#instead of what it actually was: me repressing the ways that i regulate my emotions because it inconvenienced some people

[ifievertoldyou]

month 3 of being in autistic burnout 😍 i sure am doing rn!!!

[gffa]

I saw your post defending the way Jedi adopt the children/accept them into their culture, and I absolutely loved it! It was so well-informed, and you are right: It is all there in the original content!

I find it very ironic that many people spew these lies about the Jedi when that’s exactly what the Empire did. Iirc, this argument of Jedi being “kidnappers” was actually fueled by Emperor Palpatine and the Empire in their campaign against the Jedi. They wanted to discredit them and make the people turn against them so that they could erase them all more easily. So I find it very ironic that these lies are now being upheld by some people as the truth. (Really, have people forgotten the Empire was created bases on the Nazi’s and their own racist strategies?)

You are not inmune to the Empire’s propaganda.

Please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m not as good at pulling examples and proof from all the SW content as you are.

Hi! Thank you for the very sweet ask! Navigating stuff in fandom like this can be difficult at times, because there has to be room for compassion and tolerance for disagreement, like it's fine if people disagree with my views, I'm not your mom, I'm not telling you want to do or say, especially since this is fiction, these are made up space stories. But there also has to be room to understand that sometimes our commentary on fictional stories are echoes of reflection of real world attitudes--we can't just go around spewing racist, sexist, homophobic commentary and be like, "It's just fiction, you can't get upset!" There's no easy line for any of this, no single hard set in stone rule for when it's truly just fiction and when it's an echo of a real world attitude, especially in Star Wars, which often draws influence from a lot of non-Western sources and traditional Western sources. (My general rule of thumb is: I think it's fair to criticize those things through the influences they have, but if your criticism is then ended with, "So that's why we shouldn't have or acknowledge any Buddhism/Black people/queer people/women in Star Wars!" then fuck right on off with that.) And I also understand a lot of the anti-Jedi attitudes (or at least what I've personally experienced of them) because I've talked a bunch of times about how I started out as pretty Jedi-critical myself! I did the whole, "They had grown stagnant and refused to evolve with the galaxy, so they needed to be wiped out." thing because nobody had framed it explicitly as what it was: a genocide. It wasn't until a friend and I were talking and they mentioned that lens of it that it just sort of crashed down on me, oh, that's literally what it was and genocide is never justifiable. I did the whole, "The Jedi failed Anakin and taught him to repress his emotions." thing as well, because I saw it all over the place in fandom and just automatically folded it into my view, until I went back and actually watched Lucas' movies and Lucas' animation (first six movies + first six seasons of TCW) and read his interviews, which blew me onto my ass when I saw Obi-Wan being supportive of Anakin, when I saw Anakin not listening to the advice he was given, when I saw that Jedi were expressing emotion all over the place, when I saw they were respecting other Force traditions in the galaxy. I can't speak to why so many people think badly of the Jedi, there's probably a thousand reasons and I'm only vaguely aware of like half of them, but I do think that it's often unpopular to promote the idea of emotional regulation already being achieved, instead of something to be struggled with. I think we're all primed by a lot of mainstream media saying that an explosion of anger is what will save the day. I think there's so much anger in the world today that we're all angry and being told to let go of it feels really insulting at times. (But, as someone who has lost years of my life when I was younger to anger, I gotta say, I am so much better off having let go of as much of that shit as I can. It was poison in my veins, carrying that anger around. I lost so many friendships and opportunities and just time to being miserably mad about stuff.)

I'm getting off topic of the kidnapping aspect about the Jedi, but a lot of it starts to swirl together in what I've experienced (especially people who try to put this stuff on my posts--thankfully, that's died down/I block the people who won't respect boundaries) and so I kind of bounce from one aspect of it to another.

I do think it's good to talk about these things--both from "it's fun to analyze the content of the story on a meta level" perspective and "here's how this echoes into and from the real world" perspective, like I enjoy saying, okay, here's what's actually said in the movies/TCW, but also I think talking about how the Jedi are Buddhist influenced is important because that means they're going to have values that are meant to be reflected in that and Western fandom has a really big problem of being derisive about non-Western influences or automatically saying they're wrong. (I come from anime/manga fandoms, let me tell you, it's a big problem.)

And, yeah, in a way where it's really awful, but I think one of the most well-done things Disney's Star Wars has done is that it's really focused on showing that the Empire was a fascist one and the propaganda they used about the Jedi are ones that are super relevant to the conversation.

[thegreenleavesofspring]

.

I have... a bad habit. A self-defense mechanism, but a bad one. Of, any time I encounter something out in the wild that I wanted and couldn't have (an event or an emotion), I deem it "stupid". Beautiful weddings are stupid. Birthday parties are stupid. Loving husbands are stupid... etc. And I don't say it to whoever I am talking to, I'm not quite that socially clueless, but I shore up my own disdain for it in the privacy of my mind.

And it's one I've had for most of my life although I've only recently quantified it. And I find myself doing it a lot and I'm trying to be mindful, now, of making myself stop and go "Do you actually think it's stupid or are you kicking against the pain of what you don't have" and nine times out of ten I'm preemptively trying to head off pain.

So anyway I'm trying to let it through in tiny little bits so it doesn't all come crashing down as an overwhelming wave and mourn it piece by piece at a time. And I'm also doing a lot of introspection. Because I never was taught how to regulate my emotions and that one person was right, I do tend to let them rule me, and I don't mean to, it's not an active conscious choice on my part, but that's not enough, I have to learn to master (not repress) them.

So now I'm trying to learn to master my emotions rather than letting them master me but that means constant monitoring and today I'm going down a checklist of "Why am I so tired and lethargic" and it's the depression setting in again for Round whatever and I always get really tired and sleepy and lethargic in the days leading up to that, yay. But along the way I realized that... the last time someone told me they loved me was Get Loved Nerd in my inbox and afaroffsong says it to me sometimes. And it helps. But sometimes I wish I had someone to say it to me in person, too, it helps to hear it audibly (and if it comes from someone who is telling the truth, not trying to be manipulative.)

I genuinely don't remember the last time I got a hug. Not dispensing one to make someone else feel better but just someone hugging me because they liked me as a person and wanted to hug me. I mean I hug my boys all the time and sometimes they even hug me back but those hugs are usually accompanied by headbutts or biting or kicking or fish-flopping or various other bruising activities and besides, they're little, they don't really have any concept yet of... consciously returning love? They need the hugs to flourish but it's not their place or their duty to return a hug.

I don't know. It just feels like, my whole life, any affection I got was conditional on how useful I am to someone and just for once I'd like to feel valued just... as me. I realize I'm not an easy person to love and almost an impossible person to like, once you strip me down to the bare bones, I know this, not only have I been told this but I've got enough self awareness to know that I'm all sharp edges and sharp angles and acerbic sarcasm and terrible but unintentional blunders. But surely I'm not all bad? Not all the way down? I just... surely it's not wrong to want to be valued as a person, not as your usefulness? Just... for someone to enjoy one's company?

Anyway I've been doing a lot of handing over bitterness and envy and sorrow to God lately and even... I don't know, what I thought were godly desires but maybe I'm feeling them too strongly? Putting them ahead of Him? I don't even know anymore. I feel like I'm blundering around in the dark trying to find His will and running up against rough rocks instead and I don't... I'm trying to do right, trying to do His will, but how can I possibly be? When everything I'm doing is wrong? I don't even know anymore.

I'm not sure... I don't know how to do this. And right now I can't hear Him. Which I don't think I have any egregious outstanding sins that would take me away from Him so I'm assuming I'm supposed to be walking by faith? Not by sight? But I'm not sure... I don't know. I don't know what to do.

I'm so very lonely.

...I should probably go brew myself a cup of raspberry tea, it sometimes helps lessen the severity of the depression. Hormones, yay.

[cookies-over-yonder]

okay so. i was having a think about taylor and his relationship with anime.

at least with the typical shonen anime protagonists i'm more familiar with, i don't think parents tend to be an important part of the equation at all? if both parents aren't already dead/assumed dead, i wouldn't think it particularly unusual for a single mom to be regulated to a background role at best and not be particularly involved with the plot at all. which isn't usually a bad thing, it's just that the genre doesn't often focus in on those relationships in my experience.

i don't think it's an issue at the forefront of the animes i think taylor would be more familiar with. so if his favorite protagonists actually do care about what their dead and/or absent fathers think, they wouldn't be showing it too often. i'm used to those father figures being an invisible goal to reach with the main emotion being "i want to be like them someday" instead of "i miss them". i'm used to the trauma they encounter in pursuit of this to be more so a stepping stone towards improvement rather than. trauma. or if they do hint at it affecting the protagonist, it's subtle enough to completely fly over the head of one taylor "i will process this later" swift. i know there's definitely exceptions, but i think there's enough anime like that to the point that it probably taught taylor that emotional repression in the face of incredibly dangerous and horrifying scenarios was totally cool to do.

which, for taylor, i think is very funny if he's just incredibly wrong about the genre of his life in that regard. like! you're in the daddy issues podcast! sorry buddy, but the emotional impact of that is going to be an incredibly important part of who you are actually. you don't get to sword fight your way through this forever.

i think it's sort of helped him to trick himself regarding his relationship with nicky (and even cassandra to an extent). he's a momma's boy through and through, and he cares about her, her well being, and what she thinks. i just think that the same extends to nicky in a way that he doesn't know how to deal with or admit to himself. through the lens of his cherry blossom colored glasses, i think taylor could be tricking himself into believing he doesn't actually care as much as he does. he doesn't think to afford himself the familiarity that he wants out of his dad, instead designating him as another member of his party. i don't think he knows what he wants out of this relationship. i don't think he knows how much he wants his dad in his life.

actually i'm not entirely sure how much this fits considering i think the anime in this universe is canonically mostly disney reboots but uh

yeagh

i agree with this so much!!!

like!!! in all of the anime then the protagonists are mostly looking up to their dads if they think abt them at all and not simply missing them or wanting to hang out with them and i really do believe so much that yes this encouraged taylor's emotional repression in regards to his feelings about his dad!!!

he does care about nicky and he actually wants to hang out and be close with nicky but taylor is the king of emotional repression 4ever and i also do believe that deep down he's upset nicky left despite it being "to protect him" and he doesn't know he's upset about it because anime taught him otherwise and he's pushed those thoughts so far down and locked them away forever!!!!

IT'S THE DADDY ISSUES PODCAST!!!♡♡♡

god this hurts me so much like taylor wants to be close with nicky so bad but just considering hom another menber pf the party because it's all he knows brb while i cry??? thank you SO MUCH for your taylor thoughts ���🥺🥺

[fairycosmos]

do you think constantly complaining about our circumstances actually elongates the grief we feel? that we only make this hole of self pity deeper? but then again how does one take a more proactive approach to the lack of happiness in their life?

HI so i actually don't think so. because grief is impossible to elongate, it's permanent and "always there" no matter how you approach it in your mind. and like yeah i'm the first to admit i love wallowing and being bitter. i'm the worlds most irritated and repressed woman or whatever BUT i will say i think people who automatically see us trying to communicate our mourning / pain as "complaining" really just do not have a clue what it's like. i get it sometimes on here, that i'm making things worse for myself by hyper-focusing on the heaviness, and i get it but i also don't. i'm going to comment on the way my life is forever changed for as long as i'm alive. i'm going to be sad and angry and i'm going to scream about it, and i don't care if it's annoying or repetitive or a downer. it is for me too. the worst thing that could have possibly happened happened, and it's laughable that i'm not even allowed to cry about it without being judged or analysed or whatever the fuck. like god forbid we have negative things to say about a negative situation? there's an undeniable validity to that feeling, there's an undeniable validity to the pain and the only reason people don't want to hear that is because it makes them uncomfortable - understandably. but in my own space i am going to say what i need to say when i need to say it and let it be the most self pitying pathetic little thing you've ever heard every time! who cares. i don't like the performance of looking like i have it together, like i'm above it all and can handle it through the power of my own wisdom. like i'm "that girl" who can outsmart trauma through my little witticisms and my deep breathing and my emotional maturity. it's literally just not true so let me air out my grievances with the world instead -  even if it is kind of convoluted, pitiful and self serving at times.

i suppose i just really don't see the value in trying to be all faux positive about something so deeply hurtful when that's not how i actually feel about the way things are - and i'm not sure why i'm supposed to? i think outsiders looking in on this sort of thing are kind of estranged from the true scope of grief, how far and deep it runs, how inescapable it is. listen, i'm not saying that there's no danger in perpetually licking your own wounds. and god knows the victim mindset can and will choke you and everyone around you to death if you let it. i become more and more aware of how pointless it is as the years pass honestly. also, there's definitely peace to be found in trying to take a more proactive approach (i think what that looks like wildly varies not only from person to person but also from day to day, maybe moment to moment.) but i also think there's a difference between complaining just to complain, and actually trying to talk about the absolute and endless pain that you're somehow supposed to carry while functioning normally. i say scream as much as you want, just keep it self aware and somewhat regulated for realities sake, which i mean it sucks to have to do that but yeah. and definitely seek a lot of therapy if possible, or at the very least keep it as a viable option in your mind. i don't spill my guts and demand a pity party from everyone i meet, i barely have a genuine conversation fucking ever to preserve other people's feelings/time. but on here and in diaries and in art (lol) i'm going to lose my mind about how awful shit is however much i want to in any given moment. something something my god given right

[differenceonlyyoucanmake]

12 Dancing Princesses Thoughts/ Headcanons/ Assorted Stuff that Came to Me in a Dream

I’m kind of tired, so this may be incomplete. I wanted to put it out there, though. My dreams have mostly been from Courtney’s perspective, not an omniscient one. Because of this, there may be some gaps.

Ashlyn:

- Deserved so much better

- It actually makes me upset. I woke up from one of my 12dp dreams in TEARS because she deserved so much better.

- After Isabella passed, Ashlyn took on the role of being a maternal presence to her sisters. She did this extremely well, but it’s also heartbreaking how she pushed herself to grow up.

- Randolph was not a capable father during the lowest periods of his grief, and Ashlyn definitely had to compensate for this.

- Randolph... could have been kinder to her, especially after the queen died. He couldn’t look Ashlyn in the eyes. She reminded him too much of his late wife.

- Isabella wanted Ashlyn to inherit her belongings and position, but Randolph had his own favorites (I promise I don’t think he was an evil person, but he could have done better).

- I think Ashlyn would identify as bisexual.

- She knew several instruments, but was most attached to the flute. Her most treasured memories involved Isabella giving her flute lessons.

- She was expected to be the mature one all the time, so she repressed a lot of her own frustrations in favor of caring for others.

- She was closest to Blair and Courtney.

- She was a little soft spoken, and one of the most “ladylike”; Ashlyn was one of the sisters who struggled least with Rowena’s lessons.

- The younger sisters had a hard time remembering that she was a person capable of all sorts of feelings. They expected parental behavior from her, and got really confused when she expressed negative emotions.

- Some of the sisters assumed Ashlyn didn’t care for sweets, because she would offer hers to the others whenever they got any. In reality, she thought this was kind behavior. She showed sacrifice in several, seemingly inconsequential, ways.

- Despite seeming so mature, she always felt as if she stopped growing up after her mother passed.

- As the sisters grew up, Ashlyn really struggled with finding her purpose. She didn’t get the power her mother promised her. She put her own ideas and prospects aside to care for her sisters. She ended up floating from kingdom to kingdom, with varying success in several different courts. She eventually came  to live with the other eldest sisters.

- Despite being (in my view) cheated out of her kingdom, Ashlyn seldom expressed frustration or resentment. She adopted the attitude of a retired noble early in life, spending a lot of time on composing music and serene hobbies.

Blair

- horse.... horses..... sleeping in the stables...... with the horses

- I’m kidding! Mostly!

- Blair was bold and opinionated. She also loved witty conversation and comedy.

- What else did she love? Horses.

- She would sneak out all the time to ride.

- Her favorite horse was black and very tall.

- She was closest to Ashlyn and Courtney.

- Blair was sick in childhood.

- Though the older sisters were known for being more refined and elegant, Blair pushed this notion plenty.

- She loved adventure.

- All of the sisters missed the golden pavilion, but Blair struggled with this a lot.

- She didn’t have as many problems with Randolph, but sometimes she would CAUSE problems on purpose (mostly defending Ashlyn and calling out his favoritism).

- She turned her own estate later in life into a close replica of the pavilion. The grounds were massive.

- She was intelligent, but struggled with many academic tasks. If she needed to read something that was challenging, she would often hand it to Courtney for help. She would only have motivation to read if it was about subjects she loved.

- This is ironic, because she later came to be a published writer. I believe these were short works, similar to pamphlets.

- Blair enjoyed throwing and attending large balls and gatherings. She was still chasing the thrill of the magical visits she’d make with her sisters.

- Blair was considered extremely beautiful, and drew admirers wherever she went. She accumulated many pieces of ruby jewelry this way.

- She also liked wearing capes and cloaks.

Courtney

- Generally shy, Courtney made an exception when she stood up for Ashlyn.

- Courtney longed to travel, and books provided her with a form of escapism until she was able to.

- She had a health scare after the events of the movie, and this somehow tarnished her standing in society??

- She wasn’t straight, probably a lesbian.

- She was well read on political matters and the history of their kingdom, and would often be the first one to noticed Randolph’s incompetence in certain areas.

- She was a young teen when she first started rewriting her father’s treaties in her spare time. She learned after the first time not to bring her drafts to him.

- When Ashlyn and Blair left home, she grew closer with Fallon. Both had a streak of wanderlust, and gravitated towards the romantic.

- Courtney published poetry under a pseudonym starting at a young age. This probably helped her somewhat. As she grew up, her poems grew in notoriety, and many debated who their true writer was. A significant portion focused on love between women and feeling trapped.

- I think she had been to Apollonia (Antonio’s kingdom in Island Princess) several times, and knew both Luciana and Antonio from an early age. I think this was the case for many of the older sisters.

- After their mother died, the girls traveled less, and met less new people. Courtney was bothered by this.

- She was generally thought of as calm and quiet, but she felt emotions deeply ( even if she didn’t always express them).

Delia

- Athletic and spunky

- Delia enjoyed more structured sports.

- She was prone to sunburns.

- Delia was enamored with the sun and light. She would hang prisms next to her windows to watch the light refract.

- She was closest with her twin, Edeline. They enjoyed playing croquet together and (though it was usually harmless) gossiping.

- Delia had a temper. She would deal with guilt afterwards if she lashed out at someone.

- Her emotional regulation issues came to light after her mother died.

- Delia dealt with a lot of guilt in general. She didn’t feel as put-together as her older sisters, or as carefree as the younger ones. She felt guilty for not fitting in, and expressed feeling like an inconvenience to those around her.

- Outsiders thought she was dim-witted, and she internalized this.

- Delia often had a problem of interrupting people or speaking loudly, so it was advised that she stay quiet when visitors came. This really hurt her self esteem, since she was always happy to make new friends.

- Rowena had offended her when she was a young girl, and Delia never forgot this.

- Delia liked birds, and hummingbirds fascinated her.

- She had to learn to accept herself later in life. 

- She discovered people who appreciated her for who she was, and finally left her inhibitions behind. 

- After that, she became known for her charisma and charm.

Edeline:

- Edeline shared a lot of interests with her twin, such as sports and outdoor activities.

- She enjoyed making others laugh.

- Once Genevieve married Derek, Edeline took it as her cue to BULLY that poor man.

- Seriously, it probably warded off suitors for her other sisters.

- It was usually in good fun, though.

- Edeline disliked rules and structure.

- She was closest with Delia.

- She often stood up for her twin.

- Edeline had a good ear for gossip, and had her own methods of fact checking stories she’d heard.

- Something happened with her at Genevieve’s wedding?? Maybe she broke something??

- Edeline traveled some, but found her way back home eventually.

- She DESPISED Rowena. None of the sisters liked her, but Edeline couldn’t stand her from the beginning.

- Edeline would have loved to know about the concept of roast humor.

- She liked to have sleepover-like setups in their bedroom. She would build forts and encourage the others to come tell ghost stories. When the memories of her mother came to her, she felt the need to DO something, even if the action wasn’t necessarily related.

- She became known for her humor.

Fallon

- Fallon was pretty much independent, until she and Courtney bonded.

- Fallon always wanted pets, and was jealous that only Genevieve was allowed to have one (besides....bugs and the horses, who were kept outside).

- She would try to befriend wild animals, and nursed some injured animals back to health.

- I don’t think Fallon was straight.

- Fallon was sensitive, and had a hard time dealing with Rowena’s harsh treatment.

- Fallon had nightmares, and would often go to her older sisters for comfort.

- She enjoyed the company of others. She would spend time with servants and other people considered to be below her station.

- Fallon played the harp.

- She loved the softer aspects of life. 

- She devoted time to charitable causes.

- I just know that she did that classic princess trope of posing as a commoner. That’s such a her thing to do.

- She gained a reputation for being eccentrically kind. She had a large family of animals, who she took EXCELLENT care of.

Genevieve

- You may have noticed that the older sisters were generally closer with each other. Well, Genevieve wasn’t, and she made it that way.

- She.... liked to act like she was in charge. She often undermined Ashlyn’s efforts.

- She was Randolph’s favorite.

- Genevieve got along better with the younger sisters, especially Lacey.

- She probably did have leadership skills, but a lot of them came from acting like she did.

- Like I’ve implied above, she got a lot of power after she married, instead of Ashlyn.

- Derek wasn’t a bad person, but he was a COBBLER. How did she get more political power by marrying a COBBLER?

- She butted heads with Blair and Courtney quite often after the events of the movie.

- Basically, she had Main Character Disease dsfghjk

- She traveled less than the other older sisters.

- Admittedly, she wasn’t a poor leader.

- I have a feeling she adopted a lot of children later in life.

- She and Derek had a pretty long transitional period after they married, meaning they spent more time really figuring out who they were as a couple rather than jumping into their duties right away.

- Genevieve kind of symbolized the cutoff for the sisters who had lots of solid memories about their mother and those who didn’t.

- She was one of the best dancers out of the sisters.

- She was brave and self-assured.

- She knew what she wanted, and she would get it.

- After Twyla, she got some other cats. They were mostly orange and/or long haired.

- She never quite shook her habit of being late.

Hadley

- Hadley was closest to their twin, Isla.

- As Hadley grew up, they became more comfortable being gender nonconforming. They may have been trans, but I don’t remember.

- Hadley enjoyed fencing.

- Stilts were Hadley’s first love, and led to appreciation for other daring activities.

- Hadley also loved the ocean. Many of their adventures involved being at sea. They spent years sailing longside their twin on a ship Genevieve gifted them.

- Rumors swirled that they were a pirate. Though these weren’t true, Hadley didn’t mind.

- Hadley was energetic and intuitive.

- Hadley was an athletic risk-taker. They enjoyed acrobatics and other feats of the human body.

- Hadley became known for their adventurous exploits and fencing prowess.

- Though Hadley initially idolized Genevieve, she eventually sided with Ashlyn and the other older sisters once she learned the whole story.

- Hadley stayed with the older sisters after whatever scary thing happened with Courtney.

- Hadley mentored people, and may have been a teacher.

- She really missed the times when all of their sisters got along.

- There were rumors that Hadley was affiliated with darker forces, when in reality Hadley was one of the most well-adjusted.

Isla

- Isla was closest to Hadley.

- Isla liked adventure, but she was less daring than Hadley.

- Isla stayed our of most business involving the older sisters, preferring to spend time with her twin.

- She loved swimming.

- Isla had a collection of maps.

- She was known for being easy going. 

- She sometimes had to bring Hadley down from an idea that seemed too dangerous.

- Isla was the voice of reason in some situations.

- She never lost her passion for dance, and learned new styles through their travels.

- Isla had pet birds.

- She was admired for her grace and acrobatic talent.

- Isla enjoyed circus-like acts.

- She was more bothered by the pirate rumors than Hadley.

- Isla enjoyed researching magic, and trying to find a way back to the magic pavilion. 

- Isla was non-confrontational.

- She tried many forms of artistic expression, from writing to painting.

- Isla was loyal to Hadley, and would be there for her twin no matter what.

Janessa

- Janessa maintained her love of insects.

- Since they were so young when it happened, none of the triplets remember details of the magic pavilion. If their sisters weren’t there to confirm their memories, they would have thought it was a dream.

- Janessa grew up to be very interested in science.

- Janessa found the proper way to care for insects, and took pride in how well she did it.

- She was prone to worrying.

- She often lamented the fact that she was so young when they visited the pavilion.

- Janessa was considered obedient and passive.

- Janessa heard how much she looked like her mother (though not as much as Ashlyn). She had mixed feelings about this, because she couldn’t really remember what her mother looked like.

- Janessa was closest to Kathleen.

- She became close with Edeline and Delia when she got older.

- Janessa knew she wasn’t Randolph’s favorite, and took this personally. She tried, especially in her youth, to gain his approval.

- She also knew that Genevieve preferred Lacey, even though all the triplets looked up to Genevieve.

- Janessa balanced her love for science with her royal duties, and used what power she had to provide exposure and resources to research institutes.

Kathleen

- Kathleen was creative and unconventional.

- She was closest with Janessa, and became close with Isla later in life.

- Kathleen was known for her paintings.

- She started out painting things like landscapes, then moved into less traditional subjects.

- Her royal portraits were renowned in particular. They captured royalty doing activities that were important to them, or in significant fantasy settings.

- She painted portraits of her siblings and father. These became their favorites. She captured: a relaxed Ashlyn writing music, Blair on horseback in mid-air, Courtney in her library, Delia in the sunlight, Edeline in a fantastical outdoor scene, Fallon with her animals, Genevieve dancing, Hadley fencing, Isla swimming, Janessa surrounded by flying insects in the sky, and Lacey at work.

- Though she tried many times, Kathleen was not satisfied with her attempts of painting her mother. She felt like she was simply copying pre-existing portraits.

- The only painting of her mother she was somewhat pleased with was one of Queen Isabella walking away, her back to the viewer as she walked into a golden pavilion.

- Kathleen tried to paint the magic pavilion, and these painting had a fuzzy, dream-like quality.

- Her art gained a significant following.

Lacey

- She was Randolph’s second favorite.

-Lacey was unshakably loyal to Genevieve. She didn’t understand why the older sisters were upset about her being given power and land.

- Lacey struggled with illness as a child. She was inspired by the healing water at the pavilion to study medicine.

- Lacey struggled with muscle strength and coordination well into adulthood.

- Despite this, she continued dancing.

- She looked very similar to Randolph’s relatives.

- She felt the need to defend Genevieve, and would often challenge her older sisters because of this.

- Although Ashlyn never challenged her, Lacey harbored resentment towards her. She blamed Ashlyn for the fact that Genevieve’s approval wasn’t universal.

- Lacey was interested in scientifically based medicine, as well as magical remedies.

- Lacey was always closest with Genevieve, and lived with her for a long time.

- Lacey idolized Genevieve and Derek’s relationship, often heralding it as the pinnacle of romance.

- She searched for a way back to the magical world, believing it contained the key to eternal youth and immortality.

- Lacey didn’t care for travel as much as some of her sisters, but she usually enjoyed when she did leave her own kingdom.

- She grew up to be Genevieve’s closest adviser, and an accomplished healer.

Canon Noncompliant Things

- The sisters left the pavilion by dancing in birth order. Although Derek did leave by dancing with Genevieve, they weren’t responsible for leaving in the first place. Once again, Ashlyn doesn’t get the credit she deserves dfghjk

- Genevieve had an actual wedding, not whatever that was that was shown at the end of the movie. It was smaller than a lot of royal weddings (because Derek didn’t have many connections or people to invite), but it was a serious affair. 

[ladyofthenoodle]

I've seen a few people really mad about Chat breaking the chimney. But I thought it lead to a really great show don't tell moment. Adrien, who first off, is a 14 year old who is unlikely to ever have been taught to properly vent negative emotions(relatable, I broke stuff in frustration as a teenager for the same reason), he is the son of the guy who we see do something similar later in the same ep and for all we know he's seen his father lash out like that. not saying it's a healthy reaction by any means, but it does make sense. whether doing that kind of show don't tell in a children's show is a good idea can debated, but that's my read on it.

oof i have been lucky not to see any of those posts, not sure if it’s cause i haven’t been keeping up with tumblr or if i’ve just curated my dash well enough. but yeah no idea what their problem is. it was good storytelling and made more sense character-wise than showing him upset a different way. he waited til he was alone, let out his feelings where no one could see, and then pretended everything was fine. adrien has basically been raised to repress his feelings (which as we can see from gabriel is a less than effective coping tool) but ofc he still has them. don’t get me wrong, it was intense seeing chat noir do that, but it made perfect sense and was an important moment for him to have, even if it’s not going to fix his problems.

also chat literally was like “the miraculous ladybugs will fix it” so he very much would not have ever done that if he thought the damage would be permanent. (which tbh i have some concerns about that mentality of his, but mostly in regards to him treating his own life with the same amount of care as that concrete pillar. “it’s just a temporary death, ladybug will fix it. it’s not even really being dead at all, just a temporary break from being alive!”). he still was showing a good amount of self-control/restraint - he did it when he knew the physical damage would be reserved and he did it alone so that he wouldn’t do any emotional damage (which like… adrien needs to express his feelings more but it is definitely the right call to not shatter a concrete pillar with your bare hands in front of the person that you’re mad at so now was not the time 😅)

as far as children’s shows go, i actually love that they show characters using both positive and negative ways of coping! i’ve actually been collecting clips from the show to use to teach kids about self-regulation, so any examples are great imo. with just a little adult guidance most kids can identify “hey chat noir is mad and that’s okay but instead of punching a wall he should do X” (also marinette’s use of positive self talk in chameleon??? chef’s kiss that’s such a great scene we should talk about it more)

[dog-teeth]

Hi, feel free not to answer this if you don't want to, but I don't rlly know many other ppl who are on T so I wanted to ask. Is it true that T makes you not cry as much? I've heard that it just makes you, like.. not cry much at all. Crying is a rlly nice release for me when things get really awful and I'm worried of losing that when I start T :( What has your experience been like with all of that stuff after starting T?

yes that’s true, and i had the same worry as you bc i cried a looot and it was v important for my emotional regulation. but i would say don’t worry!!! your emotional and physical reactions are different, but T doesn’t make you any more emotionally repressed or incapable of expressing your sadness just because it’s less easy to cry. i cry less, but i’m just as in tune with my feelings, feel them just as strongly, and still am capable of releasing the emotions, even if sometimes i don’t cry to do it. when crying is frequently your method for emotional release, the idea of crying less is scary and weird and something u might not want to lose, but i promise that the biological difference doesn’t affect your ability to deal with emotions in that way, you might just do it with less physical tears. definitely do not worry about it, it’s hard to explain but i promise i had the same fear and it’s actually very okay.

i do still cry, and this is a very me-specific thing, but i rarely cry over my own pain and suffering, when i cry it’s almost always because of grief over someone else, my sympathy/empathy for other people, etc (i cry over fiction and media and music extremely easily). when i do cry bc of how i feel in my own situation, it sucks majorly, rarely does my heart hurt so much that i will cry over it. but crying does help and is good! you won’t lose your ability to cry, you might do it less frequently or less easily, but that loss will be replaced with other forms of internal emotional release.

i think i cried significantly less when i first started T, but as i’d been on it longer, i began to cry more, so maybe it just took time for my body to regulate. but it’s really hard to track, and that also might just be because of the state of my life & mind, not necessarily hormones, just the things in my life making me cry more often (i’ve been crying a lot more recently cuz im doing badly and keep being put in really emotionally horrific situations <3 )

i used to cry very hard, and very often, but now my sadness and emotional releases for it are just more quiet and internal, but they’re just as strong, and i do still cry when i need to. i cry less physical tears now too, like when i cry there’s just less tears, but thats ok.

but yeah i’m actually glad i cry less now bc i used to often cry when i got frustrated or angry and that sucked soooo much, now i usually only cry out of sadness or anguish or happiness, instead of like every emotion all the time.

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

More therapy thoughts part 1/?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jumping back to Behavior Theory

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He knows what’s been done to him!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[dear-wormwoods]

Someone truly in the reddie tag saying Myra was not abusive and that she wasn’t like Sonia. Even saying Bev and Eddie don’t have similar arcs bc their abusive situations were entirely different and that people just reach to bend arguments in order to prove reddie. Biggest bs I have read in a while ahdhd

I’m assuming you are new to my blog, because uhh, I’m sorry to burst your bubble anon, but I am also someone who doesn’t consider Myra abusive. Idk what post you’re talking about specifically but I’d sure like to know what ‘proving reddie’ has to do with it, lol. But anyway, I have said before that I consider Eddie’s marriage to be toxic, but not abusive. These two people should not be married. And not just because Eddie is gay and doesn’t love her. Beyond that, they are definitely bad for each other. The entire marriage is a conduit for misery and deception. It’s a codependent circus of projection and enabling. It’s unhealthy as hell! But it isn’t abusive. And here’s why I think that: 

Stephen King wasn’t trying to make a point that Sonia and Myra are exactly the same. He was, however, making a point that when people enter into adulthood and adult relationships while carrying a bunch of baggage from trauma they never properly dealt with, the cycle will continue in one way or another (this is why Eddie and Bev are ‘parallel’ characters, not the surface-level abuse interpretation). Eddie suffered from emotional abuse for most of his life; Sonia was very calculating and intentional about it and made sure that she always held sway in Eddie’s life to suit her own needs. The result is that Eddie is a very inexperienced and sheltered adult who believes in all of the lies his mother told him. He tried to move out three times and failed each time. Sonia controlled him until the day she died. It’s all Eddie knows. So in his mid-thirties, alone in the world for the first time, he doesn’t know how to take care of himself and, more importantly, believes he can’t learn. Because of his history of abuse and control, Eddie can’t fathom taking the reins in his own life and instead seeks out someone who will take care of him the way he’s become accustomed to. 

So, Eddie meets Myra and latches onto her because she’s inexperienced and malleable, like him. She physically reminds him of his mother, so it’s easy for him to project onto her all of the abuse Sonia inflicted on him. And because that life was all he knew, it was also what made him feel comfortable, so he nudged Myra into the role he wanted her to fill - a replacement mom. He did this subconsciously at first, but he was able to recognize it before they got married… and then he decided to go through with it anyway. 

Eddie brought a lot of baggage into that relationship, baggage that Myra was most likely completely unaware of. Obviously he’s a repressed gay man, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Eddie doesn’t love Myra, but it’s not just because he’s gay, it’s also because he has created a maternal figure in her and, since he (rightfully) resents his mother, he also resents Myra. She conforms to that caretaker role and enables everything he’s learned from a life with Sonia, and he in turn enables her bad habits too. Enabling is toxic behavior, but it isn’t inherently abusive. 

But then, when he leaves to go back to Derry, it all comes to a head. She freaks out because as far as she knows, he’s very sick, and he’s leaving her without an explanation, this man who she is married to and financially dependent on. She has no idea how to communicate, so she resorts to panicky, emotionally manipulative attempts to get him to talk to her and stay. On the flipside, Eddie has no idea how to communicate with her either, so he withholds information, deflects, and snaps at her in moments of frustration. They both have irrational thoughts about hurting each other and they both do and say things that make the situation worse. They are both VERY bad at communication. Because they’re both grown adults with almost no relationship experience outside of each other and are therefore emotionally stunted. 

That whole chapter reads, to me, like “bad breakups 101″ - one person can’t articulate how they feel so they’re deflecting and coming off as cold, and the other person is so over the top emotional that they end up making no sense and coming off as hysterical. And it’s no wonder! If you make it to your late 30′s without ever having much of a social circle or relationship experience, you’re not going to know how to act in a situation like this. And this applies to both of them. If what Eddie says about her is true, this is probably the first time Myra has ever been left by a partner, and it’s happening suddenly and with no explanation. So, she’s hysterical and resorts to manipulation - not out of habit, but out of desperation (Eddie makes the distinction that this isn’t typical behavior for her!!). For Eddie’s part, this is the first major decision he’s made in probably his whole life, and he doesn’t know how to explain himself, so he just… decides not to. And because he does not love Myra, he is completely emotionally detached from her. Their individual reactions to the situation just make it worse for them both - Eddie shutting down makes Myra more hysterical, and her hysterics cause him to shut down more.

People like to cite a couple of damning quotes about Myra as proof that she’s exactly like Sonia, but making that argument requires you to actively ignore the damning quotes about Eddie. There are also quite a few quotes that highlight the differences between her and Sonia, things Eddie himself acknowledges, as well as quotes about the guilt he feels for knowingly projecting his own baggage onto this woman. (Note: see the posts linked at the end of this for a breakdown of all those quotes) The text makes it clear that this was never a happy marriage. Neither of them are better for being in each other’s lives. They don’t help each other become healthier people. Rather, they both actively enable each other’s toxic habits. The marriage is, in a lot of ways, a form of self-harm for Eddie, and he knows it - upon Sonia’s death, he exited the cage his mother built for him and then built a new cage for himself and threw the key at Myra’s feet. For her part, I believe Myra began as an unwitting enabler but ultimately realized that she gained a “purpose” from the relationship (being a caretaker, being “needed”) and subsequently turned a blind eye to all the ways it wasn’t actually a healthy marriage. 

This is such a long post already but I want to make it very clear that Eddie’s cycle of abuse continuing does not actually require Myra herself to be abusive - rather, it is Eddie’s projection onto her that exacerbates the toxic environment. It’s the ghost of Sonia that haunts him in that chapter and throughout the rest of the novel. Myra is not a villain in Eddie’s life - he hardly even thinks about her after he leaves. This is one of the main points that make Eddie and Bev’s parallel arcs different - Bev very clearly has a secondary villain in her life, Tom, and she gets the closure of him dying in the end. But Eddie doesn’t need closure about his marriage, because Myra is just an extension of what Sonia did to him. 

The one time he does think of her unprompted is during his walking tour, and it’s such a great example of what his marriage actually means for him: when faced with the leper offering him a blowjob and other IT manifestations, he wishes he was home with Myra. He doesn’t think of her badly - he’s not afraid of her in any way. But she represents his comfort zone. IT is forcing him to confront things like his repressed sexuality, and he decidedly does not want to do that. That’s the only moment he “misses” Myra. But he doesn’t actually miss Myra. He misses the way her enabling allowed him to escape from having to face himself. And that’s really what it comes down to - Eddie’s marriage is toxic because it’s an escape, a way for him to avoid having to grow as a person and face the hard realities of who he is and what his mother has done to him. Myra isn’t evil, she’s not a calculating abuser like Sonia was, but she is toxic because her very presence prevents Eddie from reaching his full potential and being happy. 

Sonia’s abuse permeates Eddie’s entire life, even well after her death. Her actions dictate how he sees himself, as well as how he acts in relationships. Sonia is the reason Eddie’s marriage is the way it is. Hell, Sonia is the reason Eddie’s marriage exists in the first place. It is Sonia’s ghost that continues to manipulate him throughout the book and it is Sonia’s voice he needs to overcome in the end. If Myra were truly abusive, she would matter more in the overarching narrative of Eddie’s trip to Derry. But she doesn’t matter and because of that, she’s never really given a personality or motivations. She’s truly a blank canvas for Eddie to project his issues onto, and then he simultaneously berates himself for projecting and resents her for existing within his projections. Through all of this, everything always comes back to Sonia. Due to the vast disparity between their respective levels of influence, placing Myra on equal footing with Sonia is, in my opinion, a form of downplaying how bad Sonia truly was. 

Finally, and it’s wild that this even needs to be said, people need to recognize that saying ‘Myra isn’t abusive’ is NOT the same thing as saying she did nothing wrong. Myra was an enabler and that’s not okay, whether she meant to be or not. She also had moments of manipulation, terrible communication skills and poor emotional regulation. She was a toxic presence in Eddie’s life. Saying she isn’t abusive doesn’t mean I’m excusing her actions. But it’s also important to recognize that the chapter in which she appears has a lot more nuance to it than some people realize, and it’s necessary to hold Eddie accountable for his part in making that night so difficult. On that note, holding Eddie accountable and recognizing his harmful moments is not the same as calling him abusive either (fsr that’s become some kind of urban legend, but literally no one ever said he was! ever!!). There does not always have to be an abuser and a victim - sometimes bad relationships are just… bad.

Eddie is obviously a lot more sympathetic than Myra because we know about his past and get his POV. We know that he’s a good person. We also know that Sonia is the root of all of his issues. But the fact is, he has some shitty moments in that chapter, just as Myra does! His past experiences are not an excuse for that, they’re just an explanation. And, because I know there are people out there who equate accountability with victim blaming, being able to recognize where Eddie went wrong and why he entered into this marriage to begin with is NOT the same as saying he deserved any of his misery. There’s a huge, huge difference between accountability and blame. Holding people, even fictional characters, accountable is a good thing. In the end, Eddie is a very damaged person - an inherently good person, to be sure, but sometimes damaged people who are inherently good can, and often do, create, foster, and contribute to unhealthy relationships. It can’t all be unquestioningly pinned on Myra. 

Anyway, if after all of that you’re still confused as to why some people choose not to use the abuse label, here’s some additional reading:

An amazing breakdown of the entire chapter, using quotes, by @tossertozier

A more recent & shorter breakdown using quotes by @richietozierhateblog 

[duskowithapen]

On Criminal Minds and the Mismanagement of Emily’s Faked Death

The way Emily Prentiss’s faux-death and revival was handled regarding Spencer Reid peeves me off to no end. As I have exhausted my sibling’s patience with my rants, I turn to Tumblr. So here we go – Emily and JJ messed the fuck up in their dealings with Spencer.

I’ll pause for any screeching, fervent denials, death threats, threats to harm but not seriously injure, and so on.

I also apologise for the unsavoury language – I am very annoyed.

Okay. This episode resonates with me on multiple levels, but mainly in how Spencer wasn’t allowed to be angry. I have never been allowed to be angry. My mother got very upset with me if I displayed any emotion that wasn’t happiness, stoicism, or subservience. She regularly denied me the right, or chance, to express my disappointment or anger regarding the decisions of others. So when I see the same thing happen to Spencer, my annoyance seems reasonable (to me, at least). I am also familiar with emotional betrayal, which Spencer also experiences.

Let’s start with JJ’s handling of the situation.

When you are on a case, focus on the fucking case, not the way your teammate doesn’t want to fucking talk to you about anything other than the case.

Spencer has every right to work his way through his emotions at his own pace. Aside from a couple of vaguely snarky comments, his interactions with Emily and JJ are professional and only regarding the case. Unfortunately, JJ can’t take a fucking hint. She started the argument/discussion with Spencer in the middle of a case. She pushed at him to talk about something that involves both deep seated issues and a situation that they are both too close to, to see clearly.

She blamed him for not knowing sooner.

And that burns.

What JJ does, as I see it, is a form of victim blaming. She tells Spencer that he isn’t angry at her, but angry at himself for not seeing her and Hotch’s micro-expressions. Instead of listening to how Spencer is feeling, instead of acting like a friend, JJ tries to make Spencer feel guilty. She tries to turn his anger away from her and back on himself.

What kind of fucking stupid profiler is this bitch?!?

I do not have a psychology degree. I am not a profiler. But you don’t have to be a profiler to know that making an emotionally compromised, abused, socially-disconnected, ex-drug addict angry or disappointed in himself is not a fucking good idea.

Let me just note that I don’t blame Spencer for his addiction at all. I am in awe of the fact that he came clean himself. He went through withdrawal with no assistance (and that is yet another thing I am fucking pissed off about). But that prior addiction adds a layer of risk on an already high risk individual.

And that is not okay.

Hotch scolded Reid. Hotch scolded the person who did not start the argument in the first place. Hotch scolded the professional individual in that argument. That is another layer of victim blaming. Spencer is unconsciously being conditioned to repress his own feelings. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t get upset with people because they’ll only turn it back on you. You are responsible for regulating the moods and emotions of those around you.

I know what that kind of conditioning feels like. It fucking sucks arse.

What would happen if Spencer took JJ’s words to heart? What would his emotional and mental state be, if he started blaming himself for not realising his Unit Chief and close friend were lying to him. It would compound the stress and shock he is also experiencing regarding Emily’s death and resurrection. It could push him into frantic-depression, as I call it, where a person works so hard to be the best person, the constant person, to not mess up again because if you mess up again your could lose them again you could miss something again you can’t risk missing something again they won’t trust you they—

You get the picture.

It wouldn’t be pretty.

That’s not even touching on the fact that Spencer had been going to JJ’s house for 10 weeks.

Ten weeks.

That’s a very long time to hold your tongue. Which I can understand from a logical standpoint – JJ had her orders. She followed them. But just following orders is not a good excuse. It is not an acceptable excuse.

But that’s not even the worst thing. The worst thing is that Spencer had to go over to JJ’s house.

Who the fuck checked on Spencer?

Who checked to see if he was okay? Who made sure he didn’t end up in an alley with a needle in his arm? Who gave him support?

NO ONE.

It hurts to have to ask for support. It hurts, because you had to ask. It hurts when no one asks if you’re okay. It hurts even more when they ask that question and don’t follow up.

Spencer should not have had to constantly go to JJ. Where is the effort on her part?

I don’t know if I can even put this into words. But I’m sure as hell going to try, because this is my equivalent of meditation and releasing my negative emotions.

I know that to get help, you need to ask for it. I also know that if I said to my sister-friends that I needed some support, that they would be at my door as soon as legally possible (or faster). When my mother died, I called my friend, because I was alone at home, going into a breakdown, and I was terrified of being alone. My family had left me alone, and as much as I was glad to have the chance to release my emotions, I shouldn’t have had to do it alone.

(This is a note for everyone, actually – if you don’t feel comfortable or safe being emotionally open or vulnerable around your family, then something is wrong with your family.)

I called my friend. I was sobbing. She lived 15 minutes away. She got there in ten. She held me when I screamed. She held me when I started scratching at my arms because I hurt so much, I couldn’t – I didn’t know how to deal with it. She let me cry. She did what my family refused to do.

Where the fuck was Reid’s family?

If Spencer needed to go to another person’s home, leave his own comfort zone, in order to be comforted…. It’s a bit fucked up.

And maybe I’m going a bit far with this, considering that it’s a TV show, but I have feelings, and this is a neutral space for me to express them. Something that Spencer needed, but I’m not sure that he had.

Which leads me to the next person: Emily.

When I saw her confront Spencer on the place after the case, I was fucking foaming at the mouth. I screamed ‘that fucking bitch did not just say that’ at the TV. Because she did not just fucking do that.

“You mourned the loss of one friend. I mourned the loss of six.”

NO YOU FUCKING DIDN’T

No one has the right to compare trauma. No one’s trauma is more or less relevant due to what they went through.

But this stings because Emily didn’t mourn the loss of six. She mourned the fact that she may not get to see six friends for some time. She still had hope. There was a chance of reunion. She knew that they were alright and safe (as safe as they could be in such a situation). She got to regularly interact with a friend, albeit over a game. In a way, she reminds me of a soldier who’s been sent out on the front lines – they even have something similar: try looking up a song called Scrabble in Afghanistan, as I believe it’s called. It reminds me a bit of Emily.

What she went through was wrong. But what was even worse, is that she essentially told Spencer that his feelings weren’t enough. That because he lost less people, his trauma was of less relevance to hers.

This is the first time Spencer has lost a close friend. (Gideon doesn’t count, because he’s not dead. There is still hope). Spencer didn’t have any hope for reunion – Spencer had to live with the fact that he wasn’t enough – Spencer had to try and live with the grief and depression of that loss.

And then his friend comes back. And says that his trauma isn’t worth consideration, that his anger is wrong, that he’s being selfish and childish and unprofessional.

Spencer Reid is told that his feelings are not valid and that is not okay.

Spencer has every right to work through his emotions at his own pace. No one can tell you when to not be angry. No one gets to pick and choose how you feel. His anger was not harming his work. The only thing it was effecting was the mood of teammates who should have known better. Morgan had it right – Emily and JJ should have given Spencer some space until he came to them.

Spencer Reid was being emotionally manipulated by Emily and JJ, and that’s not okay.

Rant over.

[diivinitiies]

→ headcanon: jae-ha’s ptsd.

i remember mentioning a million years ago how i was gonna try to write out something about how jae-ha’s mind works and basically the influence that his childhood abuse ( which was physical and mental // emotional ) had on him. so here is an attempt to expand on it a little more. idk i probably will edit this more as time goes on but i wanted to post this here really for my own reference.

jae-ha has complex ptsd ( with psychosis ) given that it was chronic abuse ( happened over a period of 12 years ). he didn’t have many of the protective factors either — he was socially and physically isolated, and his abuser was really his only point of contact ( though i often mention garou as his sole abuser, the villagers were also complicit in this abuse, and really the purveyor of it ). his mental d/o is undiagnosed, even in his modern verse ( since he had no interest in going to therapy & refused to ). i’ll split this up into childhood and adulthood manifestations because while he hasn’t “gotten over it” he has shifted in the symptoms he primarily experiences. his coping mechanisms into adulthood make the existence of these issues more subtle, but sometimes he does experience the other ( childhood ) symptoms, just less frequently than when he was younger & usually brought on by a trigger. just fyi, jae-ha will probably never really speak about this in its entirety, especially the hallucinations.

CHILDHOOD // TEENAGE YEARS

paranoia // distrust // hypervigilance — constantly on edge around others, didn’t really want to stay in one place // he was constantly on the run thinking that the villagers would be after him, even long after he left // he was often distrustful of the intentions of others after garou died and he lived on the streets // he had to deal with people who wished to use him & his powers for his own benefit even outside of his childhood home and that further cemented his distrust in those around him

anxiety surrounding being touched — usually manifesting as initial flinch // recoil // disgust reflex due to an expectation of pain. might have reacted violently to it as well, depending on how someone touched him ( if it was a harsh touch, he’d respond likewise ) // he’s likely to be more hesitant around men than women

flashbacks — an almost constant thing // mostly it was garou’s voice echoing in his mind but at night this turned to nightmares of him being chained again or used for his powers

insomnia — to avoid the nightmares that plagued his sleep, he’d often just stay up to try to avoid it, resulting in many sleepless nights // he’d often have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep

hallucinations — auditory, visual, & tactile // seeing ghosts // feeling the weight of chains on his wrists and ankles though they were no longer there // hearing garou’s voice echoing in his mind or the sounds of chains at night or at other unspecified times

panic // anxiety attacks — these could come out of nowhere or actually have a trigger ( usually being touched, having arrows aimed at him, threatened to be shot down ) // when confronted with dangerous situations, he’d hyperventilate, start to think he was going to die, etc.

angry and violent outbursts — could come from being touched or from feeling powerless // if he wasn’t progressing as he thought he should, it irritated him // when he couldn’t block garou’s voice from his mind, he would lash out // sometimes his anxiety & panic attacks could turn into outbursts of violence

withdrawal // isolation — avoided getting close to people // as a child, he would keep people at a distance through more aggressive mannerisms // in modern, this was a big reason why he refused to go into the adoption system — if his own blood didn’t want him, who would ? garou always told him that no one would want him.

internalization of negative assumptions — he was always told he couldn’t fit in // he was a monster // no one would accept him and this added to his tendency to withdraw from others out of the fear that he would be rejected or other expectations of pain // he also experienced immense guilt for leaving garou behind and for stealing his life away // often times he did believe that he deserved the abuse that he got

risky behaviors — included stealing // drugs // general recklessness

dysphoria — just general feeling or state of unhappiness, often pervasive

ADULTHOOD

fetis..hization of pain instead of anxiety surrounding it — so he basically reconditioned himself to think differently about being touched to lessen his discomfort surrounding it // masochism can be used as a coping mechanism, in a way it’s taking control; jae-ha had no control over the pain that he experienced as a child, but re-framing it in a consensual context helps him come to terms with abuse

memory repression — avoids thinking about anything to do with his past abuse at all but certain things can make him remember and cause him to withdraw ( usually he makes jokes about the subject, tries to brush it off, and then withdraws completely if the subject is pushed // may get angry tbh )

claustrophobia and cleithrophobia – basically caused by his fear of being tied down without escape or enclosed in small spaces, and this can trigger panic attacks // flashbacks // this can also trigger his anxiety, and if he’s trapped long enough, starts to have these fears of death or nightmares about dying // feelings of powerlessness or hopelessness can overwhelm him // he had this when he was younger too and it carried over

withdrawal // isolation — in short, he has highly developed social skills that preclude vulnerability // instead of being reserved or aggressive as he was when he was a child, he comes off as friendly and open, but he does have many mental walls up // he shies away from emotional intimacy, but is fine with physical intimacy // in a way he can… kind of sabotage his own relationships because he has these internalized negative views, which is one of the reasons he shies away from commitment and tells himself he’s fine with being alone ( but he craves acceptance and intimacy ) // he over regulates his emotions a lot of the time, not allowing himself to feel certain things because he doesn’t want to return to the anger and recklessness of his youth

internalization of negative assumptions about himself — such as being a monster, ugly, undeserving, never going to fit in, etc. — but instead of believing them outwardly, he over compensates by putting an emphasis on beauty, his appearance, independence, and freedom, convincing himself he’s better off alone instead of people don’t want me // his over confidence masks his insecurities

self-medication — not saying he’s an alcoholic, but will turn to it in order to escape the discomfort of the present // in modern verses, he uses drugs like weed and smoking cigarettes for that, along with alcohol still // he has used harder drugs before but that was in his youth

tendency towards protection — he’s very protective of others who he may or may not consider weaker and it’s because he doesn’t want people to experience what he has, basically

insomnia — not as bad as when he was younger, but he can still find it difficult to fall or stay asleep; his sleep habits really aren’t the best even as an adult // he does still have nightmares, though less frequent than in his childhood

dysphoria — certain reminders of the tragic event can trigger a general drop in his mood that may last a while

hypervigilance — manifesting more as keen perception than paranoia, since he has a better handle on it // he is very aware of people’s nonverbal cues, facial expressions, tone, etc. and he is very aware of his surroundings

chronic pain — dull aches and pains usually around his wrist and ankles // he’ll get bad migraines // can manifest in other areas of his body, but the aforementioned areas are the most common // honestly he barely notices the pain anymore

thoughts jae-ha has had regarding his trauma:

maybe my trauma wasn’t bad enough // maybe it was my fault // he was abused too, it wasn’t his fault // i shouldn’t still be angry // i let him die, i was killing him, i deserved it, i’m guilty // garou’s right, i’m a monster // if they realize i’m a monster, will they still accept me? // if i wasn’t a monster it wouldn’t have happened // it doesn’t matter if i get hurt, as long as no one else does, and i’m used to it // no one will accept me, i’m a monster // i shouldn’t bee feeling this way // i can’t let anyone know how i feel // i’m a monster, monster, monster // garou should’ve killed me

[star-anise]

So. I’m currently reading Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey, since it was finally released on audiobook this year. Re-reading, in fact; reading these books as a 31-year-old therapist instead of a starry-eyed 13-year-old. 

I ranted the other night about the book's depiction of Elspeth as "spoiled" instead of "abused", and @feathersescapism (as part of the post's excellent and thoughtful contributions) said this about Mercedes Lackey:

It’s so effing messy for me because like on the one hand she saved my life. She was the VERY first place I saw loving, validated, celebrated queer relationships and ironically Vanyel was the first time I saw an example of someone who was angry and hurt and messy and bad at people and bullied but not a passive victim be portrayed as fundamentally loveable. As in fact valuable enough, worthy enough to be PURSUED, even, to have someone make the effort to get past his hostile defense behaviors. That was priceless to me. Unfortunately it’s like….it was water when I was dying of thirst but it turns out it was water laced with heavy metals that then did a lot of long term damage.

Which is partly just a concentration thing; if you are drinking from many wells, having one be poisoned won't damage you as much overall. But if it's your only source of water, even trace amounts get dangerous. And, well, we were Eighties babies, mentally ill queer kids with access to small-town libraries who ducked guidance counsellors who pushed conformity as the path to happiness.

So I just found a scene that I think really shows that Lackey was writing from a specifically 80s understanding of psychology, before we knew almost anything about trauma; as considered today, it's bad practice on multiple levels, and can point to some of the underlying problems with the Valdemar worldview.

TW child abuse, child neglect

So in this part of the book, 13-year-old Talia, who was rescued from her awful abusive life among the Holderkin by a giant magical horse, is settling into her new life as a Herald-trainee. She attends classes during the day, and then sleeps in her own room in a dormitory wing of her fellow trainees. Her teachers know that she displays all the symptoms of an abused child, and that she's from an extremely insular and rigid culture.

Her teacher, Teren, asks her to stay after class, and she does, wary and panicked because she doesn't know what's going on. He explains that the Heralds sent a letter back to her family to explain that her disappearance was because of the magical horse choosing her as a future Herald, and they get half-taxes that year and she's going to be very important. Her family, however, replies to say only, "Sensholding has no daughter Talia." Because she ran away instead of staying and getting married, she is disobedient and bad, and therefore totally shunned by her entire community.

She didn't realize she was weeping until a single hot tear splashed on the paper, blurring the ink. She regained control of herself immediately, swallowing down the tears. [...] It was odd, but when she'd chosen to run away, their certain excommunication hadn't seemed so great a price to pay for freedom; but somehow now, after all her hopes for forgiveness had been raised only to be destroyed by this one note-- Never mind; once again she was on her own--and Herald Teren would hardly approve of her sniveling over the situation. "It's all right," she said, handing back the note to the Herald. "I should have expected it." She was proud that her voice only trembled a little, and that she was able to meet his eyes squarely. Teren was startled and slightly alarmed; not at her reaction to the note, but by her immediate iron-willed suppression of it. This was not a healthy response. She should have allowed herself the weakness of tears; any child her age should have. Instead, she was holding back, turning further into herself. He tried, tentatively, to call those tears back to the surface where they belonged. Such suppression of natural feelings could only mean deep emotional turmoil later--and would only serve as one more brick in the wall the child had placed between herself and the others around her. "I wish there was something I could do to help." Teren was exceedingly distressed and tried to show that he was as much distressed at the child's denial of her own grief as with the situation itself. "I can't understand why they should have replied like this." If he could just get her to at least admit that the situation made her unhappy, he would have an opening wedge in getting her to trust him. [...] "I'm going to be late--" Talia winced away from the outheld hand and ran, wishing Teren had been less sympathetic. He'd brought her tears perilously close to the surface again. She'd wanted, above all other things, to break down and cry on his shoulder. But--no. She didn't dare. When kith and kin could deny her so completely, what might not strangers do, especially if she exposed her weaknesses? And Heralds were supposed to be self-sufficient, self-reliant. She would not show that she was unworthy and weak.

What I took away from this book, at 13 and during most successive readings, was that the fault in this situation is Talia's unwillingness to trust Teren and break down. It is her inability to open up emotionally to her deep, vulnerable feelings that causes problems. I suspect that my reading is not terribly far off the narrative's own perception of the central problem. In the 1980s, psychology was very based around the individual, the dance of the id, ego, and superego. Talia's problem is that she has an overactive superego, which prevents her from expressing her natural feelings in a healthy way. She uses unhealthy coping mechanisms, which must be overcome to achieve health and full congruence with her feelings. This runs very much on the catharsis model, where emotions build up like a boil, and must be lanced; once someone "vents", they feel better.

Now, at 31, and trained to help vulnerable 13-year-olds, I can see a lot of differences in how I'd assess the problem now. The trauma field especially has come to understand that humans are essentially relational beings; our brains are born in relationships. We function best in relationships. We need, more than anything else, to feel connected and understood. And then, above that: we are beings in brains and bodies. Our consciousness is limited by the hardware it runs on. If our body is dedicating all its resources to fight-or-flight, we cannot be rational, logical thinkers. We need to understand how to regulate our own emotions, both by personal actions and through relationships with others, to achieve health. It takes repeated, patterned practice to master the skills of understanding and moderating those emotions. Coping mechanisms may be unhealthy, but as I was taught in grad school, "All psychopathology was adaptive once." If you're going to take away someone's unhealthy coping mechanism, you need to have first replaced it with something healthier.

So looking at this scene now, I can point out that Talia represses her emotions instantly because in her family of origin, she got beaten up for crying. Her teachers have already observed that she has the defensive and startle-reactions of an abused child. It should not be very hard for Teren to put two and two together and think: She has been systematically trained to view emotion as unsafe. 

He could, at this point, make the rules of their current situation clear: "It's all right to cry. You don't have to put on a brave face for me." This would let Talia know that she won't lose support or status if she cries. But that assumes, frankly, that she can cry; that the experience of being vulnerable in front of another human being wouldn't be too overwhelming, perhaps terrifying, for her to bear. He could also validate that, and let Talia know he sees her and understands. "It'd be all right if you let that guard down, but it looks like you've got a lot of experience with dealing with hard knocks. If you ever do want to talk about it, I'm here."

It's important for him not to try to force her to show feeling the way he thinks she should. He doesn't actually know that it's safe, or that he's safe. Traumatized people need, more than almost anything else, to achieve a measure of control over their own emotions and bodies. They need to be able to make themselves calm when they need to be calm, and not to be ambushed with sadness or fear out of the blue. It should be, more than anything, Talia's decision of when and where to express her emotions. Is bottling it all up unhealthy for her? Oh, probably. She might get depression later this month, or heart disease in 40 years. But being forced to cry when she's not ready to can leave her feeling violated and retraumatized, right here, right now.

The thing that makes crying comforting for most people is that they have a very deep pattern etched on their brains: They cry, someone comforts them, their pain recedes, they feel calmer. It's the pattern of a thousand hungry wakeups as a baby where someone was gentle and kind and fed them. It's skinned knees kissed and broken toys mended. But Talia probably doesn't have that; her experience of crying has been that she's punished and abused for it, and as an infant whose mother died in childbirth, she probably wasn't adequately nurtured either to build those good associations in the first place. Crying just takes her into a deeper place of loneliness and self-hatred. So for her to soothe herself, she might need to be taught very basic ways of doing that--to take a break, to do something she loves, to get a hug from a friend. Her traditional reaction has been to mask her emotions, and to self-isolate and let those feelings of pain and alienation swamp her.

What he could even do, as I sometimes do as a therapist, is respect that repression as a way of coping and roll with it. If someone can only bear the most glancing reference to their trauma? Then glance. Use black humour or obvious irony to acknowledge the situation without engaging with its emotional depth. “So, you know, no big deal. I bet that’s what you’ve always wanted.” So long as it’s paired with other kinds of real caring--especially useful, immediate help and close emotional attunement--that’s not out of place.

One thing he seems to have assumed is that of course, if your family is awful and devastating, you get to take the morning off to cry. I can only assume that's why he's pushing her to cry at the end of class, when she has another one to go to right after. But she might not know that. Certainly her familyexpected that if they did something awful and devastating, Talia needed to get back to work as soon as possible. Teren doesn't discuss this, and I think it's important; Talia goes to something like four other classes, has lunch, and reads for an hour before she finally gets to do anything relevant to taking care of her emotions. Implicitly, the idea that schedule and routine supercede emotions, and that emotional work takes second place, gets reinforced by the system that thinks it's "saving" her.

The other thing traumatized people struggle with, next to control, is connection. Trauma is hugely isolating; it reroutes resources away from the parts of the brain that foster social connection, so people literally lose track of anyone who might be loving and supportive, and it's hard to make ordinary people understand what you're going through. This is part of why Teren showing Talia all his distress isn't really good for her; he's overloading her still further with natural empathy for his emotions, increasing the weight she has to carry mentally, but not reinforcing her connections. He doesn't remind her that other Heralds are her family now, nor does he give her help in how to reach out to anyone.

Who might Teren remind her of? As much as he's taking on the role of The Person She Can Be Emotional To, he's hardly ever in her life; this is the last day of their week-long class where he met her for one hour a morning. He could encourage her to talk to one of her regular teachers, including his twin Keren, who teaches her equitation, or the cook, in whose kitchen Talia is most confident and in her element. If her dormitory had older Heralds who lived there in a kind of supervisory or mentoring role, spending hours of unstructured free time with the trainees, he could direct her to one of them. He could even direct her to her age-peers, with whom she lives, who might not be the most emotionally attuned but certainly seem to be the group with whom the Heralds expect her to do most of her emotional bonding.

Or he could--now here's a thought--suggest she spend the rest of the morning with the magical psychic horse who can beam rays of love and devotion directly into her brain.

But he doesn't. It is only after Talia has attended classes on history, geography, mathematics, etiquette, and archery, eaten lunch, read for an hour, and cried in the back of the sewing room, that she finally sees her magic horse. And she does feel a bit better! But by then, her major adrenaline has worn off, and with it the ability to etch memories deeply into her brain; the first hours after her shock were spent ignoring her feelings and being disconnected from people who didn't notice she was in pain, thus reinforcing all her old traumatic impressions.

So the book sets up a recurring number of incidents where Talia's loneliness and isolation is reinforced by the world around her; where no one provides her the necessary scaffolding to help her build bridges with other people and develop the skills to be healthier; and then, as happens throughout the series, when something bad happens to her, she is blamed for being so isolated and repressed. 

When I was 13, I had no framework to understand any of this. On the schoolyard, I'd been taught many of Talia's lessons about the dangers of showing weakness, and in the classroom, about the importance of repressing emotions; I used her as an emotional model. (Later in the books, Talia lbecomes an Empath and Mind-Healer, which hugely impacted my decision to become a therapist.) But then, when her loneliness turned into defencelessness and her lack of emotional control turned into instability, the narrative said it was her fault for not being healthier. And so I thought: Yes. It is completely reasonable to provide a young person with no emotional support at all, and then get mad at them for being fucked up.

And so there's lead in the water.

[runawaykotaro]

I posted this on twitter with no explanation but i’m breaking it out again but this time I don’t have a character limit so

JOUI 4 CLASSPECTS BUT I ACTUALLY EXPLAIN THIS TIME:

Gintoki: Knight of Heart

Heart: Heart as an aspect is synonymous with soul- which just immediately made me think of Gintoki. Because heart also stands for emotions and personal relationships, and Gintoki’s biggest strength in the series is from his bonds with others (note: I think blood would also be a good aspect for him, because its the aspects of bonds, but I feel like Heart’s emphasis on soul and individuality was fitting for Gintoki)

Knight: Knights protect their aspect and protect with their aspect- and Gintoki uses the relationships that he has with others and his own convictions, his soul, to protect and to protect with. His whole thing- “While you have thrown away a hundred people, I have formed bonds with a thousand... We have protected everything as just three people”- Is forming connections and defending them. But also, Knights tend to put up facades to hide their insecurities related to their aspects. Gintoki’s constantly afraid of connections that he’s made with others being destroyed, and when that fear is invoked, Gintoki will put up a callous persona and try to distance himself from other people (Four Devas arc) And while he’s obviously deeply connected to his own sense of self and keenly aware of his ‘soul,’ he’s not as secure about who he is and how he effects others as he pretends to be (Kintama arc)

Derse Dreamer

Katsura: Mage of Doom

Doom: Doom is the aspect of death, as well as rules and regulations. But isn’t Katsura a terrorist?? A rebel?? A revolutionary?? Why the hell am I giving him the aspect that’s literally about rules?? Because the rules and regulations of doom symbolize mechanisms within a structure, patience, and inevitability. Katsura broke from creating literal doom when he stopped being an extremist (he stopped gunning for the collapse of society) and began to use the cracks that were already in the system (discontent the tendoshuu, Nobunobu breaking up the shinsengumi) in order to bring about the fall of the bakufu. His character also has a lot to do with obligation and repression, with the general position, and his unique weapon is a bomb (blood and time I feel would have also been good choices for Katsura)

Mage: So mage is the active understanding class, which I thought fit Katsura because he shows that he’s ‘in the know’ with the political situation in gintama, and when he’s not acting as comedic relief, he serves as a source of exposition (so, understanding) but i chose mage instead of seer because Katsura acts on his own a lot, as well as filling more of a director role than an advisor role

Prospit Dreamer

Takasugi: Heir of Time

Time: Time is the aspect of destruction, which was my primary reason, but I also chose it because Takasugi is still caught up in the past and he struggles moving forward, which is a time issue

Heir: This one was a little bit more abstract than Gintoki and Katsura’s, but I chose heir because of the scene with oboro, when Takasugi takes in his bones and ‘inherits’ more time to live from oboro, as well as his wish of saving/serving Shoyou. Also, heirs are prone to projection, like how Takasugi projects his anger about Shoyou’s death onto Gintoki (Gintoki even says ‘you hate me because you would have done the same thing’)

Derse Dreamer

Sakamoto: Rogue of Space

Space: So space is the aspect of creation, and I feel like that fits Sakamoto, who creates meaning in otherwise insignificant things. Like, he finds ways to change ‘pebbles’ into desirable goods. Space is also linked to mediation (through Kanaya, who was called a meddler a lot and spent a lot of time auspiticing, and through Jade, who spent a lot of time supporting/working for her friends even before they entered the game)

Rogue: (I love Roxy Lalonde and I love Sakamoto) So rogue is the passive ‘stealing’ class, and its function is redistribution, and they’re ‘robin hood’ types. I feel like that fits Sakamoto, who’s generous and focused around bargaining- making sure that everyone gets what the need

Prospit Dreamer

Additional fun facts: My biggest concern was their personality and role in the overall gintama narrative, but I also tried to give them parallels in their classes that were reflective of how they parallel each other (like for takasugi and katsura, Heir (passive changing) and Mage (active understanding) are counterparts, and so are rogue and knight)

[jaxyu-a]

→ headcanon: jae-ha’s ptsd.

i remember mentioning a million years ago how i was gonna try to write out something about how jae-ha’s mind works and basically the influence that his childhood abuse ( which was physical and mental // emotional ) had on him. so here is an attempt to expand on it a little more. idk i probably will edit this more as time goes on but i wanted to post this here really for my own reference.

jae-ha has complex ptsd ( with psychosis ) given that it was chronic abuse ( happened over a period of 12 years ). he didn’t have many of the protective factors either — he was socially and physically isolated, and his abuser was really his only point of contact ( though i often mention garou as his sole abuser, the villagers were also complicit in this abuse, and really the purveyor of it ). his mental d/o is undiagnosed, even in his modern verse ( since he had no interest in going to therapy & refused to ). i’ll split this up into childhood and adulthood manifestations because while he hasn’t “gotten over it” he has shifted in the symptoms he primarily experiences. his coping mechanisms into adulthood make the existence of these issues more subtle, but sometimes he does experience the other ( childhood ) symptoms, just less frequently than when he was younger & usually brought on by a trigger. just fyi, jae-ha will probably never really speak about this in its entirety, especially the hallucinations. 

CHILDHOOD // TEENAGE YEARS

paranoia // distrust // hypervigilance — constantly on edge around others, didn’t really want to stay in one place // he was constantly on the run thinking that the villagers would be after him, even long after he left // he was often distrustful of the intentions of others after garou died and he lived on the streets // he had to deal with people who wished to use him & his powers for his own benefit even outside of his childhood home and that further cemented his distrust in those around him

anxiety surrounding being touched — usually manifesting as initial flinch // recoil // disgust reflex due to an expectation of pain. might have reacted violently to it as well, depending on how someone touched him ( if it was a harsh touch, he’d respond likewise ) // he’s likely to be more hesitant around men than women

flashbacks — an almost constant thing // mostly it was garou’s voice echoing in his mind but at night this turned to nightmares of him being chained again or used for his powers

insomnia — to avoid the nightmares that plagued his sleep, he’d often just stay up to try to avoid it, resulting in many sleepless nights // he’d often have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep

hallucinations — auditory, visual, & tactile // seeing ghosts // feeling the weight of chains on his wrists and ankles though they were no longer there // hearing garou’s voice echoing in his mind or the sounds of chains at night or at other unspecified times

panic // anxiety attacks — these could come out of nowhere or actually have a trigger ( usually being touched, having arrows aimed at him, threatened to be shot down ) // when confronted with dangerous situations, he’d hyperventilate, start to think he was going to die, etc.

angry and violent outbursts — could come from being touched or from feeling powerless // if he wasn’t progressing as he thought he should, it irritated him // when he couldn’t block garou’s voice from his mind, he would lash out // sometimes his anxiety & panic attacks could turn into outbursts of violence

withdrawal // isolation — avoided getting close to people // as a child, he would keep people at a distance through more aggressive mannerisms // in modern, this was a big reason why he refused to go into the adoption system — if his own blood didn’t want him, who would ? garou always told him that no one would want him.

internalization of negative assumptions — he was always told he couldn’t fit in // he was a monster // no one would accept him and this added to his tendency to withdraw from others out of the fear that he would be rejected or other expectations of pain // he also experienced immense guilt for leaving garou behind and for stealing his life away // often times he did believe that he deserved the abuse that he got

risky behaviors — included stealing // drugs // general recklessness 

dysphoria — just general feeling or state of unhappiness, often pervasive 

ADULTHOOD

fetis..hization of pain instead of anxiety surrounding it — so he basically reconditioned himself to think differently about being touched to lessen his discomfort surrounding it // masochism can be used as a coping mechanism, in a way it’s taking control; jae-ha had no control over the pain that he experienced as a child, but re-framing it in a consensual context helps him come to terms with abuse

memory repression — avoids thinking about anything to do with his past abuse at all but certain things can make him remember and cause him to withdraw ( usually he makes jokes about the subject, tries to brush it off, and then withdraws completely if the subject is pushed // may get angry tbh )

claustrophobia and cleithrophobia – basically caused by his fear of being tied down without escape or enclosed in small spaces, and this can trigger panic attacks // flashbacks // this can also trigger his anxiety, and if he’s trapped long enough, starts to have these fears of death or nightmares about dying // feelings of powerlessness or hopelessness can overwhelm him // he had this when he was younger too and it carried over 

withdrawal // isolation — in short, he has highly developed social skills that preclude vulnerability // instead of being reserved or aggressive as he was when he was a child, he comes off as friendly and open, but he does have many mental walls up // he shies away from emotional intimacy, but is fine with physical intimacy // in a way he can… kind of sabotage his own relationships because he has these internalized negative views, which is one of the reasons he shies away from commitment and tells himself he’s fine with being alone ( but he craves acceptance and intimacy ) // he over regulates his emotions a lot of the time, not allowing himself to feel certain things because he doesn’t want to return to the anger and recklessness of his youth 

internalization of negative assumptions about himself — such as being a monster, ugly, undeserving, never going to fit in, etc. — but instead of believing them outwardly, he over compensates by putting an emphasis on beauty, his appearance, independence, and freedom, convincing himself he’s better off alone instead of people don’t want me // his over confidence masks his insecurities 

self-medication — not saying he’s an alcoholic, but will turn to it in order to escape the discomfort of the present // in modern verses, he uses drugs like weed and smoking cigarettes for that, along with alcohol still // he has used harder drugs before but that was in his youth 

tendency towards protection — he’s very protective of others who he may or may not consider weaker and it’s because he doesn’t want people to experience what he has, basically

insomnia — not as bad as when he was younger, but he can still find it difficult to fall or stay asleep; his sleep habits really aren’t the best even as an adult // he does still have nightmares, though less frequent than in his childhood

dysphoria — certain reminders of the tragic event can trigger a general drop in his mood that may last a while

hypervigilance — manifesting more as keen perception than paranoia, since he has a better handle on it // he is very aware of people’s nonverbal cues, facial expressions, tone, etc. and he is very aware of his surroundings 

chronic pain — dull aches and pains usually around his wrist and ankles // he’ll get bad migraines // can manifest in other areas of his body, but the aforementioned areas are the most common // honestly he barely notices the pain anymore

thoughts jae-ha has had regarding his trauma: 

maybe my trauma wasn’t bad enough // maybe it was my fault // he was abused too, it wasn’t his fault // i shouldn’t still be angry // i let him die, i was killing him, i deserved it, i'm guilty // garou’s right, i’m a monster // if they realize i’m a monster, will they still accept me? // if i wasn’t a monster it wouldn’t have happened // it doesn’t matter if i get hurt, as long as no one else does, and i’m used to it // no one will accept me, i’m a monster // i shouldn’t bee feeling this way // i can’t let anyone know how i feel // i’m a monster, monster, monster // garou should’ve killed me

[jiyxu]

i remember mentioning a million years ago how i was gonna try to write out something about how jae-ha’s mind works and basically the… influence that his childhood abuse ( which was physical and mental // emotional ) had on him. i think i’ve mentioned it at like… length before but here is an attempt to expand on it a little more. idk i probably will edit this more but i wanted to post this here really for......... my own reference

now i don’t wanna just give jae-ha a mental illness just to give him one. i’ve always been kinda hesitant about it and posting things like this because it’s a sensitive topic. but i do think jae-ha does have ptsd ( with psychosis ), perhaps a more ‘minor’ form going into adulthood. but it’s definitely undiagnosed, even in his modern verse ( since he had no interest in going to therapy & refused to ). i’ll split this up into childhood and adulthood manifestations because while he hasn’t “gotten over it” he has shifted in the symptoms he primarily experiences. his coping mechanisms into adulthood make the existence of these issues more subtle, but sometimes he does experience the other ( childhood ) symptoms, just less frequently than when he was younger & usually brought on by a trigger. just fyi, jae-ha will probably never really speak about it which makes it hard to heal from it. 

CHILDHOOD // TEENAGE YEARS

paranoia // distrust // hypervigilance – constantly on edge around others, didn’t really want to stay in one place // in canon, he was constantly on the run thinking that the villagers would be after him, even long after he left // in modern, he was still very distrustful of the intentions of others after garou died and he lived on the streets // in both, he had to deal with people who wished to use him & his powers for his own benefit even outside of his childhood home and that further cemented his distrust in those around him

anxiety surrounding being touched — usually manifesting as initial flinch // recoil // disgust reflex due to an expectation of pain. might have reacted violently to it as well, depending on how someone touched him ( if it was a harsh touch, he’d respond likewise )

flashbacks – an almost constant thing // mostly it was garou’s voice echoing in his mind but at night this turned to nightmares of him being chained again or used for his powers

insomnia – to avoid the nightmares that plagued his sleep, he’d often just stay up to try to avoid it, resulting in many sleepless nights // though eventually this would simply precede hallucinations 

hallucinations — auditory, visual, & tactile // seeing ghosts // feeling the weight of chains on his wrists and ankles though they were no longer there // hearing garou’s voice echoing in his mind or the sounds of chains at night

panic or anxiety attacks – these could come out of nowhere or actually have a trigger // when confronted with dangerous situations, he’d hyperventilate, start to think he was going to die, etc.

angry and violent outbursts — could come from being touched or from feeling powerless // if he wasn’t progressing as he thought he should, it irritated him // when he couldn’t block garou’s voice from his mind, he would lash out

withdrawal // isolation — avoided getting close to people // as a child, he would keep people at a distance through more aggressive mannerisms // in modern, this was a big reason why he refused to go into the adoption system — if his own father didn’t want him, who would ?

internalization of negative assumptions – he was always told he couldn’t fit in // he was a monster // no one would accept him and this added to his tendency to withdraw from others out of the fear that he would be rejected or other expectations of pain // he also experienced immense guilt, often times he did believe that he deserved the abuse that he got

risky behaviors — included stealing // drugs // general recklessness 

dysphoria — just general feeling or state of unhappiness, often pervasive 

ADULTHOOD

fetis..hization of pain instead of anxiety surrounding it — so he basically reconditioned himself to think differently about being touched to lessen his discomfort surrounding it

memory repression – avoids thinking about anything to do with his past abuse at all but certain things can make him remember and cause him to withdraw ( usually he makes jokes about the subject, tries to brush it off, and then withdraws completely if the subject is pushed // may get angry tbh )

claustrophobia and cleithrophobia – basically caused by his fear of being tied down without escape or enclosed in small spaces, and this can trigger panic attacks // flashbacks // this can also trigger his anxiety, and if he’s trapped long enough, starts to have these fears of death or nightmares about dying // feelings of powerlessness or hopelessness can overwhelm him // he had this when he was younger too and it carried over 

withdrawal // isolation – instead of being reserved or aggressive, however, he comes off as friendly and open, but he does have many mental walls up // he shies away from emotional intimacy, but is fine with physical intimacy // in a way he can… kind of sabotage his own relationships because he has these internalized negative views, which is one of the reasons he shies away from commitment and tells himself he’s fine with being alone ( but he craves acceptance ) // he over regulates his emotions a lot of the time, not allowing himself to feel certain things because he doesn’t want to return to the anger and recklessness of his youth

internalization of negative assumptions about himself — such as being a monster, ugly, undeserving, never going to fit in, etc. – but instead of believing them, he over compensates by putting an emphasis on beauty, his appearance, independence, and freedom, convincing himself he’s better off alone instead of people don’t want me // his over confidence masks his insecurities 

self-medication – not saying he’s an alcoholic, but will turn to it in order to escape the discomfort of the present // in modern verses, he uses drugs like weed and smoking cigarettes for that, along with alcohol still // he has used harder drugs before but that was in his youth 

tendency towards protection – he’s very protective of others who he may or may not consider weaker and it’s because he doesn’t want people to experience what he has, basically

insomnia — not as bad as when he was younger, but at times he can find it difficult to fall or stay asleep if he has confronted any of his triggers during the day

dysphoria — certain reminders of the tragic event can trigger a general drop in his mood that may last a while