#i literally have this fear induced anxiety
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i just want to thank you for making me realise how easy inducing the void is and how to let go of my fear and anxiety around it as well as having my desires, quite literally, overnight.
i hope this is okay but i’ve been wanting to induce the void for nearly 3 years now but i would always give up because i thought i had to do a million meditations, listen to a bunch of alpha waves while trying to sleep (i can’t fully relax with headphones), or really feel my emotions about having my desires which just left me emotionally exhausted.
but thanks to you and some other pure consciousness/void bloggers, all i do is lay down however i want, close my eyes, do my own breathing technique that relaxes me and affirm “I AM.”
i know we’re not supposed to focus on this, but i’ve reached some of the symptoms of inducing the void this way faster now than i ever have any other way. i know i just need to focus on distracting my mind and not focusing on the 3d like how my body feels to induce it but again, thank you!
i’m not going to spend any more time procrastinating or constantly changing up my “way.” i’m just going to do it.
I’m so happy my posts help you, all you need is yourself and i will always stand by that. Methods that help you relax eg waves, meditation, subliminals can help but at the end of the day it’s all you
and that mindset of casting out procrastination from your life will benefit you in future, gets you close to the inducing pure consciousness more than you know. Actually applying instead of running from the fear is something a lot of people need to do, so the fact that you have this mindset of inducing no matter what is what’s going to get you your dream life💋
#shiftblr#salemsasks#reality shifting#shifting#permashifting#law of assumption#void state#success story#loa#void concept#the void
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I hate and love large nagural bodies of water sm
okay so small rant so just like ignore this
warning: large natural bodies of water, nightmares, slight mention of anxiety attack, nausea, i think thats it idk
but like idk ever since i was young i always loved swimming so obviously i loved going to the beach or to a waterpark or river and in the moment i would enjoy myself sm but i would always be really tired cause of the Sun, cause for sum reason when i spend a lot of time in the sun I pass tf out but anyway
this is kinda going with my nightmare things cause everytime i spend the day in places like mentioned above when its night time and im lying down, my brain keeps thinking that my body is moving, like im in one place and I can control my limbs and everything but it feelz like a stream is pulling me and i hate it sm cause then even tho im tired i cant sleep and when I do fall asleep I have a nightmare assosiated with water (usually drowing or trying to escape sum dangerous water creature)
hehe but yeah anyway just wanted to get that off my chest since I had this weird anxiety feeling in my chest most of the day wich I hated cause it was actually a good day, and now im scared to go to sleep so im jus lying on the top bunk of bunk beds, hungry as shit cause i didnt eat much but also nauseous cause my body keeps feeling like its moving and i hate it and im scared im gonna have another nightmare cause I suprisingly hvnt had one in a while but ik that means im gnna have another one soon, esp since im not in my house or my bed so my brain is paranoid and wont completely shut off to go into rem sleep all the time but it hast happened yet (ive been here for two nights) so lets hope it doesnt happen at all
no but this water thing is weird cause ive almost had a lot of anxiety attacks due to the fear induced anxiety i get afterward.
anyway im so sleepy my eyes r so heavy i think im gonna eep now, sorry for the bother jus needed to get it off my chest :/
goodnight to all my beautiful meow meows and pookies and my wife and my child and the rest of u who stalk my blog🫡
#asher 🌑 speaks#its so weird#cause i love water#but afterward#when im in bed#i literally have this fear induced anxiety
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that period of time between south park post covid being announced in 2021 to summer 2022 when everyone got obsessed with truffula flu was moderately heavenly
#i'm going through all my chronological memory hoarding playlists from late 2013 to now#taken all day but i'm currently on around june 2022 and it's so nostalgic#but like that entire time was unreal#never forget south park post covid announcement literally curing me of like 2 years worth of on and off depression#i was like still weakly crawling out of the abyss and then adult scientist philanthropist kenny jsut yanked me out of there so easily#no warning#and then i was fine. it was so funny to me like i was in the middle of my eateot induced existential crisis where i couldn't sleep and then#everything was just normal? literally whatever episode of my life i was in had ended and everything reset for the next episode#which was such a good episode as well. and then the tflu era??#reading every existing camp entre blog within a month#and then the swag and bitter archives. literally the summer of all time#not just for that i mean it was just a good summer anyway#the only logical direction for life to go in after that was down bc i'd literally peaked for about 8 months#but it was a good time while it lasted#this was meant to be a happy ''remember the good times'' post but how come i'm only allowed to be happy for like a year at most#but i'm allowed to be in the abyss for 2 years#hopefully not longer bc i'm only now just getting over the cursed half of 2022 that doesn't exist to me (sep-dec)#but like. 2015 and first part of 2016 good. 2016-2018 bad#end of 2018 and most of 2019 good. end of 2019-summer 2021 bad#end of 2021-summer 2022 good. end of 2022-now bad#the maths does not add up#anyway shoutout november 2021-july 2022 i love you soooooooo much you were so sexy <3#(apart from the agoraphobia but that was part of the fun)#(like i'd be out in public and i'd see a pic of entre on my phone and i guess too much serotonin would be released in my brain and i'd get#anxiety and have to go home and i couldn't eat in public and i basically couldn't leave the house)#(because i was too obsessed with tflu)#(that wasn't the main reason it was mostly a wild fear of food poisoning from anything. but tflu didn't help and that is so cool of it)#(truly an iconic time. okay stop talking)#ramble
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resolution for the year is to, if absolutely nothing else, look into job training programs i might be able to make use of. If Fucking Nothing Else
#personal#or any other program that might be able to help me get up with some kind of start#having no degree and being out of school for so long has decimated my self confidence in my workplace competency#if not that. then maybe seeing if there is literally anything for getting over my fear of driving#which is honestly more financial than anything#we only have one functional car rn and my mom is the one who needs it most (dad cant drive for health reasons)#when my brother was a teenager and just got his license#he made a stupid teenager mistake and accidentally rear ended a schoolbus-#no damage to the bus but apparently the car was totaled#and that was the last time we had two working cars#for YEARS afterwards my dad WOULD NOT LET GO of it and would lament the loss of such a nice car#and it made my brother miserable ngl. he already felt bad. and i mean YEARS#i dont think its much of a mystery why the idea of driving is deeply unpleasant and anxiety inducing#'you cant make a single mistake or else you will incur massive financial damage on the family and will be shamed about it for years'#isnt a great motivator for wanting to be anywhere near the wheel of a car!
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One of my favourite arcs in sxf is the bus hijacking arc because it really shows what makes Anya such an amazing character and it uses her powers in one of the most intuitive yet interesting ways. In previous storylines we normally see Anya in dangerous situations with her parents (or Bond) and it often overshadows her abilities, they more or less play a narrative role keeping the audience fully aware. Also Anya is a combination of both of her parents (despite them having no influence over her personality).
She's perceptive like Twilight and reactive like Yor. When she is with her dad he normally knows just as much as she does because of his deductive and inference skills. When she's with her mom Yor acts the same way Anya would regardless of the amount of information she has. It seems at times Anya only reacts the way she does because of the presence of her parents but the bus hijacking arc really shows that it's all Anya and just how amazing it is.
While everyone (and i mean everyone) is panicking and worried about the whole situation, Anya is unbelievable calm. She knows that they are not actually in any immediate danger, that the people orchestrating the kidnapping are not actually going to hurt them, namely the front guy who just wanted to avenge his daughter. But Anya is literally the ONLY person who knows that, nobody in or outside of the bus is aware of that fact. If Twilight was there he would have already called bullshit and Yor would have beaten their ass no worries so it would make sense for Anya to be calm but here we see for a fact that Anya's lax reaction to dangerous situation is not actually because of her parents, she's just chill like that.
And it's good to remember Anya was only so calm because she wasn't in any immediate danger, there was still a looming sense of anxiety over what would happen next but in the moment she knew was safe. Not because her parents were there but because she saw right through their bullshit.
But we also get to see just how anxiety inducing Anya's powers can actually make her to the people around her. Her parents are used to dealing with fear so their reactions to Anya are far more subdued and their able to act rationally even when she is seemingly not. But here no one is acclimatize to this kind of situation and Anya just comes off as reckless, ballsy and selfish. It's aggravating to the people around her but they also have no choice but to rely on her because well she's the only one with balls on the bus. It creates such a tense environment that highlights just how unusual Anya is and how abnormal her behaviour is.
I'll have to make a separate post talking about the end where she cries to Yor bc that's a whole other conversation. Just cannot wait to see how they butcher this arc in the anime by completely missing the point for the sake of comedy hohoho
#sxf#spy x family#loid forger#twilight#yor forger#anya forger#anime#sxf manga#analysis#i love anya and you can fight me over her
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Hello! This is kind of a weird ask, I'm sorry to bother you, but seeing as you're a very intelligent studied historian that I deeply respect, I was hoping you could offer some advice? Or like, things i could read? Lately, i feel like my critical thinking skills are emaciated and its scaring the shit out of me. I feel very slow and like I'm constantly missing important info in relation to news/history/social activism stuff. Thats so vague, sorry, but like any tips on how i can do better?
Aha, thank you. There was recently a good critical-thinking infograph on my dash, so obviously I thought I remembered who reblogged it and checked their blog, it wasn't them, thought it was someone else, checked their blog, it also wasn't them, and now I can't find it to link to. Alas. But I will try to sum up its main points and add a few of my own. I'm glad you're taking the initiative to work on this for yourself, and I will add that while it can seem difficult and overwhelming to sort through the mass of information, especially often-false, deliberately misleading, or otherwise bad information, there are a few tips to help you make some headway, and it's a skill that like any other skill, gets easier with practice. So yes.
The first and most general rule of thumb I would advise is the same thing that IT/computer people tell you about scam emails. If something is written in a way that induces urgency, panic, the feeling that you need to do something RIGHT NOW, or other guilt-tripping or anxiety-inducing language, it is -- to say the least -- questionable. This goes double if it's from anonymous unsourced accounts on social media, is topically or thematically related to a major crisis, or anything else. The intent is to create a panic response in you that overrides your critical faculties, your desire to do some basic Googling or double-checking or independent verification of its claims, and makes you think that you have to SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE NOW or you are personally and morally a bad person. Unfortunately, the world is complicated, issues and responses are complicated, and anyone insisting that there is Only One Solution and it's conveniently the one they're peddling should not be trusted. We used to laugh at parents and grandparents for naively forwarding or responding to obviously scam emails, but now young people are doing the exact same thing by blasting people with completely sourceless social media tweets, clips, and other manipulative BS that is intended to appeal to an emotional gut rather than an intellectual response. When you panic or feel negative emotions (anger, fear, grief, etc) you're more likely to act on something or share questionable information without thinking.
Likewise, you do have basic Internet literacy tools at your disposal. You can just throw a few keywords into Google or Wikipedia and see what comes up. Is any major news organization reporting on this? Is it obviously verifiable as a fake (see the disaster pictures of sharks swimming on highways that get shared after every hurricane)? Can you right-click, perform a reverse image search, and see if this is, for example, a picture from an unrelated war ten years ago instead of an up-to-date image of the current conflict? Especially with the ongoing Israel/Palestine imbroglio, we have people sharing propaganda (particularly Hamas propaganda) BY THE BUCKETLOAD and masquerading it as legitimate news organizations (tip: Quds News Network is literally the Hamas channel). This includes other scuzzy dirtbag-left websites like Grayzone and The Intercept, which often have implicit or explicit links to Russian-funded disinformation campaigns and other demoralizing or disrupting fake news that is deliberately designed to turn young left-leaning Westerners against the Democrats and other liberal political parties, which enables the electoral victory of the fascist far-right and feeds Putin's geopolitical and military aims. Likewise, half of our problems would be solved if tankies weren't so eager to gulp down and propagate anything "anti-Western" and thus amplify the Russian disinformation machine in a way even the Russians themselves sometimes struggle to do, but yeah. That relates to both Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine.
Basically: TikTok, Twitter/X, Tumblr itself, and other platforms are absolutely RIFE with misinformation, and this is due partly to ownership (the Chinese government and Elon Fucking Musk have literally no goddamn reason whatsoever to build an unbiased algorithm, and have been repeatedly proven to be boosting bullshit that supports their particular worldviews) and partly due to the way in which the young Western left has paralyzed itself into hypocritical moral absolutes and pseudo-revolutionary ideology (which is only against the West itself and doesn't think that the rest of the world has agency to act or think for itself outside the West's influence, They Are Very Smart and Anti-Colonialist!) A lot of "information" in left-leaning social media spaces is therefore tainted by this perspective and often relies on flat-out, brazen, easily disprovable lies (like the popular Twitter account insisting that Biden could literally just overturn the Supreme Court if he really wanted to). Not all misinformation is that easy to spot, but with a severe lack of political, historical, civic, or social education (since it's become so polarized and school districts generally steer away from it or teach the watered-down version for fear of being attacked by Moms for Liberty or similar), it is quickly and easily passed along by people wanting trite and simplistic solutions for complex problems or who think the extent of social justice is posting the Right Opinions on social media.
As I said above, everything in the world is complicated and has multiple factors, different influences, possible solutions, involved actors, and external and internal causes. For the most part, if you're encountering anything that insists there's only one shiningly righteous answer (which conveniently is the one All Good and Moral People support!) and the other side is utterly and even demonically in the wrong, that is something that immediately needs a closer look and healthy skepticism. How was this situation created? Who has an interest in either maintaining the status quo, discouraging any change, or insisting that there's only one way to engage with/think about this issue? Who is being harmed and who is being helped by this rhetoric, including and especially when you yourself are encouraged to immediately spread it without criticism or cross-checking? Does it rely on obvious lies, ideological misinformation, or something designed to make you feel the aforementioned negative emotions? Is it independently corroborated? Where is it sourced from? When you put the author's name into Google, what comes up?
Also, I think it's important to add that as a result, it's simply not possible to distill complicated information into a few bite-sized and easily digestible social media chunks. If something is difficult to understand, that means you probably need to spend more time reading about it and encountering diverse perspectives, and that is research and work that has to take place primarily not on social media. You can ask for help and resources (such as you're doing right now, which I think is great!), but you can't use it as your chief or only source of information. You can and should obviously be aware of the limitations and biases of traditional media, but often that has turned into the conspiracy-theory "they never report on what's REALLY GOING ON, the only information you can trust is random anonymous social media accounts managed by God knows who." Traditional media, for better or worse, does have certain evidentiary standards, photographing, sourcing, and verifying requirements, and other ways to confirm that what they're writing about actually has some correspondence with reality. Yes, you need to be skeptical, but you can also trust that some of the initial legwork of verification has been done for you, and you can then move to more nuanced review, such as wording, presentation of perspective, who they're interviewing, any journalistic assumptions, any organizational shortcomings, etc.
Once again: there is a shit-ton of stuff out there, it is hard to instinctively know or understand how to engage with it, and it's okay if you don't automatically "get" everything you read. That's where the principle of actually taking the time to be informed comes in, and why you have to firmly divorce yourself from the notion that being socially aware or informed means just instantly posting or sharing on social media about the crisis of the week, especially if you didn't know anything about it beforehand and are just relying on the Leftist Groupthink to tell you how you should be reacting. Because things are complicated and dangerous, they take more effort to unpick than just instantly sharing a meme or random Twitter video or whatever. If you do in fact want to talk about these things constructively, and not just because you feel like you're peer-pressured into doing so and performing the Correct Opinions, then you will in fact need to spend non-social-media time and effort in learning about them.
If you're at a university, there are often subject catalogues, reference librarians, and other built-in tools that are there for you to use and which you SHOULD use (that's your tuition money, after all). That can help you identify trustworthy information sources and research best practices, and as you do that more often, it will help you have more of a feel for things when you encounter them in the wild. It's not easy at first, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes more so, and will make you more confident in your own judgments, beliefs, and values. That way when you encounter something that you KNOW is wrong, you won't be automatically pressured to share it just to fit in, because you will be able to tell yourself what the problems are.
Good luck!
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ok so apparently all the voices have a little ability ? of some sort that comes from different forms of trauma responses and the sake of safety so im going to list what i think they are. im open to discussion
tldr: they all are their own form of trauma response
with the obvious:
The Voice of the Paranoid with reign over the system. It goes with the fact that someone with anxiety has more stress responses than the average person, he knows how to keep the heart from exploding. His response is pretty clear, the nightmare is very clearly traumatizing. His focus works on survival from the inside.
The Voice of the Hunted has his animalistic instinct and heightened senses. I stand by the fact that he could hold his own better than any other voice in a battle to the death. Though he may not outsmart an enemy, his focus works to keep the system safe.
The Voice of the Hero is, in a way, inconsistent. I think his ability has to do with adaptability. I also have this minor headcanon that he isn't quite the same as the other voices, since he's always kind of there. He can reach the Quiet even when others cannot. His interactions with and reactions to the princess depend on the player more than any other thing. His focus is less of a Hero, and more of an ally.
The Voice of the Broken is fear in a way Paranoid is not. His fear makes him small, but more powerful. In the instance of "Fight or Flight," his response is "Fawn," as in he will use his power to give in to the fear. His will and fear are very powerful compared to the others, being able to control the Quiet's actions without much effort. In a way, his focus is making himself powerless.
The Voice of the Cold is pretty infamous for being as unfeeling as possible. I believe this is not just his little emo persona, I think his focus has shifted in a way that he has become unfeeling (usually as a result of turning off after being stuck in Nothing for "eternity"). His focus is a straightforward lack of empathy as a response to the trauma of nothingness and murder.
The Voice of the Opportunist is like the Hero with adaptability, but that is not his focus. He works with self-interest in mind. He is focused on self-improvement, with the self becoming the best and most powerful. When others backstab, and when you, yourself are a backstabber, it is often that one learns from this to get a vantage point. He is very clever to the best situation and outcome, not caring how he gets there. His focus is the self's best interest.
The Voice of the Stubborn is a very angry little guy. Fight or Flight, his choice is pretty obvious. In the route of the Adversary, of which he is the foil, his response is to become the enemy. He has to fight her, until it becomes a game where "nobody can get hurt." He, like Paranoid, can keep the body from stopping. Remind you of anyone named Frisk Undertale? His focus comes down to denial and determination. He won't let himself be the victim.
The Voice of the Skeptic is, of course, constantly questioning. Once bitten, twice shy, as we all know. The lies , this time from the Narrator, are definitely stress-inducing, and coming from someone that preaches trust, it is not so easy to replenish the guy's trust in anything. His views can venture beyond what is available; he is the first to think outside of the box. It comes down to the focus of self-preservation, the opposition to the Opportunist's focus of self-interest.
The Voice of the Contrarian is similar, but it can be argued that he isn't exactly a trauma response. He is just a reaction to the self. There is a disorder (i cant remember the name) where its just constant denial and contradiction, and that feels more like him than anything. But we all know Conty. It's very clear his focus is Brewing Chaos. His affect can literally alter reality as the reality is being perceived.
The Voice of the Smitten is ... a little bit sad. I'm sure we all know about stockholm syndrome, but in a lot of instances, Smitten will trauma bond with the princess. It's as if she can do no wrong, right? even when she kills you? Multiple times? And will again? ? ? The sheer denial and willingness to be hurt is, yes, another trauma response, wanting the person you love to be perfect, and hoping that they are. His focus is effort; trying his best to love and be loved. Often in vain. It is arguable that his affect effects reality more than any other Voice.
Last but not least, The Voice of the Cheated. Thought of as weak, but could have been more if he was "treated fairly." Anyone who feels as though they have been treated unfairly in the past knows the desire to have things be fair. In the route of the Razor, he also has an incredible resolve and determination. His stubbornness comes from a need to "settle the score." He can unify, and eventually "empty the cup," as in letting go of his vengeance. All of the voices do not bother him. If anything, he is glad that everyone can have their effect, and he hopes his efforts will be enough. His focus is equality, and unity.
#stp#slay the princess#character study#?????#thats a lot of words#pick your favorite#the voices#stp voices#the long quiet#i have a lot of feelings#traumatized birds#all of them but the contrarian#i think hes just a freak
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random tim thoughts. i have been thinking about him a lot lately
- gets flustered SO easily,,, tease him even slightly and that’s it. he’s bright red. stuttering. thinking ab it for the rest of the day.
- speaking of stuttering: had a really bad stutter as a kid. got put in speech therapy and now it’s mostly gone but it does come back slightly when he’s upset/stressed
- either has the most horrific, realistic, fear-inducing nightmares or unhinged fever dreams. like it’s either “i just watched faceless shadow figures tear into jay and hang his guts on the wall then i had to run but i couldn’t so they did it to me next” or “i had to rescue lady gaga who was also nick cage from an evil lizard then we made out”
- secretly enjoys ABBA (would rather die than admit it)
- COLLECTS VINYLS you cannot tell me this man isn’t a vinyl elitist. keeps them neatly organised and will pitch a fit if you even breathe on them wrong
- writes a shit ton of lyrics that’ll never see the light of day. it’s basically his version of writing poetry
- went to college for music composition but never put out any of the stuff he wrote (he thought people wouldn’t like it), it’s all kept on usb sticks in the attic tho cause he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of all the songs he poured his young little heart and soul into
- can fall asleep anywhere anytime during the day, but the MOMENT he gets into bed at night. he’s awake. cant sleep. not happening.
- generalised anxiety disorder i’m not elaborating
- overthinks every interaction he ever has
- however. he’s also a stubborn bastard. communicates in sarcasm and affectionate insults
- has the most beautiful, deep, rich singing voice... such a warm baritone. think david le'aupepe from Gang of Youths
- snores like an old man he literally sounds like a freight train
#the soup mind#he’s so babyboy#i need to hold him close and kiss him gently#and stroke his hair and tell him i love him#AUGHFJSKSK#he’s like a sad awkward dog w those sad awkward dog eyes#marble hornets#mh headcanons#tim wright
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I was thinking more about this lovely post from the lovely @shaylogic, specifically the why of Charles' shirt changing to black immediately after Crystal talks to him about them staying friends.
And I think it has less to do with the fact that it's her telling him they should remain friends since she can't handle a relationship right now with all her trauma from David. I think this part, the "from her trauma from David", is really really important. Because from Crystal's perspective, she's essentially saying she cannot deal with romantic involvement so soon after David while he's still massively messing with her head and is in no way trying to say that it's because Charles is too similar to David, it's just that all her romantic memories are completely entirely filled with memories of David and when she's put back in the headspace of romantic feelings it brings up all the trauma of him and she needs more time to work through her trauma before she can revisit romantic feelings again.
Now from Charles perspective, he hears her saying that she can't handle a romantic relationship with him right now because of David being so in her head still. And Charles, ever the Reading People's Emotions boy that he is (built from his own trauma mind you) can tell that there's more to why she's saying it now. Like she quite literally just woke up screaming from a nightmare as she puts it and immediately says she's "fine" with an earnest nod to. With this context Charles is reading into why this conversation is immediately following this nightmare, which he has no details about so of course he's analyzing it and why she's saying this after it. Not to mention the fact that she pulled his specific move of brushing of concerns about your well-being. And we have to remember that this is following all the events of the Devlin house shaking his trauma to the forefront of his mind, everyone's look in their eyes following his attacking of the Night Nurse, and all the shaking of all his uncertainty about him being a Good Person and being Needed by the people he loves into the ruminating focus. So with all of this fresh in his mind, with him and David being referred to in the same sentence both with the same romantic context, even though it's entirely NOT what Crystal was saying, Charles still hears this, already in overanalyzing mode out of his worry for her and his own worries that are bouncing around in his mind so easily attach themselves to her worries and twist them until they look alike as overthinking anxiety often does. And to HIS brain he's now worried that he's like David. That now he has some "proof" that he might be a bad person in Crystal connecting him to David, at least enough proof for his own trauma induced "what if" anxiety to think that maybe these fears he's always had and repressed that are now being brought into reality somewhat actually ARE true. No matter what Crystal could have said in this scene he heard David and him in the same context and it became his own worry spiral even with his ever-present smile masking it.
So essentially in Crystal's attempt to explain without revealing her own trauma too much because she can't bear to do that yet she set off Charles own trauma response from dealing with his father of reading into every minute emotion and action to figure out how to understand so he can help her (and himself from the past) and this instinctive trauma response brings out his overthinking which then brings out his worries that he was already recently overthinking and they then got all mashed together in an overthinking sandwich and grew his what if I'm not a good person worries enough to take him down an entire shirt shade. His emotional well-being has been knocked down a whole nother peg from his new worries over any similarity to David. So that's why this conversation was the catalyst for the burgundy to black transition.
#i love love love that they made this be the moment his shirt goes full black it says so so much without saying anything at all#I hope Dunsmore understands how much we adore her she deserves everything she's ever wanted she's so fantastic at what she does#shaylogic really got my brain into a frenzied analysis over this detail ahakajfhfah thank you for your analysis waking up my analysis brain#dead boy detectives#dbda#charles rowland#charles rowland character analysis#crystal palace#crystal palace character analysis#charles rowland my beloved <3#crystal palace my beloved <3#i forgot to add all the taggy tags oopsies i got too engrossed in sharing my analysis to actually get it where people can see it
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Mysterious Lotus Casebook and Complex PTSD Representations: Part I
One of my favorite things about Mysterious Lotus Casebook is how surprisingly nuanced and unusual its portrayal of complex PTSD is. So many shows either introduce character trauma to make the character Sad and Brooding, Angry and Violent (if they’re a villain) or Hesitant to Start a Relationship (if it’s a romance), and that’s usually as in-depth as it gets. If they address the unique after effects of child abuse that lead to complex PTSD at all, it’s usually either explain why a character is a homicidal monster (which is all sorts of problematic) or it’s limited to a single phobia, which can be overcome by the Power of Love, or it’s just something that crops up occasionally for Plot and then forgotten about the rest of the time.
Mysterious Lotus Casebook gives us two deeply traumatized characters–Li Lianhua and Di Feisheng–who each have clear symptoms of complex PTSD, and yet, their cPTSD manifests completely differently because of the types of traumas that caused it and their relationships to the people causing the traumas. And their manifestations of cPTSD affect just about every level of their being, including their sense of self, their decision-making, and their relationships with others, and it includes some of the incredibly important manifestations of cPTSD that are almost never shown in media while avoiding the most insulting stereotypes!
PTSD vs cPTSD
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is an anxiety disorder caused by experiencing a single (or short lived) traumatic event (an accident, assault, medical emergency, fighting in a war, etc), where the symptoms last for longer than a month. Symptoms include things like reexperiencing the event (flashbacks), avoidance (of things related to the event), changes in mood (depression, anger, fear, etc), and issues with emotional regulation (hypervigilance–being constantly on the lookout for threats–irritability/angry outbursts, etc.).
Complex PTSD happens if someone has experienced long term, chronic/repeated trauma that induces hopelessness and no chance of escape (survivors of extended child abuse, human trafficking, domestic violence, prisoners of war, slavery, etc.). It’s also often interpersonal in ways a car crash or medical emergency is not, and is particularly linked with chronic trauma during childhood: chronic stress hormones introduce literal physical changes in a growing brain, particularly the amygdala (which processes fear), hippocampus (which is responsible for learning/memory), and the prefrontal cortex (which is responsible for executive function), so it can affect every aspect of life and also affect a child’s progression through developmental stages. In addition to these physical changes to the brain, the prolonged trauma–particularly the helplessness–distorts a child’s sense of self, the perpetrator, and the world in ways that alter their decision making, their memory, and their future relationships.
For instance, whereas a traumatic event that caused PTSD might make you depressed or not trust the person who harmed you (or to fear driving), the trauma from cPTSD might make you suicidal, blame yourself for your victimization, decide to isolate to avoid interpersonal relationships to keep from getting hurt, or become obsessed with never being harmed again.
Basically, cPTSD has the core symptoms from PTSD with some extra challenges, including issues with emotional regulation, self-concept, interruptions in consciousness, difficulties with relationships, perceptions of the perpetrator, and systems of meaning.
DFS and LLH: CPTSD Symptoms
There’s so much more to say about this than I can cover in this superficial introduction, so this will be the first of a series of metas; I’m hoping to go into more depth about some of these categories in future posts (the DFS and emotional regulation/violence one is already drafted, so stay tuned).
Difficulties with Relationships (problems with trust, communication, missing red flags): Both DFS and LLH have a history of trusting the wrong people and not trusting the right people, both in the past and in the present of the show: in the past, LLH missed the fact that SGD hated him and DFS missed the fact that JLQ was obsessed with him, and as a result, both sects were destroyed, many people died, and the two almost destroyed each other. If they had communicated with each other instead of fighting at the donghai battle, they might have realized they were being set up and could have worked together, but their difficulties with trust after perceived betrayal made that impossible for them. They both have a history of overlooking red flags in the present–DFS in particular, keeping the red-flag-personified-JLQ around despite her history of poisoning people, including himself–and they both tend to struggle with relationships in the present: LLH runs away from and/or drugs the people who care about him, and DFS sends endless mixed messages by not telling Li Lianhua most of his plans to help him.
Self-Concept (Self-hatred and self-fragmentation): Li Lianhua is basically the poster child for having a negative self concept: he has an overdeveloped sense of self-blame and responsibility, even believing he deserves to die for leading his men to their deaths, and once he learns he was manipulated and SGD was behind it all, he seems to think it’s his own fault that he was manipulated, lied to, and abused. His self-loathing is so extreme that he imagines his earlier self, Li Xiangyi, to have died, and tries as much as possible to be nothing like that earlier persona. His repeated insistence that Li Xiangyi and Li Lianhua are NOT the same person is reminiscent of the fragmentary sense of self that comes with more extreme trauma, like Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) or Other-Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD), where traumatic experiences are so painful that people form different alters, or differentiated self-states, that can have different names and skills and memories and identities.
Di Feisheng doesn’t have the self-hatred or guilt that LLH does, and it seems like he tries to skip over questions of self worth, blame, or hatred by focusing exclusively on staying true to his code of ethics he’s developed for himself and focusing on gaining the strength necessary to fight for his freedom from mind control and the Di Fortress. But even though he’s kept his Di name, kept his goals the same since escaping Di Fortress, and hasn’t tried to separate himself from his trauma the way LLH did with LXY, he’s even more willing than LLH to take on different identities: it’s literally one of his martial arts skills. The Bone Constriction Skill lets him become someone else for a time, whether that’s a child or Shi Hun. It fits well with his willingness to be whoever he needs to be to accomplish his goals: he’s perfectly willing to be seen as a heartless villain if it lets him protect LLH, and he’s willing to flirt with and pretend to be jealous of JLQ to get information from her, and he’s willing to be LLH’s a-Fei, both with and without his memories.
Interruptions in Consciousness (Amnesia and nightmares for Everyone): LLH and DFS both have nightmares and flashbacks/memories of traumatic events, and as mentioned above, both have interesting hints of having fragmented/fluid senses of self. They both also dissociate, or separate themselves from the present when dealing with traumatic things: LLH spaces out and gets stuck in his past memories about SGD when talking to FDB after burying SGD, and DFS dissociates from physical pain so as not to make noise both after he’s been stabbed and poisoned with Wuxin Huai and again when JLQ is torturing him in her water dungeon.
They both also have dissociative amnesia that takes away trauma memories, although one is from a poisonous incense plus the magic of qi macgyvering: LLH forgot the existence of his older brother who died in front of him, and DFS as a-Fei had just about all of his memories (except a few of killing as a child) taken away. Amnesia is a huge part of cPTSD, because it’s the brain’s way of trying to protect you from truths that you might not survive. It can manifest as blocking out one single traumatic event, a bunch of thematically or temporally linked traumatic events, a skill set related to the trauma, or, in the case of something like DID or OSDD, just about everything. It’s endlessly fascinating to me that the show gives us one example of definite traumatic amnesia through LLH, and then seems to almost transform the experience of having DID and being a new part and finding yourself with a new name and very little else into an exaggerated fantasy setting (interestingly, people often report experiencing debilitating headaches when they try to regain memories behind the amnesia barrier). I doubt this is what they were actually going for, since DID is almost universally portrayed incorrectly and offensively in media (one of the alters is almost always portrayed as a serial killer, but that’s a rant for another day), but the different names and the presence of amnesia with LLH made it a fascinating enough parallel that I had to mention it.
Problems with Emotional Regulation (Lashing in vs. lashing out): Li Xiangyi and Di Feisheng are polar opposites when it comes to struggles with emotional regulation: whereas LXY turns his anger inward, directing it all toward self-hate in what’s often called a “toxic shame spiral,” both after the donghai battle and after he finds out about SGD’s role in his shifu’s death, DFS lashes out physically at those who have harmed him, usually via choking people, although he is usually exerting an impressive amount of control over his emotions and strength. To put in perspective just how different their emotional strategies are and how much effort DFS puts into emotional regulation, compare how much more calm he is than LLH during any revelation of past betrayal or painful information, any scene where they confront the people who have abused them, or any scene where they learn they’ve been wrong about something big; LLH is most likely having an emotional flashback (re-experiencing the emotions from the earlier traumas) and DFS is probably compartmentalizing them or dissociating from them to process later/never so he can stay semi-functional and not show a potential opponent a weak spot.
NOTE: This means that DFS is loooong overdue for a very dramatic breakdown when it eventually all catches up to him and he can’t distract himself from it anymore.
Perceptions of Perpetrators: In this way only, Di Feisheng has one advantage: he knows the head of Di Fortress is a cruel, abusive tyrant. While he clearly still fears him, even as a physically strong adult (he has nightmares, flashbacks, and dedicates his life to being free from him, which means he still to some extent feels young, small, and helpless when he thinks of him), DFS knows that he hates him and wants to be free of him. This is probably part of why he’s spared some of the self-hatred LLH experiences: he knows he didn’t deserve the abuse because seeing it happen to other children means he knows the abuse wasn’t a personal reflection on him. It does, however, motivate him to want to be stronger and invulnerable so as to never be helpless again, and that obsession is what drives him to have a single-minded focus on reaching the pinnacle of the jianghu.
It’s so much more complicated for Li Lianhua (and for a more detailed analysis, check out this meta): the childhood perpetrators were manifold–a slew of bandits, whichever children and adults on the street would abuse him for existing and being poor–it probably felt like life itself was to blame. It’s no wonder that when his shifu and shiniang took him in, they were the ultimate rescuers whom he hero-worshipped, so when he felt he made a mistake and his life fell apart, he blamed himself: at least there would be someone to blame that way and something he could do about it (try to kill his past self and hate everything about him). It’s also very telling that LLH doesn’t blame JLQ or YBQ all that much when he learns they poisoned him, and that he’s more angry that SGD murdered their shifu than he is that SGD set him up, hated him, and was the real mastermind behind everything he had blamed himself for; he struggles to stay angry at people who harm him, and would rather blame and hate himself for being tricked than hate the person who tricked him. So, whereas DFS tries to destroy the people who abused him, LLH tries to destroy himself.
If you read this far, thanks! I’m probably going to be posting the DFS and emotional regulation/violence against perpetrator meta next, because it’s drafted, but if there are any of these you desperately want me to talk about more sooner rather than later, let me know! :D
#mysterious lotus casebook#mlc meta#di feisheng#li lianhua#Li Xiangyi#complex PTSD#child abuse#sorry it's so long! This is the short version#The original version was 2700 words#dissociation#trauma#I am so here for non-monolithic representations of mental illnesses#PTSD#In case you can't tell I am very invested in depictions of PTSD and cPTSD#I'm always up for talking about fictional portrayals of trauma#so feel free to message if you have questions about any of this and don't want it to be in the notes for some reason
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YUI KOMORI HC’S
A/N: heyyy! I got a lot of really good feedback from my post about the mukami brothers! And everyone seemed really interested! So here’s so more! Regarding the mention of my AU I will be doing a small guide to what I’ve been working on so you all can enjoy it to the fullest extent!
Mentions of SH, ED, and religious imagery
- Grew up strictly Catholic. So even now she does the cross across her chest when she sees a statue or a painting of Christ, God, and The Virgin Mary. As well as before she prays.
- Favorite historical figure is Joan of Arc cause she related to her so heavily as she also thought she could hear the word of god as a child. Turns out it was something else
- Has a very dull appearance. Dirty blonde hair and brown eyes rather than the vibrant pink eyes and blonde hair
- Had doubted her faith a lot, even more since living with the Sakamaki’s
- has pretty prevalent SH habits, these doubled when she started living with the Sakamaki’s as well
- Her and Cordelia share a brain and body, rather than an awakening in my AU Yui has had contact with Cordelia since puberty
- Cordelia can switch places with Yui easily due to their connection
- Her relationship with her “father” is rocky. Since a young girl she denied a lot of what the church taught her and her father would punish her. The nuns really cared for her more
- was exorcised due to her telling an older nun that she was hearing voices, this has happened twice within this universe
- favorite animals are little rodents. Mice are really her favorite out of them all, she thinks they’re sweet and thinks their big ears are funny
- definitely a Cinderella lover, she relates a lot
- lowkey a picky eater? But mostly because she’s constantly stressed out and eating makes her feel sick.
- hates hates HATES dolls. Her and Kanato don’t really get along well due to this fear of her’s
- she actually tries really hard to be nice to every person she meets, but after some time at the manor she really stopped caring as much and her personality also dulled
- Horrible Social anxiety, she literally only has herself or Cordelia for a good majority of time
- smoked weed once with a guy she met when she was living with her father still and actually really liked it. Has partook time to time in the current events of the au, but it’s limited cause Reiji threatened to cut her soiled lungs out of her body if she continued. When in the Mukami manor she partakes more often but its anxiety inducing now.
- In my au Yui is a mixed blood, solely due to Cordelia sharing her body for years. Yui is technically a vampire, when she hit puberty and got her period that’s when Cordelia started talking and engaging with her more often. So when Yui arrives to the manor the awakening was already in process
- Wanted to be a writer as a kid and would sneak out to read books from the nearby library
- has a fear of dogs as well
- ED habits, this started when she first arrived at the manor due to the way the brothers would prod at her skin plus influence from Cordelia
- hates Coffee
- Demi romantic and Demi sexual- meaning she needs a genuine connection with a person before dating/having sex
- claims she doesn’t have favorites but is seen more with Subaru and Reiji more than the other brothers. Does indeed have favorites at the Mukami manor, and it’s Azusa and Yuma
- hates apples a lot
- has had horrible insomnia since a kid
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Aang, Psychology, and the Concept of “Running Away” (A Breakdown Of Aang's Trauma Responses)
So, one thing that always kind of threw me off about atla was Aang's ignoration and dismissiveness of the things that have happened to him and continue to happen to him. He never seemed to have any kind of trauma response (besides nightmares).
Recently I've realized that the ignoration is Aang's trauma response, and it runs pretty fucking deep. Aang shows a lot of trauma responses but they are not as noticeable because Aang is also ridiculously good at emotional regulation, to a toxic point imo, and probably due to his upbringing by monks.
Aang, as is pretty well covered by the show, has a problem with trying to 'run away’ from his problems. This steadily stops happening as much throughout Book 2 (though he is learning in Book 1), but what's interesting is, while his tendency to physically run away from problems ends, his tendency to emotionally run away increases.
We go from Book 1 in which Aang confides in Katara about the separation from the monks, to Book 2 in which Aang literally actively rejects attempts at comfort in favor of an emotional shut down, to Book 3 where, after the failed invasion, Aang immediately tries just about anything he can to avoid talking about it.
He's not necessarily 'running away’. He still owns up to his duty and is right on the ball when Zuko shows up to teach firebending. It is not the work he shies from, it is specifically talking about the failure. This is Aang's main trauma response. Before I delve deeper into that though, I want to talk about Aang's other trauma responses that get bypassed thanks to his ability to ignore them.
Quoting ‘What is Child Traumatic Stress’, “Traumatic reactions can include a variety of responses, including intense and ongoing emotional upset, depressive symptoms, anxiety, behavioral changes, difficulties with attention, academic difficulties, nightmares, physical symptoms such as difficulty sleeping and eating, and aches and pains, among others.”
Aang shows almost all of these at one point or another, and typically they show themselves when he finds himself incapable of mentally 'running away.’
Intense and Ongoing Emotional Upset:
I'm mostly eyeing the avatar state episodes. His immediate reaction to traumatic events he is helpless to is explosive anger, but it fails to be ongoing because it is immediately followed by a shut down.
- Aang on Zuko's boat. In this episode, while fighting with Zuko, Aang shows some pretty intense fear and his first (technically second) experience with the Avatar state is for survival and driven by fear (also, notably, a repeat experience of the same thing that caused the actual first experience). Yet, as soon as Aang is off of Zuko's boat, he's melancholy for a hot second and then turns on a dime and starts talking about the adventures they can go on. Avatar State -> Shut Down/dismissing or ignoring the problem.
- Aang at the Southern Air Temple. He starts off in deep obvious denial, like this kid is so obviously blocking. Then he sees Gyatso's body, goes into a rage and grief induced Avatar state, gets pulled out, can no longer use denial as his mental defense, and so once again turns to shut down. He's expressionless as he comes down, and when he's fully out he's just kind of tired and speaks with a soft almost toneless quality. He's admitting to the trauma and yet there's a numb resignation to it. He's not emotionally connecting with it. We see him after with Momo and Appa smiling and just being like “we gotta stick together :)”. That's not the appropriate response to admitting there's only three survivors of your home. Avatar State -> Shut down/dismissal
- Aang and General Fong. Aang experiences an extremely distressing and helpless situation while he watches Katara, one of two whole people in his life, be buried. He goes into a rage induced Avatar state, again, and then literally 'nope's out of the situation with help from Roku. And when he comes back, he shuts down. He doesn't react emotionally, he once again speaks in that soft, even, almost dead tone, apologizes, and dismisses the event. I mean, the way he addresses General Fong, the person who just caused this whole thing, is extremely chill, almost uncharacteristic. Just a simple, “you're out of your mind” with a tone that could make you think he was having a casual conversation with someone who just suggested eating cereal out of a cup. And then he's good! Momo comes back and he smiles and everything is all good again. Avatar State -> Shut down/dismissal.
- Then we have the desert, one of the few times Aang does not shut down immediately, but then it culminates in the Avatar State and he stays like that for a bit but once he comes down, his faces changes again, to what is almost resignation, like he's given up on being mad, which really, he has as we see later. And then the next episode and he's playing in some water, but as soon as Sokka brings up Appa, we see the face and tone that's now kind of familiar: soft, dead, dismissive. He's once again refusing to emotionally connect and is downplaying it. Avatar State -> shut down/dismissal.
Depressive Symptoms/Anxiety:
He shows fits of both, though these aren't as evident because, again, most of the time he's in an emotional block and ignoring the problems. But when he cannot ignore the absence of his lifelong companion, he has a long period of anger followed by a numb depressive state, he literally talks about giving up hope. He is entirely hopeless at this point.
And then when he cannot ignore the Day of Black Sun coming in a few days, his anxiety goes through the fucking roof.
However, these don't last long and that'll connect to me talking about emotional regulation later.
Behavioral Changes:
Aang changes A Lot over the course of the series. Book 1 Aang is very distinct from Book 3 Aang (though we still see the core traits of him throughout). He becomes more hyper focused on doing his duty, tends to fall to the background when he can, generally takes on a much more somber demeanor.
Difficulties With Attention:
This one's not really huge. He has about the same amount of attention focus in Book 3 as he does Book 1, if not improvement.
Nightmares:
I don't think I have to explain this. Aang goes through multiple fits of nightmares.
Difficulties Sleeping or Eating:
Once again, I look to Nightmares and Daydreams, one of the few times Aang is unable to shut down or block. He cannot sleep for the life of him. I have plans to go back and pay attention to eating habits in Book 3 in order to potentially add onto this joke meta, but I would not be surprised if there were signs of a lowered appetite, even if the writers did not intend it.
Aches and Pains:
He doesn't ever complain about this but also like, would he? Even if he was experiencing them? Kid tried to fight people and fly through a storm while newly recovering from a lightning injury. Aang gives no shits.
Then the article also covers childhood PTSD diagnoses which I'd also like to go over real quick. “the child continues to re-experience the event through nightmares, flashbacks, or other symptoms for more than a month after the original experience; the child has what we call avoidance or numbing symptoms—he or she won’t think about the event, has memory lapses, or maybe feels numb in connection with the events—and the child has feelings of arousal, such as increased irritability, difficulty sleeping, or others.”
Most of these I just covered, but I think it's notable that numbness is also mentioned here, the exact symptoms I've been talking about. Avoidant, won't think about it, numb in connection.
And just to be sure that everyone is on board let me go through some other examples of Aang shutting down:
Katara brings up the 100 years and Aang immediately blocks that shit. It's literally too big for him to conceptualize, so he dismisses it as okay because he has a new friend now and moves on and doesn't think about it.
The Northern Air Temple. I think most people agree that the lesson in that episode was wrong. Aang had every right to be angry. There's nothing okay about taking over and destroying 100 year old artifacts of a nearly extinct culture. We see Aang react to this with a numbness. There's even a moment where he's just frozen and uncomprehending. “This place is unbelievable.” “Yeah. It's great isn't it?” “No, just unbelievable.” He reacts with anger later (notably when he feels like he can do something instead of being helpless), and then when he can no longer do anything, he once again just rejects any negative emotional turmoil in favor of that “it's fine” attitude and accepts what the people have done.
Then the desert, one of the few places we don't see him shut down immediately. Except, literally the next episode is all about Aang's hardest shut down yet.
There are other examples but I think you get the point. He does this A Lot.
Okay cool, so we've covered the denial and trauma responses part, but how does emotional regulation play into this?
I'm glad you asked.
So, when I was first considering Aang and this whole thing, I thought Aang exhibited emotional dysregulation, especially in regards to the Avatar State, but then I actually did some learning on emotional dysregulation and realized, actually, no, he doesn't. Emotional dysregulation is mostly characterized by emotional responses being out of proportion with the event, but I think we can all agree, pm every time he goes into the Avatar State, that emotional response is uh, rather warranted. Now, Aang does, in these moments, show the lack of control that can come with emotional dysregulation, but also like, who wouldn't.
Considering Aang's behavior outside of the Avatar State Outbursts, he's actually very good at emotional regulation. Scary good, in fact. Number One in the reasons I say this is everything I said above. The ability to shut down is often an active choice. Aang does not like who he is when he is upset and, outside the initial outburst, has a pretty firm grip on his emotions. He shows anger at times, but they are in appropriate places with more or less appropriate responses.
The Desert stands out so much because Aang loses the control he normally has. This is where we see him lose his grip on himself and he spirals.
He rarely shows grief. During his lessons with the Guru he passes all the chakras with amazing ease because he legitimately is that good at controlling and managing emotions which, like I said at the very beginning, I attribute a lot of that to him being raised by monks. I mean, he's a 12 yr old who is skilled in meditation. I don't think it's a stretch to think the monks taught him other such things.
He doesn't react to small things that would normally piss people off. Examples include The Headband when he gives absolutely zero shits about the bully, and The Southern Raiders where he accepts Katara trying to steal Appa and doesn't react to Zuko mocking him and his culture.
Aang also, paradoxically, can be pretty good at expressing emotions when he needs to. He's typically very emotionally intelligent, with the exception being pretty much any trauma. He will react to basic things in the moment and is unafraid to show frustration or anger or uncertainty, as long as it's Not connected to a thing he is distinctly Not thinking about.
And one of the most damning examples of his emotional regulation skill, that is actually the scene that started me thinking about all of this, is the scene with Koh the Face Stealer.
That scene threw me off so much because I felt like it was incredibly out of character for Aang, this incredibly expressive kid, to be able to show no emotional reaction. It didn't make sense and for a long time I dismissed it as just, the writers thought it'd be cool so he did it. But of course, I can't let things lay, so I never really stopped thinking about it until I realized, in context of everything I've talked about before, it actually makes perfect sense.
Aang is emotionally expressive by choice. He has the ability to control his emotions and responses to a ridiculous degree. He knows how to be emotionally intelligent with basic things, where to express emotion and how to do it.
(Of course, he's not perfect. There are plenty of times he acts out, the Bato episode being the first thing to come to mind, but even there, after just a few hours, he has wrestled with his jealousy and responds appropriately to guilt, he owns up to it. He does try to explain himself but when Sokka makes it clear he's not going to listen, Aang does not continue to press the point. He accepts Sokka's decision, does not lash out, and for once doesn't shut down or exhibit happiness soon after. He is sad and expresses it without shoving his emotions onto others. For a 12 yr old, this is fucking impressive.)
Aang was taught well by the monks, but the one thing they couldn't teach him was response to trauma, and that's where he falters, but that emotional regulation means he's not going to respond in a typical way. Instead, he turns to denial as his coping mechanism of choice and uses those skills he learned to achieve a workable state of being but through unhealthy use.
Where am I going with this? Idk. Nowhere really, I just wanted to talk about Aang and psychology tbqh.
Anyway, I will finish this up by a fun delve into Things He's Probably Going To End Up Suffering From:
Denial can lead to memory blocking, where it's more than just not thinking about it, the brain actively suppresses and alters memory to cope. Adult Aang's recollection of the Ozai year is probably not going to be super accurate. Would not be surprised if someone was like “hey remember that time you were almost executed by a town for your past live’s mistakes?” and Aang just went “No???” and legit has no recollection of any such thing.
Selective numbing will eventually turn into collective numbing. You can selectively numb for a temporary period of time (which is how people fall into the trap) but eventually your brain will start to numb everything, not just the bad things. At the very least teenage Aang absolutely goes through a period of dissociative complete numbness.
Speaking of dissociation, if you're not going to react to trauma the normal way, dissociation happens. It starts as a coping mechanism but like with numbing, it cannot remain controlled and will develop into something. Aang will have a dissociative disorder, I'm telling you. Which one? Idk, but I assure you, it'll be there. I'm leaning toward some basic depersonalization/derealization and/or OSDD type four where trauma and meditation accidentally mix for the worse.
So yeah, there you go, a breakdown of Aang, his trauma responses, his emotional intelligence, and the consequences of those two things put together.
I'm gonna be a nerd here and add shitty citations but this is mostly in case you're also a psych geek and want to read things.
“What Are the Dissociative Disorders”. International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation.
“Developmental trauma: Conceptual framework, associated risks and comorbidities, and evaluation and treatment”. National Library of Medicine.
“What is Child Traumatic Stress”. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network.
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Vedic Astrology Observation (based on shows/films part 3)
Very interesting how Saturn creates literal mental hardships on their natives, which can cripple their self esteem. Sometimes this theme can build or break the victim who is on the receiving end of absolute humiliation and oppression. (This applies to Capricorn, Aquarius and Saturn nakshatras. But I often see Saturn nakshatras being the oppressive figure that ignites fear in others.)
Often times, this dynamic takes place in a stress-inducing environment where the leader is a cold, brutal tyrant. One big example that popped in my head is the film Whiplash, where this cruel music teacher is played by Pushya Moon, J.K Simmons. This teacher takes this one particular student through a journey of humiliation, abuse and degradation to get the 'best results' out of him (when it's also about power imbalance for the teacher). The student being played by Aquarius Sun, Miles Teller.
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Saturn sees this as a process of purification. Through extreme harshness, you become a refined diamond. But does one really have to suffer to achieve success? Mercury nakshatras, especially Revati, is where this theme becomes dismantled. Mercury calculates ways to shortcuts, basically getting ahead without extreme hardship. But it's interesting that a Saturn nakshatra native can adopt a mindset that victimizes oneself just so that the relief of success can be rewarded. The assumption that mental hardship reaps the best results out of a person. This is especially what Uttara Bhadrapada represents, self destruction & self restriction to become more 'elevated'.
Another obvious example of a film about being under a tyrant is Devil Wears Prada. Pushya Ascendant Meryl Streep portraying a ruthless, tyrannical figure who has caused a stressful work environment because of the fear she's instilled in others. And she takes this one employee who she sees potential in, and expects perfection out of her.
The performance of the character being inspired Glenn Close's portrayal of Cruella who is also a horrible, abusive tyrant of a boss who terrorizes her employees. And she's Uttara Bhadrapada Sun.
And another tyrannical, cruel and cold character I would like to name is Sue Sylvester from Glee, who is portrayed by Uttara Bhadrapada Moon and Pushya Ascendant, Jane Lynch (who randomly reminds me of Hillary Clinton who is also Uttara Bhadrapada Moon).
It's so funny that 'The Bear' shows an extremely anxiety-inducing work environment and the main lead is of course an Uttara Bhadrapada Moon. Whose unleashing rage in S1 is compared to Shia Labeouf's temper. And it's important to note that Shia Labeouf is indeed a f/cking Pushya Moon. 😭
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The screaming, stress, fear of failure / fear of small mistakes and especially the humiliation that goes on in the kitchen of this series is so Saturnian themed. The environment being unhealthy and unpredictable, the mental hardship which takes toll on your self esteem. I could immediately link this whole post back to Claire Nakti's Uttara Bhadrapada video which opened my eyes in a big way (as I see endless Saturn nak themes instantly), and in real life I witness how Saturn nakshatra people are either humiliating others or they are on the receiving end of that pressure and humiliation.
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The Black Mirror episode called 'Joan Is Awful' is very Saturnian.
This character Joan is perceived as cold and cruel, which is not her intention. And she one day finds that there is a series made about her life in a very exaggerated way (without her consent). In the series mimicking her life, Joan is played by Salma Hayek who portrays her very coldly, self-centered and mean-spirited.
I like how Uttara Bhadrapada and Pushya can be interchangeable. (Pushya is ruled by the deity Brihaspati who is literally Jupiter. And Uttara Bhadrapada is Pisces which is ruled by Jupiter. Both nakshatras belong in the warrior caste, which means they're not sweet and soft as they're classified as warriors. And both nakshatras are ruled by Saturn, ofc, so all of this means they have a very, very similar temperament.)
I love to think of how Anya Taylor Joy and Charlize Theron share the same character. Anya portraying a young version of Furiosa and Charlize portraying the version we know in Mad Max: Fury Road.
And also, the theme of Joan Is Awful is the exploitation of the anatomy and life of both women (three, actually), and the humiliation they experience as their exploitation is for other people's consumption. The lack of consent which denies them of rights is very Saturnian.
Actually, it's very similar to another Black Mirror episode called Ashley O, starring Miley Cyrus who is an Anuradha Sun.
A celebrity whose anatomy is exploited for the consumption and entertainment of others, which nearly leads to her death. Saturn nakshatras and Saturn rashis may experience the stripping of one's own identity; they may experience moments where they have to make themselves feel small, where they're completely powerless, where they have to hide, or act a certain way to survive.
Also, I just finished watching the kdrama called Celebrity, and I find it so funny that the main character got called 'Modern Cinderella' because she's romantically involved with this handsome, rich CEO dude who became intrigued with her directness. She literally is Cinderella in how her father died after going bankrupt and her family adapted to a smaller life, but she still has the knowledge to run a business/factory (because her father ran factories) which she benefits from. She becomes belittled, humiliated and oppressed until she decides that to gain power is to gain respect. This particular theme is very Uttara Bhadrapada, but this character is played by Pushya Sun Park Gyu-young.
Again, I believe Pushya and Uttara Bhadrapada are interchangeable sometimes. Also, I love how she social climbs her way on top. Which is also very Saturnian. But it's important to note that the premise of the series is also Rahuvian, and the actress is a Swati Moon which is just perfect.
But yeah this is all I got, thanks for reading <3.
#vedic astrology#vedic observations#sidereal astrology#astrology#astro observation#astrology observations#pushya#uttara bhadrapada#anuradha#saturn#Pisces#Cancer#Scorpio#nakshatra series#astro observations#astrology observation#nakshatra observations#nakshatras#Aquarius#Capricorn#vedic observation
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There is another artistically incredible thing I noticed abt the first Httyd movie.
The movie, it's from Hiccup's perspective. And it conveys his perspective throughout, in details both subtle and clear.
Like the Book of Dragons clip; Chilling and terrific with sound effects and feels induced exactly as Hiccup was imagining it. That scene alone gives me the shivers and the way it ends on Night Fury (I absolutely love the fear inducing Night Fury theme from the first movie). I've been noticing that every single piece of score fit the emotions and situation Hiccup was in, affirming his perspective, his experiences, conveyed through the movie as if they were the viewers' own. And that scene when Hiccup is listening to his father speak just before entering the arena to face Hookfang, the way the lighting and expressions and sound of Stoick's voice was set apart from everything and felt resonated, Hiccup's dread and anticipation and anxiety and worry and fear were palpable. He was planning to do the exact opposite of what his father, the one he's been trying to make proud his entire life, was hoping and oof that few seconds HURT!
And with how the background score and scenes were animated so splendidly, there's one very subtle but greatly well integrated detail I just have to mention
If we take a note of all the dragons throughout the movie, there's a gradual pattern. The movie starts and every dragon looks wild and dangerous and animalistic. Beastly and emotionless, except for displaying an urge to cause harm or look vicious.
Aside from Hookfang. Every other dragon didn't look nearly as expressive and clear in intention as Hookfang did. And if you notice, he was the only dragon in the beginning of the movie whom Hiccup made a direct encounter with and sassed at. We saw Hookfang being angry and vicious and even worried and scared when he ran out of firepower and got captured, he seemed to display emotions more clearly than any other dragon. But he was also the only dragon so far Hiccup had a direct communicative encounter with. The movie is from Hiccup's perspective and we saw Hookfang from Hiccup's perspective.
But! It gets better. If you notice or think about it, try to remember the details in the movie with respect to the dragons, all the dragons earlier on looked wild and deadly and nothing else. Just wild and dangerous and vicious, the opinion every viking has on them, the opinion Hiccup during those earlier moments had on them.
But then he met Toothless. And it all began to change. Notice how the dragons seem to become more and more expressive and emotionally intelligent or humanly as Hiccup and Toothless' friendship proceeds to grow. How the snappy Terrible Terrors would gradually start to look like small little dragons who are mischievous and naughty and silly little guys, how the quick and swift Deadly Nadder started to look like a playful and curious friend, how the once sneaky and scary Zippleback who seemed to set it's target on everyone and everything became expressive and displayed worry and fear, how the powerful and dangerous Gronkle gradually started to look more kind and friendly and sleepy etc.
This happened with literally every single dragon during the movie. The more Hiccup began to understand them and got closer to Toothless and realized they are living beings who have individual personalities and feelings and are misunderstood, the more these mighty creatures felt more alive and expressive to the viewers. And this was done without the slightest change in the dragons' models or designs. They conveyed Hiccup's perspective splendidly throughout the movie.
Point in case;
Httyd 1 is a cinematic masterpiece
#httyd 1#how to train your dragon#httyd hiccup#httyd toothless#hiccup horrendous haddock lll#hiccup haddock#toothless#httyd hookfang#hookfang#httyd stormfly#barf and belch#stormfly#httyd meatlug#meatlug#httyd analysis#analysis
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Julian caring for a partner with anxiety
(Because I currently have really bad anxiety and I need this)
(relevant screenshot lmao)
Julian gently coaxing you out of bed when you wake up paralyzed with fear. While you’re taking deep breaths in an attempt to slow your racing heart upon waking up, he places a hand on your shoulder, whispering encouraging words to you before he gets ready. He knows it’s not easy, but he has every faith in you that you’ll be able to find the courage to get out of bed. (plus, it’s better than lying around)
The first time you had a panic attack around him, it nearly gave him a heart attack until you eventually explained that it’s just one of the pesky ways your anxiety manifested. Knowing you weren’t going to drop dead from cardiac arrest was a relief, and you both soon found ways where he could aid you when things began to become overwhelming. These days, he’s better able to notice the signs of one coming on. He’s in full doctor mode, helping you control your breathing, speaking to you gently, getting you to turn your focus to something else.
More under the cut
Continued
Somewhere along the way he noticed that letting you hold his hand helped ground you quickly as well, and he’s more than happy to offer them. When you do reach out to hold him, his grip is always warm, steadying, a little soothing even. It helps you from floating too far off the ground, so to speak.
He's more than happy to accompany you when running errands. He once offered to help run them for you, but you tell him you're actually worse off left alone with your thoughts and enjoy his company. He does have to remember to slow down when walking, though.
When you’re not as anxious and a little more functional, he keeps your mind off your worries by doing what he does best- being a chatterbox. Tall tales to keep you engaged? He’s got it. Gossip from the Rowdy Raven? Ohhh, wait till you hear what new cocktails Barth’s coming up with now! You two spend hours idly chatting back and forth, and what do you know? Hardly an anxious thought, or at least, you’re better able to keep them at bay with him around.
Anxiety is known to cause tummy troubles, and this is something our dear doctor has a little more expertise in, seeing as it’s on the physical side of things. The experience he’s gained from dealing with patients with similar issues has led him to be able to help you manage your symptoms.
Nausea? He has a little vial of peppermint oil on standby, something he learned from his own apprenticeship. Those odours from festering wounds are no joke, it’s saved his own senses from time to time while operating.
Appetite loss? He often forgets to eat himself, but he always reminds you to at least have a snack if you can. A cookie, some toast, literally anything as long as you can stomach it. At times like these he also pesters Portia and/or Mazelinka for advice. Suffice it to say they’re both happy to help too. He’s not a great cook, but if he has time in the mornings he might prepare some oatmeal. Something digestible and easy to eat. It helps that the noises from the kitchen and his humming also help settle you down in the morning.
He’s sure to keep anything caffeinated away from you. You do chide him a little for treating you like a child, and he immediately apologises for doing so, but in all fairness, maybe having the high strength coffee out of reach for a while is a good idea. No one needs a caffeine-induced spiral. Just to get back at him, you also end up hiding the coffee bean stash from his prying eye(s).
Come night time however, and that’s when you’re simultaneously the least and most worried. Physically, you’re as calm as calm can be. Mentally, however? You dread going to bed. Because that either means nightmares, disturbed sleep, waking up in the morning all anxious again, or likely a mix of all three.
You confide in him about your worries, and while there isn’t anything he can do to prevent them, he does promise you his support. After all, you were there for him when he had troubled nights himself, weren’t you?
He’s not a very heavy sleeper himself, and he feels you tossing and turning around in bed almost immediately. Be it a nightmare, or simply your mind forcing you awake, it’s an arduous task for you to try and return to sleep. The moment you turn your back to face him in bed, he’s looking at you with concern and empathy and holds you close (with your permission, of course).
The warmth and pressure of his embrace is nearly enough for your racing heart to return to normal. You utter a muffled apology, but he soon shuts it down. It’s not your fault, and it’s not a burden on him either. He simply just wants to see you alright again. Plus, now he gets to fret over you a little, and it delights him ever so slightly that he gets to feel a little useful while taking care of you. After more whispered affirmations and him gently playing with your hair, you soon drift off to sleep again.
Bonus for the artists out there:
One of the other things that you’ve been doing to keep your anxious thoughts at bay was with art. It helps keep your mind focused on something in the moment. Recently, Julian has become your muse of choice. Seeing your beloved come to life on the page/canvas has the added effect of relaxing you further, in fact. Julian is obviously incredibly flattered upon finding out. Tears of joy well up in his eyes, he never thought that he would one day be anyone’s source of comfort, let alone yours. He hopes to continue being that guiding light in the dark for you, as you have been for him.
#the arcana#the arcana game#julian devorak#the arcana headcanons#the arcana fluff#julian x reader#jesus i did not expect this to be so long#1k words everyone!#just for this!#augh!
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Ok, Miraculous Soulmate AU, set in college, and they never met. Twist is, Adrien is perfectly well adjusted. However, through a combination of anxiety, Trauma, and paranoia, Marinette is existentially terrified of falling in love, period.
I’m talking heavy panic attacks, dread, throwing up (or general loss of control over bodily functions) at even a fleeting feeling of butterflies. Literally just going through all of it.
And yet, now matter how far she runs, no matter how she resists, she can’t escape falling in love with the “perfect”, dorky, pun-loving nerd. And she is tearing through her skin every step of this journey her soul has chained her to.
Naturally, this is Angst.
Hawkmoth is optional, as is whether or not either of them have their miraculous.
I’m imagining that most of her trauma comes from her parents, who she saw die, probably due to a disaster that they refused to abandon each other too, accidentally leaving Marinette behind. Maybe one of them got trapped under a collapsed building, and they only had time to get Marinette out.
The secondary aspect would come from Chloe and Lila existing. Chloe might grow out of using the death of Mari’s parents as Ammo, but Lila wouldn’t. Lila would only make it worse.
Three options for Adrien:
1: He’s just vibing, an eternal ball of sunshine that refuses to die after learning his father’s a super villain and came out stronger for it. He’s happy he met his soulmate, and he wants to keep her safe. (It’s the one trait he’s glad his dad gave him)
2: similar personality as above, but he can feel Marinette’s inhuman terror of love, and he’s worried that he’s the source, especially if whenever he sends or receives a feeling of love her fear increases
3: It’s an act. His Fathers situation deeply affected him, maybe even broke him in a way. He tries to be happy, but it’s hard. Then he finds his soulmate, thinks that while he doesn’t want to be a burden, maybe he can feel like more than nothing. Except all he gets in response is terror. It’s all his fault. But hey, what can he do but try.
Loosely Inspired by What Ifs by Kane Brown featuring Lauren Alaina
Also I’m aware that this would make more sense backstory wise, but honestly I think Adrien deserves to be put together sometimes. Not all the time, that child is a trauma bundle.
Also I have a concerning level of interest in Depressed Marinette. Maybe I read one too many fics about how she has to constantly hold in her emotions and she has the right to be sad. Might be some kind of self projection that I haven’t found the reason for (except all my problems are self inflicted) but whatever.
Like, Depressed Marinette who Finally snapped? That’s Just Feralnette, and that’s fucking lit.
Depressed Marinette, and Adrien/Luka/Kagami/Chloe show up and make those who hurt her regret existing? Fucking lit
Depressed Marinette gets akumatized and people realize the consequences of their actions? Be it a good end or bad, that’s still Fucking Lit.
Basically, I thought angst induced by terror of a happy ending is a specific kind of suffering
#miraculous ladybug au#miraculous ladybug#marinette dupain cheng#adrien agreste#adrienette#soulmates#soulmate au#mlb au#mlb#mlb marinette#obviously it should pass the bechdel test#so she still has a life outside of ‘pretty boy/girl’#bring in Alya#they can make fun of the British government#or Chloe#they can complain about Lila
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