#i'm emotionally incapable

[trappedinafantasy37]

Since Minthara presents an exterior shell made of steel, and she's sometimes mean, and is an absolute badass in battle, she is often treated and perceived as someone who feels no emotions. And this often occurs to individuals who do put on such a tough exterior. It also does not help that many people perceive evil characters as incapable of doing or feeling anything other than evil. That love and evil are innately incompatible.

But Minthara is not emotionless, she does feel things. Sadness, grief, fear, loneliness, anger, anxiety, paranoia, vengeance, love. She can laugh, she can tell jokes, she can cry, she can smile, and she does get upset at things. If anything, she is emotionally repressed and emotionally guarded and the times where she does really express her more negative and vulnerable emotions is when it becomes too much to hold back and it comes out a little over the top. We have to remember she comes from a society in which such outward emotional expression would be rewarded with social punishment, religious scorn, or even death. So she really doesn't have the healthiest mechanisms to express her emotions.

She hides what she feels all the time as a means of keeping herself safe from punishment. She keeps it to herself cause she does not want you to see her as weak, as she would have been in the past. And she certainly does not want you or anyone else to punish her for it either. She hides behind little pet names and even using words from languages she knows you don't understand as that is the only way she feels safe being vulnerable with you. In her past, her love was rewarded with new wounds and new scars. She is terrified to open up to you, fearing that you will hurt her because she loves you. That her love for you won't actually be enough to stop you from hurting her. And she will only ever admit she loves you in contexts that have a high risk of death because there's really not much for her to lose at that point so she may as well tell you.

She also has a habit of intellectualizing what she feels and experiences so that they appear as "rational" and "logical" rather than emotional and to distance herself from her emotions. She says it takes a sharp mind to have sympathy for someone who suffers unnecessarily. She is trying to make it appear that emotions like sympathy is a matter of the mind, not the heart. That it is a mark of intelligence, because otherwise it would be the mark of weakness.

She blames herself for her own torments, like she deserved the awful things that happened to her. She frames the situation like she is more at fault and more deserving of blame, than the people who hurt her. It is the only way she can find any reason in what happened to her and any reason in her tormentors actions. That she did something wrong and induced someone's wrath upon her, rather than acknowledging that the person who hurt her is just a bad person.

She deserved what Ketheric and Orin did to her because she was "weak, passive, proud". That her emotional state had blinded her from the trap that was set, giving Ketheric and Orin ample opportunity to attack her. That if she hadn't felt those exact emotions, then it wouldn't have happened. She could have seen the trap coming, or she could have fought back.

Or if you attempt to tell her that her childhood was rough and her mother abused her, she immediately deflects by saying, "it could have been worse" and therefore, what she did actually experience wasn't really that bad. And yeah, sure, maybe she needed certain lessons given that she lived in a cruel and dangerous society like Menzoberranzan where she had to be prepared for violence at all times. But trauma is not born of love, it is born of fear, of pain, of agony, and her mother still tried to kill her. Regardless of her mother's intent, it was the first broken bond of trust and it left a mark on Minthara. Where she began to believe that her mother would torment her for torments sake, and she had doubts on whether or not her mother actually loved her.

When you encounter the first Orin imposter, it's pretty damn obvious she is terrified. And you kinda gotta squeeze it out of her to admit that she's afraid. Where it's "I'm afraid of Orin because she is capable of this, this, and this, and you should be too" rather than "I am afraid of Orin because she hurt me." And she begs you, BEGS, to keep her safe because she knows her fear makes her vulnerable to Orin.

She doesn't even truly acknowledge that she wasn't at fault for what Orin did to her until Orin is dead. She doesn't start putting the blame on Orin until Orin is dead. She doesn't go through the emotional process of sympathizing with herself until Orin is dead. And she doesn't admit that she undoubtedly has trauma, until Orin is dead. She gets so wrapped up, and so lost in her own fear and paranoia that she never has the room to properly process the things that happen to her. That her primary concern right now is keeping you, the others, and herself safe and her emotions can wait because wallowing in them will only make her weak. Only does the distance of death give her the room to start healing. Only problem is that there have always been threats and they never end, they never stop. So it is rare for Minthara to ever have a moment of peace and safety to work through what she feels and they just get backed up. Ignoring your problems does not make them go away.

So you wanna know what will happen when an embrace Durge betrays her? She will fall to her death, a knife in her belly, blaming herself for your betrayal. All her worst fears have come to pass and you were indeed a lover who hurt her because she loved you, and that she was a fool to ever trust you at all. That if she didn't love you, maybe you wouldn't have hurt her. She doesn't understand your reasoning, she can't make sense of it, she doesn't know why you'd betray her, so it must have been her fault for thinking you'd be different. That if she hadn't been so loyal, so devoted, that she could have been spared. That her belief that you would rule together is what damned her. She will die blaming herself for her own murder before she ever gets a chance to start blaming you.

[pantsaretherealheroes]

the bobby/maddie/eddie parentified child parallels go hard this episode i'm not ok

[queen0fm0nsterz]

Guys genuine question. Do you guys think I'm a smart person?

[thedreadvampy]

unfortunately the world is too fucking messed up so I am currently unable to give a shit about how messed up everything is because it's all too big and if I get upset about any of it my entire ability to be a person will come crashing in

normal service will resume as soon as possible

[mauraeyk]

happy 1899 premiere day !!! 🜃

not a day goes by without me thinking about this brilliant brilliant show - you're so dearly missed !!! <333

[runawaymun]

how am I supposed to just go on living after "Those who come to witness, will witness. Those who come to remember, will remember." and "If you take the same road as that person, there maybe more difficulties ahead. But as long as you firmly believe that you are on the right path...everything has meaning." and " A heart of stone is a heart nonetheless." and Every journey has its final day. Don't rush. and "For those that live too long, the friends of days gone by and scenes from their adventures live on in their memories. As such I have no regrets in meeting you, friend. Should the day ever come that we are not together... you will continue to shine like gold in my memories." and "those who are destined to bear the weight of memory must also shoulder the weight of truth" and "I was once the god of Liyue, and I will remain, and my eyes will bear witness to the whole of its history" like they expect me to go on with my life after finishing this quest like normal????????? the writing in this game is insane Genshin Impact story writers I am crawling on your ceiling.

[sparklepoint]

for @loveotomization and the art trade prompt silence/kiss/betrayal :3c

[limerental]

tbh ok... I've been trying to wrangle my thoughts into line about this and have not talked about this anywhere but. I didn't vibe with yennefer's character in s3 as much (with some notable exceptions). the choice to make her appear extra powerful, heroic, in charge, etc were... not good for her character.

like geralt in s2, she didn't have much of a character arc. her character moments that challenged her had all happened in s2 and she seemed to exist in s3 purely to directly drive the plot forward. idk if that was wholly due to the book changes that put her more centrally in the thanned conclave and coup and lodge setup but. those choices sure didn't help.

(the notable exceptions for me were the fight at the silver heron where we see her struggle to keep it together more distinctly and also several vulnerable scenes with tissaia)

[pre-successful]

I mean this in the nicest possible way, but...why on EARTH hasn't Jim killed Ed yet??

[aeide-thea]

oh right i forgot the real reason i stopped listening to broadway clips was that i've got this whole enormous miserable knot in my chest abt having been too socially anxious to do anything with my once-upon-a-time-very-gorgeous voice once i got spat out of the safe little nest of my high school, and like, most of the time i forget that knot even exists, but when i listen to the sort of music i used to be part of making (proper opera but also showtunes) it's like. this whole fast-forward feelings journey thru 'oh right that didn't actually go away, it's still right there in my throat, just calcified' to 'oh okay we tugged the loose end and it's unraveling and actually it was keeping contained a whole rush of tears like aeolus' bag of winds in the odyssey…'

[sensitivegoblin]

The depression is really really really bad so I'm sorry if I super ghost y'all

I'm just having a hard time wanting to do anything but rot in bed

[mega-pint-of-wine]

it's just me and the 95 chrome tabs i have open against the world

[toriaforest]

apparently i am incapable of writing fluff. yesterday i was all 'oh lets plot out that cute old self indulgent fic idea i had about an oc with healing powers joining the batfamily <3' and then when i actually started laying out a timeline it was all trauma and angst and moral struggles. like sure lets put her father in a coma and have her scream cruel things at people she half fears half loves and engage in high risk behaviors while the adults just watch and have her throw away everything to kill a man for someone who didn't want any of that.

i was the kind of person that tortured barbies as a kid and it shows lol

[scarletblob]

Basically haven't done anything university-related for over a year since I took/was pressured into a leave; finally checked my school email today and briefly looked at the 'return from leave' requirements and immediately felt all the stress return and ruined my mood for the rest of the week :/

[wewontbesleeping]

cannot for the LIFE of me find my usb c to micro usb cable. my One cable apparently. i have found literally 15 micro usb to usb cables in my house and nary a single usb c one. and this to me is confirmation that we are living in the darkest timeline.

[thots-n-prayers-2137]

wow. really nice to see someone react to my tags like this

breakup songs are so lame now sorry i feel like every charting breakup song you hear these days is like waah you left me but whatever you sucked anyway and im way too hot for you and too cool. why cant anyone be miserable anymore. no more im killing myself because you left music on the radios?!?!