#how does she cope?

[mapis-putellas]

She’s so precious I just want to squish her 😭 I genuinely do not understand how someone can be so beautiful. Just…how??

[teratomatica]

you always land on all fours

[fraternum-momentum]

[grimark]

seivarden "weird coping mechanisms" vendaai is like "i'm having trouble processing my emotions right now so i'm going to engage in service roleplay for the person (ship?) i'm in love with, while the ship (person?) that i'm a lieutenant on board steers me around and speaks through me like a puppet. i find this soothing and reassuring for normal reasons don't worry about it."

[totallyprentiss]

Can we talk about how Emily shot the guy (cardboard dude) into absolute oblivion???

[untitledgoosegay]

re last reblog I do see fanfic culture pushing/replicating a certain model of "what trauma looks like," "how trauma works"

this is a problem across all areas of society obviously, but transformative works are, well, transformative. they're about crafting and modifying narratives where the fan-creator sees a flaw or a lack -- often for the better! don't get me wrong, I've done my fair share of "I take a hammer and I fix the canon," it's the main thing that gets my creative gears spinning -- but what happens when that "flaw" is simply a narrative not conforming to popular expectations?

some people just don't get PTSD from events that sound obviously traumatic. they're not masking, and they're not coping; they just straight-up didn't get the permanently-locked stress-response that defines PTSD. they walk away from a horrible experience going "well, that sucked, but it's over now." some people do get PTSD from events most people wouldn't find traumatic. we don't really know why some people get PTSD and others don't. but fandom has an idea of events that must be traumatizing, of a "correct" way to portray trauma. you see the problems with this lack of understanding in e.g. fans pressuring the devs of Baldur's Gate 3 to add dialogue where the player character badgers Halsin about his own feelings on his abuse -- because he must be traumatized, and his trauma must fit a certain mold and presentation of sexual trauma, under the mistaken impression that anything outside that narrow window is somehow "wrong" and disrespectful or even harmful to survivors.

take, for another example, the very common trope of a traumatized character who hates touch or sex "learning" to like touch or sex as a part of their healing process. certainly that can be healing for some people; other people will never like, or want, touch or sex, because of trauma or because they just don't. the assumption that someone who doesn't want sex or doesn't like to be touched must be traumatized, must be suffering from this perceived lack, is seriously harmful -- to asexual people, to people with sensory issues around touch, and to people for whom healing from trauma means freedom to refuse sex or touch.

and there's a secondary trope, one that's slightly more thoughtful but ultimately repeats the problem -- that once someone has learned that their boundaries will be respected, they'll feel it's safe to soften those boundaries. once they feel safe refusing touch or sex, they'll feel comfortable allowing it on their own terms. but many people don't, and many people won't! many people will simply never want to be touched, and never want sex, and they are not suffering or broken or lacking because of it. the idea that proving you'll respect someone's boundaries entitles you to test those boundaries -- the paradox is obvious, and yet this is something i've seen hurt (re-traumatize) people i care for.

people are imperfect victims. people don't heal in the ways you expect. many people have positive memories of their abuse, of their abusers. many people hurt others in the course of their trauma, in ways that can't easily be unpacked in a 5k oneshot. very few narratives of trauma and recovery actually fit the ones put forward by popular children's media and romance novels -- which are the ones I most see replicated in fandom spaces, because they provide the clearest narrative and easiest catharsis, and so they're easy and soothing to reach for.

that's not necessarily a bad thing! i am not immune to goopy romance tropes. i am not immune to teary catharsis. not every fic has to grapple with ugly realities. but there's a problem when these narratives become predominant, when people think they're accurate and realistic depictions of trauma, when the truth of trauma is unpleasant and uncomfortable, and doesn't fit any single narrative, let alone one of comforting catharsis

[linhfoxmoive]

My shayla, Ms. Lovelett

Who’s now, a favorite :) (Does it vaguely rhyme..? Help)

this GIRLIE is definitely now one of my favorites though..alongside my all time goat, Janitor, he’s just funny to me :’3

ANYWAYS, guys I think I have a type and it’s women in theatre!! 😍💞

Also I like to imagine the white parts of her clothes, whatever it’s supposed to actually be- To be more of a theatrical kinda style, like Shakespeare! With the fancy stuff around his neck and the sleeve cuffs!! Just a bit more simplified for her fashion at the school, and I guess with some random ah blue sweater she has under it all..furthermore I liek to imagine her dress part is kind of exaggerated to puff out more for the purpose of wanting to show her dramatic-ness..(?) I’m reaching

AND RANDOM THING, SLIGHT SPOILER BUT HEAR ME OUT..Lovelett and that one guy who hides behind the boxes as a father/daughter dynamic pls, where she just bawls her eyes out or constantly bothers the bro back before he went mental.. (Though I mean, I guess she still does go to bother him actually either way lmao 😭)

[s-aint-elmo]

wicked ever after high au where their fairytale is the wizard of oz and galinda upland (of the upper uplands!) is the next good witch with the inflated sense of self-importance and nigh-unshakeable belief in the fundamental goodness of a system that proclaims goodness as her birthright to match, while her roommate-by-chance elphaba thropp, born to become the next wicked witch of the west, is desperate to defy her destiny and spurn the wickedness thrust upon her for the chance to become something good. and in falling ass over teakettle in love--despite galinda's best attempts to to keep them both on that yellow brick road--they discover that they were perhaps not the first good and wicked witches who kept a candle burning for each other, but that however long those witches held out, the course of the narrative still ran destructively, unyieldingly true. and that it still might for them, too--unless.

[an-urgent-appeal]

genuinely baffled by how some people see homura as evil. how on earth do you watch rebellion and come to that conclusion

[mzminola]

Further ways to complicate the Bat family tree: Tim & Damian are close bio relatives but it has nothing to do with Bruce or Ra's. It's that Janet & Talia are half-sisters.

There's no reason Melisande couldn't have had a whole other life before getting involved in Ra's' cult bullshit. We don't know anything about Janet's family from before she married Jack, just that neither of Tim's parents seem to have any extended family. Make Janet into Talia's older half-sister who has no idea she exists, stick the reveal in a routine "And here's how to use the DNA analysis program" training moment, and watch the fireworks.

[nickyheart7]

Today I am starting what I'm calling my "Liara Friendship Playthrough", in which I play the Mass Effect trilogy but don't romance anyone, not even Liara, so I can experience what her and Shepard's friendship is like (because in all 7 of my playthroughs, I romanced Liara every time). I'm so down bad for Liara that I will purposefully "friendzone" myself to see more Liara content 😭 Wish me luck y'all 🫡

Edit: check the reblogs to see my commentary during this playthrough if you like!

[the-unconquered-queen]

The cast of Blades of Light and Shadow and their Perfect Match types

Ever since I did my Blades/Elementalists attunement crossover to mark the anniversary of the Blades series, I’ve known I wanted to do something like this to mark the wide release of book three, and I love me some Perfect Match and the types system, so what better way than by incorporating that into a piece?

So the match types you see here are based on what we’ve seen of these characters up to book two, so any character evolution they may undergo in book three is not accounted for. You might also notice that, when deciding each character’s type, I went off of the core four traits instead of the match name or description, unless I needed a tiebreaker.

Finally, MC’s type is pretty subjective, as I’m sure everyone has a different idea of what their MCs are like, so for the sake of this edit set, Raine’s type is based on which traits she displays most in canon.

So, are you swiping right?

[curapicas]

It's not lost on me that Syldor thinks Vex is coming to be praised for what he thinks is her highest accomplishment (acquiring Fenthras), meanwhile her speech is a clear indicator of her mental state since it's a direct callback to THIS

makes me insane that she walked into that conversation feeling rock bottom. Makes me twice as insane that when she felt like that was when she really related to her asshole dad's feelings. The layers on this implication, god

It's in the way Vex's first instinct when crushed by grief was to run away and be on her own. It's in the way Syldor didn't let anything stop him from metaphorically doing the same

[metanarrates]

Selena Kim is such a fascinating character mostly because of her ability to be a deeply kind person in the worst situation. She was the original King of No Killing. At the end of the world she said "Take care of Anna" even after everything that happened. She returned to Anna Croft's side even after the Lord and Vassal contract was broken. She runs a diner in a world that's being repaired. Her only other personal attribute is "Animal Lover."

I FORGOT ABOUT ALL THIS... selena kim centric stories WHEN. i think it's interesting also to have a character who is foundationally kind in a world where you have to be a killer as a baseline requirement to survive? the dissonance between the fact that she must have taken at least one life + almost certainly watched anna croft kill others but still remains committed to no killing

[nothinggold13]

"So I just went h o m e . . . " Love Him I Don't // Maisie Peters

[starscr0ss]

im thinking about celestia and the abyss being literal opposites (chaos and order) and im thinking about childe and lumine being sort of embodiments of that, just not in the way we think. after the latest natlan quest its clear to us what the fatui intends and what they want- i think the tsaritsa more than anything loves humanity, which is why she directly opposes celestia who are known for bringing down different civilizations. childe, as Her weapon and Her blade is an extenction of that: he's a blade forged by the abyss, bathed in Her holyness, meant to strike down those who sin. lumine (talking solely about traveler lumine) is the literal sister of the prince of the abyss, she has clear ties to it and at this point in the story still is hesitant about fully opposing him (i love angst). her entire story revolves around chaose and disrupting celestia's (and the fatui's) order. isnt that fun

i think what childe longs for the most is control- control of himself, his life, his powers, his story, his fate. i think what lumine wants the most is freedom, which is just another phacet of chaos

anyways. you see it. the themes are theming