#like imagine a mechanic where depending on your treatment of them and how you talked about your urge

[bhaalble]

Part of me enjoys the lack of choice in the ascended Bhaalspawn ending (in the end you've committed to the path of being daddy's favorite weapon, so you're not going to get to be anything else) I just wish I had a clearer sense of what the hell is happening immediately after the initial slaughterfest. Bhaal's apocalypse has always been contradictory in nature. The Dark Urge is created to be the last soul alive and yet, your butler implies there will be an expectation for you to have kids. This isn't a plot hole to me. Bhaal got stuck with the scraps between Bane and Myrkul, he can antagonize both but in the end triumph over neither. Because in the end. All things are either living (and thus open to Bane's domination) or dead (and belong to Myrkul). Murder is an inherently limited domain, its frozen in the act of Killing or Being Killed, but not being dead. An Evil Durge playthrough definitely has a lot of the pieces in place for an extinction level event. But they won't do it. Even in your moment of ascendancy you shield your companions. Even just a short scene of them grappling with that, even if it was just your love interest, could've been FASCINATING

[theramseyloft]

Trichomonas gallinae from Pigeons to Raptors

I talk a lot about why feral pigeons should be treated like stray dogs in other posts, from the perspective of them being being a species as purely domesticated as Dogs, which can’t survive away from humans.

They should not be clogging up wildlife rehabs, whose resources should be reserved exclusively for the native wildlife for which they were set up.

(Not one sane person would advocate releasing stray dogs among rehabbed wolves or coyotes, no matter how many generations of them had been born in that alley.)

There is no benefit to releasing feral pigeons “back into the wild”.

Certainly not for the pigeons... who are exclusively dependent on human hand outs or garbage for food and building to roost and nest.

Not for the people, who are generally disgusted by the byproduct of sick, hungry ferals, which does serious structural damage because of the high uric acid content of feces from birds who have not been able to get enough to eat.

Not even for their predators.

Because of the way their medical care is traditionally handled, lost pigeons and their feral decedents are unsafe for predatory birds to eat.

As stated in the previous post, Performing breed breeders and fliers go one of two ways regarding birds with any symptoms of illness:

Either

1. They don’t waste money on treating a sick a sick bird. If it’s sick enough to affect its performance, that specific one is just killed.

Or

2. They use a fraction of the dose of the meds designed to treat an actively symptomatic bird as a monthly “preventive” for the entire flock.

Killing off a bird that’s symptomatic doesn’t mean the other birds in that loft and flying from it don’t have that pathogen.

It just means that they aren’t showing symptoms.

Aaaand using small doses of a treatment as a monthly “preventive” would have any one anywhere near the fields of pathology and epedimiology tearing their hair out in horrified frustration...

Because that is praaactically step by step instructions in how to build up a pathogen’s immunity to a treatment.

Whish brings us to this heinous little bastard;

which causes Trichomoniasis; Trich/canker/frounce.

Trichomonas gallinae eats epithelial cells lining the sinus, crop, and trachea, and forms plaques that make it very difficult for meds to get to as a defense mechanism against the immune system of its host.

Individuals are highly motile, moving with three sets of flagella.

Making it very easy to go septic.

There are three ways this parasite spreads:

1. Mouth to mouth feeding between mates or from parent to nestling.

(By far the most common in columbids)

2. Eating seeds thrown up by a starving late stage bird who physically can’t swallow them

(A common way to transmit it to song birds)

3. Eating an infected prey bird.

Pretty much any bird can catch and transmit the protozoan parasite Trichomonas gallinae, which causes Trichomoniasis; Trich/canker/frounce.

But most wild birds die from it very quickly, leaving it only a brief opportunity to spread to a new host.

What makes the feral descendants of racers and other performance breeds of domestic pigeon in particular especially dangerous carriers to raptors is their high immunity to it.

While a pigeon would have to have an active infection to spread trich to song bird (via vomited seed), an infected pigeon doesn’t have to be symptomatic to spread the parasite to a raptor, who is exposed directly by eating them in bite-sized pieces.

I have purchased birds from grand champion show breeders who looked to be in perfect health on arrival...

But their throats were swarming with Trich when swabbed. (part of my standard quarantine procedure)

Nearly every feral that’s entered our program through rescue has had a crop load of Trich, but were completely asymptomatic on arrival.

A raptor that had eaten one of these birds that was “healthy” by all appearances would still have sickened from it and died with out immediate veterinary intervention.

Our livestock doesn't exist in a bubble.

What we do (or don’t do) with our domesticated animals has consequences.

And when your biosecurity is nonexistent, and you either half ass treatment of a pathogen or don’t bother to treat at all, outbreaks are inevitable, and devastating to outside populations.

Pigeon fanciers talk about Canker like it’s nothing. Pop one pill and it’s done.

But this parasite is devastating.

And the way it’s treated by fanciers practically guarantees a fast track to developing drug resistance.

Domestic Pigeons left “in the wild” or “returned” to it not only have no beneficial niche to fill and no way to keep themselves fed,

They act as a reservoir for increasingly resistant pathogens practically engineered by the half-assed veterinary care of the fliers who provide a constant stream of new blood as racers and other performance breeds are lost from races or tosses or separated from kits.

Because of this, as much as the moral issue of having abandoned them in the first place, feral pigeons should not be ignored.

It is possible to drastically reduce their numbers with out any inhumane measures.

Taubbenhouses, comfortable shelters where nest boxes, feed, and water are provided, and any eggs laid are swapped for fakes, work wonders for population control.

With out injections, trapping, or poison, the reproductive rates of feral populations where this strategy was employed decreased by 95%.

Imagine combining that with better veterinary care for pigeons who belong to fanciers...

Maybe we could avoid...

This.

(Graphic photos under the cut)

This pigeon died of Trich.

By the look of it, those plaques went straight to its lungs...

This wood pigeon's entire throat was blocked.

Here is a septic pigeon (three and a half weeks old or so), with lesions all the way down its digestive tract.

Another septic pigeon (adult), with lesions all over its liver and even laced into its muscle tissue.

This is what happens when a hawk eats a pigeon with resistant trich.

This owl probably wasn’t able to swallow around that lesion 

This falcon chick (in particular danger due to falcons primarily preying on other birds) won’t be able to swallow soon.

This owl's choanal slit, glottis, and esophagus have been completely blocked off.

This peregrine (post-op) was lucky to have survived.

From the article ( http://www.shropshireperegrines.co.uk/news/news.html ):

“June 2014 - Peregrine chick treated for Trichomonas Gallinae

Two young peregrines, one male and one female, have been recovered in a distressed state from a scrape in north Shropshire by members of the Group and taken for treatment at the Cuan Wildlife Rescue Centre at Much Wenlock.

On examination both birds were diagnosed with "trichomonias gallinae", an infection affecting the birds' mouths, throat and eyes. According to the vet who examined the birds, the infection had most probably occurred by eating infected pigeon meat. Unfortunately the female chick did not survive.”

[ericamzdm]

S1E1 and Emotional Abuse

Apparently my feelings do expand beyond five screenshots.

So! I’m going to take the Catra/Adora segments from the first ten minutes of SheRa apart, with a focus on Adora. It’s going to be dry, and it’s going to be talking about emotional manipulation and abuse at length, so please feel free to stop reading if that’s not something you want to deal with.

Frankly, the Adora/Catra content in S1E1 makes my skin crawl on a re-watch. It’s not that I don’t like the characters - I’m actually quite fond of both of them! But this episode is extremely on the nose about what it’s means to be raised in an abusive environment, and how easy it is to perpetrate abuse when it permeates your sense of what is normal and how things work.

Before we get into the episode itself, a definition. (I did say this was going to be dry)

Abuse is:

Intentional - Accidents aren’t abuse. (although abusers will lie about intent)

Harmful/Controlling (to/of the victim) - harm/control is the primary mechanism abusers use to obtain their goal, rather than an incidental effect.

Beneficial (to the abuser) - Abuse is perpetrated to get the abuser something, even if just a ‘thrill of power’.

If it doesn’t hit all three, it may be bad, and it may make the perpetrator a jackass, but it’s almost certainly not abuse.

The first relevant scene is where Catra is late to class (sorry, “evaluation”). Adora’s “Where’s Catra/*scoffs* Not again/She’ll be here, I promise” is, in itself, fairly benign, but already shows that Adora’s concern for Catra veers into controlling territory. Who is she, to make promises on Catra’s behalf?

Catra eventually does show up, and we get a lengthy ‘playful banter’ sequence that almost reassures you that their relationship is reasonably normal and healthy. They have in-jokes! And laugh! And give/take jabs in good faith!

And then Shadow Weaver shows up. And this happens.

Just to be very clear here. Adora physically dragged a visibly uncomfortable Catra into an encounter with someone who we shortly learn (and Adora is fully aware) is her abuser.

BREAKING FOR A PSA: The above ALONE makes her a fundamentally unsafe person for an abuse victim/survivor to be around. I have cut people from my life for this kind of thing. DON’T FORCE PEOPLE INTO UNWANTED INTERACTIONS. IT IS SUPER UNCOOL.[/PSA]

*coughs* We now return you to an overwrought analysis of a Y7 cartoon...

Let’s review that definition of abuse!

Is Shadow Weaver acting with intent to cause harm as a way to benefit herself?

It sure seems like it! The intent and harm are self-evident. The benefit is a little harder to grasp - but ‘thrill of power’/intimidation would cover it.

Conclusion: Shadow Weaver is abusive. Also, the sky is blue!

Now, the more interesting question: Is Adora acting with intent to cause harm as a way to benefit herself?

...and (While the PSA holds) the answer is probably no. While the interaction wasn’t an accident, it’s pretty clear that the way it played out, and the harm caused, were not Adora’s intent. This wasn’t, strictly speaking, abusive.

It was, however, negligence and intentional ignorance that borders on abuse. Catra clearly knew how this was going to roll. Adora doesn’t exactly seem shocked by Shadow Weaver’s actions. So what the heck did she think she was doing?

The bright, happy explanation: Adora wanted her friend to be rewarded for her good work! She was being kind and selfless! She believes that Shadow Weaver is ultimately fair and rewards merit, because she’s just too intrinsically good to imagine a world that works any other way!

The ...less bright and happy explanation: Adora wants/needs Catra to be fairly rewarded, not for Catra’s benefit (“I thought you didn’t care about that!” is a refrain that will come up), but for her own. Adora needs to believe that the Horde/SW are as meritocratic as they claim to be, because if they are not, then her own accomplishments are meaningless favouritism; and to accept that would be an unrecoverable blow to her ego. So, into the line of fire Catra goes!

Catra rolls over, Shadow Weaver turns to exit and we get ...ugh, this.

A visibly distressed throughout Catra pulls herself together enough to manage a half-hearted ‘It’s Fine’ shrug at Adora’s Questioning Look. Adora blithely accepts the shrug with that smile (”Oh good, everything is okay!”).

This time, the disregard for Catra’s emotional state does slip over that border into abusive/manipulative territory. Adora is seeking (intent) reassurance/absolution (benefit) that requires Catra to bury/sublimate her own distress(Harm). The smile is the clincher - it’s what makes it clear that, from Adora’s perspective, this was the desired/expected response. Now Adora can run after Shadow Weaver guilt-free, looking for her Good Girl Cookies!

Not going to cover the hallway sequence in depth; will just note that it is itself a laundry list of abuse and abuse flags. Shadow Weaver is just all around awful, really.

A friendly reminder that this next Catra/Adora scene starts with Catra being happy for Adora! Tickled pink! Adora is going up in the world! They need to celebrate!

The upset comes when Catra is informed that, not only is she not getting an equitable reward to Adora, despite equal performance (It’s fine. She doesn’t care. she does She knows that was never going to happen.), but that she’s not getting any reward at all. And yeah, that’s upsetting! It’s grossly unfair, even by Shadow Weaver standards (we are led to infer). “What is her problem with [Catra]?”

(Unsurprisingly, neither of them recognize ‘separate the victim from their support structure’  as the blatant abuse tactic that it is, rather than anything they could have had a hope of influencing.)

And Adora comes up with this. This right here.

This is well over the line into manipulative/abusive - Adora is blaming Catra (harm) with the implicit goal (intent) of  avoiding addressing the fundamentally unfair nature of the situation (benefit).

As above - Adora’s self-worth hinges on the rewards she receives being ‘valid’. If she accepts that they aren’t - that her success is a product of favouritism (or, you know, victim grooming) - it would shatter her.

But this defence mechanisms is actively harmful to Catra; it prevents Adora from acknowledging Catra’s treatment as unfair/abusive. Rewards in the Horde must be fair; if Catra is not being rewarded, it must be because of something that Catra has chosen to do/not do, just like Shadow Weaver said.

(The Just World hypothesis is a heck of a thing.)

Oh, hey, we’ve got the first instance of Catra being genuinely mean. It just took Adora victim blaming her.

So, is this abuse? Let’s see.

The harm is easy - Adora is upset at being called a people pleaser.

The intent - Well. Catra is clearly aware that this will upset Adora, but is upsetting Adora her goal? And...I don’t think it is, really. Catra’s intent - her desire - is to have Adora admit she enjoys and seeks validation. That she is, in fact, a people pleaser.

And this is basic Hierarchy of Needs stuff? It’s like wanting someone to admit that they enjoy food and shelter. Of course she does! Everyone does! Adora’s denial here is low-key bonkers, and speaks to her dysfunctions around love and validation.

So what we have is: “Catra wants (intent) Adora to admit she benefits from the validation she receives, and thus acknowledge Catra’s lack of validation as hurtful (benefit)”. This isn’t abuse, because the harm is incidental. The upset Adora experiences isn’t necessary (and is in fact interfering with the goal).

All Adora had to do to defuse this was say “Yes, I do like being rewarded. It sucks and is unfair that you weren’t.”

Instead. Well.

We get this. A classic sorry-not-sorry.

Adora wants (intent) Catra to stop being upset and forgive her (benefit), so implies that Catra’s upset is invalid(harm) [she can’t be angry over not getting something she didn’t want].

Adora tries(intent) to guilt-trip(harm) Catra for having had other emotions, so that she will go back to being happy for Adora(benefit).

And it’s only when that doesn’t work that she breaks out the skiff key.

Getting someone an extravagant gift (”love-bombing”) isn’t abusive in itself, but it can absolutely be part of an abusive cycle. Adora has decided that, instead of assessing her own behaviour to identify and address the valid reasons Catra is angry, she’s just going to do something reckless and extravagant to temporarily please her. It’s selfish and manipulative, and doesn’t solve anything. All those hurts are still there, and are inevitably going to boil over again, even if Plot didn’t interfere.

And, just. All of this. All of this stuff coming from Adora is super, super unhealthy. A lot of it is textbook emotional abuse. And I know where she gets it from! Shadow Weaver is her model for a Reasonable Authority Figure! It’s a wonder she’s not worse.

But, I find it ... not a little distressing that people can apparently go back and watch this episode and go (depending on anti status) either “LOL Catra so terrible.” or “Oh boy, what a beautiful, romantic relationship.” Because. Yergh.

You want to know one of the things that makes emotional abuse so awful? No one sees it. Adora isn’t yelling or hitting or being angry, so it’s not possible that she’s hurting Catra every time she trivializes her feelings with a smile, or smirks and blames Catra for her own hurt. Why, Adora is sad when she demands Catra’s preformative joy! Clearly Adora needs that validation more than Catra deserves ownership over her own feelings!

No, it’s clearly Catra who’s at fault, because she’s the ANGRY one. She’s the one hissing and yelling and running away and pushing back about all this hurt that clearly never happened, because hasn’t Adora always been so wonderful and calm? If Catra was right, why can’t she be ~rational~ about it? She’s must be just crazy, bad, selfish, abusive.

And...can we just not? Can we just, for once, take a miss on looking at a fictional character who is being explicitly emotionally abused and blaming them because they aren’t reacting like a perfect pristine angel, and are at fault for not Calmly Discussing their way out of an abusive situation? Please? Just for this ten minute segment?

[glimmerglanger]

Whumptober2020 - Day 5

We’re right around the halfway point for the oof!au as of today! Life continues to be awful for Obi-Wan and the 212th. All general warnings still apply. Specific to today’s entry: strangulation (with the Force), torture, mistreatment of prisoners, brief mention of non-con, branding. Still jumping around with the prompts.

Oof!au basic information: Post-Order 66 Vader-Captures-Obi-Wan AU. Eventual happy(ish) ending. Past/eventual Codywan. One-sided Vaderwan.

No 24. YOU’RE NOT MAKING ANY SENSE Forced Mutism | Blindfolded | Sensory Deprivation

Obi-Wan stared across at the wall in his cell for a long time, after the med-droids pulled him from the bacta. He had not thought while submerged in the tank. It had been a relief. All his memories were waiting for him as he came back to consciousness, every burning moment of them.

There was no way to pretend, even for a moment, that it had not happened. The brands across his back pulled each time he tried to move, remaining even after the bacta treatment. He could not see the marks well, not even with his arms free, as they were most of the time in his cell. He shuddered to think what Anakin had burned into his skin, what marks he would bear, for however long he remained alive.

He had known, when he antagonized Anakin, that the results were unlikely to be.... Pleasant. But he’d had no choice. Allowing Anakin to consider too long Padmé’s fate, the fate of his children…. It risked too much. The safety of the children first and foremost.

There was comfort in imagining Luke and Leia safe. Far away from the violence of their father. Obi-Wan would keep himself between them and the rage burning within Anakin, until it consumed him outright. He could keep Anakin distracted, keep his thoughts away from the children, from everyone who needed protection. Obi-Wan knew he could continue making Anakin angry. It had never been a difficult task, and it was significantly easier at the moment.

He closed his eyes and then opened them again, because there was nothing he wanted to see in the dark of his own mind. He’d been aware of Anakin’s….occasionally lustful thoughts for years, since even before Anakin had been Knighted. Anakin had watched him. Wanted him. But he’d never imagined Anakin would--

Well. There were so many things he’d never imagined Anakin would do. Forcing his way into Obi-Wan’s body was hardly the foulest of his actions of late. Compared to genocide, it barely counted, he thought, laughing alone in his empty, barren cell. The alternative was weeping, and he wouldn’t do that.

He knew well enough he was being monitored, ever and always.

It was strange, he considered, absently. He’d felt like a sleep-walker for years, living on Tatooine. He’d gone through the motions of living, a part of him stuck and held back on Mustafar, in that awful instant when he had turned and walked away from Anakin, all of his failures curdling in him.

Obi-Wan felt awake and like himself again, sitting in a cell, subjected to one hurt after another. He knew how to handle torture, knew only one way to deal with it, and it felt natural to fall back into sharp, ill-advised words, to goad his captor, controlling them without them ever realizing what he was doing, to feel almost… confident that he would escape.

He always had before, after all.

He needed to balance himself, if there was to be an escape. Needed to prepare for whatever Anakin intended to do to him next. Luke and Leia were depending upon him, after all. There was no way to reach out and touch the Force, no way to draw comfort from his connection to the universe. There’d not been much comfort there, of late, anyway.

He leaned his head against the wall, stared at nothing, and tried to focus on breathing exercises. He told himself, eventually, that he started to feel better.

#

Anakin left him alone, for days. Long enough that Obi-Wan suspected he’d been called away on some other mission, dancing to the whims of his Master. There was no way to adequately track the days in that featureless cell.

Troopers brought him food, sometimes. Well, they brought him nutrition, anyway, some kind of mush that was grey-ish brown in color, contained in a tube. One of them would hold his hair and jaw while the other forced it into his mouth, giving him no choice but to swallow or choke.

They always dragged his arms back and bound them, first, forcing him face-down against the cold floor, before pulling him upright once more, like he was little more than a sack of cargo.

“Delicious, as always,” he rasped, after they finished one day, specks of whatever the food was caught across his chin. It tasted vaguely of dirt and always set heavily in his stomach. They did not reply, they didn’t even look at him, his men who had been--

Been turned off, inside. Not even their expressions changed, as far as he ever saw. They were blank-eyed marionettes. Like droids, except droids had personality, even with a control bolt. 

Obi-Wan swallowed, his throat tight and pinched closed, wondering if all of the troopers had suffered the same fate; if they’d all been killed, for all that their bodies continued walking around. He’d grieved for his people, for the Jedi, after the genocide…

He hadn’t realized that he had the eradication of two entire peoples to mourn. “Alzo. Booster,” he said, because someone had to remember their names for them, had to remember who they had been, now that they’d had their identities taken away. He supposed he might be the last person in the galaxy who both could and would. “I’m so sorry. For what they did to you.”

Alzo didn’t turn or hesitate as he walked through the door. Obi-Wan thought Booster did, thought he froze, for just an instant, but… Well. He knew he was looking for shreds of hope, regardless of whether or not they actually existed. 

#

The troopers cared for his other physical needs on a sporadic basis. Sometimes they dragged in a hose and sprayed him down, the water icy cold and stinging across his skin. The pressure was so high that he had to turn his shoulders against it, but at least it cleaned him off.

Sometimes, they held him in place and shaved his face, uncareful with the razor. They did not trim his hair; it grew down over the tops of his ears, lower, shaggy. He doubted he’d recognize himself, without a beard and with such tangled hair, but that mattered little. There were no mirrors, in his little cage.

There was nothing at all to offer a distraction, just his healing wounds and the weight of wondering what Anakin had planned for him, next.

#

Obi-Wan felt almost certain weeks had passed by the time the troopers dragged him from his cell again. He’d gotten familiar with the walk through the halls of Anakin’s mountain fastness, to his throne room. He made absent conversation as they walked, the utter silence of his companions a weight in his chest.

They seemed to have grown used to his chatter. Or, at least, they no longer struck him for it. Perhaps Anakin had reprogrammed them.

Considering that option distracted him, if nothing else, from what he could guess was coming. Anakin waited already in the room for him, sitting on his throne, one leg crossed over the other, expression hidden behind his dark mask.

He was speaking to Cody, as Obi-Wan was dragged in, Cody standing there at attention before him, straight-backed and blank-faced and-- It was all wrong, all of it, even just catching the end of a conversation where Cody reported what had happened in Anakin’s absence. Obi-Wan wondered, fleetingly, if Anakin really left Cody in charge, if it were only another barb, meant to cut into Obi-Wan.

The...harness they’d chained Obi-Wan to last time remained where it was. It pulled at his attention, heavy as gravity. Obi-Wan fought to control his expression as Anakin stood and said, “Restrain him.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Obi-Wan said, speaking as Cody walked over to him, though he expected no answer. He fully anticipated that he would be ignored utterly, and so he was not disappointed as his arms and legs were dragged into position.

“Aren’t you going to tell me I don’t have to do this, either?” Anakin said, the mechanical sound of his voice still jarring and wrong. He’d stood and crossed the room, apparently, staying behind Obi-Wan’s back. 

“Would it do me any good?” Obi-Wan asked, as the wall-covering raised across the room, revealing the fires of Mustafar, so far below. The lava fell in the distance, leaving Obi-Wan feeling cold.

“No,” Anakin said, leather-covered fingers trailing across the top of Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “I’m no longer swayed by your lies.”

“I’m not the one lying,” Obi-Wan said, and Anakin snarled behind him, stepping away. Obi-Wan felt the heat when the furnace opened. He wondered how much of his skin Anakin intended to burn this time. He kept talking, because he knew no other way to be, “Successfully murder anyone for your new master?”

The pain was sudden and swift, directly over his spine, the metal so hot it felt almost cold as ice, at first, tendrils of agony spreading everywhere. “I protected the Empire,” Anakin snapped, leaning his weight against the brand, “I made people safer! Secure!”

The brand came off his skin, though it really changed nothing about the level of his pain. He listened to the metal clatter across stone, considering, bitterly, that once he would have hoped desperately for Anakin to find him, in this situation. Once, he would have held out hope that Anakin - above all others - would rescue him.

He said, around the bitterness in his throat, “Ah. The way you made our people safer?”

“The Jedi weren’t my people,” Anakin snarled back and - and the next burn was higher, still on his spine, a blaze of agony. “They were nothing but a corrupt cult. Religious fanatics who went power mad during the war. They were traitors--”

“Traitors to what?” Obi-Wan cut in, the lies pouring from Anakin’s mouth too much for him to take. He panted, twisting his wrists against the bonds, body shaking as Anakin pressed a fresh brand to his skin and it hurt, Force--

“To the Republic,” Anakin spat, and Obi-Wan laughed, shakily.

“Oh,” he gasped, his thoughts getting sharper with pain, “the Republic you destroyed? That Republic, or do you mean--”

“Shut up!” Anakin snarled, and made his point by curling tendrils of the Force around Obi-Wan’s throat, squeezing. Obi-Wan sipped at the air, unable to breathe deeply, feeling his pulse pounding against his skin, giving a strangled cry as Anakin burned him again, Force, he’d almost reached Obi-Wan’s neck--

“The Jedi betrayed the galaxy. They were dangerous. Self-centered. Even before the war, they - they only cared about themselves. But I saw through them, with the help of my new Master. And - and we stopped them. We gave the Jedi exactly what they deserved, Obi-Wan. Just like you’re getting what you deserve.”

He released his choking grip, finally, and Obi-Wan slumped, gulping at the air, smelling the burned char of his own flesh, shivering all over and unable to stop it. He’d gone into shock, he knew. There was no way to avoid it without the Force to draw on, the tell-tale signs of it a betrayal by his own body.

He thought how fortunate it was that he seemed to have set Anakin off on a speech, one that did not require further input from anyone else. “It was right, what I did,” Anakin was shouting, pacing, by the sound of his voice, no longer right at Obi-Wan’s back, “Necessary. And - and my success proves that the Jedi deserved it. The Force smiled upon me. Blessed my purpose. It was the will of the Force. Their - their death proves that.”

Something shifted in Obi-Wan, beyond the pain, beyond the numb horror of the past years. Something that had always been within him, a fierce little ball of whatever made up his soul, stirring his tongue, knowing it would drag Anakin’s attention back, knowing it would mean more pain…

“By your logic,” he panted, inhaling the smell of char and ruin, unable to stay silent while Anakin deluded himself even further, “I suppose that means what happened to your mother was the will of the Force.”

There was a moment of utter silence. Utter stillness. Obi-Wan’s mouth twitched up in one corner as he stared out into the falling lava, bracing with a jagged grin.

Anakin snarled, something low and deadly in his tone, “What did you just say?”

Obi-Wan wetted his bottom lip, unblinking, deliberate in each word he spoke. “I said: you must believe, then, that the successful murder of your mother proved that she deserved--”

Anakin made an awful sound, bestial, and something gripped around Obi-Wan’s throat, his mouth, the Force digging into bone and muscle. “Take it back!” Anakin roared, even as the shackles around Obi-Wan’s wrists tore open, pried apart with the Force.

Obi-Wan slumped, opening his mouth to refuse, but no sounds issued from his throat, Anakin’s grip only tightening, crushing things--

“I said: take it back!” Anakin snarled, grabbing his shoulder, jerking him around and the first blow caught Obi-Wan by surprise, spinning him and dropping him to the ground. Anakin followed, fingers in his hair, tilting his face up into another blow.

“How dare you!” Anakin spat, following one blow with another and Obi-Wan lost track, the impact of metal against flesh felt almost like it was happening to someone else, someone far away from him, Anakin’s continued demands that he apologize, that he recant everything, take back his lies, were barely even noticed.

He could not speak anyway. Anakin was… crushing things. In his throat. Tearing them to pieces. He could not make a sound, not as Anakin bodily lifted him, throwing him against the stockade, pressing him into the sharp edges of the metal, and all the pain blended together into one huge, twisting nightmare.

Eventually, the dark reached up and took him away, even while Anakin was still thrusting into him. 

Obi-Wan fell into the black and appreciated the relief.

#

Obi-Wan woke up in his cell, most of the hurts gone. For a moment, after waking, he considered that perhaps he’d only dreamed his last run-in with Anakin. But his throat hurt, still, strange and deep. He cleared it and tried to rasp out a “hello” to no one. He made no sound at all, and shuddered.

He did not bother trying to leverage himself up off of the floor. He lacked the energy for it.

He wondered, smelling bacta drying in his hair, why Anakin had simply not killed him.

He was still wondering when Tich and Sweeper brought his breakfast. Obi-Wan nodded at them, old habit, since he could not offer a proper greeting. They alternated his care, the men on the base. Obi-Wan believed there to be around three-dozen of them, but… Some had disappeared, since he’d been delivered.

He shuddered to think what had happened to them.

Tich and Sweeper shackled him and hauled him up, pushing his shoulders against the wall. He leaned against Tich’s hand, when Tich gripped his jaw, helpless to stop himself looking for some scrap of comfort, and Tich’s index finger tapped, blaster-fire fast, against his cheek.

He wanted to say: I tried to ask for help, but trying to speak at all was a fresh agony. He winced, used to the fingers in his hair by now, and said nothing. They wouldn’t have done anything, anyway, even if he’d been able to plead for assistance.

And so Obi-Wan just stared forward, waiting for whatever they were going to do to him next.

#

Days passed. Vader had him dragged in and dragged out, but seemed to grow irritated and distracted when he realized that Obi-Wan could not speak. It took… significant effort before Vader believed that Obi-Wan was not just refusing to make a sound. Once he did, Vader ordered the troopers to take him back to the medical bay, for repairs.

Obi-Wan laughed soundlessly as he was dragged along. He’d always assumed Anakin would be pleased to never have to listen to him again. There was something amusing, darkly, about Anakin’s drive to return his voice.

Perhaps it was only because he hadn’t yet heard Obi-Wan screaming.

Nor would he, even if Obi-Wan’s voice were returned. Those thoughts chased each other around Obi-Wan’s head as they got closer and closer to the medbay. He hung between Cody and Booster, too damaged to walk under his own power, his legs giving finally halfway down the hall.

And it was a surprise, strange and jarring, when Cody hesitated and then shifted, movements oddly fluid for how stiff he normally moved, and just… lifted him. Cody had carried him off of battlefields before, too many times.

He’d joked, towards the end of the war, that it was getting to be a habit.

Perhaps it had. Perhaps it was muscle memory, the way Cody just pulled him up. It certainly was habit that had Obi-Wan dropping his head onto Cody’s shoulder, taking comfort in the familiarity of the contact, his eyes burning, all at once.

He wept not in front of Anakin. Wouldn’t. But the tears streaked down his face, unheeded, as Cody carried him into the medbay, finger tapping erratically against Obi-Wan’s skin. And Obi-Wan wanted to tell him it was alright, that Obi-Wan would find a way to get them all free, but he had no voice, no way to speak the words into being.

[thiswasinevitableid]

winter prompt fill 5, indruck, nsfw?

5: your car slid into a snowbank and i’m the mechanic that comes to tow you

Two hours.

Two fucking hours, that’s how far this guy is from town. But because he’s three hours from the one to the west, it’s Duck’s company that got the call from AAA for a tow. On night three of what's forecasted as a week-long snowstorm.  And because it’s that kind of job, the call came in at 4:45 pm. At least he’ll get overtime for this. 

Being out of Kepler means the radio has real stations, half of them playing blocks of pop hits and the other half blaring Christmas carols. Duck doesn’t mind either, settles on listening to crooning about sleigh bells and winter wonderlands as he tries to keep the truck from sliding into snow piles. 

He’s all prepared to be aggravated at whoever was clueless enough to get themselves stranded and stick him with the four hour round-trip, but the closer he gets to his destination the more he sympathizes. Because this is a rural two-lane highway and not a major through-road, the maintenance is spotty at best. Couple that with the still-falling snow and he’s just glad the guy was in the kind of accident where he could still make a call after it.

The last half-hour he’s down to thirty miles an hour, lets out a groan of relief when the dead  taillights of a car reflect back at him. Once he positions the truck and hops out, he rolls his eyes; the sedan doesn’t have snow tires or chains on, something even a person with a Nevada license plate should have known to carry north.

Duck wonders if being unprepared is a habit when the driver steps out in far too light a coat for the weather, shuddering and stuttering out an “Th-thank g-goodness.”

“Guessin you’re Mr. Wilde?” 

Pale hair falls over red glasses as the man nods. With his hood up, he looks owlish, guarded. He’s all limbs and edges, and Duck can’t help but think of a stray cat that needs a warm bed and some food. 

“Go ahead and get up into the passenger seat. Heat ain’t runnin, but it’s sure as heck warmer than out here. I’ll get her hitched up and we can get going.”

Another nod, the man hunching forward as he scurries into the truck. This is the easy part, getting the damaged car hooked to the truck and freeing it from the snow. The hard part comes when they turn towards town, two hours of darkness and icy roads ahead of them. 

“I’m so sorry you had to come all this way. I, ah, did not intend to crash, nor to do so this far from help.”

“Hey, it’s what we’re here for. Gonna be slow goin on the way back, since it’ll be real fuckin embarassin to call a tow truck for a tow truck.”

A snicker, “I picture them as growing exponentially larger, like nesting dolls. A tow truck towing a tow truck towing a tow truck towing a car would be the size of a semi.”

Duck chuckles, “Yeah, it’d be a sight. And a fuckin nightmare for anyone who got behind it.”

The cab is warming nicely, so his passenger pulls back his hood. In the darkness he can tell the pale hair is metallic silver, and there’s a hell of a bruise blooming on his forehead. Duck’s never seen anyone quite like him, and if their survival didn’t depend on his concentration, he’d spend the next hour studying him.

“Damn, got banged up in the crash huh.”

“Yes.” The man gingerly touches the bruise, sighs, “It’s my own fault for being careless.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, nearly spun out on the way to get you from the damn black ice.”

“I wish I could say that was the sole cause, but I was also asleep.”

Duck bites back the urge to scold him; he wants him to be comfortable around him and besides, even if Duck is having a crappy night, this guy is having an even worse one.

“Wouldn’t be the first person who thought they could make it one more town before stoppin for the night and was wrong.”

“True. It’s just that, ah, I’ve been driving three days straight without sleep.”

“Jesus Christ, you on the lamb or somethin?”

In his periphery, he swears the taller man flinches. 

“No. Just having bad luck with a chaser of poor choices.”

“Gotcha.” Duck drums on the wheel, “so, uh, Mr. Wilde, what do you do when you ain’t stuck in the snow?”

“I draw. And Indrid is fine…” he peers awkwardly at Duck’s name tag, “Duck.”

“It’s a nickname.”

“Ah. Are you a mechanic as well as a driver?”

“Yep. Do it part-time when I’m not workin at the national forest. Friend of mine, Ned, runs the garage attached to the Cryptonomica.”

“I recall seeing that when I drove through. Quite the Jacks of all trades, you two,”

“Most of Kepler’s got more’n one job. It’s the kind of place that’s always losin fundin or people, just barely stayin afloat.”

“One sympathizes. Do you like your jobs?”

“Trained in forestry, so it’s always what I’ve wanted to do. The mechanic stuff,” Duck shrugs, “nice workin with my hands and beein able to help folks out. And I ain’t half bad at it.”

“I certainly appreciate your efforts. I--wait, hold on, I’m sorry but I need to…” he turns up the radio, playing what Duck assumed was Santa Baby from the melody.

“He is saying ‘buddy.’ What in the world? Why would you change it?”

“Can’t have the fella in the red velvet suit thinkin you’re gay.” Duck jokes. 

“Heaven forbid.” Indrid smiles, and Duck likes the expression so much he decides to see if he can get him to do it again.

“You wanna hear a slightly inappropriate joke?”

“Absolutely.”

“How come Santa don’t have any kids?”

“How come?”

“Because he only comes once a year and it’s down a chimney.”

There’s a beat and then Indrid guffaws, covering his face with his hands as his whole body shakes with amusement, “that was horrible, do you have any more?”

Thank god he’s got a wealth of bad jokes tucked in his brain. When he exhausts those he and Indrid trade brainteasers, stopping now and then to talk about their lives. The taller man asks Duck about his jobs, about the woods, and the town, and offers a few anecdotes in exchange. Duck senses they’re about they’re set in a time in his life that’s further away than Indrid would like. 

Indrid also readily shares the snacks from his small backpack. Duck eats what he can while still safely piloting the car. Then nearly takes them across the yellow line when Indrid unwraps a Starburst with his tongue, and prays the man will stay in Kepler long enough for Duck to take him to dinner.

-------------------------------------

Given he was expecting a painfully awkward trip at best, Duck’s friendliness is a welcome surprise. Now that they’ve been stuck in the car together for close to two hours, Indrid is confident saying this is most fun he’s had talking to someone in a long time, even before things went all to hell. 

It helps that Duck is the picture you’d get if you googled “Indrid Cold’s type”; sturdy, handsome in an unassuming way, undoubtedly pleasant to cuddle, with muscles that Indrid is positive could hold him up against a wall for at least a few minutes. In another life, one that’s so far away he fears he imagined it, he’d wait until they were done with the business portion of this evening, then slip Duck a card with his name in silver letters and his hotel room number on the back. The man is so genuine in his kindness too, Indrid feeling safer in the dark with him than he’s felt in years.

Which makes him feel even worse about what he’s going to do.

“Not too far now.” Duck turns the windshield wipers up a notch, “thank fuck for that.”

Indrid curls forward, holding his stomach, “I, ah, I really hate to say this, but I’m afraid my gas station lunch is coming back up.”

“Shit, okay, lemme pull over.” Duck guides the truck onto the side of the road, “do what you gotta do.”

His hands are on his lap, keys still dangling from the ignition. Indrid lunges over, grabbing them and trying to shove Duck into the door in one go. The mechanic is too fast, yanking the keys to his chest.

“What the fuck man!?”

“I’m so sorry about this!”

“Then fuckin stop!” Duck kicks, misses, and Indrid knees him in the stomach as gently as he can.

“I can’t, I need the truck.”

“Are you fuckin car-jackin me right now?”

“It’s not personal.” He gets the keys away, only for the world to flip ninety degrees as Duck tackles him backwards.

“It sure feels like it is!”

Indrid hoped that his survival instincts would kick in hard enough to make up for the exhaustion and that coupled with the element of surprise would bring him success. Instead, his limbs have no power behind them, and all he can do is curse when the driver flips him onto his stomach, trapping his hands behind his back and pinning him with his body weight. 

“Fuck.” It’s a pathetic noise for a pathetic man.

“Explain. Now.” Duck growls.

“I, I, you were right when asked if I was on the lamb.”

“....fuckin what?”

“It was a set up, and I finally, finally got free, and, and I will not go back, I can’t, but if I’m out a car I need a replacement and-”

“And you almost stole a truck that’s got a goddamn tracker in it.”

“Oh.” He presses his face to the seat in shame.

“Somethin tells me you ain’t a seasoned crook.”

“I’m not a criminal at all! I have no idea what I’m doing. I was just going to drive and drive until I hit the coast, I hadn’t even decided what to do after. I, I’m sorry, I waited until we got close to town so you wouldn’t be too far away to walk home safely. I, ah, I wasn’t prepared for having to do this to someone I like.”

Duck shifts above him, mutters, “what the fuck do I do now” to himself, and tightens his hold on Indrid’s wrists. 

Indrid whimpers, realizing with horror that his body responded to the mechanics of the fight but not it’s context.

Duck freezes at the noise, and when Indrid hazards a peek the mechanic is staring down in disbelief. 

“Are you fuckin hard from this?”

There’s no use in lying, he’s faced worse humiliation than this, “Some. Not on purpose. I, ah, I enjoy rough treatment.”

Duck’s face fills with bitter amusement, “And I like givin it. But not to fellas who nearly steal my truck. Fuckin figures the first guy to flirt with me is doin it for some other reason.”

“That’s not true, my plan involved no flirting.” Indrid huffs, “I was flirting because I think you’re handsome.”

More pressure on his back as Duck leans down to whisper in his ear, grinding against his ass, “Yeah? Were you hopin I’d fuck you in here? Or over the hood when we got back?”

“Maybe.” He manages a smirk.

“Hopin I’ll fuck you now?”

Indrid nods, but Duck doesn’t notice. The mechanic sits all the way back, releasing his hands, “too damn bad, because unlike you, I only take things with permission.”

“C-consider it granted.” 

The hand finds his back again, but instead of shoving or grabbing it strokes up and down, “Indrid, I’m serious. I ain’t doin anythin if the only reason you’re offerin is because you think I’ll hurt you if you don’t.”

“I’m not. I want this, Duck, I want to be with you.” He’s going back to jail one way or another after this, unwilling to consider the thought of hurting Duck to get the keys. He’d rather go back with one happy memory and a few minutes of fun freshly stored in his mind. 

There’s silence, Duck’s hand still as he thinks. Then it comes down hard on Indrid’s ass, “Okay sugar, happy to oblige you. Besides, seems to me you owe me an apology for that sorry excuse for a car theft.” 

Indrid moans loudly when Duck hauls onto his elbows and knees, though it’s the pet name that hits deeper than any of the much-welcome pain. The waistband of his dollar store sweatpants hits his thighs, there’s a pop of something plastic, and then a slick finger is teasing between his asscheeks. 

“Vaseline. Great for keepin your skin from cracking in the cold.”

The finger disappears and he whines, pushing his ass back and getting it slapped so hard he yelps. 

“Nice try. But this ain’t for you, it’s for me. Don’t got a condom and only got a tiny bit of this left and it ain’t enough to fuck you full on.”

“It’s alright, I like the pain, you could use spit or-”

“Nope” another slap, “that turns into the bad kinda pain real quick. Now open your fuckin legs.”

Indrid does so, gasps happily when Duck slides his lubed-up cock between his thighs. 

“Close ‘em and keep ‘em closed. Good, ohfuckyeah that’s good.” The thrusts are already fast, Ducks hands holding his hips in place, “fuck, tell you what sugar, you may be a shitty crook but you’re a damn good lay.”

“Yes.” Indrid moans, scrabbling for a hold on the upholstery.

“Shit, you do like it rough. Like it when I talk like that?” One hand comes down, petting Indrid’s head and brushing his hair away from where it’s stuck over his eyes. 

“So much, Duck, please, please, more, I want more AHgod!” Tears slip past his glasses as Duck hits the right side of his ass over and over again. He’s been treated like a criminal mastermind, made miserable because of it, so being nothing more than an eager piece of ass is a welcome change.

“Then I oughta tell you this is what you get for tryin to get one over on me. Think you can throw my ass out in the cold? Gonna turn yours so red you won’t be able to sit for a week.”

He’s so hard it isn’t even funny, and beneath the wonderful cycle of pain-relief-pain-relief his mind chants safesafesafesafe.

“Fuck, Indrid, I’m so fuckin lucky you tried that stunt on me, can’t wait to cum all over that cute little ass, ohyeah, fuck, fuckyeah.” He pulls out, cum spurting onto Indrid’s ass and legs and Indrid hears his own voice saying “thank you” as he does. 

As he’s contemplating what form of begging will earn him an orgasm, he’s flipped onto his back, one calloused hand pressing him down by the shoulder while the other jerks him off. He squeaks and squirms, one palm thwacking into the door as his right leg catches the steering wheel. 

“Sensitive, sugar?”

“Yes.”

“Shoulda thought of that before you bent over for me.”

“TechnicallyAH, you, you’re the one who bent me over.”

Duck jerks him extra hard in reply, grinning. The sight of him is just the right balance of menacing and protective that Indrid only needs two more bucks of his hips before he’s cumming. The mechanic works him through it, squeezing him roughly just to hear him whimper (Indrid’s certain of it).

He sits back and starts putting his clothes in order as Indrid lays there, panting from exertion and the weight of reality on his chest. 

“I don’t suppose you have something I can, ah, wipe off with before you take me to the station?” He asks softly.

“I’m not taking you to the police, Indrid.”

“What? Why?” He bolts up, his mind screaming that he shouldn’t ask too many questions lest it make Duck change his mind. 

“I’m not sure what kinda guy fucks someone and then hands them over to the cops, but I’m damn sure I don’t wanna be one.”

“You’d do that without even knowing the full truth?”

“Wouldn’t mind if you told me.” Duck starts the car, adds “seatbelt” as he pulls back onto the road. 

Indrid gets his pants up and buckles in, huddling in on himself, “As you probably guessed, my name isn’t Wilde. It’s Indrid Cold. Wilde was the man I stole that car from, who also had a very nice AAA plan it seems. I am, or was, an architect. Quite talented, if I do say so myself. And many other people said so, once upon a time. My firm got a contract with a certain large city to design and help build a bridge. I was head of design, and I was certain this would be the project that made my name. It did. Just not how I hoped.”

Duck slows down as they reach the edge of Kepler. 

“Have you ever heard of the Silverlake Bridge?”

“Ain’t that the one that collapsed a few years agooh, oh shit was that your bridge?”

“Yes. Halfway through the project, I became concerned that certain elements of the design would not be as stable as they needed to be and might collapse without warning. The higher ups said it would require a larger budget to do the new, far safer design, but gave me the go ahead to finish my proposal of the securer model. They accepted that design, and I thought that was the end of it. Turns out, they funneled the money needed for the better bridge into their own pockets, both my bosses and the representatives from the city. Unbeknownst to me, they built the weaker bridge. When it collapsed I” he takes a deep breath, the memories surfacing in a tidal wave, “I was shocked, and prepared to accept responsibility, as I could not understand how the design failed. It was only when the investigation revealed how it failed that I understood my warnings had been ignored and I was being set up as a fall guy. Not only for the collapse, but for the missing funds, my bosses swearing up one side and down the other that they’d given the money to me to manage. They’d had this planned for months, and so had built our communication in such a way that I had no proof the money hadn’t come to me. Thus I was blamed, tried, and convicted, and in the minds of many I am responsible for the death of 67 people.”

The engine shuts off and he looks up to see them in an auto garage. Duck is turned to him, face so sad and sympathetic that Indrid could almost believe..

“You think I’m telling the truth.”

“I know you are. Not sure how, but even though I ain’t much of a liar myself, I can usually tell when someone is bullshittin me.”

“I don’t want to go back to prison.” 

“You won’t.”

“Duck I, I can’t ask you to hide me, that could put you in danger of arrest.”

“There’s all of four cops in Kepler, and I’d bet my life no one here could pick you out of a line-up as a ‘disgraced architect Indrid Cold.’ And if we need a cover story, Ned’s got a knack for ‘em.”

“We?”

Duck cups his cheek and Indrid leans into it, “You and me. Indrid, I think fate is a load of bullshit, but I can’t shake the feelin me pickin you up tonight was meant to be. Lemme help you, please.”

Indrid sets his hand on Duck’s own, “Okay. Ah, where do I stay? I have fifty dollars left.”

“Could stay with me if you want. No strings attached.”

“Is that your way of letting me down gently?”

“My way of saying you don’t gotta fuck me to have a place to live. If you wanna fuck me just because, say the word and I’ll rail you into next week.”

“I’d like both those things so very much. Though right now all I want is to sleep.”

Duck leans forward, kissing him so chastely that the following lovebite is all the more thrilling.

“In that case, sugar, let’s get you home.”

[dragonflymage]

(This has taken me forever to write. Be prepared for a long answer! *kicks it out of the draft box*)

I don’t think I’ll choose a Type for this answer because I chose Types in similar questions. This time I’ll go with the word “ideal” and play with that for a while.

This answer will be about the steps to finding an ideal match. INFP style.

Everyone knows that INFPs are the dreamers. They dream their way through being a child, through the teen years, and yes right through adulthood. It’s unavoidable. If a potential situation creeps up on an INFP, it won’t be long before they have come up with all the imaginative ways to live it and make it their own. Within their minds.

I am going to reveal some things about myself as an INFP that aren’t easy to reveal. Tapping into this realm of idealism that INFPs seem to be known for.

What exactly does it mean when someone says that INFPs are idealistic? It’s more than just seeing the good in others and hoping for a bright future. There’s a side of darkness within it as well because this doesn’t always mean ‘realistic’. It can mean searching for qualities that only exist in our thoughts.

My topic within these imaginative daydreams will focus on “The Ideal Match”.

I have to say that the first sensation that comes to me while thinking of this topic is… wistfulness.

In my expansive INFP imagination, my ideal match is someone who wants to know me.

That’s it.

Okay, that’s not all, but that’s where it begins. With someone who has SEEN me. And not just seen me, but moved closer instead of shaking their head and walking away. Of course, that doesn’t make an automatic match, but it has to begin somewhere.

Can you imagine the elation of being truly seen? That tiny ray of INFP light shown outward has caught someone’s attention. What should be done now? It isn’t love yet. Right? This elation isn’t love. But what if it is? No, it’s much too soon. Maybe if the door is opened a little bit more. … What are they doing now? Running? Moving even closer? OMG. What should I do next?! 

Breathe. This doesn’t mean they are devoting all of their eternity. It just means they are curious. Stay calm.

Does that sound like panic? It might be. There’s always the fear of doing too much too soon, yet wanting to reach out and touch. The unseen internal tug of war.

So, this is where the INFP stands now — Revealed some of their deep self and was noticed for it. Then the person stuck around wanting to know more.

This is a great beginning. But what’s next? It would probably be easier to know what to do if this took place in-person. Body language and tone of voice is clearer to decipher. Most likely this all happened online, where emotions and reactions can be filtered through the process I refer to as: “I’m doing my freakin’ best to explain myself with only text!” *flails*

I would say that being seen and someone wanting to get to know you are where new friendships and possible future-relationships reside.

Being seen is nice, but being understood is even better!

It looks like a connection is forming. This is where our INFP will decide what sort of sharing is appropriate.

There are all sorts of sharing:

💙 Surface sharing - which involves interests and everyday activities. Also known as “small talk”. Topics such as pets, job or school, hobbies, books, etc. This isn’t always an INFP favorite, but conversations have to begin somewhere. During the small-talk phase, an INFP will determine whether there is potential for a connection. And, yes, an INFP is more than capable of this discovery just from small talk. This could last for a brief time period or for many days, depending on the person’s comfort level. 💙 Test sharing - which involves emotions attached to topics. Such as the meanings behind this or that event in life. It could be another subtle test to see if the other person is still interested in talking. Or it could be a bit of desperation to have someone to finally discuss the deeper aspects of the world. Some of these emotion-laden topics might not be used by most people until later in a potential friendship-relationship, but INFPs may reach this level of conversation fairly quickly. This type of conversation could continue throughout the friendship-relationship, obviously while no longer in a ‘testing’ fashion. 💙 Personal sharing - which involves longer and more frequent conversations. It’s a bit like sharing your life in ‘real-time’. At this point, the INFP has decided this is someone who is interested because they haven’t run away, and maybe it’s okay to invest more of ourselves with them. These sorts of talks are like inviting them to our home and giving them a glimpse of what life is like for us. These discussions are saved for close friends and potential love interests. 💙 Deep sharing - which involves all those things an INFP shares with no one. And by ‘no one’ I mean ‘a rare and special someone’. I think many INFPs have an inner vault where they keep all the topics that have been too much for other people to handle - such as traumatic memories. Some INFPs, after being rejected in the past, may choose to never touch this level with anyone again. Other INFPs may decide that if this special person can understand what’s in the vault, then they are absolutely ‘the one’. Whether as a love interest or a very close friend.

🍵 There could also be a level 5 which may involve fantasies or the darkest of secrets they may never tell anyone, but some INFPs might lump those in with #4. It depends on the individual. 🍵

The difficulty with those Sharing Levels is finding an order that works and sticking to it. It wouldn’t work well to start with #1 Small Talk and then skip right to #4 Deep Sharing. (I mean, unless you’re talking with a therapist, then go ahead.)

Now that I got the informative portion out of the way, it’s time for some INFP idealism!!

INFPs are amazing humans. We care with our every breath and we want the best for those around us. We can also become stuck within our idealistic thoughts. No, that isn’t a secret.

We are called The Dreamers for a reason.

INFPs have a difficult time with this strange thing called Reality. We are flooded with violence from the media, and sometimes it exists in our personal lives. Reminding us of all the hurting souls we can’t help. We have potent plans of how we will change the world. Then Reality sneaks up from behind and whispers “you do realize no matter how hard you try, you can’t save them all…” Thanks, Reality.

It’s these realizations that can infiltrate all aspects of life - how we envision our future, how we envision our environment, and how we envision our Ideal Match or our Ideal Partner (in a potentially romantic sense).

I first started imagining a ‘love interest’ at around age 12. It wasn’t marriage or white gowns that I imagined. It was someone who cared by listening to me.

One of the first crushes in a love-interest way I had on a person (other than classmates I mentioned in a different answer) was Hawkeye from the MASH re-runs. ( I don’t know what it is about me and ENFPs, but anyway…  I spent long hours daydreaming about somehow being illogically inserted into that environment just so I could sit and have long conversations with Hawkeye. 😅 I thought he was the perfect match for me. Of course, he had other issues going on, but I was willing to overlook them all! This daydream went on for a few years until I moved along to other potential unreachable love interests.

The important factor about the idealism and daydreaming is that I was internally forming a list of what I hoped to find in a future partner.

Attention and caring were important. Kindness to others. Devotion to helping people. Silly humor. Depth of character. Capable of understanding pain. Willing to imagine what could be.

Sadly, if an INFP isn’t paying attention, they can idealize themselves through life…even through the most painful events and can become addicted to this coping mechanism.

Like I did.

The downside was that since I never truly encountered a great deal of decent treatment personally, I didn’t know how to recognize it in others. It was unfamiliar territory (for many depressing reasons). So in my early 20s, what I did was latch onto a person who I thought had the potential and idealized everything else about him. He gave me attention, sure, but I think I consciously idealized everything else about him. Even when there were many clues that he wasn’t a good match for me.

I rejected every natural instinct I had and encompassed myself in flowery daydreams in order to survive the life I’d suddenly found myself in.

That is probably an extreme example of what idealism can do to a person. But I think that INFPs have the very real probability of slipping into this unhealthy internal mindset.

If we aren’t careful, idealism can turn into an INFP mind-trap.

I don’t want to turn this into a negative answer. Idealism has wonderful benefits if used in healthy creative ways. To imagine what could be. But there also needs to be a balance with Realistic thoughts.

Always stop and ask yourself “Is this truly a possibility? Is this actually what is taking place? Am I somehow coloring the truth from myself?”

Only then will an INFP truly find, not just an Ideal Match, but a True Match.

Without any of the rose-colored glasses interfering with what is Real.

[luckythereviewer]

So, I already have done posts about Extella and Extella Link, and I think it's about time I finished giving my thoughts about the Extraverse games that came to the west with the game that started it all: Fate Extra.

Now, let's go ahead and address the biggest turn-off for people when it comes to Extra: the combat system. As someone who has played the game multiple times, I can understand where the frustration comes from. I got multiple game overs while playing with Nero as my servant, aka easy mode. However, by the end of the run I played to first beat the game, I came to realize something that would have made the game so much easier. The fact that Skills cancel enemy attacks. It seems the idea was for you to use the Rock, Paper, Scissor's mechanic for attacks you can see while using skills for ones you couldn't predict. Sadly, the game doesn't really do a good job of explaining this. There isn't a tutorial for it like there is for how attack, guard, and break worked at the start of the game. Hopefully, Studio BB learns this lesson and gives a proper explanation for how combat works, considering the combat system in Extra Record seems very much different than it was in Extra.

Outside of that, there isn't much more to say about the combat or leveling in the game, which sucks given how unique the leveling system was. Leveling up to gain points you can spend on enhancing your servant's parameters? That was really interesting, but as of Extella and Link (and possibly CCC since I can't find anything about using Soul Alteration in that game), the Soul Alteration has been left out for a more traditional leveling system.

So, what about the story?

The Story? Is amazing. Still one of my favorite Fate stories. From summoning your servant, to fighting Shinji, all the way up to fighting Twice, this story is very much one that will have you feeling something. The only week I would consider 'bad' is Week 4, and it's obvious why Week 4 is not as great compared to the other Weeks. Week 4 is the point where the game splits between the Rin and Rani route. So, I imagine having to create the same route twice but with different characters was not an easy thing to do. While Monji would go on to have a role in CCC, Run Ru, sadly, doesn't get the same treatment, so if you save Rin, you're stuck facing one of the weakest, in terms of character, Master in the game. Even as bad as Monji is, if you are a Type-Moon fan and know of Arcueid, then you can at least get something out of his fight.

But for the rest of the weeks? Every character you face will make you care about them and sad about their deaths. Shinji, who isn't the same as SN Shinji, Dan, Alice, Julius, Rin/Rani, depending on who you saved earlier on in the game, Leo, even Twice, the man behind the entire Grail War and responsible for all the deaths. Extra did an outstanding job fleshing these characters out and making you care about them in the 7 days they get.

Speaking of characters, let's talk about the main character: Hakuno Kishinami. For the sake of not making this post too complicated, I'll be referring to Hakuno as female since she is my preferred Hakuno. I love them both, but if I had to pick one, it'd be female Hakuno. Now, Extra, being the start of the Extra/Extella Franchise, Hakuno doesn't have much of a character, to the point that people use Extra as a reason for why she's a self-insert character. In Extra, yes. She is a bit of a self-insert character, but even then, we are really stretching the term there. As bland as Hakuno's character may be, there are still moments where we see them trying to show her as an actual character. From the infamous line "Rin goes from comatose to bitch in three seconds flat," to Hakuno noting how Leo has balls of steel, to Hakuno even crying for Julius at the end of the last fight with him during Week 7 after finding out everything he went through. Not to mention Hakuno addressing Twice. She isn't your typical hero who fights Twice because he's evil or what he is doing is wrong. She doesn't even disagree with the point he is trying to make. The two come to blows because Hakuno believes that people like her and Twice shouldn't be the ones to decide humanities' fate because they are both ghosts, and the dead shouldn't get to decide the future of the living.

Regardless, Hakuno has a lot more depth despite first appearances giving her the impression of a self-insert, and these small details would go on to define her character in CCC, Extella, and Link, where her character gets expanded upon.

I could go on, but I think I've said enough already. Extra was very much a good start to the Extraverse, and with Record around the corner, I hope that many people who have been putting off getting into the Extraverse finally decide to make the jump. Extra, CCC, Extella, and Link all tell amazing stories that are very much worth experiencing.

Now, if only we could get CCC in the West, we would be able to experience all the Extraverse properly.

[hourglasscinnarose]

Knight of Space [God Tier]

        A Knight of Space is someone who starts out with a complete lack of space. Any physical areas that they clean are almost always cluttered within the next moment, chores they wish to do they can never seem to get around to, and perhaps worse of all, their minds are always cluttered with thoughts that they don't believe they need. Their main coping mechanism would likely be vent art, a way to be messy and clean, where everything is exactly where it's suppose to be, even when it's a cluttered mess.

        The Knight of Space would eventually drive themselves crazy seeking space in any way they can. Even when it's something small like alone time, they treasure it dearly and react negatively when that part of them becomes interrupted. If they live with a roommate, they put up specific rules for how to keep the house clean and when things need to be taken care of. They would probably come across as a 'neat freak' or someone who is overly fussy about how things look. It stems from how Knights want control over the situations they are in. For their own minds, they could go on detoxes, even harmful ones, until they reach what they really need.

        Once things are finally in place - finally clean, finally spacious - they would do their best to keep it that way. Even when they have to go to extream punishments for those who disobey their 'laws'. This could be anything from a silent treatment to actual abuse, which depends on how healthy the Knight it at the time, and the kind of relationship they have with the other person. In either case, they tend to struggle with others constantly about space. This is especially so with their inner space. I feel as though Knights of Space would be the most likely to cut someone off because they're trying to get rid of their inward clutter.

        I also think about how space could relate to outter space. Knights of Space like to surround themselves in darkness, like stars, where the darkness is a form of empty. They perhaps feel the most comfortable when they're alone in a place with very little lighting, where everything is quiet (spacious sound) and put away. 

        An unhealthy realtionship with a Knight of Space would be if they were trying to know and supervise everything you were doing. Cleaning? Not without their careful eyes on you. Going through your old things? Not without them making sure everything is put back where it was put. Knights of Space who happen to be hoarders would likely first try to find space by moving things or stacking things in a way where there is more room to walk, even though the space didn't actually change. A healthy relationship with a Knight of Space would be if they let you do whatever you wanted and learned to trust that you wouldn't clutter their space. There's also the talk of inward space - thoughts and obligations, which also lead to friendships. I imagine starting out that a Knight of Space would make too many friends and have to learn how to cut them out in a healthy way. 

        The creative part of Space would likely be the same as the space, itself. The Knight  wouldn't be able to get enough of it, creating every time they got the chance. It would be an outlet for who they are, and would likely be a main problem they would have to solve, as the art piece would take up physical space.

        A Knight of Space is - Someone who is like the stars, themselves. Bright and surrounded by a cloud of darkness, and someone who distances themselves from others. They clutch onto emptiness in their dire attempt to clear themselves from what they dislike....something they see as a mess. They wholeheartedly protect the parts of themselves that are like this, all the while showing how they feel and what they think through their pieces of artwork and actions. They know exactly how to handle space and the lack of it, just as they know what brushes make what strokes. Because Knights are aggressive, they can push people forward, but because Space represents creativity, they do so outside of the box, in a way that can also make others happy. Knights of Space are reckless, but witty.

[humanoidmindbox]

Us Vs. Them

Abstract

In this essay, I will be assessing my personal feelings and attitudes toward different and defined groups. During this analysis, I will be breaking up the population into four groups: Us, Them, Allies, and Enemies. These groups have been formulated by and based on the workings and fields of psychology, psychiatry, individuals with mental illnesses (including me) and how societal norms fit into issues raised in this paper. I hope you find this to be worthwhile and I hope this sparks the fire of your intellectual flame.

-‐----------------------------------------

The American population, in the terms of mental illness, psychology, and sociology, fall into one of four categories which are detailed below:

US

This group of people are those who suffer from profound mental illness. The affliction must be (Your illness doesn't have to be all of these things, but it must be most of them):

Chronic; recurring; cause suffering; affect your relationships with others; make it so you cannot keep a job; make it so you cannot function in society; possibly get government compensation for your illness; *been hospitalized in the psych ward; been arrested when your symptoms were active; reckless and/or impulsive behaviors; suicide attempt(s); and became violent when your symptoms were active. 

Them

These people are the majority of the population. They blindly follow pop culture and buy into what the masses are doing, believing, and saying. They do not have severe mental illness although they may be diagnosed with the garden-variety depression and anxiety. They have never been to inpatient for mental disorders, except maybe once, a long time ago. They will try to relate to you when it comes to mental health but they are just regurgitating what the trendy treatments and hardships are (the commonplace “social anxiety” is on the rage right now). In the inpatient hospital, the Them are the hospital staff. Especially the ones who give you the shot and put you in isolation. They are the ones who pink slip you and call the police. They think drugs are bad. You can’t truly trust Them. They don’t understand you and they probably never will. Most of Them are not hateful or mean. They are just ignorant, inexperienced, and constantly lecturing you or preaching to you. Most of Them view you as less-than, whether it is intended or not. 

Allies

Imagine a straight line down the middle of a square. This divides the “Us” and “Them” that we already went over. But directly on that line, not leaning to one side or the other, sits the “Allies.” The Us’s allies have most likely not gone to the mental hospital except maybe once, long ago. But they have a mental illness that brings them suffering. They may be in mental health treatment. They struggle almost every day and their behaviors reflect that. They are a part of society and will never and have never been deemed unfit to be a working part of society. They get along with others although they feel like no one completely understands them. They do not blindly follow all of pop culture’s rules and trends. They support the Us. We can trust them somewhat. They are our allies. 

Enemies 

The Enemies only exist within the “Them” group. They are the ones we must watch the most carefully and never trust. Most of “Us'' do not have many Enemies on the outside but we have plenty of Enemies on the inside (inpatient). The Enemies at the hospital are those who give you the shot after they have to hold you down when you’re screaming and thrashing around because you’re so fucking freaked out. They are the ones who put you in four point restraints and let you “tire yourself out.” On the outside, the police are the Enemy for apprehending you while they get a pink slip. They are anyone who pink slips you. The Enemy tells you that you’re crazy when you know you are doing well. They threaten the hospital and hang it over your head. The Enemy treats you unfairly because something that you cannot control or help is wrong with you. The reason why Them can never be fully trusted is because any one of Them could become the Enemy at any time.

-------------------------------------------------------

I first felt the “Us Vs. Them” divide when I started frequenting mental hospitals. And when I started showing signs of severe  symptoms of mental illness. In the hospital, you are a “rat in a cage” (Smashing Pumpkins song) with the staff holding the only key to get out. A drastic power imbalance exists between the staff and the patient: we are the prisoners and they are the guards. All we want to do is get out. All we want to do is go home. And if not home, then at least to a different, free place. 

When I had my major mental breakdown/manic episode of winter 2019, I had been taking my medications- they were just the wrong ones. In the cage, you must take your medications, whether you want to or not. Whether you trust Them or not. If you refuse medication, They take you to court and get a court order forcing you to take your medication while you are inpatient. 

There are some key ways that the “Us” and the “Them” are different in the mental hospital dynamic. They own your body: you are forced to take medications, you are locked in a box (hopefully not isolation). You can’t hurt yourself and if you do, you will stay longer (same goes for violence against others). They control your behaviors: They deem what is “appropriate” and “inappropriate” behaviors. If you break the rules surrounding these behaviors, you will get the shot, isolation, moved to a worse ward (for the more violent and disruptive patients), restraint holds, staying longer, or any combination of these events. The worst one I can think of is moving wards up a number. They try to brain-wash you: They say: “There is only one way to live life and we know the correct way to live it.” “The correct way to live is only what we arbitrarily and subjectively call “healthy coping mechanisms” and you must abandon all “unhealthy” ones in order to live life correctly and avoid being society’s pariah.” “Your only hope to be a functioning person is to abide by the teachings of CBT and DBT. All other methods will not work.” They have the opinion that their methods of recovery always  work and if you are not having positive effects from their treatments, you must be doing it wrong- they deny that their treatments do not work for everybody and fail to recognize that the “bad” coping mechanisms are the only way that certain people can get by.

When you are mandated as an inpatient in the hospital, you have no rights. They take away your rights as a person. They tell you where to go, what to eat, and they control how long you are in there, what medication you take, and worst of all- when you get put down like a dog with a shot or when you switch to a more severe level. You are treated like an animal in a cage, and there is nothing that you can do about it. Losing control of your own body to this degree leads to something inside of you breaking  and you turning into a feral animal (hospital song). After that happens (especially if it happens multiple times), you are never the same. 

There are laws to keep other people from harming you or your property. I believe that it is a good thing that these laws are in place and that they should be upheld. But there are also laws that are made to prevent you from harming yourself and I don’t think such laws should exist. Once again, I question what the authorities, our working society (Them) and the masses (Them) deem “harmful” and ultimately illegal.

Most people in society simply follow popular culture. They just look to what the majority of others do and follow suit. But they have blinders on: they don’t see that they come up with justifications and sorry attempts at reasons to back-up their choice to blindly follow the majority.

The authorities and society says:

Drugs = Bad→ Laws against it.

Self-harm = Bad→ No laws against it but there is intense societal disapproval and shaming connected to it.

*It is the least harmful on this list because it does not alter your mood or drastically change your brain chemistry for prolonged periods of time. But, apparently, it is the most shocking and the most taboo. 

Medication = Good→ Sometimes there are laws enforcing it.  

I believe all of these things can be good or bad depending on the specific person that it affects. Everyone is different and if you simply follow what pop culture’s opinion is on these issues without looking into them further, it shows ignorance, a lack of curiosity and exploration, rigidity, and a propensity towards the judgement of others. It often signifies that the “Them” in question is too weak to think for themselves and to withstand society’s brainwashing. 

I will never think of cutting or drugs as “bad coping skills.” “Good coping skills” consist of talking about your issues and crying according to the “Them.” And according to the hospitals, CBT, and DBT, good coping skills include activities like aroma therapy and drawing. But what do these things do? Nothing. You need a release or a change in the state of mind. Talking about what upsets you is just reliving it all over again. Plus, what if you do not trust anyone enough to tell them what's on your mind? Crying is bullshit. I feel that it is pathetic for me to cry. That’s just how I feel. I have trained myself not to. So why should I do something detrimental to myself when I am already in distress? “Good” coping skills don’t really work and only the simple-minded buy into them. “Bad” coping skills shouldn’t be judged as bad or taboo just because others have all-or-none thinking about them when it's the only thing that helps some people.

Medication: Taking medication should be the mentally ill’s choice. Medication is not right for everybody; it is not always the best thing to do. Not everyone likes themselves on medication. Who are we to judge if a person is the “correct” version of themselves or not? Forcing someone to take psychiatric medications is rooted in a power and control structure that overshadows others. I believe that we should leave others alone when it comes to this and let them live how they want to live. Just because we’re mentally ill, doesn't mean we have to do what you want with our bodies anymore.

In conclusion, I believe individuals and society as a whole should look beyond the systems of the law, procedures in mental health facilities, standard practices of therapies, pop culture trends/rules , and societal norms to find each of our unique spots in this society. We need to rethink what is considered “unhealthy” and what is “healthy” and why we put actions into those categories. We need to be more open and steer clear of letting others dictate what we believe. I’m tired of being lectured and shamed. Let's move on together. 

[gentlekendoist]

Pedagogy 101

Giving purpose and using the deductive approach.

It’s not a new idea, back in 2012, I had already noted in my dissertation towards my pedagogy degree, that the way Kendo is taught often fails to motivate learners for orthodoxy’s sake. 

A sense of purpose is rarely given to beginners and they are simply expected to perform tasks and drills without knowing their goal in the long run. Not all dojos teach like that, of course, but I’d be willing to risk myself stating that it’s pretty much the rule out there. 

In the minds of some western instructors, the ideas of training à la Japanese, including the harsh treatment and the philosophy of “出る釘は打たれる” (the nail that sticks out gets hammered down) inhabit most of western kenshis’ imaginations as exotic traits that are desired and sometimes almost romanticised.

But many things go wrong and get lost in the translation because we interpret another culture with our own frame of reference without really trying to understand what makes us different and therefore should warrant (at least slightly) different approaches.

For example, westerners’ concept of discipline is deeply militaristic, and with armies come stupidity, yelling orders, “If I ask you to jump, you say how high!” it also brings along its potential share of humiliations, hazings, etc.

Seen through that scope, one could mistake the Japanese tendency to withdraw the ego in favour of the group — a trait acquired from a very young age that has its base in learning respect for each other and for the places we live in — for our own western conception of obedience and discipline. 

I bet every western federation has an iteration of that instructor who’s on a narcissistic ego trip that leads to abusive behaviours within their dojo but no one bats an eye because “IT’S JAPANESE DISCIPLINE”. 

One might tell me “but the Imperial Guard and Police are like that” but since both of those are militaristic organisations, it kinda proves my point, not to mention the fact that we, as westerners tend to admire that kendo, maybe specifically, because it meets our collective subconscious’ expectations of strict discipline.

Anyway, you might have heard some fellow kenshi utter the phrase “let us not think that we are more Japanese than the Japanese themselves”. This is a sentence that aims at avoiding the problem by stating that one shouldn’t try to emulate everything mindlessly, without critical thinking. 

In my opinion, this also has to apply to the teaching method.  (Because believe it or not, I wasn’t going to talk about abuse at all).

——

The importance of purpose.

Pedagogy theory tells us that adult learners, and probably voluntary learners in general, engage into a learning process, motivated by a goal, an outcome. There is a strong need from learners to know that what they are learning is useful. The relevance of learning a specific skill must be clear to them in relation to the general goal.

In kendo, the importance of this might be often overlooked, as the learning process is akin to the inductive approach, where from learning specific actions or skills, a learner is supposed to piece together by and for himself the general mechanics of kendo. In the context of a classroom, it is an approach that is usually preferred, because there is constant dialog and (co)building of the knowledge. But in the context of kendo and its solitary element, it is a pretty daunting task for most.

The deductive method, going from the general idea towards specific skills that are clearly seen as necessary by the learner is often times better suited to maintain the motivation of the beginner as well as (counter intuitively) giving them the tools to look after their own evolution.

This might seem a bit obscure, but I have an example for you, using the difficult-to-grasp notion of seme : 

The way I was first taught seme was simply through the instructions “step in, take the center, strike” without much else to go on. I understood the drill and could see how it could work in theory, but in practice, it isn’t easy to pull off, I had to figure out the general mechanics for myself and it took me quite a few years to understand the general idea behind seme. 

That’s the inductive approach. “From separate drills and not much linking context, go and discover the secrets behind seme my young Padawan!”

The counter-example :

This season, with shinsa coming for many of my members, I’ve searched for ways to make the bigger principles as clear as possible in the least amount of words and after a few training sessions, I’m finding myself believing that Kizeme (threat through your “energy”), which we often see as most complicated, is actually the type of seme that contains the general principle and therefore could be most relevant as a starting point.

Make yourself tall, relax, don’t let aite impress you, don’t step backwards, show that you are there and willing, as if you were telling aite “I’m here, I’m not going anywhere, watchu gonna do about it”. 

That would be complicated only if you were thinking about learning specific actions, but if you have a wider approach with a clear goal in mind, it is actually easy to make the learners understand how that plays out. 

Then, knowing the purpose and the goal that is being aimed that, going into a specific drill like “take center, strike men” becomes so much more meaningful for the learners. It is not only learning the moves behind the technique, but learning the moves of a technique within its proper context.

To sum it up : for maximised motivation and efficiency, learners should always know the following points and the instructor should make it clear for them in this order :

This is the goal (i.e. “we are working on becoming proficient at seme”)

This is the canvas (i.e. “seme is about the pressure on the other and putting ourselves in a favourable spot for attacks that will lead to ippon” — the importance of the general principle should be made clear) 

These are the drills to achieve the goal within the canvas (i.e. from the simple “step-in to take center and strike immediately” to the more subtle hikidasu, all depend on the learner’s ability to have a strong presence and a mind geared towards meeting/attacking the opponent)

Then all an instructor would have to do is keeping learners motivated and putting on them the responsibility of keeping these aspects in mind while going through the drills.

Once the method is correctly implemented (and why not, explained) learners can become their own day-to-day instructors and more efficiently identify their flaws, the areas that need their attention as well as purposefully setting goals for themselves. 

That’s how I’ve been going about my own training anyway, but through experimentation and lots of trials and errors. As a dojo-leader, I’m happy to be able to put my formal pedagogy training to good use in helping others go over obstacles faster than I did.

[pruebopruebapruebe]

30 days of autism acceptance 2020 part 4

Day 16.  Talk about treatment.  Have you been through any therapies?  What ones did you like?  Which ones didn’t you like?  Do you think autistic people need therapy for their autism?

Treatment? What is there to “treat”? I don’t think we need therapy for the autism. I do think a lot of autistic people need therapy because the system abuse us and that’s a way to keep ourselves mentally healthy. 

I have went to therapy with different professionals before my selfdiagnose. I don’t have a good relationship with professionals from the mental health. I have went to them since I was a child and no one ever told me I was autistic, and sadly you can not say that they could have “missed” it. One of them knew me for about ten years, as a kid and a teen.

I used to have this mixed feelings… that professionals didn’t want to help me, and if they wanted, they didn’t know how to do it but weren’t telling me. Or, alternatively, they didn’t know how to help me, and if they knew, they didn’t want to. I had this feeling that I was being not helped, but studied and observed for their own interests. But I have always thought about it as me being paranoid because I knew I am a case of study [almost for reasons unrelated to autism].

They tried behavior therapy and other cognitive approaches, but I always felt something odd and wrong about it. I wanted to talk about my emotions and feelings and understand them, but they changed the topic always to the behaviour and that made me feel suspicious. Sessions drained me from the remains of energy I had and I didn’t notice big changes in me. They helped me, of course, somehow, but not enough. I went to therapy because of family issues and trauma, keep going because there was something strange in me, and now I’m going to balance my life, at least, after understanding what was really happening to me.

When my hope was disappearing, when I got stuck in my process and therapy wasn’t adding anything to my recovery and was hell, I took the decision to take it in my hands. I knew it was difficult for me to put my thoughts and emotions in words for another person, let alone a professional, in an unfamiliar room. I knew there were things I was keeping for myself that I could not say into the world, nor write. I knew there was something different, something we weren’t working on. I started investigating, reading, analysing myself in a new level. After all, I already had that kind of thoughts, I was just touching the surface, maybe if I dipped in and worked those thoughts to scratch, to the bone, I could take them out of my mind.

At this time I had already made a big part of the journey. For years I knew about unconnected issues that I couldn’t quite name, that worried me. I had worked on them, identifying them and giving them solutions. I felt tired of life, I had worked so much and I didn’t see an end for my existential dilemma. I knew I didn’t have much more energy for keeping on healing and living. So I decided to use that last charge to the maximum, and push farther than I ever did before. My mind was always my last lair, and I was afraid that the last safe space, the only safe space that I could ever count with, was corrupted in it’s roots. If that was the case, I had to discover it by myself because no one else could say it from the outside, or else they would have told me, right?

I used different “techniques” to analyse my cognitive process, response to triggers, feelings and emotions. For example, I knew victims of abuse never recover completely, but I also knew that exposition to triggers was a hard but effective therapy. I needed to recover memories, to control reactions, to normalice concepts and ideas, to understand the biology of trauma, to identify sequels and their mechanisms… And I was totally decided to go hardcore with this. It was my last charge of energy so I was going down with it, I was giving it my 100%.

Now I have a therapist who does put the attention on my feelings and not on how do I have to behave and I appreciate the change, I like this kind of therapy more than the old ones.

Day 17.  Talk about empathy.  Many people think autistics do not have empathy.  What’s your experience with empathy?  Are you hyper empathic or not empathic at all?

Empathy is used differently in different contexts. I think that people that thinks that autistics do not have empathy are conchasdesusmadres [motherfuckers] with no imagination nor empathy themselves. First of all, they are conchasdesusmadres for thinking that the worlds revolves around them so if “we” can not undertand them, is because “we” are incapable of feeling like them, and never cross their mind the idea that this goes both ways so they themselves lack empathy with us. I mean, they talk about us as if we owe them undertanding but they do not owe us shit.

I am hyper empathic, or at least I can put myself in other people position and know what they are feeling by logic and my knowledge of them and feel something from it. I can pick moods by body language, but when I fell in the abyss of extreme burn out I felt like my capacity of “naturally” read people was in the floor.

I don’t want to talk more about this, it makes me sad and gives me suicide thoughts. The first reason my therapist gave me to disregard autism was my empathy. Days after that a teacher told me “you are ASD, aren’t you? [yeah idk uhmm] You don’t have empathy [yes I do]. No you don’t”. I have this shit stuck in my mind in a loop and it’s been half a year.

Day 18.  Talk about functioning labels.  What is your opinion about functioning labels?  Where are you on the spectrum?  If you don’t like functioning labels how would you describe your functioning ability?

Functioning labels are a myth, promote discrimination, are a problem for diagnose and are a fucking lie. I hate them. Me? I was passing. I am “high functional”. And because of that I could have live a miserable life or commited suicide. But I was lucky, because all the mental, emotional and phisical overwork I did last year [for my second career] “lowered” my capacities. I didn’t know what was happening to me, to my body, but at some point I wasn’t high functional anymore. Autistic traits came one by one (or previous traits got out of control or become more intense). That allowed me to self diagnose. That would not have happened if functioning labels were real.

I think that we are more or less functional depending on the context and environment and that funcioning labels are better suited for being used by everyone of us as a personal, daily measurement, under the premise of it constantly changing based on mood, energy, environment, health, stress, etc.

Day 19.  Talk about your struggles and strengths.  What things are difficult for you because you are autistic?  What are the positives of being autistic?  Do you have a special skill or talent?

Being new in places with a status quo is difficult for me. People sometimes think I’m mad when I’m not and that isn’t good for relationships.

The positives of being autistic are all me. All of me. Everything in me. Everything that I am. My soul, my mind, my values, my experiences, my body, my senses, my relation with the world and humanity. And, of course, my skills.

Day 20.  Talk about communication.  Are you verbal? Nonverbal? Partially verbal?  How do you usually communicate?

Communication can be very hard specially if the other part is… like most people: bad at communication. BUT, maybe because of it being difficult, I do communicate when is needed. Anyway at the worst point last year it was extremely difficult for me. Words failed me and my voice was failing too.

This may come as a surprise to people I know irl, but I have came to the conclusion that, while I like to talk and I have a good vocabulary, it can be difficult for me to know what I want to say and then say it. In fact, I can lose speech or have problems remembering the words, so I would say that I am semi-nonverbal. I have even noticed that I do, indeed, use a lot of sounds to talk [onomatopeias]. I have also discovered that I have a lot of stimmings that are, in fact, concepts I want to communicate, and even before knowing about autism I noticed that [all the times? most of the times? sometimes? depending on the times?] it was easier for me to write than to talk. It still is, apparently.

[bigskydreaming]

So, okay. The posts about how psychodrama and exposure therapy have been used effectively to treat PTSD. Sigh. Oh boy. Okay, see, because the thing is they’re not wrong, on a technical level. But they’ve been so completely stripped of context ie the specific HOW and in WHAT WAYS those are ACTUALLY deemed helpful rather than perpetuating self-harm - as to be quite misleading, IMO.

Disclaimer that I am not a licensed therapist, and I do not claim to be. I am just a survivor whose done a crapton of coping in various ways in my life, and researched just about every school of thought there is on these subjects, as well as interacted with a plethora of other survivors of all types in a variety of settings like support groups, one on one conversations, etc. Do with the following whatever you want. I’m not sourcing this because none of it stems from a singular source other than the accumulation of all the reading and talking with professionals and other survivors and own experiences and whatnot. Evaluate what I’ve put in this posts on its own merits, take away what seems worth following up on, even if just as a starting place for your own research, dismiss it entirely because of my lack of a PhD, whatever. Entirely up to you. I’m merely writing it down because its in my head either way. I’m happy to discuss what I have to say here, but I’m not gonna engage with potshots at my credibility that are largely focused on semantics or just my lack of credentials. I don’t have the time or the patience for that, so don’t be surprised if I just ignore that shit. Anyway. Moving on: 

There are many, many different types of trauma, and even trauma stemming from abuse or rape can be so different in so many key respects, that what is helpful for one person can absolutely be the exact opposite for another. This is why I generally stay away from “I write dark smut because its my coping mechanism” arguments - I have enough trouble getting people to argue my actual points when there’s barely any room for misinterpretation....I have a migraine already at the thought of how people will spin my stance on this out of context.

But the thing is....given the varying degrees and types and contexts and dynamics and effects different instances of abuse and rape have on individuals....I’ve never and I never will argue that there is zero validity to the idea that anyone has ever been helped to work through their traumas by writing certain things. There’s just no way I, or anyone, is qualified to make that claim. BUT, the flip side of that coin is it is equally unilaterally impossible AND IRRESPONSIBLE, IMO, to blithely trot out the idea that writing and reading dark fiction as a coping mechanism is universally harmless and most likely to result in positive growth rather than negative stagnation or even backsliding into more active states of trauma.

So take something like roleplaying and psychodrama as tools for helping a survivor deal with their trauma....absolutely there’s a place for that. BUT whether or not it will likely be to a person’s benefit and healing rather than counter-productively reinforcing negative mindsets or behaviors - depends almost ENTIRELY on WHAT a therapist’s aims are in using psychodrama as one of their tools. What explicitly they think it has to contribute towards a patient’s specific situation and issues.

Because the thing is, psychodrama is essentially a tool for INSIGHT. Nothing more, nothing less. It essentially has a patient roleplay either themselves in a recreation of a past traumatic event or time period, but in a controlled setting and with someone to guide them through it....or in other instances, has the patient roleplay themselves in the role of their abuser or attacker. 

Its ultimately a way of putting someone in their own shoes during a prior event, or the shoes of someone else present for it or involved in it....and viewing the event with fresh eyes, from new angles, given that they now have the distance and the awareness of its lack of ‘realness’ to focus not just on their fear or panic of the time, but going through the motions of the event while now able to spare attention and focus for what was happening OUTSIDE their tunnel-visioned panic of the time, or what might have been going through the heads of the other people involved.

So again, as a tool for insight and information gathering or paradigm-breaking, it has a wide range of potential applications. It absolutely can and does help a number of people heal in a number of ways. Using psychodrama and roleplaying recreations of past events and their aftermath can help someone understand why they reacted in certain ways, why they developed certain behaviors or tendencies in its aftermath or in their attempts to recover. It can be used to help demonstrate to a survivor that they’re being too hard on themselves, expose the lie of ‘if only I’d done this instead, everything could have gone differently’ that many survivors use to punish themselves. 

It can be used with survivors who are struggling to understand why and how someone could do this to them, or especially with survivors of abuse who worry about the possibility of becoming just like their abuser, continuing a cycle of abuse and harm because of how they’ve internalized what was done to them, or attempted to justify it over the years. 

Using these techniques and methodologies can help put a survivor in the driver’s seat of a recreation, essentially, have them roleplay their own attacker, with an impartial professional available to act as a soundingboard and fact checker for their own decision-making process throughout the recreation - ie periodically asking “now are you saying you’d do that next because its what YOU want to do in that role, or because its what you assume your abuser would want to do there?” And thus it can help reassure an abuse survivor that ultimately, they just don’t think the way their abuser likely did, and despite their fears, their thought processes do not lend themselves towards the chain of actions and reactions that would likely result in perpetrating certain abusive behaviors themselves.

HOWEVER.

The caveat that I pretty much never see in posts citing the use of these techniques in healing from trauma, is that for every potential application, there’s another instance or way in which these techniques have no value, and in fact can cause harm. For instance, not every survivor struggles with why someone would do to them what they did, what they must have been thinking to hurt them in this way. Some survivors have simply no desire to wonder what was going through their attacker’s head...it means nothing to them, and offers nothing to help them with what’s in their own heads. So as a tool for information gathering or discovering new angles to a past trauma, its meaningless at best.

Similarly, these kinds of ideas or techniques attempted without an experienced and impartial observer present for the recreations can do just as much harm as they have potential to help. For instance, if someone has struggled with self-blame ever since a traumatic event, convinced themselves that it might be their own fault, because they did or didn’t do certain things....these kinds of recreations and roleplaying present a very tricky tightrope to walk. 

If the survivor ISN’T able to fully make the distinction between their panic, adrenaline fueled thoughts and reactions of the time, and their own more capable and clinical view of the recreated scene due to the safety and comfort of their current danger-free environment...then its entirely possible, and likely, to come up with ideas or alternative actions or choices that theoretically could have allowed them to manipulate the situation towards a less traumatizing conclusion, or perhaps allowed them to avoid it happening at all. 

Thus, by coming to these ‘conclusions’ via the psychodrama role-playing, a survivor has actually given their brains MORE ammunition to use against them when thinking that its their own fault their trauma happened, because they did x instead of these now clearly defined alternative choices they’ve thought up....and failed to healthily internalize as things they could not reasonably expect themselves to have thought of at the time.

See what I mean?

Similarly, exposure therapy is....oof. Yikes. I have a lot of thoughts about its validity as a tool for helping with PTSD and associated trauma responses and aftermath. I’m perfectly aware that they’ve had enormous success with using virtual reality type programs to treat soldiers’ PTSD in a variety of ways.

The thing is though, prior to the viability of such technology, exposure therapy has almost unilaterally been used to treat ANXIETY disorders, specifically. Such as with people who experience various phobias.

Because....anxiety is largely irrational/instinctive in these types of things. They’re a person undergoing a panic response to varying degrees, in response to a threat or danger that’s largely imagined....based either on memories triggered by a similarity in their environs to the setting of a past trauma, or by hypothetical extrapolations off of various stimuli, or sometimes, just completely irrational lines of thinking.

So essentially, the varying applications of exposure therapy as a method of treatment for anxiety disorders specifically....is that by inducing an encounter with the root fear of the patient, but in a controlled environment where they’re in no possible danger, a therapist can theoretically enhance a patient’s awareness of the irrationality of their fears. They can empirically guide a patient through an understanding of how their mind is playing tricks on them and imagining or embellishing threats that objectively are not a possibility at the moment. And from there, help a patient build a mental toolbox of thoughts and thought processes they can pull out and use as tools when their anxieties threaten to overwhelm them...and they need a way to establish an anchor to objective reality and separate imagined threat from real surroundings....to detect and affirm when something is just their mind playing tricks on them again.

The problem here lies in the fact that this is largely only useful in helping ground people in the reality of things not usually being the threat or danger they imagine them to be. But what exposure therapy can NOT do, is ‘expose’ a survivor to a reconstruction of the conditions of their past trauma, or a ‘scene’ that plays out similarly to the way their trauma did....and reassure them there’s nothing to be afraid of there, because their fears and anxiety in the scene being recreated....WERE VERY MUCH REAL AND VALID.

Now, one possible use of exposure therapy in terms of singular event-born PTSD....is in helping survivors deal with specific TRIGGERS. Using exposure therapy techniques in controlled settings and with professionals to guide survivors through a session of this.....therapists can expose survivors to various stimuli-based triggers, and much as with phobias, a patient can be walked through a more objective awareness and understanding of the fact that although their triggers based on this specific trauma are completely understandable and valid....they are statistically unlikely to act as a forewarning or precursor to ANOTHER instance of their root trauma, and thus do not present a rational fear that a survivor needs the fight or flight response they’ve conditioned themselves to have upon experiencing these triggers. As with phobias, this allows patients to assemble a variety of tools to use to counter the psychological and physiological effects of encountering these specific triggers.

But this isn’t the same thing as treating the fears and anxieties born of worrying something like their trauma might ever happen again, period. Because those fears are categorically...with merit. Survivors are just as vulnerable to abuse and sexual assault as non-survivors, and statistically speaking are more likely to be prone to greater likelihoods of revictimization than non-survivors are of being victimized initially. For a variety of reasons. But basically...exposure therapy can’t help a survivor be reassured there’s nothing to be afraid of....when it can’t guarantee that. Nobody can.

Now, like I said, there’s been considerable success with treating the PTSD of soldiers with VR-based exposure therapy. But again, context is hugely important here. Because war is in and of itself, a viable setting. Soldiers who get PTSD as a result of battlefield trauma, and then go home....well, some of the most common symptoms in their case tend to be flashbacks and an inability to distinguish past from present...essentially, many often find themselves feeling like they’re right back there in the heat of battle where they were initially traumatized. 

So in their cases, in terms of THIS specific manifestation of PTSD....VR exposure therapy has a lot of merit, as using it, therapists can guide their patients back and forth between grounded, objective reality, and virtual reality environments that have been programmed to simulate the wartime environments their PTSD episodes transport them to. In doing so, therapists can help anchor their patients’ awareness in the reality that they are no longer in that wartime environment. That its not real, that future encounters with it are the product of artificial constructs their brains have produced. They can establish clear boundaries between real, and not real, and as described previously, help them assemble tools for objectively breaking down the false reality their PTSD creates for them in the future, break through to the present time and place underneath.

But see how this technique fundamentally can’t work to help anchor triggered survivors through PTSD episodes, more generally speaking, and not just in terms of coping with specific triggerings? A soldier can be made empirically aware that he is not experiencing his root trauma again here and now, because it relies on him being in that wartime environment, and empirically, he is no longer in that wartime environment. A rape survivor, in contrast, can not be made empirically aware they can’t be experiencing another rape or threat of another rape here and now....because there is no empirical proof that what happened once can’t and won’t happen in similar settings possessing the triggers they’re reacting to, or just in any future settings at all.

Which brings me to exposure therapy relying on recreations of past traumas via written fictional scenes.

In theory, all the ingredients are there. A controlled, safe environment - wherever the survivor reading or writing the scene is. The ability to end the scene whenever it gets to be too much - via simply putting down the story or stepping away from writing it. Everything needed to reassure a survivor, while experiencing a simulation of their trauma that might very well still feel viscerally real at times, due to how well or intensely its written....nevertheless, all the ingredients are here for the survivor to ultimately put the necessary distance between the recreation and themselves, and from that distance, more impartially observe that its not real, it can’t hurt them, their trauma is in the past and its behind them.

The problem here is that ironically, there’s TOO MUCH distance between survivors and the recreations. Because of the very nature of fiction as a medium.

See, the thing that can’t be stressed enough, is no matter how well or accurately or in as much detail as you recreate or simulate the environment and conditions of a rape or setting of an abusive event.....rape and abuse, at the end of the day, are not inherently about specific events, interactions, causes and effects.

Rape and abuse are DYNAMICS.

The trauma isn’t born of the physical acts being recreated. The trauma is born of the aggressor having taken something ephemeral from the victim, as well as the physical effects of their actions.

Basically, the problem with using fiction as a recreation of say, someone’s rape.....is that the essential, fundamental element of the rape that MAKES it a rape....is the sexual agency or autonomy the rapist strips their victim of, takes from them. Because rape ultimately isn’t about sex, its about power. Sex is merely the medium by which a rapist TAKES that power. But the crime, the heart of the trauma, the thing that makes it linger long past any physical injuries...is the rapist having used sex to exert power over their victim, make them feel lesser in that moment, and in recollections of that moment.

And this element CAN NOT EXIST in fiction. By virtue of them being fictional characters. They’re not real. There is no power for the fictional rapist to take from their fictional victim....ONLY THE SIMULATION OF IT.

Because when I said fictional recreations ironically have too much distance.....I meant because EVERY consumption of fictional scenes by their very nature....have a degree of distance between the reader or viewer and the fiction. There’s an implicit awareness of this EVERY TIME SOMEONE SITS DOWN TO WATCH TV OR READ A BOOK. These are little rituals we each have done too many times for them to NOT be ingrained on some primal, fundamental level, deep in our lizard brains where the knowledge and awareness that these things can NEVER hurt us, that we are ALWAYS in a safe and controlled environment wholly separate from the things that we might be afraid of.

There is a REASON that military vets treated this way use VR technology for their recreations. That the theory had to wait for the technology to catch up to it before it could be viable in specific respects at all. That its not enough to sit soldiers down in a room and just play war movies over and over until the therapist shuts off the TV and reestablishes the ‘real world.’

Because ultimately, we simply are not capable of willfully divorcing ourselves from reality and fully immersing in a fictional recreation that exists just on TV or on the page. There is always a part of us that remains firmly anchored in reality and cognizant of that...

And as a result, there is only so far we can ever project ourselves into a fictional recreation....which means ultimately, we always are going to hit a wall there. No matter how much we identify with one of the characters, project ourselves into their shoes, there is always a basic awareness that we are not them, and we are not facing the danger they are. 

Which means no matter HOW good or detailed or accurate or emotionally resonant the words on the page are, as they describe each moment of the interaction between aggressor and victim that seems to the reader or writer to otherwise be a perfect recreation of what happened to them....there is simply NO WAY to recreate the one explicitly essential element of that specific trauma....the taking of power, from the one character by the other. Because between the two fictional characters, there is no actual power dynamic, and no actual exchange of power taking place.

Only the APPEARANCE of it.

And as a result, a survivor might very well FEEL helped via this particular coping mechanism, with them handling exposure to such a recreation much better than they did the first handful of times. But is this actually healing, or could it just as easily be termed desensitization? Because the thing they’re taking in, internalizing is NOT a perfect transportation to the circumstances of their rape and the successful emergence out the other side with newfound awareness of having been safe from harm the whole time.

Without any way to even pretend that the dynamic being witnessed from a distance has actually resulted in a theft of agency rather than merely the appearance of it.....what’s left? What actually sits there, described so vividly on the page?

Sex.

Because just like rape isn’t really sex so much as its the taking or asserting of power VIA sex...the image or description of one person raping another without the actual taking or assertion of power....basically just looks a lot like sex.

Which incidentally, IMO, might have a fucking LOT to do with how fucking bad our society is at noting the difference between sex and rape, and the fact that they’re not interchangeable or one and the same. And why rape survivors so often face slut-shaming and victim-blaming and are accused of actually wanting it.

Because when you’ve been conditioned by a lifetime of fictional media consumption to equate rape with the sex you SEE or READ about, as being basically the entirety of it and the intangible elements of it just abstract to you.....its very easy to look at a survivor and see not someone who had something intangible but very much REAL stolen from them via sex....but just a person who had bad sex they didn’t like.

And THIS, more than anything else, is what I personally view as the greatest ramification of widespread rape fantasies and noncon fics in fandom: that there is ultimately a ceiling on how much it can help any or every survivor cope or heal from their trauma - even while acknowledging that there are surely some specific contexts or combinations of elements in some individuals’ traumas that allow for fictional recreations to still largely serve the function those survivors aim to get out of them - but again, in terms of a coping mechanism that’s universally applicable or viable for all survivors of all scenarios? 

Nuh uh. No way. There’s no possible chance of making that claim in all honesty, and without making that claim, even the argument of it being a successful coping mechanism for SOME survivors in some specific ways, does not validate the ease with which its trotted out as a truism for all survivors to take heed of and all nonsurvivors to respect.

But MEANWHILE, at the same time, an equally inevitable end result of these fics.....is the continued desensitization of readers en masse, to the reality of rape as a theft of something intangible, impossible to fully recreate or depict as an experience, except in reality or potentially, some day in virtual reality. 

It inevitably serves to perpetuate the unspoken and perhaps sometimes even unconscious view, that rape is ultimately just sex of a certain kind. And so more and more, it becomes viewed as something that has the capacity to titillate and arouse....the same as any other form of sex, obviously. Because why wouldn’t it....if ultimately, that’s all its treated as being? 

[fortunefavorstheway]

Fortuna Ch. 3: Strain

AO3 link

Chapter Rating: Mature

Word Count: 5k+

Din/OC

Din and Silla are keeping their distance around each other, and the weird tension is driving the baby crazy.

Fluff, angst, and realizing where you fucked up

Silla sighed as she stood underneath the waterfall. The rushing sound of the water soothed her almost as much as the massage on her head and shoulders did. After the work done yesterday and this morning, arriving at the falls near the peak was a welcome respite. Her hair, unbound from its scarf, pooled at her waist where the water’s surface was, swirling into gentle spirals.

She’d woken up that morning and judged from the subdued wildlife sound and the cool air that the sun had not fully risen. The Mandalorian and his child were still asleep, so she’d gone off alone, taking her share of breakfast with her. After the events of last night, she imagined the Mandalorian would want to be around her as little as possible.

Silla reached out to make sure the robe she hung up was still in place, then she took a deep breath and sank underwater, letting the sound of the river fill her ears as her lungs heated up. Depending on how his work went, she likely wouldn’t be able to bathe like this for a long time, and had to savor it while she could. The way her hearing was blunted reminded her how last night, she’d plugged her ears with wool when she went to bed. The Mandalorian’s energy was running wild even as he refused her, but she honored his autonomy and her promise and left him with only a cup of tea. It clearly hadn’t worked, and even under water Silla could feel her cheeks flush as she remembered how the sound of skin slapping skin had gotten through her ear plugs.

The burning pressure in her lungs prompted her to resurface, and the sound of wind and other forest animals came back to her in spurts as she emptied the water from her ears and gasped for breath. Between the memories of what she’d seen and heard last night and the heat in her chest, her hands wandered to her breast and between her legs.

Would it have been good if he’d said “Yes”? She wanted to think it would have. It was always better when it was a client she liked, and seeing both the state of his soul and his behavior made her like him a lot. She tried to remember how he’d felt bare beneath her palms, but her own skin and flesh remained cold to her touch, and the movement of her hands felt heavy and mechanical. Sighing, Silla gave up. Her body and mind were out of sync with each other, and there was no point in forcing something when she was likely to be interrupted before she climaxed.

The warmer air and the noisier animals meant it was time to wrap up her bath. She climbed out of the water onto a large stone where her towel and clothes lay. Grabbing her comb, she ran it through her hair, letting the water drip back into the river. Once her hair was damp rather than dripping wet, she poured some oil in her hands and coated her comb in it, running it again through her hair, now drying quickly as the wind swept through.

Pinning her hair so it stayed off her face, Silla opened a jar of and smeared the cold paste within over her closed eyes. While that dried, she braided her hair, her swollen and wrinkled fingertips nonetheless moving quickly as the hair that went past her knees became a crown on her head. By now the paste on her eyes had dried into a gum that was flexible, but strong enough to keep her eyes shut. She put in her hair pins, tied her blindfold around her head, and wrapped her scarf around her hair, and once she pulled the knots, she shook her head to make sure it was all secure.

Satisfied, Silla poured some more oil into her hands to rub all over her body. A few sparks shot through her when her hands rubbed over her nipples, but they weren’t enough for her to try again, not when she was trying to get dry and dressed as soon as possible. Once she went back on autopilot, she was soon fully dressed with her robe tied, her boots laced, and her shovel across her shoulders with a basket hanging from each end and another strapped to her back.

Hiking back towards camp, she had barely gotten a few dozen yards from the waterfall when the Force signatures of the Mandalorian and child brightened up her vision. “Good morning, Mandalorian!” she shouted. “And you, Child!” She smiled wider at the Child’s answering cheer. She dashed down the mountain to meet them, seeing them pick up their pace as well. The way the child waddled as fast as he could just struck her as simply adorable. Once she’d caught her breath, she said, “I’m done with my last round here.”

“I see,” was all he said in response.

The curtness barely stung, but Silla could see that there was no anger, just caution. She slipped into the tone she’d taken with him all the way up until she’d crossed a line. “There’s a waterfall basin up ahead for you two to bathe in. I can take these back down while you-”

“That won’t be necessary, we have a sonic on the ship,” he said, and he circled around to one of the baskets on her makeshift yoke. “Here, let me carry this down for you.” Silla opened her mouth to protest, but he continued. “Your treatment was effective. This is the least I can do.”

She didn’t say anything or fight as he took the yoke from her shoulders and set it across his, and it was only once they continued their descent down the mountain, this time with the Mandalorian leading, that she said, “Thank you.”

It didn’t take long for the Child to notice that Dad had two baskets and Soft One had one basket, but that he had no baskets and he cried out at the unfairness of it all.

Din and Silla stopped when the kid cried out and then stomped over to reach up for one of the baskets Din carried.

“No,” he said, lifting the shovel up higher. “It’s too big and heavy.” The Child pouted and Din sighed. “Don’t give me that look, and don’t try to use that either. There’s no way you’ll be able to hold it all the way back to camp.”

The child clearly disagreed as he held out a hand and Din felt the balance shift. His hands clamped down on both baskets as he tried to readjust, but was caught in a tug of war with his son. “ Ad’ika ,” he raised his voice. “I said no.” The Child whined at hearing his father’s voice sharpen, and then he plonked down onto the ground and sulked, refusing to budge any further even as the adults made a few more steps down the mountain.

Din and Silla stopped and turned to face one another for a moment, then back towards the Child. “I might have something for him to carry,” Silla said, “if that’s alright with you.”

“Sure.”

Din sighed again and while he readjusted his baskets without interference, Silla took her own basket and rummaged through it. Pulling out a small sack of medicinal herbs with a sharp taste and smell, she re-tied the knot more securely and stepped towards the sullen child. “Could you help me carry this?”

The child’s ears perked and he reached out and took the sack. As he squeezed it to his body, his nose wrinkled at the smell, but he got up and rejoined his father. Then he dashed on ahead and turned to call out for the adults to hurry up.

“Thank you,” Silla called out with a laugh, and the child babbled back. They continued their way down, Din now behind the kid and in front of her, and she asked, “Is that his name, Ad’ika?”

“No,” Din answered. “That’s Mando’a for ‘little one’.” Pre-empting her next question, Din said, “He doesn’t have a name. I haven’t thought of a suitable one.”

Silla hummed as she took in this information. “Would it be alright if I called him ad’ika as well?”

“Sure.”

“And what do I call you from now on?” Silla said, and he could hear the smile in her voice and the threat of that dark honey from last night to come back. Or it could’ve just been his imagination. “Since I’m a member of your crew, do I call you Captain and Sir?”

“Just Mandalorian is fine.”

There was silence and Din almost turned his helmet, but at last she said, “Of course.” It held the same warmth as always, as if she was understanding of where and why he drew the line and trying to be as accommodating as possible. He wasn’t talking to her more or less than yesterday, but a one-sided chill seemed to have formed from his end, and it was eating at him how easily she seemed to have moved on from last night’s mishap. He sighed in frustration, which was a mistake.

“Are you tired, Mandalorian?” Silla said, stepping forward so she was next to him. “Shall I take one of the baskets back from you? I’m noticing some tension returning to your shoul-”

“I’m fine,” he cut her off. He wanted to concoct a half-truth about not being used to the kid throwing tantrums, but then he might be drawn into another conversation with her, and he just didn’t have it in him right now.

There was another silence, and the hum she made this time was full of skepticism and frustration, but she simply advised him to let her know if he needed a break, as his health was her responsibility now. He gave her a short thanks in return, and they continued marching onward.

Ahead of them, the kid had stopped by a familiar patch of grass, and he called out. He wanted more stars to play with, and Silla quickly caught on. As she ran past him towards the child, Din gripped the shovel tighter. He wished she hadn’t mentioned the waterfall to him, but even if she hadn’t, the wet patches on her headscarf and on the collar of her robes, the sheen of something on her skin, had all but shouted at him what she’d done up there. He’d walked ahead of her so there was no chance of his eyes drifting towards her and setting his imagination and memories off all over again. They were far enough away from him that he allowed himself to sigh, deeper and longer this time. How sick in the head was he that the mere suggestion of a woman’s wet hair was making him dizzy?

This is your punishment for thinking of pulling her hair last night , said a cruel part of himself that he couldn’t stop from flaring up every now and then.

As he got closer, he heard her telling the kid that he could play with the stars or carry the medicine bag, but he wouldn’t be able to do both at the same time. At how deeply focused the kid was as he turned his head between the two choices she held in her hands, and the way his trembles increased with agitation, one would be forgiven for thinking it was a matter of life and death to him.

The kid whimpered and waved his hands in frustration, and Silla straightened as inspiration struck her. She took one of the grass stars and loosened the way the four blades interlocked with each other. She then looped it onto the string that tied the bag shut, and tied another knot to lock it in place. “What do you think ad’ika ?”

His ears perked at the term of endearment, and he held the medicine bag aloft to watch the star swing to and fro. He jumped and giggled at the sight, then spotted the loose blades still in her hand. Setting down the bag, he tugged at the string and at her sleeve with an insistent, “Eh! Eh!” Smiling, Silla made a second star around the string, tied this one in place as well, and suddenly the kid was happily waddling down the path again, looking back to make sure the adults could keep up.

Silla sighed in relief and asked, “I’m not spoiling him by your standards, am I?”

“No,” he said quickly. “You’re doing great.” He took the opportunity to once again move ahead of her in the path.

Silla’s hum was warmer this time. “I will say, if he feels like he can cry and fuss in front of you,” she said, “then you’re doing a great job yourself.”

Din froze for a moment and it was only the threat of Silla moving in front of him again that got his legs to start working again. His throat was tight and he was torn between smiling and sobbing, but he took a few deep breaths and forced himself to walk slower as his rapid pulse went back to normal. Even when he was sure he’d reached baseline, his voice was hoarse when he replied, “Thank you.”

-----

For someone who was of as nomadic people as the Mandalorians, it shouldn’t have surprised Din that they’d manage to fit everything, including the tent, onto Silla’s hovercraft. Still, as she secured the tarp that had been the tent’s walls and roof around the stack of interlocked baskets and onto the craft, while still leaving space for the three of them to comfortably sit down, he was impressed.

The ride to town was more relaxed than the hike from the falls. The kid was awake this time, and was occupying himself with a new game where he would jump back and forth between Din’s lap and Silla’s, trying to stay off the hovercraft’s surface as much as possible. On one occasion it looked like he would stumble but he stuck the landing in Din’s lap, earning applause from the delighted healer, and from that point on he would stay pouting wherever he was until he received applause from the other one. It didn’t bother Din at all, for it was something so small that could make his ad’ika so happy.

As she made her final rounds around town and said her goodbyes, Silla received more gifts to take with her, gifts that the givers would not let her refuse. They were always ready to cite one illness they or a loved one had that she’d helped them with while pressing the box or bag into her arms, some even throwing in a small sweet for the kid. When the hovercraft passed by Mala, the vendor who’d first told Din about Silla, the healer called out to thank the stout woman for the spicy noodles.

“Oh, it was nothing, absolutely nothing,” Mala said. “Where will you go from here?”

Silla turned towards Din, but he said nothing, so she said, “Wherever his ship takes me.” Upon hearing a coo from the child currently in her lap, she reached out on reflex and patted his head, then got the bag of herbs that the child had carried to camp. Din noticed the canny look Mala gave him, then Silla, but she was back to being a warm business owner by the time Mala had retrieved her delivery. “One last delivery of these assa leaves and roots, and I do hope this ban ends soon. Here’s hoping medical supplies arrive soon.” Silla’s voice became cold at the end, and the child’s ears drooped at the sound.

“Well, if you’re looking for work, Mandalorian,” Mala leaned over her counter. “There might be something for you on Jossan-2. They’re the main trading hub of this sector, and anything we get has to go through them. It’d be nice if you could end the pissing contest they’re having up there, but you’re just one man, so I suggest you look for some under the table stuff.”

Din nodded. “Thanks.”

Before the hovercraft could pull away, Mala called out for Silla and gently pulled her close, whispering something into her ear while handing her gift over. Silla’s grip on the bag tightened and the muscles in her neck jumped, and Mala laughed and sent them on their way with a hearty, “Have fun on your travels!”

Once they were far enough away Din asked, “What was that about?”

Silla’s mouth was tight and her face was pink as she shook her head. “Inside joke.” She realized she was still clutching the gift and quickly stuffed it into her own personal bag.

When they arrived at the spaceport, Jae met them to thank Silla for the wine, and with a wave of his hand he brought over a floating pod cradle. Din felt a pang as he was reminded of Kuiil, while both Silla and the kid were delighted with the mechanic’s work. “Whaddya think, huh?”

“Why don’t we let him be the judge?” Silla picked up the Child. “May I put him in, Mandalorian?”

“Sure.”

Silla set the child into the pod, where it rustled in the blankets and stretched out with a series of happy coos. “Not sure how fast he’s gonna grow but if he’s anything you this should be good for another year or so,” Jae said. “And now, for the part that makes it worth a jug of snake wine and not just a keg of cheap booze.” He grabbed two panels on the sides that would stabilize the pod if the hover feature were turned off. Folding them upward, they formed a large tray that extended a bit past the front of the pod. Once locked in place, Jae lifted the covers to reveal an activity board of colorful buttons, switches, wheels, and other things for the child to play with.

Din’s eyes widened as he recognized the various parts Jae had used for it, but the loudest and most important opinion was the Child’s, who gave a string of warbling squeals of delight, clapping his hands furiously before smashing them all over the board. The moment he discovered a rainbow row of buttons lit up when he pressed them, he was lost to the world.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Din said. “How much-”

“Hey hey now,” Jae said. “This lady here took care of that yesterday. Unless you wanna pay for another day in the docks, I won’t be indebted any further to ya.” With that, Jae walked away, and the Child looked up from the activity board long enough to give a cheerful cry and wave, and then he was back to his buttons.

Din stepped closer to the pod and synced it with his vambrace, and when he walked toward the Razor Crest, the pod followed.

Silla followed close behind, and Din couldn’t help but turn and ask, “How much does that snake wine usually sell for?”

She smiled. “The cradle will be as much a help to me as it is to the two of you,” she said, dodging the question. “It leaves our arms free, and if we’re busy and need to keep an eye on him, he’ll be comfortable and entertained.” Her smile widened. “And we’ll know he’s up to something if he stops making noise.”

He couldn’t argue with that, so he didn’t press the matter further.

-----

As Mala had said, Jossan-2 had several strong industrial centers and would likely be safe to dock his ship there, but it was far. With his ship refueled, he could make a jump and be there in a matter of days, but it would burn out all his fuel and then most if not all of his credits. With an additional crew member, he couldn’t afford to work on as thin a margin as before. Din instead travelled a course that took them through a few planets where he could take smaller jobs. It would take more time to reach Jossan-2, but they were less likely to end up in debt.

He had to keep reminding himself of why he’d chosen this method as the weeks went by and sharing a space with the new medic didn’t become any easier. And she was trying to give him as much space as her professionalism would allow. When the three of them went out together, always after Din had gone out alone to scout and make sure it was safe, she’d keep the pod between her and Din. She would rest a hand on the pod while she used her walking stick to scope out the nonliving parts of her surroundings. He made sure that she wasn’t cheated on money, and she would make sure his clients were honest, but that was all talk. The two of them almost never did anything that required physical contact.

She’d shown him several daily exercises he could do to treat and then prevent some of the damage she’d seen in his body, and would then observe him to make sure that he did them and that he did them properly, making adjustments with her hands when necessary. Other than that, she seemed content to focus most of her attention on the kid.

It was how she treated the kid, or rather how it was so different from how she treated her captain, where Din felt something unsettling. For weeks, he wasn’t sure if it was guilt, but he knew it was at least discomfort. It wasn’t that she treated the Child poorly. In fact, she was such a warm, empathetic caregiver, no doubt helped by her special sight, that she was often mistaken for his mother in public, the same way people had called him “your boy” even before he’d officially adopted him. Except Silla would softly correct them and explain that she was his nanny. She got as much use as she could out of a few baby hand-me-downs the Liserans had gifted her, allowing the kid at last to have more than one set of clothing, a few more toys, and even his own eating utensils. She could play with him for hours and even have him help her with more repetitive tasks, like setting out herbs to dry or mixing a medicinal paste. Through it all, she would talk to him in that warm voice of hers, in full sentences, as she explained what she was doing, told him a story, or played along in one of his games.

The moment Silla felt Din was in the same room as her, though, she grew quiet. The warmth didn’t disappear completely, but it was muted along with her voice in general. The first few days she’d spoken to and asked him questions freely, but his short responses must’ve told her something, for then she spoke as if every word out of her mouth to Din was money spent and her ledger was fast approaching red.

The Child sensed that something was wrong, as he grew fussy more frequently and it would take longer for either of them to calm him down. According to Silla, there wasn’t a physical source for his crankiness, and all they could do was ride it out with him. Din wondered if the kid was picking up on his own stress, as the various odd jobs he’d taken on their route left him irritated, worn out, and with barely enough pay to cover fuel and supplies. He held on, hoping their fortune would change once they arrived on Jossan-2, and Silla did what she could with her medicinal cooking. She even tried to refuse her cut, saying that room and board on the Razor Crest were enough, but Din wasn’t having it.

The source of Din’s discomfort finally became clear the night before they were scheduled to finally arrive on Jossan-2. It was routine that whatever level Din had settled on, Silla would take her meal on the other one to allow Din his privacy, and the Child would eat with whoever he chose, usually Din. Recently, Silla had been encouraging the kid to spend as much time with Dad as possible when Din wasn’t busy, even attempting to get the kid to say either Dad or buir , to no success so far. Tonight, when Silla finished preparing, she delivered Din’s portion to him in the cockpit, but before he could take off his helmet, she asked him to wait. She brought up the Child in his bib and with his portion, nudging him towards his father with a smile, but when she turned to leave the Child cried out.

“I think he wants to eat with you,” said Din.

“If I stay, you won’t be able to eat,” she replied, but the Child tugged at the hem of her robe, trying to pull her into the cockpit. “Oh ad’ika , we spent several hours together already, surely-”

“Why have you been trying to get him to spend more time with me?” Din asked. Did she regret taking the job? He certainly couldn’t blame her, in which case they could go their separate ways once they reached Jossan-2. He hoped he could convince her to stay, if only for the kid.

If he could see Silla’s eyes, he imagined they’d be blinking right now, though he could see her mind formulating a response that was honest and tactful. “Your stress levels have been high recently,” she said, “and I’ve noticed that your energy tends to be more… peaceful, whenever your son is with you, when you can talk to him.” The child continued to whimper and tug at her robe, so she knelt down to pick him up and lightly bounce him in her arms. “I wanted to give you as much time together where you could have your helmet off.”

At the word helmet, the kid turned in Silla’s arms, reaching out for Dad, and she gently passed the Child into Din’s arms. “I don’t think he’s gonna be peaceful if you’re not around,” he said. Din meant for dinner, but as soon as the words left his mouth he realized it could apply in general too.

Silla’s smile thinned for a moment before she forced one corner up. “After some time he’ll be fine. After all you’re his father and I,” she paused, sighing, “I’m just the caretaker.” He heard a small hitch in her voice when she said caretaker, and she heard it too, because she suddenly bowed her head. “If you’ll excuse me, ca- Mandalorian, I’ll be eating on the lower deck.” She reached out and quickly patted the kid’s head, a small amount of joy returning to her face. “You be good ad’ika .” With that, she closed the doors to the cockpit, and a moment later he heard the slam of her boots on the lower deck.

The sound matched the guilt that punched Din in the stomach, and the Child’s whimpering at the closed door ceased as he turned to face his dad, eyes wide, the whimpers beginning anew as he clutched at Din’s helmet. He didn’t want the kid to see what kind of face he was making, but the suffocating feeling was growing unbearable, so he removed it. As he thought, the Child made sympathetic coos and patted his face, trying to push his grimace into a smile, growing more distressed when it didn’t seem to be working.

“Shh, shh, I’m okay ad’ika ,” Din murmured, keeping his voice low so Silla wouldn’t hear him. “I just realized I’ve been hurting someone badly, and she didn’t deserve any of it.” He glanced over at their dinners. “And it’d hurt her even more if we let the food get cold. How ‘bout we eat first and then talk?”

The kid chirped in response and he grasped his baby spoon to help himself to the curry rice. The Child took to his food with gusto, but though Silla had spiced Din’s portion to his liking, his taste buds felt dull and heavy in his mouth. He took a deep breath to get his stomach to loosen from the earlier gut punch, and that made it easier. It took longer than usual, but he managed to finish, at which point the kid was lightly using his powers to get the last few morsels from the tray and the bib into his mouth. Once he’d swallowed the last bit, Din wiped his face clean, then removed the bib and held the Child in his lap.

“Y’know womp rat,” he said, rubbing his Child’s head to contented sighing, “Up until I met you, I never really felt like a Mandalorian.” The Child tilted his head and made a questioning sound. “I swore the Creed, kept my helmet on, but in the Tribe, it always felt like I was on thin ice.” He sighed, leaning back into his chair and remembering the fight he had with Paz. “It felt like the Tribe would have my back only if I kept bringing in enough credits, enough supplies, to support them, and the moment I failed, I might as well just take that off,” he gestured to the helmet, “and never put it back on again. Even then, when I brought in beskar, they were mad because-” Because he’d traded Imperials for it, because he’d given up a foundling, because he wasn’t good enough. Even if he’d used their beskar to forge the weapons to take back the child, nothing would ever erase the stain of that first exchange. His throat tightened as he couldn’t say it outloud and risk making the kid re-live such an awful memory.

The child squawked and nuzzled his face into Din’s cape. “Shh, sorry ad’ika . I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he chanted. “Really, I didn’t start to feel like a Mandalorian until I met you, and they came out to help us. This is the Way .” At the familiar words, the kid smiled, babbling in an attempt to repeat it, then turning to reach towards his favorite ball on the console. Smiling, Din unscrewed it and gave it to his son to play with. Silla had voiced concern about a choking hazard when she first saw it, then after an examination of the Child’s teeth and airways, decided it was passable.

“And now, I’ve made her feel like an outsider,” Din sighed. The Child’s ears twitched. “You like Silla?” The Child’s ears perked up and he happily cooed in response. “Yeah, she’s nice to you. It’s fun being around her, isn’t it?” he said, rubbing the Child’s ears to soft giggles. “She’s probably enjoying her time with you, but thinking that just because she’s a crew member doesn’t mean we like or care about her.” He ran a hand over his face, remembering that first day on the mountain and how relaxed they’d been around each other, and now she said that she was just a caretaker. I’m replaceable. He needs you, but you don’t need me. At best, you tolerate me.

The Child made a small cry of protest. “Of course we like her, and she knows you like her, but I’ve completely f-” he caught himself, and the Child tilted his head as if trying to coax him to continue with the uncensored version. “I’ve done a bad job of showing it. I’ve done the opposite actually, and she probably thinks it’s her fault,” He sighed, loudly this time as he leaned back into the chair. He’d gotten most of it out of his system talking to the kid, but the rest wasn’t appropriate for his big floppy ears. One word, yes or no, and she’d respected his choice and immediately removed herself from his side. Maybe she shouldn’t have been as aggressive when she made her offer, but anything harsh he could come up with had likely cycled through her thoughts over and over since he’d started freezing her out.

All because he couldn’t own up to his own lust and talk to her like an adult, to someone who, from her own words, had had experience and wouldn’t judge him for it. Instead, he’d treated her like the plague and hoped that distance would cool it and then make it disappear entirely, rather than the sick obsession that still continued to haunt him at night until he took himself in hand, no matter how much of that tea she kept leaving outside his cot.

“I should go apologize to her right now. What do you think?” The Child slowly clapped his hands in agreement, then let out a yawn. “Yeah, and your bed’s downstairs. Maybe we can ask her to sing you a lullaby.” The child mumbled in agreement, and Din slipped his helmet back on and gently rocked the kid in one arm as he left the cockpit and descended the ladder.

They found Silla in her hammock, her robe wrapped around her like a blanket, and her breath deep and even. Her music box was on the floor beneath her, slowing down but still playing. The child reached out, for he loved swinging on the hammock, but Din gently stopped him. “Let her sleep. We’ll talk later.” He got the two of them ready for bed, and when Din set the Child in his pod, the kid let out a small whine. He wanted the music box. Din hesitated. Silla had used it every night to help the child sleep, but it still felt like her possession. Still, if he didn’t use it, the Child was likely to get louder and wake her up. Quietly, Din retrieved the now silent box. He cranked it up and a familiar tune filled the cabin, and though the sound caused Silla to stir, she didn’t wake, and soon the kid was asleep too.

Silla had a point about his ad’ika being a calming influence, because after all that talk, Din fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

[juupajaa]

🌋Acts for change:

I chose the erupting volcano for this bc honestly that’s pretty much exactly what this stage is all about. This is the most difficult stage in eds, but also the stage that has the most powerful emotions and biggest character growth. It’s do or die and it’s ugly as hell, but we’re so close to being in the clear, we can’t lie down yet!

Ok it’s time to start a war lads. Acts for change is the worst when you’re in it, but afterwards it will feel like the most badass thing you’ve ever done. 

You’re ready to fight back and it’s time to take all those emotions you’ve been shoving under your pillow ever since things first started to go bad and you gotta take them out, and pour some gasoline on them, because we need to burn through all of it before this shit can stop. Acts for change is all about doing things you hate, fear and loathe. You’re going to go through a lot of shame, guilt, sadness, fear, anger, confusion, disgust, discomfort, anxiety yada yada yada. Just every nasty feeling you can imagine, you probably will go through it during this stage.

Depending on how long you’ve been stuck with your ed or how thoroughly the disordered thought patterns have infiltrated every corner of your mind, this part might be relatively easy or near impossible. For some, this part doesn’t need much, just some positive encouragement and a good enough lure at the end. For example, once you’ve pushed yourself out of hope for change and into this stage, you might have been building up a lot of willpower, and your life isn’t at a crumbling point. Maybe you know that something good is going to happen and you are extra motivated to recover for the sake of it. 

For others, their life still isn’t looking great and they’ve just barely made it into the acts for change by fear or pressure alone. In such a case, the workload can become overwhelming, and especially since there isn’t “much to look forward to” recovery doesn’t seem very appealing all the time. Needless to say, it is important to establish some sort of a dream for yourself. Anything to look forward to and fight for.

No matter the situation, everyone goes through some horrible days or even weeks during this stage and in general, you might be extremely confused by your mind, since it can pretty much turn upside down in an instant. One moment you’re full of might and you’re eager to get better, the next you’re regretting every step you’ve taken away from your ed. You’re going to be very moody, scared and irritated and that’s normal and everyone has to understand that you’re not yourself right now. Your mind is splitting in two and you’re constantly working extremely hard to save your life. Here are some thoughts you might be going back and forth with:

This is too hard, I will never succeed at this VS I can do this, I’m already doing so much

I wish I could go back to my ed VS I don’t ever want to go back to my ed

I am going to regret this so much VS I will never look back once I get out of this mess

I must have been faking the whole thing VS I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be fighting this hard if I had faked it

There’s nothing wrong with me, I should stop wasting everyone’s time VS I’m still very much ill and I am where I should be

Sometimes you don’t win this war and you relapse. It happens, but it doesn’t have to mean you sink back into the bottom. You can always climb back up to where you were, and every time you come here, you are smarter and stronger. If you do get overwhelmed and resort to going back a few stages, you can climb back up the same way you did earlier. Never think that you can’t climb back up here if you fall down. 

This stage requires you to face your fears and it isn’t easy. You can’t get it right on the first try, you’re bound to fail here and there, everyone does, but you have to make sure you keep your eyes to the future, rather than the past. Here are some things you might want to try/focus on during this stage:

Proper nutrition: the easiest way to do this is to get on a meal plan. You can find normal meal plans online. What you want to aim for is regular meals with enough nutrition to keep you healthy. This stage requires a lot of mental willpower and strength from you and you simply can’t beat this without being properly fed. It is such a bitch, because your relationship with food won’t get fixed without you eating normally. It sucks, it’s the worst, but honestly, try to imagine food is your medicine. You can hate it as much as you do, but you have to take it in order to get better.

Keeping external stress at bay: You are already under a lot of stress. If it’s at all possible, put a halt to most of your life. Ideally you could literally not think about anything but getting better for a few months, but that isn’t possible for many, so doing what you can and getting the help you can is a must. If there’s responsibilities you don’t have the energy to do, see if you can’t get someone to help you with them for some time. Keep your screen time very controlled, don’t let yourself see or hear anything that might upset you or make you feel more negative emotions. Surround yourself with things you like and things that make you calm.

Establish a dream, goal, or a future you’re working towards: I already touched on this briefly, but basically, you’ll need all the motivation you can get and sometimes it isn’t even enough. One of your main ways to cope with recovery/losing your old coping mechanism, should be daydreaming. Daydream all day if you like, make up big plans, make up small plans, just get busy and start picturing a life you want for yourself and keep thinking about it and how much you want it.

Practice mindfulness and consciousness: Yuck, I hate this shit. I’m too much of a hardass to feel totally composed regarding these exercises, but sure enough I have to do them at therapy every week. It does help, not gonna lie, but I don’t like it one bit. Some do, some find these things calming and enjoyable, but I mostly just start nervously twitching and squirming whenever I have to stay still and think about a happy place or to consciously tell myself that “I love myself and I wish good health for myself”. These exercises have helped me to stop running down my old disordered thought patterns everytime something bad happens to me and they help me to deconstruct those disordered thought patterns, but oh my god I hate doing these exercises, I just can’t calm down and relax.

During this stage, you are working to deconstruct the thought patterns that your ed has created for you. It is slow work, it is hard work, and it will feel like you’re stuck and not progressing at all, but trust me, you are making progress. Everytime you don’t do something you ed tells you to do, you’re undermining the thought pattern. Everytime you think something your ed makes you think, but add your own new recovery-flavoured addition to it, you’re undermining the thought patterns. Even if you don’t believe a word you’re saying to your ed when you’re trying to convince the both of you that this is the right thing to do, you’re making progress. These things are like picking up blades of grass with tweezers from a golf field. One at the time, slowly but surely.

This stage can last for months, you might slip backwards a few times, but rest assured, your progress won’t be undone. Just climb back up the next day, try again, and again, and again. Little by little you’re getting better and closer to the last stage of your ed (SPOILERS: it’s pretty good).

Let’s talk about treatment options, yeah? During the acts for change, you are extremely vulnerable to falling back into your disorder, for the negative emotions and discomfort are bound to be high and you are so used to using your disordered behaviour to compensate those emotions. 

This is why inpatient/residential is the most effective treatment option, because it relieves you of a lot of responsibility over yourself, while also removing you from you daily life and the stress. You are in a safe place where you can be as weak and miserable as you truly are, and someone is always there to help you through the hard moments and making sure you stick to your recovery. Inpatient isn’t the only way though and often not necessary. The only time inpatient is absolutely necessary is if your physical health is deteriorating and you need medical care. Being severy under or overweight, malnourished, or suffering from health complications might make inpatient needed, but in general, inpatient treatment is not necessary, unless you want it or can’t recover any other way. I went inpatient for my fourth episode with me ed. I was underweight and badly malnourished, but there was no medical emergency, so inpatient wasn’t exactly necessary, but I had the option to go and I took it.

Outpatient treatment, such as talk therapy sessions can be just as effective as inpatient, although it requires a lot more strength and willpower from you yourself. Outpatient treatment can be for example talk therapy, group therapy, regular check-ups with a doctor or a nurse, physiotherapy or seeing a nutritionist. The most effective way to make outpatient work is to make an outpatient team that communicates with one and other, and together you decide how to proceed each week.

Recovering without professional care is possible, but it is definitely the most difficult way to go about it and it can leave you unprepared for possible relapses. I’ve recovered on my own three times and each time it required me to sacrifice something in order for it to work. Usually I had to quit school or move back to my mother’s, so I could focus on what was important. I ate my mother’s food and didn’t do anything else until my disordered thought patterns had faded into oblivion. The support of family and friends is very important in every option, but especially if you don’t get professional care. 

I live in Finland and we have a really good healthcare system that didn’t absolutely bankrupt me and my family when I got help for my ed, but I know that’s not the case everywhere. However, even if you assume that you can’t afford care or don’t have options, I recommend confirming it from someone who knows these things. There are lots of ed centres online that you can contact and ask for advice if you don’t know what your options are. These places usually have some sort of crisis chat or number where you can talk to professionals, usually free of charge, if you feel like you’re about to lose your shit. Taking any help you can is key in recovery and trust me, you need it and you are absolutely worthy of it. These people get paid to do this, you’re not bothering them and they’re doing their job.

Acts for change lasts as long as it needs to and the shift to the next stage is gradual. It is the worst bullshit you’ll ever go through, but hey, you’re so close to being in the clear, you just gotta get through this one last stage and then it’s all going to fall into place and you’re gonna finally get to relax.

[beatrice-otter]

The myth of the “good” master

TW for talk about slavery and racism.

For those of you who don’t follow Star Wars stuff, @fialleril has lots of really good meta and stories fleshing out Tatooine slave culture and how that shaped Anakin and Shmi and Luke.  And one of the parts of that culture is a hatred of “Depur,” the master(s).

Somebody just sent them an ask about if there are any stories about good masters on Tatooine, who freed their slaves and provided cover for formerly enslaved people to do whatever, or who sold their slaves and got out.  (Asker replied to the response with an apology for using the word “sold”)  Fia had a good reply explaining why there wouldn’t, but I wanted to use Fia’s tags as a jumping off point for what I have to say about the myth of the “good” master, which is really prevalent in the US.  And shows up in fiction (written by White people) a lot, and it’s always really, really bad.  So let’s talk about both the problems with the myth, and the problems with the suggested stories about “good” masters.  First, Fia’s tags:

#slaves don't tell stories about 'good' masters

#it's the masters themselves #and their descendants trying to feel less guilty #who tell those stories

#i mean this ask is in the context of fiction and that's important

#but i'm also aware that i say this as a white person in america #and i remember hearing all sorts of stories about 'good' slave masters as a kid

#but you know what? #white people are the only ones who tell those stories #it's a way of trying to get around the sense of collective guilt

#so i actually could see stories like this cropping up in a future gffa #where tatooine has been free for a couple decades

#but you can bet it's not going to be the descendants of slaves telling those stories

I’m white, but I’ve studied US History and read books by Black people about slavery.  Black people today do not tell stories of "good" slave owners.  Just like Jewish people don't tell stories of "good" Nazis. I've heard Black interpreters at living history exhibits talk about how horrifying and exhausting it is to deal with White people trying to find a way to make the slave owner a good person.  They just keep asking and asking and posing what-if after what-if and trying to find SOME WAY that it's okay to participate in the system of slavery.  Some way to excuse what their ancestors (or the ancestors of their culture) did.  Some way to exonerate the ones we came from.  And the black re-enactor has to deal with this crap, and it is horrifying for them.   It is some of the most degrading emotional labor I can imagine.  At its heart, the insistence on “good” slaveowners comes from a place of arrogance and privilege and selfishness.  It’s saying “My desire to sweep my ancestor’s sins under the rug and pretend the evil they did was not evil is more important than the pain and suffering they caused, and it’s also more important than the pain and suffering I’m causing the Black people around me by trying to justify the people who hurt their ancestors and would hurt them too if they’d lived back then.”

Pretty much every study of slavery in the US I’ve ever read that went into any detail found that slavery was an intensely corroding social mechanism for everyone at every level of society who participated in it, willingly or unwillingly.  To participate, you had to either actively degrade and abuse other human beings, knowingly allow other human beings to be degraded and abused, or be degraded and abused yourself.  Not all slaveowners thought the system was right; not all slaveowners were vicious to their slaves.  But even the ones who disliked the system and were not personally vicious depended on the threat of selling their slaves to others who were worse than them to keep their slaves in line. And if you were a slaveowner, even one who consciously believed that slavery was wrong, well, human beings are terrible at admitting when we’re wrong.  There are all sorts of ways in which you slip down the path to justifying your actions.  “Yes, it’s wrong, but...” “Yes, I’m a slaveowner, but I’m not like those other slaveowners,”  “I’m a good slaveowner, so my slaves should be grateful to me because I’m so nice to them.”

Women, do these justifications sound familiar to you?  It’s #notallmen!  That’s what it is!  Except there really are men who treat women well and don’t perpetuate rape culture and the patriarchy, and there is no way to be a slaveowner without being part of the slave system.  Yes, all slaveowners did evil or facilitated evil or profited from evil.  Some of them just chose to use others to do the dirty work.  Owning slaves is inherently degrading and oppressive and abusive.  There’s no way around it.

Probably the best exploration of the “good slaveowner” myth I’ve ever seen is the 2016 movie Birth of a Nation by Nate Parker, about the Nat Turner slave rebellion of 1831.  The film is mostly about Nat, of course, but it also deals with the family that owned him, a “nice, good” White family.  They’re nice people.  Good, by the standards of their society.  They are a stark contrast to the horrifying evil of the slaveowners around them.  And yet ... they participate knowingly in that society.  They know it’s wrong and they still want to be respected by their neighbors whom they know do evil things.  So they themselves keep saying and doing things that get worse and worse, things that they know are wrong, because they choose fitting in to an evil society over doing the right thing.  It’s very accurate to the choices and reactions of most people we would label as “good” slaveowners, and in a lot of ways it made them more horrifying than the slaveowners who delighted in torturing their slaves.  The torturers were twisted and evil but they didn’t know any better.  The “good” slaveowners knew better and still did it anyway.

For decades there has been this idea (among White historians) that, even for those who accepted that there were no “good” slaveowners, White women whose families owned slaves could still be “good” slaveowners because they didn’t directly own slaves (married women not being allowed to own property) and were powerless to do anything to stop it.  A Black historian recently challenged this by showing that there were all SORTS of legal workarounds for this, and many married White women routinely owned their own slaves; many were given their first slave as a child and owning slaves was part of their identity.  In the places she’s studied, about 40% of slaveowners were women.  Interestingly enough, by comparing various primary sources by and about specific White women slaveowners, some of them seemed to be consciously creating the myth of a “good” slaveowner whose treatment of their slaves is a net benefit for the slave.  These women she’s pretty sure, knew that was false, but they wanted to be seen that way.  They know it’s purely selfish, but they want to be seen as altruistic.  So they lie.

The ask suggested a “good” slaveowner who freed their slaves and let them do whatever as cover.  The thing is, someone who frees slaves is, by definition, NOT a slave owner.  They are not maintaining power over any person. They are not benefiting or profiting from owning people in any way, shape, or form.  The idea that they could then pretend to be a slaveowner and use the privilege it gives them in order to cover for the actions of escaping slaves is bogus.  There is no way to maintain a position of power in a slave society without participating in enslavement.  Why?  Because the other slaveowners will notice if all your slaves disappear.  And they will not be happy.  And they will, at best, exclude you and not trust you.  If you free your slaves, you lose all status.  Unless, what, you free them and they keep working for you as cover for being a stop on the underground railroad?  There's easier and cheaper ways of setting up stops that don't involve formerly enslaved people having to act like slaves.  Can you imagine what that would be like?  You could not really be free, not inside your head, because you would have to keep playing that part.  It would be incredibly corrosive to the psyche of both "slave" and "master."  Because when we repeatedly do or say something, our brains incorporate that as right or good or natural even when we know better.  That's how brainwashing works.  If you repeat a lie often enough, even knowing that it is a lie, you begin to believe in it.  Formerly enslaved people setting up ruses that involve pretending to be enslaved for a brief mission is one thing.  A former master setting up something where the formerly enslaved people have to re-enact their enslavement ... yikes.

If we were talking about a real-life situation, would it be possible for it to happen in a way that was not bad?  Maybe for short temporary skirmishes into slaveowner society.  But given how much racism is wrapped up in the “good slaveowner” myth in American society, how much we cling to that myth and how much damage it does to real black people here and now, this is not a story we should be telling.  If a Black person wanted to write that story, okay, fine.  I highly doubt any would, because like Fia said earlier, Black people really do not tell stories of “good” slaveowners.  But in the here-and-now, given how much racism is wrapped up in the myth of the “good” slaveowner, I guarantee you that any White person trying to write such a story--even set in a fictional universe like Star Wars!--there’s pretty much no way for a White person to tell that story in a way that doesn’t reinforce current-day racism and slavery justifications.  And that goes for pretty much any story set in any fantasy, SFF, or alternate universe where slavery is present.  Not all slaveowners have to be mustache-twirling villains.  You can do complex things with them and relative moral states.  But if you ever start thinking of any of them as “good” stop right there and take a step back and take a good, hard look at what you’re doing.

OP also suggested a master being “good” for selling all their slaves, which they later realized was a stupid thing to say.  I’m glad they realized it, but I’d still like to address it.  "Oh, poor me, I have realized that it is wrong to treat people like property!  Boo-hoo!  I cannot own them any longer!  But if I free them, I will lose money and status!  So I will sell them to other people!  They're still slaves, but I'M such a good person because I have realized it's wrong to own people and now I don't any more!"  The slaveowner realizes that slavery is wrong and SELLS their slaves instead of FREEING them.  That does not make them a good person, that makes them a selfish person more concerned with feeling good about themself than actually doing something to reduce the harm they are causing.  This is a common thing humans do; “I don’t want to feel bad about having done this bad thing, so I’ll stop doing it in the way that has the least consequences for me, even if that screws over the people I’ve already screwed over.”  And it’s far more likely in situations where we think, consciously or subconsciously, that the people they screwed over are not their equals or not really people or don’t really matter.  When we realize we have hurt people we are biased against, we are often more concerned with salving our conscience than restoring the wrong we did.  This sort of conscience-salving is not the same as actually doing good, and it’s something we should all be on the lookout for in ourselves.  It can be very effective in a fictional character, as long as you don’t buy into the character’s self-justifying BS.

Please don’t dogpile the OP or abuse them.  I’m pretty sure it’s just a Clueless White Person who’s heard the story of Good Slaveowners all their life and bought into it.  Correction is one thing; dogpiling is another.

[alotokait]

Hey there :) can you explain to me why you love the 'can you do it out of love' scene so much? Bc for me Jaz manipulates Flor by saying this (I love Jazmin I love both of them) I just don't see the beauty in this scene like you but I want to! All I hear is "You have to do it so we can adopt them" I know Flor loves Jaz & the kids but I don't know if that's enough... If she forces herself to go out of love I can't see it working bc she didn't go on her own... Thank you for taking your time!

Okay my reply is going to be long bc we’re going to break it down moment by moment.

So remember at the beginning of the episode, Flor states that, while meeting with the judge, she was nervous in the beginning and then managed to calm down. We know when Flor is nervous, she has her tics so my guess is she said somethings that weren’t inappropriate etc. She had her tics.

So the first thing to me is, Jaz gets a call from the court saying they cannot adopt the girls. The reason they cannot adopt the girls, at this moment, is because of Flor’s Tourettes and I’m assuming the outbursts she had in the meeting. So, I guess the judge was feeling nice and decided to give them a second chance by talking to Jaz. 

So Flor already knows whatever Jaz is about to say is going to affect her. She even asks if it’s good or it’s bad. Jazmin says “It depends on how you see it”, right? And Flor automatically knows it’s not good news. 

So Jaz automatically asks if Flor trusts her and Flor answers always. I think, this is an incredibly hard thing for Jaz to do because she already knows from the bar incident that Flor does not want treatment. She doesn’t want to go through treatment. I think the reason she asks Flor if she trusts her is to state, you’re not going to like this and I know that, but it’s just something we have to do.

So Jaz explains everything. Why she didn’t go with Flor? Why she didn’t tell Flor she was going to court? The judge asked to speak to her, specifically. Imagine being Jaz, after having a morning in court with your soon to be wife and hearing the judge say she only wants to talk to you and you only. We know Jaz hates lying. The whole day, having to lie to Flor, probably did not do well for Jaz either, but she went to the court and was told they weren’t going to be able to adopt. 

Flor immediately starts to panic and Jaz immediately starts explainging, that she was able to create a space where they are still an option. Then she tells Flor she has to get treatment, but pay attention to how long she pauses before she says it. Pay attention the way she tells Flor they have to follow the requirements. Her voice gets soft when saying “requirements” because, in my opinion, she doesn’t want to have to do this either. She don’t want Flor to have to go through this and she doesn’t want to have to tell her, but it’s the only way. 

Her pause before telling Flor she needs to get treatment, to me, is Jaz taking the moment to make sure she says it correctly. And then Flor says “So the problem is me?” And Jaz says “No, you’re not the problem. You just have to get treatment.” Look at her eyes and listen to her voice when she says that. Her voice is shaky and her eyes are close to watering because she never wants to make Flor feel like something is her fault because of her Tourettes.

And then Flor says “I’m going to be a bad mother” and Jaz replies with “No, I knew you would say that.” And it’s because it’s Flor’s defense mechanism and Jaz, once again, does not want Flor to think that because Jaz knows how wonderful Flor is. How beautiful her heart is, but the judge, unfortunately sees the problem. The judge only sees the Tourettes. Jaz is not going to let that be what the judge sees because she would never let ANYone see anything other than who Flor is.

So Flor reacts and Jaz knew this is how she was going to react. Jaz is trying to keep her calm and keep her thoughts rational. That’s why it gets super intense. And then Flor explains, “I don’t like being forced.” And Jaz says, “I don’t see it that way.” This is where you have to realize Jaz does not see Flor the way others see Flor. Jaz has seen Flor do so many things out of the love she has. Look at Jaz’s eyes. They are red because she doesn’t want to see Flor like this. She doesn’t want to ever see Flor like this.

“So how do you see it?” Flor reacts with hitting. We already know that anytime Flor does something to hurt herself, ie hit her chest, it hurts Jaz just as much because she wants to take that pain. So Jaz, stops it and then says:

“You’re doing it out of love.” Flor has already talked about how much she loves Viole and Meli. How much seeing Viole singing on the street and meeting her meant. Flor was the one who suggested adoption and Flor was the one who has said, multiple times, that she and Jaz both have so much love to give, why not adopt? There are kids who need love and they have the love to give.

“Can you do it out of love?” Flor nods because she knows the only way she’s going to be able to adopt is if she gets treatment. The only way she will have her daughters is through love. Jaz isn’t being malicious. Jaz is having to have a conversation that hurts her just as much as Flor because Jaz knows how much Flor doesn’t want treatment. But she knows that Flor has a huge heart and she knows that Flor wants to adopt these two little girls and give them a home. The question isn’t a way to trick Flor, it’s to remind Flor of the love that she has and the love she wants to give.

And Flor nods because she is reminded of her own words and she has her soon to be wife, right in front of her. She knows Jaz is going to be there through the whole process. She knows Jaz is going to help her in anyway that she can. And she knows she won’t be going through this alone. So what does she do? She nods and falls into the comfort of Jazmin’s arms because that is where she feels the safest. And she knows, with Jazmin, she can and will do anything to adopt these two little girls and give them the love they need. The home they need.