For example, focus group members in 2015 reported that the prison used the same “court run” bus that it dispatched to pick up new inmates from the state’s courthouses to transport its current inmates to outside facilities to receive tests such as mammograms. They observed that for some older inmates, the trips could be physically and emotionally challenging as well as provoke anxiety resulting in them refusing to get on the bus.

“Even though they know they should get a mammogram and they know it’s important, sometimes you have to do a lot of convincing and a sales pitch because they say, “ ‘Oh I’m not getting up at 4:30 to be handcuffed and all this to go to another facility,’” one caregiver said.

“I had to explain to her that she was going to be going [for an echocardiogram]. She said, ‘The court run! The court run!’ and she just started crying and saying ‘I’m not going to go! I’m just going to sign no for everything, I don’t care.’

“I’m Scared”

“She was very, very upset that she would have to go on this court run. She said, ‘You know, you don’t know how it makes me feel. I have this trauma, it just scares me so much, and I know I’m not there to go to court, but I’m scared,’”

Prior research hasn’t indicated how these logistics could be a barrier to optimal care, Barry said.

“Having to get up at the crack of dawn and get on the court run bus with potentially some really noisy, young women that could be really intimidating and they would rather forgo medical treatment than go through that whole procedure just to get a certain treatment—that was really eye opening,” she said.

Sections of the First Step Act and similar legislation passed in several states in recent months are designed to remedy the health risks associated with confining pregnant women and put an end to the excessive charges for basic hygiene products.

However, as women age behind bars, their hygiene and health-care related needs may go beyond receiving an adequate supply of toothpaste, toilet paper and tampons.

“Mattresses … biggest complaint,” said one prison caregiver. “They’re this thin [holds fingers apart two to three inches] and the frame is metal. It goes right to their head. They’re in more pain. They’re not sleeping.”

For women who can’t afford to purchase additional blankets, this inadequate bedding could have a negative impact on sleep hygiene, the provider noted.

And then there are challenges for women getting around a prison structure that wasn’t designed for serving as a long-term home for people developing mobility related health conditions.

“There’s people who have walkers and they live up on a tier. They have to go up the stairs. There was one woman would throw her walker up and then go up the stairs,” recalled one prison caregiver.

Prison policies made it a challenge to get approval for a walker or hospital socks.

In addition to meeting their patient’s physical and mental health care needs, prison policies made it a challenge for providers to gain approval for things like getting a patient a cane, a walker or a pair of hospital socks with treads.

In addition to the stress mothers serving time may feel when their prison term prevents them from filling a caregiver role for their young children, older female inmates also feel emotional stress because they aren’t able to take care of their own parents.

“I just met someone today actually who is here for DUI [driving under the influence], and she was all upset, particularly about herself,” one focus group member said.

“But she just found out that her 83-year-old mother was diagnosed with colon cancer and so now she’ s just so guilty for being here and worrying about her mother, she just broke down in tears. I just felt terrible.

“So it’ s not only their individual problems being an inmate but they usually have older parents or relatives that they’ re concerned about. They’re so afraid they aren’t going to get out before their parents die.”

With fewer female prisons, women often are incarcerated further from home, which makes visits with family more difficult and expensive.

Alice Johnson’s Struggle

Johnson began serving her life sentence for drug conspiracy charges at a facility in California several states away of her family in Memphis, Tennessee. Her youngest child was still in high school.

She wasn’t able to experience more frequent visits with her four children until 16 years into her prison sentence after a transfer to a facility in Alabama, still a three-hour drive away. During her time behind bars, Johnson’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She lost both of her parents during the 21 years she was incarcerated.

While men experience similar concerns about not being around to care for their parents and children, “this stressor is likely to be particularly salient for older female prisoners,” Barry says.

“As the number of older incarcerated women continues to grow, studies will be needed to evaluate the phenomenon of caregiving for older parents from behind bars. The correctional system may need to consider special programming to support women who, if not for being incarcerated, would be caring for elderly relatives,” Barry said.

The inability to operate within the full spectrum of caregiving also may have an impact on delivery of care as well as on prison healthcare workers themselves. Study participants said they found rules barring empathy in the form of a pat on the back or a verbal word of encouragement a challenge to their mission as caregivers.

“Undue Familiarity”

“When I worked on the outside you could have somebody like that and it’s okay to give them comfort and it’s okay to hold their hand and say, you know, “I know you’re scared, you’re going to be fine,” and that is sometimes helpful. But here, you can’t do that,” one focus group participant said.

“That’s the hardest part of working here. You want to give it [compassion] to them, but you can’t. You’ll get ‘undue familiarity.’ You’re doing more for one than you would do for anyone else.”

At York, inmate prison numbers remain with prisoners for life and this also could hinder health-related outcomes for women.

“Their inmate numbers show how long ago they first came here so having a low inmate number and coming back in is considered, like embarrassing,” one prison health care worker observed. “[There’s] a little bit of shame, like wow, and even the officers will sometimes say to them, “You’re too old for this!”

If the goal of prisons is to rehabilitate, this may not be the optimal approach, Venegas, the Los Angeles-based case manager, says. “Everybody comes from a place where you don’t trust anyone. You have to receive them with open arms and not shame them. It’s all about empowering them.”

Even as this study recorded the insights from correctional health care workers at one state prison, Barry said that the project takes research a step forward in understanding how policy makers might respond to healthcare needs of women in prison as they age behind bars.

“These pilot study findings highlight opportunities for research and encourage further examination of the unique experiences of these women,” Barry told The Crime Report.

“As the body of work regarding the health of older female prisoners grows, the findings can be used to inform and shape policies to optimize the health and health care for this highly vulnerable population.”

Cassie M. Chew is a 2019 Journalists in Aging fellow based in Washington, D.C. and a 2019 John Jay/Arnold Justice Reporting Fellow. This article was written with the support of the Gerontological Society of America, Journalists Network on Generations, the Retirement Research Foundation and the Center for Health Journalism.

Aging in Prison: The Forgotten Plight of Women Behind Bars syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

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pussymagicuniverse · 6 years

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Demystifying the “Crazy Girl"

We all know a “crazy” girl. You know the one I’m talking about. The clingy one who sends a hundred texts if she doesn’t hear back within five minutes, the manipulative one who fakes a pregnancy to keep her partner from leaving her, the emotional outburst one who throws plates when she’s angry. Think Britney Spears’ 2007 shaved head or Amy Elliot Dunne from Gone Girl. The Urban Dictionary definition for “crazy bitch” reads:

“...more likely to attack your psyche than your person. She will do things that make completely no sense and not care that she is doing them. She is very selfish, and while she realizes this, she, again, doesn't care.”

This archetype is everywhere, from popular culture to the academic world (see Jennifer Berdahl’s essay “The Crazy/Bitch Narrative About Senior Academic Women”) to our day-to-day interactions. I’m pretty sure every guy I’ve ever met at some point in our interactions has dropped the phrase, “All girls are crazy.” There’s even that ridiculous 2014 “hot-crazy matrix” video in which the narrator measures “hot-ness” on a typical 1-10 scale, but measures “craziness” on a 4-10 scale because “there’s no such thing as a woman who’s not at least a ‘four’ crazy.” We’re seen as crazy for having feelings, for having desires, for establishing boundaries, for getting upset - we are written off as “crazy” for essentially any emotional response we exhibit.

In a New York Times article called “Men Are Crazy for Women Who Are, Too” by Rick Marin, Adam Platt describes the “crazy” girl as “High-energy, brainy, self-destructive women who came from tortured family situations.” To me, this description rings of a woman who has suffered and is unsure how to navigate that pain, so she lashes out and behaves erratically. However, because we’ve created this archetype of “crazy girl,” many women are unable to recognize that those behaviors often come from a place of mental unwellness and are unable to get help they may need.

“We’re seen as crazy for having feelings, for having desires, for establishing boundaries, for getting upset - we are written off as ‘crazy' for essentially any emotional response we exhibit." (click to tweet)

To truly understand how this process plays out, I believe it is important to deconstruct typical “crazy girl” behavior and recognize what those actions could be symptoms of. For example, the clingy crazy girl, who is constantly bombarding a guy with texts and calls, or the manipulative one who fakes a pregnancy. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is essentially the dictionary for mental illness. It lists professionally recognized disorders and gives diagnostic criteria for each. One of the diagnostic criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder is “frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.” So it is possible to imagine that women who behave in this way are not simply “crazy”; rather, their behavior is fueled by an underlying mental illness.

Rick Marin’s New York Times article goes on to list several different types of “crazy” women that men are typically attracted to. He describes a woman he went out with who told him, “the C.I.A. was recruiting her as a courier. They hadn’t communicated with her yet, but she was convinced they were going to.” A diagnostic criteria of bipolar disorder is manic grandiose notions, such as thinking you can fly or that you’re the next coming of the messiah or, even, that the C.I.A. is recruiting you to be a courier. However, even in the article, Marin dismisses this behavior as being part of his date’s “crazy girl” allure and makes no comment on how the woman could very well have been suffering from symptoms of a mental illness.

Another common crazy girl motif that’s often personified in movies and TV shows is drug and alcohol abuse. Most recently, I’ve seen this played out in the Sharp Objects TV show, in which the main character is coping with childhood trauma by excessively drinking vodka from an Evian water bottle. Substance abuse should not be treated as a type of manic pixie dream girl personality trait; it is itself a recognized mental illness, though it also often crops up as a symptom of a variety of other illnesses. However, Marin also notes this version of crazy girl in his article, explaining that men are attracted to her because “she looks like she needs taken care of.”

“Substance abuse should not be treated as a type of manic pixie dream girl personality trait" (click to tweet)

Having broken down a few behaviors that are often smacked with the “crazy girl” label, I think it’s easy to see that women whose behavior fit this archetype are more often than not likely suffering mental unwellness. These are women whose brains are rioting against them and causing them to act impulsively and destructively. Unfortunately, the creation and reinforcement of the “crazy girl” culture more often deters these women from being able to recognize that. When a woman is called crazy, I believe she responds in one of two ways: she either embraces it and plays into it, or she is abhorred that a man would view her that way and does everything she can to appear unemotional and unattached. Under patriarchal pressure, being desirable to the male gaze has too frequently been the ultimate goal for women, so we often submit to this stereotype in whatever way necessary, even in so far as ignoring our own mental health.

In pop culture, the crazy girl character has become entangled with sexual desirability. Just think of the 2006 song, “Crazy Bitch,” by Buckcherry:

“You're a crazy bitch

But you fuck so good, I'm on top of it

When I dream, I'm doing you all night

Scratches all down my back to keep me right on”

This connection between “crazy girl” behavior and being more sexually appealing to men has caused many women to lean into turbulent and destructive behavior and borderline embrace it. I am all for the reclamation of toxic patriarchal slurs, but in this case, when a woman buys into the crazy girl stereotype and amps up her impulsive actions as a way of getting attention from men, she is heavily deterred from recognizing that those behaviors may have roots in undiagnosed mental illness. She wants to be sexy and society teaches her that this behavior makes her more desirable, so she accepts the label, shouts it from rooftops, and indulges in clinginess, manipulation, emotional instability, substance abuse, et cetera. In doing so, she is at risk for lending herself to even more unwell emotions and behavior.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, you have women who will hide all the parts of them that they think are or will be perceived as undesirable: their feelings, their desires for monogamy and consistent communication, their understandable need for emotional validation––so as not to seem “crazy.”

Referring to a woman as “crazy” is a form of gaslighting that can lead to a disconnect with herself which, in turn, can contribute to mental illness. Gaslighting is defined as “a form of psychological abuse in which a manipulator systematically denies someone else’s reality in order to control feelings, behaviors, and activities of another person.” Dismissing a woman’s emotions by calling her crazy can cause her to come unhooked from her sense of self and her understanding of reality, which is very threatening to one’s mental health. I dealt with this for many years when I was casually dating. I wouldn’t tell men how I felt about them or the relationship, I would overthink and over-control how often I was communicating with them, I would never allow myself to be upset when they blew me off or didn’t return my calls. I kept all those emotions bottled up which was ultimately a huge detriment to my mental health. I found myself unable to communicate to people when I was struggling and incapable of reaching out for support in my darkest moments.

“Dismissing a woman’s emotions by calling her crazy can cause her to come unhooked from her sense of self and her understanding of reality, which is very threatening to one’s mental health." (click to tweet)

Ultimately, I don’t think there is such a thing as a “crazy girl.” I think women are referred to as crazy for one of two reasons: a) they aren’t playing their gender role and men are threatened and displeased by that or b) their behavior is actually a symptom of mental illness. I know so many women who are struggling and suffering and, as someone who has found a great deal of solace and healing in therapy, I often recommend it. However, the response I often get is, “Oh, I don’t need therapy. I’m not mentally ill, I’m just crazy.” This label both allows us and forces us to ignore the signals our bodies and minds are giving us that something is not right in our mind. It is my hope that we as a culture stop dismissing women’s behavior as “crazy” and instead, encourage ourselves and each other to seek healing in whatever form that feels right to us.

Ailey is a poet, editor, bartender and contributing writer for Pussy Magic. In Gaelic, her name means "ray of light" and she works to practice that in every interaction. She's an empath who is passionate about mental health awareness and self-compassion and acceptance. She dabbles in tarot and hopes to one day write a book of poetry about it. She lives in North Carolina with her dog Clementine. Check out her website aileyotoole.com for more.

#stereotypes #women #crazy woman #crazy stereotype #liberation #freedom #feminism #patriarchy #fighting the patriarchy #reclaiming womanhood

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