#idk how i feel about that particular writing decision. ill say more when im done with the books ig

[helianthologies]

ok i have to say now that im like 3/5ths of the way thru the books. i avoided reading the trials of apollo books for YEARSSSSS bc the way yall talked abt them made me think they were dogshit and theyre... really not? i like them. i mean yes there are things that annoy me sometimes but thats true of all riordan books. i love the percy jackson series as a whole but like.... theyre books for teens. sometimes they suck a little

[ais-n]

2| and where is the trauma? both hsin and boyd were severely sexually abused. and emilio's illness is always treated as a joke. look Ais, your series has done me so much good between the bad it did. i found i'm gay lmao and i'm grateful for that. i'm grateful that you wrote this ok. but there are things that were offensive, and maybe it was unconscious, since i doubt you wanted to be racist or write a mlm relationship but more like hetero. i wish i could just enjoy the books but my heart breaks

3| idk what the one who questioned that could possibly mean between all the things but thats what i mean. i appreciate you a lot. i hope this didn’t make you feel worse or whatever. but some people really did end up hurt badly after reading icos and im one of them. with all respect, and hope that i didnt disturb you much, farewell.

++++++++++++

Aha I just realized I can put both 2nd and 3rd asks in one! Which is good because, again, the gay comment makes me laugh out loud XD As I said in the other post, thank you again for reaching out, for explaining your concerns, and for the courage you no doubt had to bring forth in order to do so.

I’m getting right into the answers in this one although I will probably ask more questions for clarification on some of the points, as I did on the first one, to make sure I’m not misunderstanding or misinterpreting anything.

More below the cut! :)

EMILIO’S ILLNESS

I’m really sorry but I wasn’t sure what you meant by that. Which illness? How is it treated as a joke? Could you clarify? 

TRAUMA

So this I thought was super interesting that you felt there was no representation of trauma in ICoS, or I assume you also mean its aftereffects. That’s actually one of the few points I feel pretty confident saying the series does portray a lot of, both in some cases the experience of it and in other cases the repercussions. 

One of the reasons both of them are so severely dysfunctional individually and together is because of trauma.

I don’t want to muddy up this post with a huge tangent but someone had asked a few years ago about the result of the Aleixo mission on Boyd, if he was diagnosed with anything, and so on. If you’re interested, I wrote a long ass reply about the psychological effect of sex trafficking on survivors/victims and talked about some of the things you see Boyd do that are a bit reflective of that. More info at https://aisness.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/boyd-aleixo-psychology/

I think there probably would be more information on all this by now, or at least I certainly hope there would be, but at the time of writing Fade that was the sort of research that was available. 

Although, full disclosure, I don’t tend to write characters looking up the DSM symptoms for this or that; I write what feels right for them psychologically, mentally, emotionally, and oftentimes later look it up and realize they would have likely been diagnosed with this or that thing or they could be displaying traits of this or that.

At any rate, with Boyd, his trauma started early on, and pretty much everything about him is a reflection of that in some form. I don’t see trauma as specific to sexual assault; it’s most certainly a result of that but also of many other things. Boyd dealt with a lot of neglect and/or emotional abuse as a child, he was bullied by his peers, and generally speaking it was difficult for him to feel like he belonged anywhere. He was very often judged by others, often negatively, for things completely outside of his control, like his parents, their jobs, his home, the amount of money his family had, his looks, etc. 

If you look at the Mayo Clinic’s list of child abuse, Boyd falls pretty well under emotional abuse and a bit under neglect, and you can especially see the toll that had on his personality by reading the signs and symptoms of emotional abuse in particular:

Loss of self-confidence or self-esteem

Social withdrawal or a loss of interest or enthusiasm

Depression

Avoidance of certain situations, such as refusing to go to school or ride the bus

Desperately seeks affection

And general symptoms:

Withdrawal from friends or usual activities

Depression, anxiety or unusual fears, or a sudden loss of self-confidence

An apparent lack of supervision

Self-harm or attempts at suicide 

If you look at Complex PTSD, and in particular Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) you can see a lot of Hsin:

Attachment – “problems with relationship boundaries, lack of trust, social isolation, difficulty perceiving and responding to others’ emotional states”

Behavioural control – “problems with impulse control, aggression, pathological self-soothing, and sleep problems”

Dissociation – “amnesia, depersonalization, discrete states of consciousness with discrete memories, affect, and functioning, and impaired memory for state-based events”

I wouldn’t say Hsin dissociates quite that extensively but I feel like he does display some dissociative tendencies at times.

Boyd has some too, like

Self-concept – “fragmented and disconnected autobiographical narrative, disturbed body image, low self-esteem, excessive shame, and negative internal working models of self”.

I think in some ways you could argue they both display aspects of:

Affect or emotional regulation – “poor affect regulation, difficulty identifying and expressing emotions and internal states, and difficulties communicating needs, wants, and wishes”

When Boyd was little, he often wondered why other people were treated better than him - why, when he was getting perfect grades, he was going above and beyond whenever possible, when he was trying to be “a good boy” all the time, when he went out of his way to stay quiet and not bother anyone – why, despite all his attempts, other people were celebrate yet he was reviled, even if the people being celebrated were awful people doing awful things. He used to study other people relentlessly, trying to understand what it was about them that made them acceptable and what it was about him that made him not.

That’s why, despite being such an introvert, he’s good at blending in and going undercover; it’s why he can adjust to new situations and, in a way, act - because he always had to monitor and adjust himself his whole life just to feel seen and loved. His dad loved him on his own so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but with the trauma that came from the loss of his dad, and what happened with Lou, plus everything afterward, it really messed everything up.

Boyd was not a victim of childhood sexual abuse, but more of emotional abuse. Well, I guess, I should say for the most part he wasn’t.

Hsin was definitely a victim of childhood sexual abuse and probably physical abuse (that bit I can’t recall for sure). He was raped even as a small child, and that led into different aspects of his life. One reason, for example, he would go berserk and was seen by the Agency as unreliable in cases of him seeing sexual assault was because he saw, in some way, himself in those victims. It was probably his way of protecting people when he hadn’t been protected, himself. 

I can’t speak too much on Hsin’s specific mental health status or repercussions because I didn’t write him so I’m not fully in his mind, but I do know that sort of berserker aspect is part of what came from his sexual abuse and physical abuse and just generally how he grew up. If I recall correctly, a lot of that led into why he was so unstable and dangerous when Emilio first found him; why it took so long to get Hsin to find a way to deal with the violence and aggression and anger in him, in addition to everything else that would have happened regardless of that childhood trauma. Why, too, it was such a huge deal when Boyd was able to earn Hsin’s trust, because he had learned in his life to trust almost no one.

You can see some of the way they both display aspects of C-PTSD as adults as well in the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_post-traumatic_stress_disorder#Adults

I should be clear: I am NOT a psychiatrist or psychologist so I’m not suggesting that they would be specifically diagnosed with any of these disorders were they to get official diagnoses. However, the reason I bring it up is to show that a lot of the series reflects the way their coping mechanisms lead them to interact within themselves and with the outside world, all of which is often directly or indirectly tied to trauma.

Why is Boyd so terrified of anyone seeing him without his shirt in the beginning? Trauma. Why is he depressed? Trauma. Why is he suicidal? Trauma. Why does he go out of his way to avoid a certain block? Trauma. I would have to look at specific symptoms of different things but I would guess that you could also tie back some of his instability and his sometimes inconsistent reactions to trauma as well. Sometimes he does things or says things that may seem a bit reckless, or cold, or some other unexpected thing at that time - and a lot of times it’s probably in part related to how he learned to cope with things and what his levels of defensiveness are or his fears are at that moment. But he also has a complete inability to see the good in himself for a long time which also ties back, I would think, to some of the things he experienced growing up/previously.

Boyd is an incredibly unreliable narrator. He spends most of his narration thinking about how awful he is, how he should just die, how he isn’t doing a good enough job, and so forth. Yet, that fails to show the impact of some of his choices and decisions. Boyd was pretty much the first person to treat Hsin like a normal human being, to not see him as a surrogate of anything or anyone, to not have any ulterior motives or expectations of him (no matter how well-intentioned), and to truly gain his trust as a result. Yet, Boyd didn’t really see it that way. He didn’t see how important it was for Hsin that he ended up in his life; he didn’t get why Hsin was exasperated the times Boyd said he (Boyd) should just die, that there was no value to his life. He didn’t believe he could be loved so he couldn’t see it was even a possibility at first. Therefore, he spends a lot of his narration over the series belittling himself and downplaying any of his own achievements while simultaneously rewarding or acknowledging what others around him are doing. Not every moment of his narration, of course, but his default state of self is to think he sucks and others are probably better.

Conversely, Hsin is a confident narrator. He often doesn’t doubt himself, doesn’t care what other people think, and is very sure of himself in a lot of aspects like his physical prowess which, itself, is already above and beyond nearly everyone else. Yet he also learned not to trust or rely on anyone else in his life, so he’s incredibly suspicious of others because that’s how he had to learn to be. So, especially in the beginning of the series, in his narration he tends to be very factual about his own achievements and not shy away from acknowledging the things that are powerful about him (even if he doesn’t always see it as anything that special), while simultaneously seeking out anything untrustworthy, unreliable, incompetent, or unworthy about those around him. His narration tends to point out the flaws of those around him because he learned that if he doesn’t protect himself, he’s vulnerable, and when he’s vulnerable he gets hurt.

The result of that is, if you read their narrations straight as if it’s all perfectly reliable, Boyd seems even more unreliable and Hsin seems even more perfect than they actually are, because their default states of being overlap in a manner which magnifies the flaws in Boyd and the merits in Hsin. 

Both of them learned to be how they were because of how they were raised, what they went through, and more. Same as how they react to various things throughout the series.

I can’t more specifically comment on anything without knowing what in particular you were thinking of when commenting in the ask about trauma and sexual abuse. But I think generally speaking, they already start the series having learned coping mechanisms that work for them based on trauma they already individually experienced. Those coping mechanisms end up oftentimes being challenged and at times destroyed or reworked throughout the course of the series. That is what leads to a lot of their ups and downs as individuals and as a couple; why their story isn’t a straight arc going up but instead derails a lot. And why they both spend the entirety of the series coming to terms with who they are both internally and externally, and what that means for their relationship, and how they can find a way to grow as a person and a significant other. They both ultimately have to work on trust; Boyd has to learn to trust himself, Hsin has to learn to trust others, and they have to learn to trust each other.

The way people deal with trauma is not the same for everyone. Sexual abuse doesn’t result in the same reaction for all people. I’m not sure if maybe one of the things you were thinking is maybe about sexual abuse during the series itself? I already linked something that goes more in depth on Fade so I won’t touch on that book, and I really can’t speak for Hsin because he isn’t my character so I don’t want to misrepresent his thought process as hidden behind narration or actions at different points.

The only other thing I can think of that maybe you’re thinking about is Boyd’s valentine status, and how he doesn’t seem to have overtly strong reactions to anything until Fade. If that’s one aspect of what you were thinking about, part of that is just how Boyd deals with things. He tends to avoid things that are difficult for him or he has difficulty focusing on, and oftentimes shuts down emotionally. 

I think honestly he probably dissociated to some extent during a lot of things; kind of separated his body from his mind and felt like whatever happened, happened. For a lot of the time that he was a valentine early on, he had such little love for himself that regardless of how upsetting anything was, how little he wanted to do certain things, he felt on some level like he deserved it. Some things were probably a subconscious form of self-punishment for being born, for being who he is, for surviving when Lou didn’t, for surviving when his dad didn’t, for never being enough for his mother, for just plain existing. Then as time went on he grew to rely on Hsin and find strength in him. It’s also not like every mission he had was a valentine one, or even that every valentine has to end in anything physical. 

That’s why he was able to find ways of dealing with things in some form, even if he didn’t like it or was uncomfortable at times, until the Aleixo mission. He thought he knew how to handle things; he thought he had found apt coping mechanisms. But that mission tore that all apart and nearly destroyed him. His coping mechanisms didn’t work the way they had and now he had to find a new way to survive, and from there came a lot of his instability and more that you see in Fade and as I mention in that blog post.

But in short, I feel like the majority of the series ends up touching, indirectly or directly, on some form of trauma as experienced currently or in the past by one or more of the main characters, and their resulting actions then drive the plot. That is one thing we were very specific about doing: having the plot adjust to the characters rather than force the characters to adjust to the plot. That’s why Afterimage exists, actually; the original plan was sort of like 3/4 of Evenfall and then kind of jumping into aspects of Fade. But we realized at the end of Evenfall that certain things would occur which would then lead to Afterimage and Afterimage then led into aspects of Interludes, which then led into aspects of right before Fade, which then affected a huge part of Fade itself, which then informed 1/27. We didn’t set out to write a series specifically about trauma, it’s just sort of one of those things that happens if you take two characters who have been treated so cruelly or poorly for so much of their lives, and put them together as any sort of team - but especially a team that becomes a couple, and a couple that becomes all but married.

+ +

Regarding the other stuff, I haven’t had a chance yet to check if you answered my question about the hetero relationship comment, so I can’t comment on that until I know more of what you mean. But I would say that generally speaking, I don’t know that I believe it’s necessarily fair to label anything as strictly “hetero” vs “m/m” vs anything else for a relationship. That brings with it a lot of assumptions of what it means to be not only gay or LGBTQIA+, but also straight. It seems to suggest there is only a single way or a very strict set of ways for a cis male and a cis female to be together both in a relationship and to have sex, and I guess I don’t feel like that’s necessarily reflective of reality. People are very complex and so are their relationships, as well as their sex lives.

I’m not sure how specifically the series ended up hurting you but I’m very sorry you felt hurt by anything. That’s a terrible feeling to have to experience. I hope that in whatever way, however it may work best for you, you have the time and space to reflect and recover and rejuvenate. You, like everyone, deserve it.

And honestly, if that means you have to leave the series completely in your past, never to think about it again, if that’s what’s healthiest for you, I truly wish you are able to do so. Stories are there to connect with other people, to share our thoughts and sometimes help us work our way through our own while reading. No story is worth your mental health being put in question. If it is truly upsetting to you to think about the series, it is absolutely not worth your energy. You are more important than a story will ever be. Everyone is. And I say that despite how much I love and rely on stories to get me through life.

If part of your duress is you like aspects of the writing style but the series itself and its contents upset you, you could try reading some other stuff. I have some things I wrote solo that you can find on my AO3 if you want. But also you can find other writers entirely. Depending on what you’re looking for in a story, and the sort of topics you’ve learned work well for you or don’t work well for you, you should be able to find a ton of great series out there and great authors out there who will leave you with the happier aspects of your reaction to ICoS without anything more detrimental like it sounds happened for you with ICoS.

Regardless, I truly wish you the very best. As I said in the other one, please stay healthy and safe! And, if you’re in a place to manage it, stay happy as well :)

Brightest of blessings to you and yours, my friend!

[21yroldmeesh]

back again 7/20/17

iit’s been a year since i have written in this blog and dang it’s kind of heartbreaking to read the “ty” post. i mean ima just be open cause i’m sure as hell people don’t even know about this blog anymore L O L i have 0 followers L O L 

things on the agenda: dan, guy who drove me to va, my first and last hookup

me and dan actually broke up over a month ago (6/16/17... i have a particular thing for dates) and it’s been a weird experience.  i literally thought we were going to get married. you can talk to someone for 5 yrs almost everyday and it only takes a day to become strangers. actually you can get close to a stranger. we’re worse than strangers. with us, it’s best to spend some time apart because if we start talking, we don’t even know what we want from each other. like, we actually have such good chemistry but too much has happened too much pain too many lies. it’s one big clusterfuck. i don’t normally curse but i’m going to curse a lot in this post future michelle. i was willing to live in the boring ass town of ann arbor, michigan and i would have been perfectly happy for simply just being with you and being loved by you. i had so much love for you. your fungus feet, your crackly white tongue, you never brush your teeth, everything weird dumb annoying about you just stopped being that and it was “normal” anyways,

i decided to write again because for the past week, my mind has been all over the place and i think my friends are getting annoyed of hearing me out so here i am.

that night, i tried convincing him that id be able to forget about all that he has done. i was crying. i thought it was so fucking unfair man. whenever he lied to me and i’d try to break up with him, he always held on to me and i am a push over... i gave in every time. that day, we fought and yes, i said let’s break up but i told him i didn’t mean it. and then he just brought up how even though i didn’t mean it, everything i said was right and that we arent good for each other. he kept saying this was for us. we didn’t make each other happy. bull shit. i made u so happy. u were only “not happy” when i wanted u to be mature. i mean this is a memory i want to erase from my head so im not going to go into it. but i just felt so hopeless like you just tied up my arms and i couldnt do anything. i asked you to let me hold on to you ONE time because i let you do that with me. and you just wouldn’t budge. do u know how that made me feel? i felt like everything was my fault. if i didnt bring up anything, we would have still been together. we were doing amazing. you opened up to me for the first time literally the day before we broke up and damn everything just happened so fast. you made me feel like i was the type of person who didn’t let myself be happy.

well, the first night i was completely miserable and suicidal. i don’t even know how i survived but i did. for the first two weeks i cried my damn heart out. i let myself feel pain. i didn’t touch alcohol at all until i knew i was ready to not emotional vomit while drunk. i went in my car, blasted music as loud as i can, sobbed for thirty minutes until i was exhausted and came back home. once you hit rock bottom, you got to come up right? i couldnt be alone. i was always with friends. what the fuck was the MCAT right (ugh) i did this multiple times and i think by the third week, i was feeling pretty good and realized you and i weren’t good for each other. actually, correction, we weren’t good for each other because you weren’t willing to be. i guess i just wasn’t worth it to you anymore. well, correction, i didn’t give necessarily my all either. breakups are never on one person. you just lied to me way too much and i just couldn’t trust you 100%. i said i forgave u but i never really did, did i ? what is relationship without trust. it’s surprising how we even lasted this long. well, its because of our chemistry. whyd you have to go fuck it up dan. you and i had such a good connection LOL maybe u can have that connection with others but im just picky af LOL

actually, i haven’t thought about you dan for a very long time. i sound pretty hung up on you still up there but i’m not. something just happened recently which i will go into later 

but actually i have not thought about you at all. its funny because ive been telling haram “who the fuck is daniel am i rite” hahaha its been fine for me. ill be sad but now i can be alone and just deal with it. im doing really well. when i was dating you, for some crazy reason, i thought i couldn’t be without you. why the hell did i think that? like i went through my darkest times without you and survived every single bit of it. why did i ever think i ever NEEDED u in my life? i havent felt depressed since we broke up. isn’t that the craziest? i never have suicidal urges like i did while dating you. im never sad for too long. im just doing me. being with friends. being with awesome people. meeting new people. and yeah i miss you, but damn i think the emotional roller coaster and the clusterfuck of lies (like you telling susan in MAY THAT U LOVE HER?!!?!?!) just made me like dumb and made me believe i just couldn’t let u go. love is insane. and i am insane. michelle in love. there is no logic in it whatsoever. i’m just the type of person to just give it all she got u know? fucking cheat on me, i’ll be here. fucking take my money, i’ll be here. i think id peace the fuck out for animal abuse doe. but anything else is pretty much game.

but yeah i am no longer that person. i am so special and cool to deal with that LOL im actually not a bad catch. i realized i am going to run far far away from someone who lies to me. it’s just not worth it. i love you. i loved you but damn i just kind of miss u as a best friend. nothing romantic anymore. i just miss talking to u and talking shit with u but you can beg for me back, and it is a huge no from me. also i really respect u stepping up with coco while im not in ann arbor. ur just a bad boyfriend. i always knew that tho and i still went in for it. none of that anymore LOL fck that for real. like i wanna be friends with u just so we can hang out. im not the same person anymore LOL and i just think we would really get along now LOL 

when u said you couldn’t give me a ride i was upset but not really? i just understood. it wouldn’t have been good for us and last week, i don’t think i was ready to be in a car ride with u for that long even when i thought i was. looking back, i think it would have set me back a lot. thanks for making the best decision for us. you were always able to do that, i cant hahaha

but yeah anyways, this guy who i talked to for three days kind of offered to give me a ride. correction, we talked for two and then like he just decided to do that for me. very impulsive but i mean i get it, so am i

as we were talking, i realized we were way too similar to even have any romantic attraction. like, i know he did because i think he saw that as a good thing. but everyone else and me later on, realized, similarity for michelle kim is not the best. she needs excitement, passion, and just someone different for her fire. we were similar so we could have been good friends but i think i realized we couldn’t be more than that when he just started coming off too strong. idk, five days in of talking, he was just telling me don’t fool around with other guys and just like telling me to enjoy my single time while i can and it was very overwhelming. not to mention he dated a girl who actually became pretty closely to me recently and i actually really dig her so that was just a final like nope cause it wasnt worth it at that point. 

so i get to ny and im having all these realizations about the guy who drove me to va while im out with my friends. as im getting all these “boyfriendy” texts im like nope nope nope nd telling my friends i think i have 0 feelings for this guy now. 

next thing you know, my first and last hookup walks over to my friend asks her to smoke and he tells her he thinks im cute. i mean i didnt even know until like round 3 or even until he told me the next day. but yeah we just made quick eye contact and that was it. he joins us for round 2 and dang he is hot as fuck LOOL ok well maybe its cause i literally haven’t seen a guy that hot in a while. L O L like i always liked skinny tall guys. but he was like tall and fit?? like wtf?? LOL it just took me off guard and he was showing interest and i was just suuuuuupppppper drunk so we just went home to my airbnb. FOR THE FIRST TIME, I MADE OUT it was so crazy. like i dont think he believes me because he knew i wasnt a virgin but then i told him i never made out before so he was like so confused but didnt ask me questions cause i guess he just thought i was lying?? idk man. but ya we didn’t do anything except make out and when it got hot and heavy i was just like yo u want pjs and then told him lets just go to bed

l o l 

and hes like a super big gentleman 

he kind of didnt want to leave cause hed say stuff like ill leave when u go out. ill leave when u tell me to leave and i was like “ok u should leave now” and idk how but he just kind of stayed

and then he ordered food and idk we talked about his mom and my mom and we played this dumbass creepy game that we literally made up called black mirror black mirror idk man it was super fun and he even pretended like gdragon, hes a complete clown and i love clowns LOL but yeah he left and i went with my day, saw jane and joohee, came home and he texts me. hes like aksing to hang out and im like yeah if we dont get white girl wasted. 

we meet at one of my fave places beauty and essex. it was awk at first because i did not expect it to be like a bar bar since i came during dinner time last time. but we ended up having a lot of fun and it was good. we tried going to fat buddha but line was too long and one thing led to another, he came over my house and we just kind of made out and i d k what happened but i was suppppppppppper drunk LOL like more drunk than last night that i was dropping my phone in the uber and i was a mess but we ended up having “sex” it was just super fast and weird man. he just felt so diff from dan so i felt really out of it but the other guy finished and i think alc was also hindering his performance and it was just a clusterfuck. we just ended up going to bed. next morning, i know he got into super big trouble with his mom and i felt really bad about that. and then he left. i went to va. he texted me saying have a safe trip and that it was a super fun weekend and yeah that was that. 

im starting to realize i fucking like this guy LOL i mean i prob dont but i thought and think i do u know. im just not the type to do this and i feel like he got the worst image of me LOOL yeah my friends were like michelle ur not the type of person to just have one night stands cause one ima fall in love with them and two ur just not the type

idk i just lost myself from being in nyc

nyc is like the root of all probs 

love that place but still crazy

and ya i think hes kind of cute but i also know hes not really down since im in mich and all so ya ohwellz we’re only 21