#make fun of them for the negative trait that they are willingly choosing to have

[fenhonig]

hey so im salty.

i saw something on reddit today that reminded me of why i feel such anger towards beauty standards. it was a video of a little girl, she couldnt have been over 5 or 6 years old, and she had a birthmark on her face. the skin right above her nose on her forehead was darker and wrinkled. nothing wrong so far, right?

here's the funny part. in the video, it shows this child before and after getting the birthmark surgically removed, which sounds fine on the surface right? even positive?

i cannot tell you how fucking angry it makes me. this kid, this CHILD, had her parents decide that her birthmark was something WRONG with her. they decided FOR HER to have it removed. it boils my fucking blood that her PARENTS, people who are supposed to LOVE HER UNCONDITIONALLY, saw this unique part of their child and decided that it was something that had to be removed. this kid is going to grow up knowing that this mark was something that was seen as a flaw. and that fucking hurts me.

it doesnt even seem like a big deal at first until you realize that this logic doesnt JUST apply to people with noticable birthmarks. you wanna know who also regularly get their bodies surgically altered at extremely young ages for aesthetic reasons even though there's nothing that would pose a threat to their health? intersex babies. not enough for you? how about babies born with certain deformities that, on their own, pose no threat to their health? do you think its ok to just decide that these children arent aesthetically appealing enough? to just decide for them to make a life-changing surgery happen?

and dont even come to me with the "well some conditions require surgical intervention" because thats not what im fucking talking about. im talking about people who are perfectly healthy, theres nothing about their unique condition that poses a threat to their health, but because that condition is seen as "weird" or "gross", they have their bodies permanently altered without any fucking say in it.

why do we teach these kids that there was something "wrong" that had to be "corrected" for them? why do we refuse to teach other kids that these differences arent a bad thing? why do CHILDREN, LITERAL FUCKING CHILDREN, have to be aesthetically pleasing for their parents to love them? you cant "love your child unconditionally" and then decide that one of their traits is just so unappealing that you decide to remove it for them. you dont love them unconditionally. you love them when they look normal to you.

i dont even care if it looks like im overreacting because this shit can, will, and already has hurt people. imagine growing up and knowing that your parents got rid of a trait that only you had JUST to make you look more pretty. more presentable. it didnt matter to your parents how you would feel afterwards when you could comprehend what had happened, all that mattered to them is that you looked appealing. that you looked correct. that you looked normal.

imagine being at that age and then realizing years later that you didnt look pretty enough for your parents to fully accept you. thats disgusting, absolutely fucking disgusting. children shouldnt be taught that certain traits make you have something wrong with you. instead of teaching kids to accept people and themselves as they are, parents teach their kids that they and other kids have to look normal to be accepted. they dont say it, but thats exactly what they teach.

people shouldnt have to fit into a certain box just to be seen as worthwhile. i dont even think that teaching kids that people outside the box matter too is good enough. we should teach kids that there shouldnt be a box in the first place.

you shouldnt have to look any sort of way to receive acceptance and love. you shouldnt have to BE any sort of way to receive acceptance and love. you're worthwhile. the way you were born shouldnt determine your worth, your actions should. some people arent worth the time, i will admit, but the people who are written off just for being born different deserve so much more.

if you're someone who is hated, seen as gross, seen as disgusting or seen as weird for something out of your control, remember that it isnt you who should take the blame. your own behavior, actions, views, they are what matters. anyone who targets you for something you couldnt control? fuck em.

that is my ramble, im extremely tired, please love yourself. and if you cant then love the people like you, maybe that will help.

[soulmate-game]

Daughter of wonderwoman au where marinette finds out her mother is actually Diana and somehow it ends up with her meeting/being introduced to the batfam maybe because she has super strength and is seen yeeting some bad guys who tried to mug her... Or something.

“... you are running from your problems, Mari,” Adrien’s exasperated voice reminded his best friend. Again. She ignored him, and he threw his hands up in exasperation. “Look, you don’t have to do anything about it! Nobody would hold it against you if you decided to just, ignore that you found anything out at all. But you need to actually think about what we just found out and decide whether or not you’re gonna do anything—“ he side-stepped a piece of trash that went flying in his direction. “—or if you’re gonna move on and pretend nothing happened.”

“Isn’t that what I’m doing?” Marinette shot back, pushing her bangs out of her face and tying her hair back with one hand.

“No, you’re currently hiding away in Gotham to avoid your parents while you beat up every random group of idiots who thinks you’re an easy mark,” he retorted. Another wannabe kidnapper went flying in his direction, making him sigh and side step again. She had thrown that one with only her one free hand, showing just how upset she was. “You’re ignoring everything in your life, which is not what we meant we said you should get a little space.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Marinette dropkicked the last criminal into unconsciousness before stepping back and putting her hands on her hips. She looked over at the now seven passed out men in the alleyway, and the one very frustrated ex-model pinching the bride of his nose. “I think I’m coping just fine.”

“It’s better than being forced to suppress all of your emotions, sure,” Adrien reluctantly agreed. “But not by much. Your angry rampage through Gotham has already attracted more attention,” he raised his hand to point at a nearby rooftop. Several shadows lurked there, looming over the building’s edge. “Which, might I add, is exactly why I told you not to come to Gotham.”

“You’re the one who followed me here,” she shot back before turning to the shadowy figures above them. “Go ahead and come down! But it was self defense, and you can’t arrest or beat me up for defending myself!”

The first figure to drop down straightened your just as quickly, revealing the imposing figure of none other than Batman himself. The little white eyes on his cowl seemed to narrow on their own as he looked down at her.

“That might be true, but I’m sure you know my policy on metas in my city,” he grumbled back at her. He wasn’t necessarily threatening, but he definitely wasn’t welcoming either. With all of his limbs hidden behind the cocoon that was his cape, Marinette would never be able to predict his next move if he did decide to fight. Not that she seemed particularly worried about that as she crossed her arms over her chest and met his glare evenly.

“Oh, do you own this city now? I wasn’t given the memo,” she retorted. “And considering I didn’t even know I was a meta until last week? I think I deserve a little slack. I’m angry and if people think the tiny little girl in pink is an easy kidnapping target, then it’s their fault for making themselves into the perfect practice dummies for me to try out my newly discovered strength on.”

Adrien saw the eyes on Batman’s mask narrow even further. Marinette wasn’t exactly at her most charismatic at the moment, and Adrien didn’t wanna get the both of them into a bad relationship with the experienced superhero who always seemed to know things he shouldn’t know. So he stepped up quickly, getting in between Marinette and the Bat and holding his hands up in a placating gesture.

“Okay, Monsieur Batman,” Adrien started slowly, making sure his posture was impeccable and his smile bright. “She’s telling the truth, even if she’s not... the most tactful about it right now. She just found out some very concerning things about her origin and Gotham is the best place for her to hide from her problems and let loose a little pent up aggression. But— well,” he grimaced. “We didn’t intend to run into you guys, but maybe it’s a good thing we did.”

“How so?” Batman was clearly still incredibly suspicious of the both of them and wasn’t giving an inch. So Marinette rolled her eyes (she was still very moody) and leaned around Adrien so she could get a good look at the monochromatic hero.

“I thank my lucky spots that we ran into you, Batman!” She said monotonously. “Me and Adrien are paw-sitively excited at this opportunity.”

Batman. Froze.

Not only were those two lines the very first lines ever spoken to him by two foreign heroes a few years ago (with a few key words changed to protect identities), but they had become their code phrase for whenever they made calls to one another outside of their costumes. All at once it seemed to hit him— the golden hair and bright green eyes on the boy, the blue-black hair and normally super-focused bluebell eyes on the girl that were currently sporting very uncharacteristic frustration. Their heights. Their builds. All of this info flowed through his mind and compared to the information stored in his memory, and it only took the span of two seconds for everything to click.

Suddenly Batman was at full attention, back straight instead of looming over them and eyebrows clearly raised high under his cowl.

He knew Chat Noir and Ladybug would never take a random vacation to Gotham. Ladybug herself had nearly waxed poetic about how much the city depressed her just from the pictures she saw online. If she had willingly come to visit, it was more than to just blow off some steam.

“Batcave?” He asked, earning a relieved look from Adrien and a moody silence from Marinette.

“Please,” Adrien agreed. “You can probably help us, actually.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Marinette leaned back in the metal debriefing chair, legs up on the table and looking for all the world as the picture of pure teenage rebellion and angst. Coincidentally, Red Hood was in the exact same position in the chair next to her.

Batman and all of his other bats and birds were in the cave with the two off-duty Parisian heroes. Everyone except Adrien and Marinette still had their masks on, since the two Parisians were still not privy to their identities. Yet.

To be fair, the bats hadn’t known the identities of the two miraculous users either before today.

“Cha Noir,” Batman started, only to get a head shake from the blond boy.

“Just call me Adrien. Chat’s out of the bag—“ he ignored the groans at the pun and soldiered on, “—so might as well use my real name.”

Batman nodded. “Adrien, then,” he amended. “Why are you and Ladybug really in Gotham?”

Adrien sighed. “I wasn’t lying, before. Marinette,” he gestured to his hero partner. “Just found out some distressing family news. Since HawkMoth is gone, she doesn’t need to repress her negative emotions anymore. But she also didn’t want to be around her parents while she processed everything. I told her to choose any other city— really, I begged— but she insisted on coming to Gotham.”

“The never ending cloud cover and constant rain seem thematic,” she finally spoke up, reaching into her big over-the-shoulder bag and pulling out a large envelope. She threw it to Batman, making the thin package slice through the air like a knife. To nobody’s surprise the seasoned hero easily caught the projectile between two fingers. He looked at the envelope and back to Marinette, silent questions floating in the air between them. Marinette decided to answer at her own pace.

“That’s what we found out. You see, one of my friends is a huge science nerd. A genius. And he wanted to compare DNA samples between us to see if there were any genetic components that determined a person’s suitability towards certain Miraculous or other magical artifacts over others. It was supposed to just be a fun side project that he didn’t expect any breakthroughs on. He mostly just wanted to satisfy his own curiosity. But instead of finding out if our DNA was linked to the miraculous, he found out that my parents are not biologically my parents.”

“Hence the whole just finding out that you’re a meta thing, right?” Nightwing spoke up, fully invested in the story. “Did they never say you were adopted before?”

“It’s not in the system,” she replied easily. “My parents have all the documentation to prove that I’m their biological child, except I’m not. When I confronted them about it, they caved and admitted that they had adopted me in secret and covered it up. Apparently a friend of theirs was involved in something illegal, and,” she waved at the envelope that Batman was now opening. “The details of what we were able to dig up are in there. The summary is this; their friend was part of a secret, illegal experimentation to create clones that could defeat the Justice League—“ the air seemed to get sucked out of the room as soon as those words left Marinette’s mouth. Everyone seemed to know exactly what she was talking about. “—a group called CADMUS. They made me, as apparently one of their early attempts. But I didn’t exhibit any of the powers they were looking for, or any meta traits at all, and my body refused to mature at the rate they wanted. They had no use for a seemingly normal human baby that they managed to clone, so they were preparing to kill me and start over. That’s when my parent’s friend stole me, not wanting to kill an infant, and begged my parents to take me in and pretend I was theirs. Low and behold, it turns out that my DNA just needed a very specific series of emotions to unlock it’s latent abilities.”

“Those emotions being..?” Red hood trailed off, earning a wolfish smile from Marinette.

“Intense anger, betrayal, and confused frustration closely followed by the desire to punch other people’s faces in.”

“That last one is just an assumption,” Adrien chimed in. “And maybe not accurate. But the first three, our scientist friend was able to confirm. The rapid experience of a lot of negative but action-oriented emotions released whatever had been holding back the powers in her DNA from expressing themselves,” he had switched to French so that he could explain everything exactly as Max had told it to them, but he knew all of them were fluent anyway so it was fine. They nodded along, processing the information.

The crinkling of paper drew everyone’s attention back to Batman, who had been flipping through the detailed break down of everything they had found about Marinette’s situation and how she was made by CADMUS.

“Uh,” Red Robin nervously spoke up. “What’s up, Batman?”

“Your genetic donors...” Batman breathed, getting a wink and finger guns from Marinette.

“Yup. Isn’t that just the most fucked up thing you’ve ever seen? They were clearly trying to make someone who could destroy the world.”

“That makes me nervous,” Nightwing admitted, getting up and going to get a look at the papers himself. “It can’t be that ba—“

When even Nightwing was left agape, everyone else who wasn’t in on it found themselves squirming.

“Just tell the rest of us, already!” Robin demanded after the silence stretched just a bit too long.

“The unknowing genetic donors that CADMUS used to make me,” Marinette spoke up, still with her legs up on the table. “Are a very mad-scientist’s-wet-dream combination of Lex Luthor, Bruce Wayne, and Wonder Woman.”

“We don’t even know why they added Bruce Wayne’s DNA,” Adrien admitted. “Although our scientist friend thinks it’s because of physique. His hypothesis is that, in order to support the genes of Wonder Woman, they had to add male genetics that could support the production of a very high muscle mass and would lean towards easy development of a very athletic body. Lex might be evil-scientist smart, but he’s a string bean. But if he added the DNA of another multi millionaire who just so happens to maintain a ridiculously fit body without putting any obvious work into it,” Adrien shrugged. “Then maybe the clone would be able to support Wonder Woman’s genetics and that of two human donors without falling apart.”

“So I’m ‘the clone’ now, huh?” Marinette snarked, earning an exasperated eye roll from her friend.

Batman just stared at the both of them for a moment. He walked away without a word, and came back with a fresh needle and a box. He placed it on the debriefing table.

“Can I do a paternity test myself?” He asked, his voice suspiciously less gruff than normal. “I trust the both of you, but I rather be safe than sorry with something like this.”

The both of them just stared at him in confusion. They traded a glance, and finally Marinette shrugged and moved to sit in her chair properly. Her shirt was already short sleeved, so she just held her arm out so Batman could easily get a blood sample.

“Sure, why not. But do you just have Lex Luthor or Bruce Wayne’s DNA sitting around to compare, or—“ she shut up when she watched Batman take off his glove and roll his own sleeve up. Realization slowly sunk in as he asked Nightwing to take a blood sample from him.

“Holy shit,” she breathed, eyes wide. “You’re— and Luthor doesn’t know— holy shit this is even worse than I thought,” Marinette rambled, not even noticing as Red Hood moved forward and took a small blood sample from her.

Adrien put a hand over his face and just laughed for a moment hysterically. “Oh my god,” he looked over at Marinette. “You could take over the world.”

“I have the blood of Batman AND Wonder Woman on MY side,” Marinette joked back, also hysterical.

When the bat’s high tech equipment was able to come back with a positive result only a few minutes later, Marinette and Adrien had to sit on the floor and just let it all sink in. Which Batman did not at all help by immediately unmasking himself and trying to make a proper introduction.

“I wanna go beat up random thugs again,” Marinette whined, pulling at her hair. “I’ll put on a mask, whatever, but just please let me punch people. I need to punch people right now.”

[thenexusofsouls]

Muse: Archangel Michael

[Bio and other information below the cut!]

Type of Character & Fandom/Source Material: Fantasy canon character from the movie Legion (2010)

FC: Paul Bettany as Michael

Race: Archangel

Age: Ancient

Occupation: Soldier, by his own admission “a general in His army,” referring to God

Potentially Triggering Material in Threads: Religious themes (Christianity); possession (by demons or angels); violence (especially gun, sword, and knife violence); child harm and death (having to do with the events of Legion)

Family: Legions of angelic brothers and sisters

Negative Personality Traits: He’s stoic and can seem cold at times; he may make difficult decisions in the name of the greater good that seem cruel or insensitive; he kills rather easily when he feels it’s needed; he doesn’t sugarcoat anything, even if it would make others feel better; he would let one or even a few people die without hesitation if it would save many

Positive Personality Traits: He’s brave, honorable, selfless, truthful, faithful, dependable, and he loves humans very much despite their flaws

Background: He is the traditional Archangel Michael of Christian lore, a general in God’s army alongside other angels like Gabriel. As is common in Christian lore regarding angels, he is bound to do God’s will and technically does not have his own free will, or at least is forbidden to exercise it. He must follow any and all orders given to him by God or he will fall. In Legion, he chooses to fall willingly, disobeying an order from God that he did not agree with. This puts him at odds with all other angels, including Gabriel. Michael sides with humanity, losing his wings and becoming mortal to fight alongside them in a doomsday standoff type situation.

During the events of Legion, Michael was ordered by God to kill a child who, if born, would become the savior of mankind and lead them out of the darkness of an extermination apocalypse began by God Himself. God lost faith in mankind and wanted to wipe them from the earth. The child’s death would ensure that. Michael did not agree with that order and Fell from Heaven, severing his wings and connection to God to protect the child’s mother until it was born. What followed was a standoff between several people and Michael trapped in a roadside diner in the desert of midwestern America and the legions of angels possession weak-willed humans and attempting to get inside and kill the child. Michael was successful, the child was born, and God sent Gabriel to do what Michael did not. Gabriel killed Michael, but God was so impressed with Michael’s sacrifice and willingness to damn himself for a wholly unselfish reason, that He brought Michael back to life and reinstated him as an angel. Michael defeated Gabriel, ensuring that the child would live, for now.

Potential Starter Ideas:

He could fall to earth and become mortal to protect a specific individual muse or their child (unborn or not).

Following the events of Legion, Michael could avoid death at Gabriel’s hands and remain a mortal on earth, choosing to go his own way after the apocalypse is over.

Following the events of Legion, after he is resurrected by God and reinstated as an angel, he could remain on earth to continue to assist muses who need help.

He could remain an angel and be sent to earth to do literally anything else involving your muse that makes sense, heh.

Fun facts: Although Michael is an ancient being, he knows a great deal about humans and their lives on earth. He understands things like television, guns, cars, etc. He even knows how to drive!

[xtyjbburn]

august challenge 2020 - task #3  the questionnaire

THE BASICS

• What is your celebrity’s full name?

Tyler Jordon Blackburn

• Do they have any nicknames? Go by any other names?

Ty, TT

• What is their birthday?

October 12, 1986

• Where were they born?

Los Angeles

• Where were they raised?

Los Angeles

• Where in Bayview do they live?

Downtown Historical District

• How long have they lived in town?

On and off since August 2019

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

• What is your celebrity’s general build?

he’s got a swimmers body, a little on the stockier with age but he’s maintained his swimmers body

• What is their natural hair color?

blonde as a child, medium brown as an adult

• If their hair color has changed, what is it now?

it’s gotten darker over the years naturally, it’s a solid brown now

• What is your celebrity’s eye color?

dark brown

• Do they wear glasses or contacts?

he has worn contacts most of his life

• What is your celebrity’s best asset?

His cheekbones, everyone is obsessed

• What is something they’re insecure about?

his body. also, his sexuality being public, he’s still working on that.

• Do they have any piercings?

one ear piercing

• How about tattoos?

two tattoos

• Any prominent scars with good stories behind them?

scar on his forehead from hitting his head on a window as a toddler, scar on his left shoulder from a benign tumor he had removed as a kid

• Does your celebrity regularly wear make-up?

No, only for work

• What’s their skincare routine like?

Simple few step cleanser and moisturizer

• How does your celebrity dress on the average, every day?

board shorts or joggers and a tshirt

• What about for more dress-up, formal days?

dark jeans with a tshirt and a button up or suit jacket over it

THE EARLY YEARS

• What was your celebrity like as a child?

quiet but still outgoing

• How about the teen years?

during his teen years, Tyler fully turned inward and shut the world out as he dealt with depression

• What kind of life did your celebrity have growing up?

He had a comfortable life that was tainted by the division in his family and internal demons that had ahold of him through his teen and early adult years

• What were your celebrity’s goals as a younger person?

He’s always wanted to act though as a teen his only goal was to get past his mental health struggles

• Is there a smell that reminds them of childhood?

the Pacific Ocean

• How about a favorite movie, TV show or toy?

TMNT was his thing growing up

• What advice would your celebrity give to their younger self?

You are loved by so many, you have no idea. You are enough. You will be okay.

• Did your celebrity play any sports growing up?

He was captain of the swim team in high school

THE FAMILY TREE

• Who is in their immediate family?

Mama Blackburn Kim, Dad Rob, Stepmom Carolyne, brothers Ryan, Adam and Carson

• What’s their extended family like?

They’re all very loving and supportive, but there is still remnants of a strain

• What does family mean to your celebrity?

those who love you unconditionally

• Are they close to their family in general?

He’s close to his mom, and brothers, but his chosen family is his friends

• Who in their family are they closest to?

his mom, he’s a mamas boy. and brothers

• Does your celebrity have any children?

Nope.

• If they do not have children, do they want any someday?

Someday but not anytime soon.

• If they do have children, do they want more children?

N/A

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIPS

• Is your celebrity currently in a relationship?

Nope.

• What is the longest relationship your celebrity has ever been in?

2 years.

• If it’s not their current relationship, why did it end?

Long distance

• What’s the shortest relationship your celebrity has ever been in?

most haven’t been past a couple months

• If it’s not their current relationship, why did it end?

various reasons

• Is your celebrity into PDA, or more private?

He’s private with his partners, but all for the raunchiest of PDA with close friends

• How do they display affection to others?

Tyler’s a very touchy feely individual, however if that’s not a comfort of the other party, he’s also good with verbalizing his love for others. But it’s typically either, or.

• What is your celebrity’s current sex life like?

He’s had a revolving door of hookups in town

• What sort of relationship does your celebrity look for?

Just someone who makes him happy who he doesn’t have to overly accommodate considering his work

• Do they feel happiest when they’re in a relationship, or single?

He hasn’t been in a relationship quiet as much to compare it to the single life, so he claims he’s happier single

• Does your celebrity have a best friend?

Does Dylan count? He has his friends he considers family in LA, his best friends in town are probably Zach and Sophie

• What does your celebrity look for in their friendships?

People who love him no matter what and help ease life for him, in whatever way possible. Bonus points for someone he can go surfing with.

• Are they the type of person to have a small group of friends, or large?

Small group of friends

• In friendships, is your celebrity more of the giver or taker?

He goes back and forth, depends on the friendship

• Has your celebrity ever had to end a friendship with someone?

A few

THE THINGS THAT THEY DO

• What does your celebrity do for a living?

television actor

• If they could choose any other career, what would it be?

musician

• When growing up, what did they want to do?

He’s wanted to be a performer since grade school. Acting is the job for him.

• Do they enjoy their current job?

Yes

• What about hobbies, what do they like to do?

Surfing, playing and writing music, playing with Dylan

• As far as school goes, how far did they take their education?

he’s a high school graduate

• If they had to go (back) to school, what would it be for?

Maybe more behind the scenes work, still in entertainment

THE FUN STUFF

• Are there phrases or words your celebrity uses a lot?

There’s lots of cursing

• Would you say they’re optimistic or pessimistic?

realist who reads as pessimistic

• How about introverted or extroverted?

introverted 100%

• Do they have any really bad habits?

Smoking. He’s tried to quit multiple times and it just hasn’t stuck.

• What is something that always makes them laugh?

His friends, he surrounds himself with those who make him smile

• And something that always makes them cry?

Thinking about life a little too much

• How would your celebrity like to be seen by others?

He’d like to be seen as someone who has accomplished much so far and continues to willingly grow as a person, and a influential member of the 🏳️‍🌈 community

• And how do they feel others actually see them?

That one guy from that one show

• What are some of their strongest (positive) traits?

His caring nature

His hardworking ways

His effort to be positive to others

• What are some of their weakest (negative) traits?

His addictive nature

His self doubt

His unwillingness to explore love in a serious capacity

• How do they react when someone pays them a compliment?

He gets awkward but says thank you

• But how do they react to criticism?

He’s always willing to learn, criticism is typically good

• What is your celebrity’s biggest fear?

Not being enough and winding up a failure, alone in life

• Are they more of an indoors or outdoors person?

Outdoors! Especially if there’s water involved

• What are some of their pet peeves?

People who can’t drive.

• Are they the type of person to fight with violence or words?

Words, he’s not a violent person.

• What is your celebrity’s favorite day of the week?

the weekend, anytime to enjoy without worrying about work

• Are they more of a book or movie type of person?

though he enjoys a good book, movies are more often enjoyed

• Is your celebrity more of a hoarder or a minimalist?

minimalist

• How is your celebrity with technology?

he claims he’s horrible but he’s actually not that bad because he’s a fast learner

[sithroyal]

Kylo and Relationships

this headcanon was prompted by rpcDev’s challenge. word count: 2,926 (not including prompt questions/topics).

Level one

Handling relationships

     Kylo / Ben keeps most relationships at arm’s length. 

While working with the First Order, he is focused on his work and therefore isn’t terribly interested in becoming romantic with someone. In this case, it tends to be a ‘if it happens, it happens’ situation. He has a habit of tunnel visioning on his goals and often forgetting or overlooking a romantic partner around this time.

As Ben, he tends to keep most people away to protect them from him and his reputation. Ben is well aware that his past is turbulent and has led to him being unstable (both mentally and financially). He doesn’t wish that kind of instability on someone else. This doesn’t mean that he won’t be friends with another person but romantic relationships will be sparse and far between.

Reminder: He’s aware of what he’s done as Kylo Ren and he knows that he chose to do those things. Post-TROS Ben Solo is not deluded into thinking that he’s well loved simply because he finally went back to the light. 

Strongest familial relationship? Closest non-familial platonic relationship?

     Strongest family relationship is most definitely Han. As a child, Ben wasn’t able to sleep well until he was at least two years old and the only person who could get him to sleep was Han. He looked up to his father and wanted to be like him when he grew up. If anyone asked a young Ben Solo where he saw himself as an adult, he would have said that he’d have been a crew member on the Millennium Falcon. 

Non-familial would have to be Hux, oddly enough. Ren respects that Hux has no reason to lie to him about anything. Hux has no problem telling him when he’s done something fucking stupid and he’s not going to blow smoke up his ass just to do it. He’s well aware that Hux has a strong dislike for him and he prefers it. 

Tied with Hux is Rey. Someone who didn’t even know him, someone he tormented and hunted down like prey, did what she could to bring him back when he didn’t deserve her efforts. Even with the force bond, that’s left a hell of an impact on Ben. 

How do these bonds (or lack thereof) influence them? Do these relationships impact them negatively, or positively, in terms of forming or considering romantic relationships? 

     It’s a mixed bag. In many of his relationships, there’s been an element of betrayal, either to him or by himself. Broken trust can do a lot of things to mess a person up. A nice way to visualize it is that Ben’s trust is like a mirror that’s been hit multiple times, broken, and he’s tried to piece it back together but there are lost shards. 

There’s the chance that he’s never going to fully trust someone to the amount that they’ll want him to. This doesn’t mean that he won’t try though. Of course, that’s not counting Snoke’s influence and his struggles with the dark side. Ben’s responsible for his father’s death and the death of many countless others. 

Are they the type to dive in head first, or do they test the waters & take things slow?

     Slow. For the love of everything that’s holy, go slow with him. Ben has never had a romantic relationship before. He’s going to make mistakes and misunderstand how to do things. Not only that, but he has a lot of fucking trauma to deal with. 

Once again, just because he went back to the light doesn’t mean that he’s automatically perfect. Ben’s going to struggle like any other person when it comes to a new relationship. He’s been under Snoke’s thumb for around six years and there was pre-existing instability before that. Anxiety, depression, and for a short while, he believed he was hearing voices. There’s a lot of unhealthy thinking that’s going to need to be dealt with before he’ll be able to fully commit to a romantic relationship. 

This isn’t to say that one can’t happen but go slow with him. 

Level Two

What are some things that help them 'make the jump' from something platonic to considering something deeper with someone?  

     Being understanding and patient with him helps a fucking lot and he likes to make sure that his partner is taken care of, as Kylo or Ben. 

For Kylo, it’s knowing that he may never be a part of the light and understanding if he chooses to stay. Treating him the way that he feels he deserves is one of the biggest things. He hates himself as Kylo Ren but he also feels that he’s the superior version of himself. So if someone genuinely likes him while he’s Kylo Ren / in the First Order, that’s going to get his attention 100% and he’ll want something more eventually. 

For Ben, it’s going to be someone giving him the chance to learn who he is and how to handle being a normal person again. Someone that’s going to take a chance on him. He knows that he’s done horrific, scummy, abusive, terrible shit in his past, he’s never going to deny it, but if they let him grow and change naturally, that’s important. 

However, they have to also understand that just because they love him, doesn’t mean that he’s going to automatically be a good person. Ben is going to struggle for the rest of his life when it comes to the darker aspects of himself. He’s spent so long in the dark that his eyes need the chance to adjust. Yanking him out into the world and immediately having expectations is not going to help and it will make him back away and close himself off.

What kind of traits do they look for or find attractive? 

     Physical traits don’t matter much to him at all. He’d not going to pick someone based on their looks because that simply doesn’t interest him. What he looks for is in their heart and how they carry themselves. 

For both Kylo and Ben, it’s important to know that they’re driven, determined, and passionate. He wants someone that’s going to inspire him, whether to be lighter or darker doesn’t matter. Their heart, soul, and presence is part of what will get his attention before their looks. 

So don’t come at him thinking that an attractive muse is going to be bedding him any time soon.

Conversely, what kind of things disqualifies a person or throw up major red flags?

     Heavy sexual forwardness. Exhibiting behavior that he used to have while as Kylo Ren or that similar to Snoke. Talking down about others in front of him. Saying anything negative about his parents or anyone in his family (Ben Solo specific). Talking about marriage or having children with him, especially when he barely knows the person.

Is there something that kept them from being in a relationship until they found that special someone? If so, what makes them that someone distinctly unique?

     Well, given that he’s had two Sith Lords manipulating him from a young age, the First Order taking up much of his time, and having to work on becoming a more stable version of himself, Ben’s had a pretty difficult time. So he’s likely never actually looked for anyone in his life.

He doesn’t know if anyone’s ever going to be the one for him or if he’s ever going to truly deserve them (spoiler alert, he’s never going to believe he’s worthy). At this point in his life, he’s going to take whatever he can get and hope that he can be a better version of himself by the time he’s forty (or the worst, if we’re talking Kylo).

Level Three

What gestures imply trust, once that trust has been established? 

     If he falls asleep around them or in the same bed, he trusts them. Talking about his emotions, thoughts, and feelings are another. He’ll give his opinions far more often and take a high amount of interest in the other person’s personal safety. 

The highest level can be seen through whether or not he’s willing to be naked in general around them. If he’s willing to be that vulnerable, then they’ve reached peak trust with him.

What is their love language, & how does this manifest in their relationships? Specific examples are a plus. 

     Doing things. He prefers to do stuff for people. Whether it’s as simple as making food or cleaning something up and going so far as to beat someone half to death for them.

Protecting someone and willingly putting himself between them and an enemy speaks to a lot of love and trust for that person. 

It’s rare that he’ll ever do this in front of another but if he’s willing to cry in front of them, that’s huge. Making fun of him for showing more vulnerable emotions is a sure way for him to cut someone off entirely. That trust will be broken instantly.

Do they like pet names? Do they use pet names?

     Absolutely not. Calling him a pet name will not have the desired affect. While it may seem cutesy or even endearing, hearing them will do nothing more than put him on edge. The only person that ever gave him pet names was his mother and he reserves that right to her only until he trusts the person. 

As for using them, it’s limited. If he does, it’s once in a blue moon. As Kylo, good luck getting him to use them because that’s most likely not happening at all. As Ben, rarely. 

However, as he gets more comfortable, there’s a good chance he’ll start allowing pet names toward himself. At the same time, it also depends on what the pet name is and whether or not he’ll reject it. 

Level Four

What are some negative traits or coping mechanisms they deal with? 

     There’s a mountain of trust issues, anxiety, depression, paranoia, and many more things that’s going on for him. 

As Kylo, he copes through anger and, in many cases, he allows it to control him. He’s highly emotionally driven to the point that his decisions typically don’t make sense. Everything in him is pure chaos. He says things that are callous and cold, usually incredibly hurtful whether they’re intended or not and apologizing for it almost never happens. Many computers and other electronic equipment on the Finalizer have been victimized due to his violent outbursts, this isn’t including force choked employees. 

As Ben, he has a tendency to go for more addictive things. Since Han was the person who gave him his first drink, Ben does use alcohol to comfort himself to a degree. However, he does take notice of it and he tries to stop himself when he realizes it’s becoming a bad habit. Something bad happens? Time to drink. Fucked up and hurt someone? Time to drink. He has to stop that. 

He can’t just pick up a lightsaber and destroy a computer terminal anymore, he has to figure out how to function like a normal fucking human. To that end, he typically tries to rely on meditation techniques that Luke taught him. Getting his emotions out and handled in healthier ways is... difficult. He’s spent so long allowing them to take control for him that finding other solutions feels impossible - until it isn’t. 

How have their past experiences in relationships, or lack thereof, influenced this?

     He felt abandoned by his parents when he was sent to train with his uncle and then, he felt like his uncle had forgotten him when he picked up more padawans. Limited communication with his parents and strict training via Luke left him feeling restricted and burnt out - meaning he was more vulnerable to Snoke and Palpatine’s influence. 

Of course, not everything can be blamed on his family because he did choose to keep the communications with the dark side to himself. Had he spoken to Luke about it, there could have been something done to help him but it was put off until Luke had his vision. When Ben woke up to find Luke standing over him with an ignited saber, he felt threatened and panicked, brought his hut down on Luke and left. 

When he did, he killed many of the other Jedi either directly or indirectly. He burned the temple and ran to join Snoke.

So, taking all of that in mind, his past experiences have certainly put him in some strange areas. Mainly in the way that he’s making choices, terrible ones at that, but he’s also getting influenced into it by others. 

What type of person they are after a relationship ends? Do they stay friends, are they vengeful, are they the type of person that is happy for their ex when they move on or do they want to see their former lovers rot?

     This highly depends on how much he loved the person. If he wasn’t particularly close to them, Ben can part ways and be friendly afterward. If he was highly emotionally invested in them and they break up, he can’t just be friends because he’s still in love with them. Doesn’t matter who ends the relationship.

Kylo is vengeful. He’ll do whatever he feels is necessary to correct the perceived wrong. This includes trying to get the person fired or even killed on the battlefield. He may still love them but it’ll be hard for him to stop that need to hurt them as he’s hurting. 

Ben is much more reasonable when it comes to break ups. He’ll be civil, even so far as being friends, but he won’t be able to allow himself to consider it as anything but his own fault. Ben’ll be happy to see them move on, sure. This doesn’t mean that he’s not still a little bitter but who wants to deal with a guy with years worth of emotional baggage (more like whole storage facilities full of boxes he doesn’t want to unpack yet)?

Level Five

How do they communicate? 

     It’s a little bit of a crap shoot here. 

Kylo doesn’t quite communicate. He expects his partner to just know what it is he’s going on about or feeling. More than half the time, he’s incredibly tense without letting on that work or sith things are bothering him. It’s obvious but he won’t talk about it, he doesn’t want to. As far as he’s concerned, there’s no reason to talk about it. 

Of course this leads into other issues. Since he’s unable to be open with his person, it can create a lot of tension between them and open up avenues for more issues. He’s definitely not the dream guy.

Ben tries. He tries so fucking hard to communicate but he also has no idea what he’s feeling half the time so that’s a challenge in itself. He does better when it comes to text though. Ben can be in the same room with his S/O and be texting them about his anxiety, depression, what have you and get it across far better than if he were speaking. 

Sometimes thoughts and feelings are easier to convey through text so no one he’s involved with should be surprised that this is happening. He tends to ramble and over explain too. But his communication skills will get better as he gets older and gains more experience in the matter. 

Are they more the type to have open, honest, constructive communication, do they only communicate through fights, do they communicate through sex? 

     Kylo communicates through fights. He waits until things have absolutely blown completely out of proportion and suddenly there’s four molehills turned into a mountain range and no one knows exactly what’s going on. They just know that he’s mad, his S/O is mad, and whoever else in the vicinity is mad too. 

But, even if he’s angry and frothing at the mouth, he’s still being as honest as he can be, even if it’s vicious. If he’s had even one thought that week that was negative, it’s going to come out. If he’s thought about strangling one or both of them or running his saber through his S/O, he’s saying it. The whole argument is a fucking event. 

As Ben, he’ll try to address things as they happen so it doesn’t turn out like that but he does still have a tendency to hoard smaller issues. He tries to brush them off as though they don’t bother him but they’ll come up later on in an argument about something else. It may not be the same type of blow out but there’s a smaller scale. He’s not actively trying to hurt anyone and he’s willing to express that. It doesn’t make it healthy though. 

Level Six

What do they think of marriage? is it a goal to be worked toward, or something they shy away from? If they’re for it, have they spend significant time thinking about it? If they’re against it, are they open to alternatives or is long term commitment something they typically prefer to avoid?

     Marriage isn’t something that Kylo / Ben strives for. It’s something that he’s never bothered to think about more than a few seconds because it requires a lot more commitment than he believes is worth it. He’s aware that many marriages work well and some go off without any issues! However, he doesn’t think that he’s the type to enjoy it. 

Over all, he sees marriage as a ‘happy ending.’ After everything that he’s done to the galaxy, he doesn’t believe that he deserves one. Why should he have the right to be happy when so many others aren’t or can’t be? So he leaves that laying in the ground and tries to forget it. Why should he even bother getting any form of government involved if he decides to be with someone anyway? 

Even in that, he does see that his parents’ marriage failed. Ben blames himself for that and thinks that if he’d been able to keep from going to Snoke, his parents would have been fine. At the same time, he doesn’t know what else led to their decision on ending their marriage, for all he knows he could have been the final straw.

He also believes that marriage means that there’s a near mandatory need for children. Ben doesn’t have this urge. This doesn’t mean that he won’t be kind or gentle to children (Kylo’s another story) but he doesn’t think that having his own is for him. What kid would want to grow up and then learn their father was Kylo Ren, their great grandfather was Darth Vader, and the only Jedi in the family (aside from Leia) died because of their father. It’s not the kind of track record any future children need to deal with, in his opinion. He saw how it messed him up and he can’t imagine how it would hurt them. 

All in the same breath, he’s well aware that there’s the good as well. His mother was a Senator, princess, and acted in two rebellions. His father was a famous smuggler and a damn good pilot. His uncle a Jedi. His grandmother a queen and senator. But would any child ever deserve him as their father? Nope, at least not in his eyes. 

Ben is heavily reserved on marriage, to the point that he doesn’t know if he’d even entertain the topic as a piece of conversation.

[goron-king-darunia]

Annon-Guy: Hi Darunia. What did you think of the Marta Defense Post I sent you? What did you think of it? Did it have good marit to it?

I’ve seen it before. I admit, the author of the post writes in a convincing manner, but it still doesn’t change my mind. I do feel she spent at LEAST half the game showing the negative traits Lumenary insists were only there for 1/4 of the game and that being 16 isn’t much of an excuse for Marta. 16 definitely excuses her from, say, accusations that “she didn’t stop her father so she is bad.” Like... She is 16, has no real legal or physical power and has no allies so of course she can’t take down Brute and the entire Vanguard by herself. She’s a kid. 30-year-old. Yeah, she might be able to oppose her father (even though it’s definitely not her responsibility to do so). 16-year-old Marta? I don’t blame her at all for stealing the core and running. Despite what Lumenary thinks, my problem with Marta stems not from the fact that she didn’t oppose her dad and the Vanguard. It comes from how she treated Emil.Being 16 does NOT excuse her from being that insensitive to Emil’s and Ratatosk’s needs for a large portion of the game. Her mother being dead also isn’t an excuse. Emil lost both parents and Richter is also an orphan and neither of them have the same boundary-breaching issues Marta has with intimacy. Emil repeatedly confirms what he’s comfortable with and she keeps pushing his limits. (It’s also especially nasty of her to demand Emil choose between Colette and herself IN FRONT OF COLETTE and the only reason Emil avoided giving the ‘wrong answer’ was because he didn’t understand the question and Tenebrae bailed him out. Like... it’s not nice to ask someone to pick favorites in front of the people he’d end up hurting if he said they weren’t his favorite, you know?)Also the part where Marta goes to sacrifice herself to save Luin that Lumenary talks about? I see that as selfish. When Emil asks her to hand over the core to save Luin, he doesn’t understand that removing it is impossible for her without her dying. Yes, he should have let her explain why she couldn’t hand over the core, but as far as he knew, the Vanguard - which Marta was part of - is fighting over this core and the entire reason Palmacosta burned was because of that and Luin was currently under attack for the same reason. As far as Emil knew, all they wanted was the core. And, as far as he knew, it could simply be removed and handed over... and once Tenebrae said she would die? He immediately changed his tune. “We have to tell her!” “SHE ALREADY KNOWS.” She didn’t try to explain again after Emil’s outburst. She didn’t say “I would hand over the core for you if I could, but if I try, it will kill me. And besides that, I think it’s better for us to hang onto it, since I believe what Tenebrae says about the importance of waking Ratatosk.” She didn’t try to explain or wait for Emil to calm down. She just saw he was angry with her and said “LOL, okay, I’ll go die for you. And once Emil realizes she will die? He immediately backs off of that idea, even though Tenebrae REMINDS HIM that the town will ostracize him for protecting Marta and the core. This reads less to me as a noble sacrifice and more like petty squabbling. “Marta, eat your broccoli” “But I don’t wanna!” “But you have to.” “FINE.” Eats broccoli and dies of allergy for SPITE. Now, I’m not saying this is how it’s meant to be read or even the correct way to read that, but it feels like she didn’t even try to explain to Emil again. It’s possible that she thought he wouldn’t listen, but the fact that he listened to Tenebrae suggests that perhaps if she’d said “Dude, it would literally kill me to remove this core” Emil might have said “Oh, yeah, nevermind, handing over the core is a bad idea.” Like... poor negotiation skills is not a trait I admire in Marta, regardless of if she turned herself in to be spiteful or if she never thought of another option or thought it would be noble. She basically just threw her life away without considering other options. (I’m aware the same can be said of Richter, though.)I agree that it’s nice of her to consider Magnar’s wellbeing when Ratatosk decides beating him to death sounds fun for no reason, but saying “Oh she has morals! Look!” doesn’t address my problems with her. I feel Lumenary has a fundamental misunderstanding why a lot of us dislike Marta. She’s a good person. We know she is. Or at least, we know she has morals and wants to help others. We have no qualms with that. “She does fawn over him, but Emil doesn’t stop her. He talks with Tenebrae about how he feels about it, but not with Marta. He willingly holds her hand in Asgard, but when he is VISIBLY embarrassed/awkward about it, she lets go. She’s not trying to make him uncomfortable, and when she can see that he is, she drops whatever she’s doing to try to make up for it. She may get carried away, but at the end of the day she tries her best to be considerate. That fact needs to stop getting overlooked.”I think Emil gives off enough of a clear signal that he’s uncomfy. Yes, it would have been better if he told her earlier that he was uncomfortable instead of just telling Tenebrae, but I feel like he was afraid of hurting her. But here’s the thing. When I was a kid, I thought tickling and hugging were all great signs of affection. I’d tickle and hug everybody. This made people avoid me because tickling isn’t pleasant for a lot of people. Not all of them told me to stop (and frankly I was a little asshole idiot who didn’t stop even when people told me to because laugh=happy to me so I was always just “why would I stop? We’re having fun!”) But just because they didn’t tell me to stop, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have noticed they were uncomfy and STOPPED. I’m not much better than Marta in this respect because it took me until adulthood as well to learn “Hey, stop means stop, no ifs ands or buts. Respect peoples’ boundaries no matter what.” But I’m also not your average joe. So maybe I’m holding Marta to an unfair standard since it’s one I also didn’t meet until recently but I feel like consent matters and since Emil wasn’t enthusiastic about all the affection he was receiving, she should have not only STOPPED when she saw he was uncomfortable, but she should have stopped initiating those activities as well. (Also, at least this is a reminder that they DO hold hands, but... it was kind of mandatory so they didn’t get sent flying by the wind.) Tenebrae really doesn’t help in this endeavor because he also shoves his nose into their relationship and rubs Emil's nose in the fact that he had to hold Marta’s hand and it was awkward. And yeah, she lets go when he asks but she teases him about it. Also IDK if I can call it “willingly” holding hands if it’s for their mutual safety. “Willingly” to me means that if no other factors changed, would he still do it? And he probably wouldn’t have held her hand if it wasn’t for safety. But who knows? Maybe he would have if she asked nicely? It’s hard to say. “Marta doesn’t really acknowledge it afterwards, only getting a bit jealous when Emil later says that Colette was soothing to be around. She tried to fish for compliments from him before and got nothing, but then he casually complimented Colette. Given that he’s her only friend in the world (besides her confusing relationship with Colette), and she has a puppy crush on him, I think it’s pretty understandable why it would make her feel not so great inside.” See, this is what I have a problem with. It’s not even just that she fished for compliments. She actively asked him to choose between herself and Colette. The fact that Emil can’t say anything nice to another girl without making Marta jealous is a little unnerving to me. Jealousy has a purpose and is a valid emotion, but if I was Marta, Emil complementing Colette would be my first sign that maybe he doesn’t like me and I should stop pursuing him. Also, yeah, it’s understandable that she gets upset that Emil is giving extra attention and paying compliments to Colette, but it’s no excuse to make it EMIL’S problem. Her unrequited love is HER problem.“When Emil and Marta end up in Iselia, Emil is extremely agitated from the get go. He makes rude comments, and has an overall bad attitude since it’s Lloyd’s hometown. Marta lost people too, and Lloyd took Lumen’s core, but she chooses to be the bigger person for the sake of their objective.” Double standard is intense. When Marta is being pissy about Colette, it’s forgiveable because she’s “confused and upset” about someone “letting her mom die” but Emil is not deemed “being the bigger person” for not hating Colette right off the bat. But when Emil is upset that he has to be around people who grew up with the guy that he thinks ACTIVELY AND MALICIOUSLY murdered his parents, Marta’s calm demeanor is read as “being the bigger person.” All that tells me is that Lumenary thinks that it’s okay for Marta to be petty because she’s sad someone accidentally killed her Mom, but Emil isn’t allowed the same amount of pettiness because someone ACTIVELY killed his parents.“When Emil finally tells her he doesn’t like the way she treats him (like a prince, etc.) she owns up to it and vows to change. She takes legitimate personal criticism and applies it immediately, and that’s hard to do.” It honestly doesn’t feel like that to me. She is less possessive of him, certainly, but she still doesn’t treat him as an equal. She treats him better, but it’s not enough. And it’s definitely not instant.“She changes her view and without meaning to, starts to love the true Emil. And she tells him that. She tells him, “I think that the real you is much, much cooler than the fantasy I had in my mind.” She acknowledges her flaws in this same scene but by this point, has actually already overcome a lot of them.” This takes her until the end of Chapter 4 to do, which is basically half the game.IDK, again, there’s a lot to like about Marta, but I feel like she doesn’t really begin respecting Emil until the very end of the game, and the interim is just an awkward slurry of her either being weirdly obsessive and creepy or her just... barely trying to change and treat Emil like his own person.

[downstvged]

s u r v e y  :    p e y t o n    p e l l e g r i n o.

what’s this? there’s something paper clipped to the page... a stick of juicy fruit. how thoughtful.

basic information

FULL NAME: jamie claverton  peyton pellegrino PRONUNCIATION: PAY-ton pell-eh-GREEN-oh MEANING: noble, royal REASONING: his kidnapper father said he always looked like a peyton. strong, wise, dignified. NICKNAME(S): pey, pellegrino, pillsbury ( monty ), sparkles ( tess ), etc. PREFERRED NAME(S): peyton BIRTH DATE: july 24, 2000 AGE: 18 ZODIAC: leo GENDER: cismale PRONOUNS:  he/him ROMANTIC ORIENTATION:  heteroromantic SEXUAL ORIENTATION: heterosexual NATIONALITY:  american. ETHNICITY: italian-american. his father’s got pellegrino pride.

background

BIRTH PLACE: milton, delaware  HOMETOWN:  milton, delaware.  his dad said he was born in ohio. everyone thinks he’s from cali, when they meet him. SOCIAL CLASS:  upper-middle. FATHER: presley claverton. matthew pellegrino. fire chief. 52. west ham’s most eligible and charming single father. and peyton’s best friend. faceclaim. MOTHER: theresa claverton.  francesca milluzzo. peyton never knew her. his dad said she deserted them shortly before his first birthday. SIBLING(S): none. BIRTH ORDER: first of three. the clavertons needed to fill the void. first and only. PET(S): none. but he adores anything fluffy. OTHER IMPORTANT RELATIVES:  n/a PREVIOUS RELATIONSHIPS: n/a. he’s always been too scared of his own shadow to ask a girl out. ARRESTS?: squeaky clean. PRISON TIME?: not unless you count double-shifts delivering pizzas.

occupation & income

SOURCE OF INCOME: works part-time as a pizza delivery boy at one of west ham’s most beloved pizza joints. CONTENT WITH THEIR JOB (OR LACK THERE OF)?: very content, usually! people tip well and peyton enjoys the small talk. PAST JOB(S): assistant life guarding at the local pool in middle school, but that quickly ended after he had a panic attack on duty. SPENDING HABITS: peyton’s pretty frugal! his idea of a fun time is boarding around town with monty, or grabbing a scoop of ice cream at one of the local places. he’s not too big on driving, if he doesn’t have to. longboards almost everywhere. his dad’s job gets them ample cash, being fire chief, but they live modestly. pellegrino men are humble. MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION: his longboard. unfortunately, his anti-anxiety meds.

skills & abilities

TALENTS: deduction, longboarding, mock trial, stage lighting, studying, making people smile. he’s mario kart champion and he’ll never live that down. SHORTCOMINGS: overthinker. often, he limits himself just by thinking in circles. he... finds the good in people. assumes the best. LANGUAGE(S) SPOKEN: english, and enough italian to get friendly with the kitchen staff. DRIVE?:  yes. JUMP-STAR A CAR?: yes. CHANGE A FLAT TIRE?: yes. RIDE A BICYCLE?: yes, but longboards are way better. SWIM?: yes. PLAY AN INSTRUMENT?: he has a guitar and plays it decently well. sometimes he’ll hum a little tune and strum a few chords, but it’s nothing too major. PLAY CHESS?: yeah. BRAID HAIR?: ha! him? able to braid hair? he wishes. TIE A TIE?: he can double-knot his shoes. PICK A LOCK?: no.

physical appearance & characteristics

FACE CLAIM: noah centineo. EYE COLOR: deep hazel, primarily chocolate with pools of mossy green. HAIR COLOR: dark brown. HAIR TYPE/STYLE: wavy/curly. it does what it wants, and he rarely styles it, unless it’s for a mock trial competition or a student gov event. reference. GLASSES/CONTACTS?: he has a glasses prescription but always wears his contacts. DOMINANT HAND: right. HEIGHT: 6′1. WEIGHT: 165 lbs. BUILD: lean, trim, athletic. EXERCISE HABITS: he’s co-captain of the lacrosse team with monty, so they have daily team workouts. he goes for runs a lot, and likes HIIT training. does longboarding count? it should. he’s boarded all over this town countless times ( it’s also how he chooses to deliver pizzas, when the weather’s alright. ) SKIN TONE: tanned, smooth. reference. TATTOOS: none. he can’t handle needles. PEIRCINGS: none. MARKS/SCARS: a few on his arms and legs from nasty longboarding falls. NOTABLE FEATURES: his wild hair. million-watt smile. USUAL EXPRESSION: peaceful, welcoming. CLOTHING STYLE: reference.  leather bracelets, cuffed jeans, lots of solid colored and colorblocked tees. when he dresses up for mock trial, the girls kinda swoon. boy looks dashing in a suit. has a glasses prescription but always wears contacts. his dad says he looks sharper that way ( but it’s actually because, with glasses, he looks too similar to the claverton family. )  beat up chuck taylors, kind of untied on purpose. he’s got that whole loosely kept together, sleep deprived look down pat. JEWELRY: leather bracelets. sometimes he’ll wear a thin chain. ALLERGIES: n/a. BODY TEMPERATURE: the standard. he runs a little warmer than most. DIET: lots of pizza. mountain dew. juicy fruit gum’s basically a whole other food group. PHYSICAL AILMENTS: n/a. he can be a bit jumpy, sometimes, if he’s feeling on edge. his left pinky kind of clicks funny when he makes a fist, from when he broke his hand his freshman year.

psychology

MORAL ALIGNMENT: lawful good. TEMPERAMENT: phlegmatic. ELEMENT: earth. MENTAL CONDITIONS/DISORDERS: anxiety disorder. SOCIABILITY: very approachable. warm. kindhearted. there’s a reason he’s the one tasked with getting class dues, as class treasurer. there’s a reason why he leads the lacrosse team. EMOTIONAL STABILITY:  typically very levelheaded. his anxiety can make that fluctuate, though. PHOBIA(S): having another panic attack in public. he hasn’t had one in front of anyone besides monty in a year. ADDICTION(S): does juicy fruit qualify? DRUG USE: none. very straight-edge.  ALCOHOL USE:  occasional, as much as you’d expect. PRONE TO VIOLENCE?: not at all.

mannerisms

QUIRKS: peyton shoves his hands into his pockets when he’s nervous. he always looks for monty or tess in a crowded room, to get grounded. whenever he wears a flannel or a sweatshirt, he always pushes the sleeves up midway to his elbows. HOBBIES: lacrosse, longboarding, mock trial, reading, parkour ( a phase in freshman year ). watching football games with his dad. trying out weird recipes. HABITS: biting the edge of pens. turning his head to the side when he’s listening. offering people pieces of his lunch until he realizes there’s nothing left for him. NERVOUS TICKS: not knowing what to do with his hands. trailing off. looking at the ground. laughing. counting his own fingers. biting the tip of his tongue. DRIVES/MOTIVATIONS: he genuinely wants to see people happy. he wants everything to run smoothly and willingly along.  FEARS: his meds will stop working. he’ll have a panic attack in front of his classmates, who are supposed to see him as calm, collected, put together. he’ll never get to know more about his mom. it bugs him. POSITIVE TRAITS: benevolent, bona fide, conscientious, suave, tenderhearted. NEGATIVE TRAITS: anxious, critical, restless, self-limiting, yielding. SENSE OF HUMOR: puns. wit. a lot of inside jokes with tess and monty. DO THEY CURSE OFTEN?: not really! he’s more likely to say frick or flipping than anything bad. CATCHPHRASE(S): “ oh shit ! ” & “ dude ! ” & “ what’s good ? ”

favorites

ACTIVITY: longboarding, hands down. ANIMAL: he’s got a super soft spot for rabbits. BEVERAGE: mountain dew or 7-up. BOOK: growing up, he loved the percy jackson series. CELEBRITY: stephen hawking. COLOR: green. DESIGNER: designer? he guesses, like... is gucci the right answer? he’s not really plugged in to that. FOOD: does juicy fruit count? FLOWER: he’s learning more about flowers, but he thinks sunflowers are pretty nice. kelly’s teaching him more about those. GEM: tiger’s eye. HOLIDAY: christmas. that’s when the famous pellegrino slutty brownies surface. MODE OF TRANSPORTATION: longboarding !! MOVIE: original star trek. MUSICAL ARTIST: saint motel. QUOTE/SAYING: “ we’re dead !  we survived but we’re dead ! ” – dash, the incredibles. SCENERY: rolling hills. sunset. SCENT: cinnamon. SPORT: lacrosse. SPORTS TEAM: in connecticut, he’s surprised he hasn’t been vilified for being a chicago bears fan. but he and his dad spent some time there, and going to those games became a weekly tradition. they watch them now, and it’s like a little piece of their story. TELEVISION SHOW: saturday night live, honestly. WEATHER: that golden-hour sunshine, just before sunset. lukewarm. mid-60′s. VACATION DESTINATION: hawaii. he’s always wanted to longboard down those colossal volcano-side roads.

attitudes

GREATEST DREAM: go into tech/lighting design for broadway. ask cassandra pressman out, for real. GREATEST FEAR: his dad won’t be able to function without him in west ham next fall. he’ll panic in front of people when he needs to seem strong. MOST AT EASE WHEN: he’s with his squad, the belugas. LEAST AT EASE WHEN: he’s allowed the time to overthink. when his dad doesn’t come home from his fire shift on time. when things don’t feel right. BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT: the west ham mock trial team won the state championship this spring. BIGGEST REGRET: he never pressured his dad more about finding his mother. MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT: he had a panic attack in the middle of his treasurer speech freshman year. someone pulled the fire alarm right as he couldn’t breathe. to this day, peyton has no idea who that was, but he’s so friggin’ thankful. BIGGEST SECRET: his biggest secret’s not even known to him yet. matthew pellegrino isn’t his father; he’s his kidnapper. peyton pellegrino’s fake. doesn’t exist. TOP PRIORITIES: having monty and tess’s backs. taking care of his dad, since he’s still reeling from peyton’s mom leaving almost 17 years ago. bringing the lacrosse team to the state championships. making sure every single thing he does for west ham high’s theatre department is flawless: making art on that stage. finding out how to... conquer this anxiety. finding out how to muster up enough courage to make a move before it’s too late.

[willowlark369]

Survival is Imperative

This post discusses a concept which is controversial and features a great deal of disturbing information. There is a great deal of torture and misused (abused) medical procedures/practices discussed. Yet what I feel may be most problematic for most people to digest is that the concept I will be laying out will challenge the idea that an individual’s agency is a hard set dichotomy where one either has it completely or they have been stripped of it entirely.

I’m not treating this as a proper essay or academic paper. I’ve taken several levels of courses in the fields of Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology along with specialty diversity courses. I’m pulling a lot of concepts from that academic work, and since I am not making a paper to present, I will not be citing the dual-minors-worth of knowledge that led me to the conclusions I am sharing. I apologize if this upsets you. I know that Tumblr is such a bastion of academic learning that this must be absolutely shocking. (Was that too sarcastic? OFW.)

Reader discretion is advised after the Read More break.

Let’s get the hard part out of the way:

Steve Rogers is wrong about Bucky Barnes, and he’s only showing disrespect by making his claims about Barnes’ innocence of the crimes of the Winter Soldier. Whenever Steve Rogers talks about the Winter Soldier as a separate entity from Bucky Barnes, he is ignoring the trauma of the man he claims as his friend.

Still with me? Haven’t skipped down to the bottom to post nasty comments?

Good. Now I will lay out the why for you.

Everyone has heard of Ivan Pavlov or more likely, Pavlov’s experiments with conditioned responses in dogs. He rang a bell before giving his dogs a treat and eventually all he had to do to get the dogs to salivate was ring the bell, regardless of the presence of a treat. This basic concept is actually the idea behind Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) where a person works on identifying their own conditioned responses and work to disable them (and/or redirect them, depending on the goals set by the patient).

Yeah, that’s right, folks. Conditioning is something which can be done to humans. How do we know? Because Dr. John Watson--the less fun one, apparently--and his lovely graduate hostage assistant Rosalie Rayner figured out how to create phobias in an otherwise healthy child, and that was apparently really inspiring to a great many people including the Mother of Behavioral Therapy Mary Clover Jones. Dr. Watson’s paper on the experiment came out in the early part of 1920.

For those of you playing the home game, that’s almost a decade and a half before a certain sniper took his tumble off a train in the Alps. In terms of science, that’s a really long time.

It’s long enough for the science branch of a certain religious cult to start working on a device to make it easier. This device’s purpose was understood to be memory suppression. This effect was achievable through what could be loosely described as Electrical Shock Therapy (EST). Pass enough current through the synapses and they don’t connect so good, at least for a little while.

It also hurts like a motherfucker, which is also what makes EST so useful for the treatment of behavioral disorders. I’m using the term disorder here in its most antiquated definition. Some of the disorders treated with early versions of EST were ‘hysteria’, masturbation, book-reading (in women), and refusal to marry (again, in women). Treatment was given until the patient stopped showing the problematic behavior.

It also works as a deterrent for not showing desired behavior, where the patient is given treatment for not doing what the doctor wanted. Other behavior modifying treatments are isolation, withholding of food/drink, other pain delivery systems... really, there’s a lot of manipulation techniques out there, in the real world. A lot of them can be unquestionably considered torture, but some are just simply psychological. Repeat something in a calm, reasonable tone of voice enough times, and a person begins to believe it. Show kindness to someone whose world is narrowed into nothing more than bright spots of pain and they will want to believe you, even knowing that you are the source of the pain.

Eventually, inevitably, reward does not need to be kindness, does not need to be pleasurable or unquestionably positive. It just needs to be a cessation of pain, maybe even just a lessening if given enough time. Given enough time, a knowledgeable individual can create conditional responses for any number of things, especially once the subject begins to show willingness to adapt.

That’s what we humans are good at, you know. We adapt to our environments, even if doing so might compromise firmly held ideals and principles. Instinctively, we seek to survive and to that end, nothing becomes taboo. It’s easy to stand outside of a situation and say “I’ll never do that” but historically speaking, yeah, you probably would. If the situation called for it, if it were bad enough, if the options were laid out the right way and every other path was blocked--if you knew that everyone had to think you were dead and there was no hope of rescue.

See, Sgt. James “Bucky” Barnes fell from a train traveling through the Alps. They thought he was dead, even without recovering a body. There was no hope for the SSR to come to the rescue, no reason to believe the punk was going to show up once again to save him from the pain, the hunger, the cold. He was alone in enemy hands, undergoing torture as they sought to shape him into what they wanted him to become: a willing participant in their plans capable of taking care of any problem they needed cleaned up.

He was alone and without hope, but Bucky still fought them for over twenty years before they deemed him controlled enough, conditioned enough, to begin using. The problem with conditioning is that the associations need to be maintained routinely or else they fade. So, despite being usable, Barnes would still have been routinely and methodologically tortured in order to preserve that willingness to obey without hesitation or question.

Sgt. Barnes spent over seventy years as a prisoner of war. Sgt. Barnes managed to survive over seventy years in the control of a known terrorist organization by learning when to fight and when to acquiesce to the demands of his captors. Sgt. Barnes learned how to disassociate from emotional responses which only served to slow down action and become better at the behavior Hydra wanted from him.

Sgt. Barnes became the Fist of Hydra in order to survive an untenable situation. He is the Winter Soldier and he willingly completed all missions given to him. Because his entire existence relied upon pleasing his handlers and if there is one thing that humans are good at, it is survival.

Survival is imperative.

However, while there is no question about innocence in this case, the responsibility is also not in question. Sgt. Barnes is not innocent but he is also not responsible. The responsibility shift is two-fold: military chain of command and ability to consent without duress.

Military chain of command creates a buffer of sorts for military personnel who are following directives from those higher in their direct chain of command. There is bleed-over of this buffer into similarly martial organization such as the FBI, CIA, and police. Pretty much, if an organization is authorized to use force against others, then there’s a chain of command exemption to responsibility. Hesitation or refusal to follow the chain of command is actually considered a negative trait that can limit promotions and career duration. Entry programs (such as Basic for the Armed Forces) are specifically designed to create a mentality where the knee-jerk reaction is to follow the commands of a recognized superior. Of course, under normal circumstances, most individuals will not mindlessly follow orders if they go completely contrary to social mores such as harming traditional noncombatants (women, children, the sick, the elderly) or seem really questionable (blow up this bomb while standing beside it; poison this well; execute the ally standing next to you).

Which brings me to the second fold: ability to consent without duress.

In case y’all haven’t heard, no means no. (Yeah, I’m fucking going there. Buckle up, readers. This is a crash course in Consent 110.) Straight up, body autonomy is sacrosanct. The only person allowed to make your body do things is you. You are the only one who gets to choose what your body does, even if that choice is to let someone else make your body do things. Anything else is a violation of your body autonomy.

However, it must be recognized that there are times when saying no is not really an option, for whatever reason, and even saying yes is done due to circumstances which negate the expressed permission. Why? Because it’s not really consent when there’s a threat or manipulation involved, when the choice is between doing the thing or dying (or being harmed or someone else being harmed/killed). That creates duress, which negates consent even while willingness to participate continues.

Analogy time: think of any sex act you want. Maybe it’s your favorite; maybe you’ve done it hundreds of times and you’re damn good at it. The only difference is that you don’t want to do it this time with this partner. Now imagine that partner holding a gun to your head, telling you that they will shoot you if you don’t do it. You do that thing and manage to live. You did that thing, and nothing really changes that. However, it was not consensual.

You are not innocent but you are also not responsible.

Ultimately, what you are left with at end of the day is a PoW who did everything necessary to survive, including a lot of horrible things that affected others. I think this is really fucking important to note: Sgt. Barnes is a survivor. He did things, made choices, which clearly haunt him in order to ensure that survival.

He did those things because Sgt. Barnes became the Winter Soldier to survive.

Steve Rogers continuously invalidates that. Steve Rogers makes himself unavailable as a recovery support person because he refuses to acknowledge the trauma and guilt that would accompany such actions. I’m sure that his intentions are to be helpful and comforting. Steve Rogers once went on a suicide mission for Sgt. Barnes and later decided letting the guy beat him to a pulp was a good idea when the alternative was fighting him. Never doubt that Steve Rogers loves Bucky Barnes and that it is unconditional.

However, harm is not measured by intention. It is measured by effect.

Invalidating a survivor of violence? Not cool. Insisting that “it wasn’t really you” to someone who had essentially been raped? Also not cool.

And you know what effect that has? It makes the survivor unable to comfortably open up to you. Especially if disagreement with an authority figure was a past cause for corrective behavioral modification. Logic may say the punishment won’t happen but emotionally? Essentially, you are removed from the support team, and this is after you have created a situation in which the survivor is unable to remain in their previous safe place.

So, in summation, Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier due to being a PoW willing to do what it took to survive, but his blast-from-the-past best friend doesn’t acknowledge any of that which is hella hurtful and dismissive, regardless of said friend’s intentions. It interferes with the possibility of recovery which is inherently harmful to someone who has already been through so much and sets up the continuation of the conditioned behaviors, furthering the trauma in a way that is quite possibly worse than the outright violence of before.

Because Bucky Barnes will not stand up for himself. Resistance has been conditioned out of him. And now the person hurting him is a trusted individual declaring that he just wants to help.

Please respect the survival of Sgt. James Barnes by acknowledging his trauma, even if it makes you uncomfortable. Survivors do not have to make you comfortable with what it took to gain that status. Survivors do not owe you a picturesque view of their trauma.

Survival itself is the only imperative.

[ashilrak]

Do you have any characterization tips?

In general, I hardly think of myself as the master of characterization, but I’ll tell you what I do know/think. Some of the tips will be more general, others will be more character specific. I am mainly a Hamilton writer, so the more specific tips will be geared toward Hamilton. 

General

When writing fanfiction, you already have characters to go off of. Make sure you understand the source material. 

Fanon and canon can diverge greatly, but an accurate characterization means that the character in the original work and the character in the fan work are recognizable as the same.

Every person interprets every character differently, and that’s fine. You’re allowed to have your own interpretation. However, if there is a singular trait that is frequently remarked upon and exhibited in the original work, that trait is necessary to include for accurate characterization. There are certain traits that make people who they are. Discover what those key traits are, and as long as you have those, you’re off to a great start.

Disclaimer: One of my majors is history, so there is some historical knowledge that bleeds over into my characterizations. My fanfiction and characterizations are mainly based on the musical, but I can’t forget everything I know historically while writing.The historical and musical characters are not identical. But, the source material for the musical is historical. I am pulling from outside sources for some things I include in my characterizations. 

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton is “young, scrappy, and hungry” with an emphasis on hungry. That hunger, the ambition and drive, that never leaves him. He always wants more. 

One thing that is not necessarily emphasized in the show, but very true historically is that Hamilton was a good father. He wasn’t perfect - no one is - but he loved his children so much. He loved his family and his kids so much. As ambitious as he was, as career-focused as he was, he wanted a family with the same passion. He wanted the best for his children. He might have been a bit strict, with high expectations and yeah he was a bit controlling (he had Philip’s days scheduled to the fucking minute), but it was from a place of love. Despite every opportunity that might have come up, not a single one of his children have been recorded as saying a negative thing about their father (to my, admittedly, limited knowledge)

He’s a romantic, emotional, filled with feeling. 

He’s vain and very concerned with how he appears to others. 

(Despite this vanity, he willingly would crawl around and let his children hang on him with no care for ruining his fine, and expensive, clothing)

He talks and writes and lashes out. He has opinions and he’s going to share them

Historically, he was a conservative elitist. I honestly think that the idea of “i pulled myself up by the bootstraps, why can’t you? I’m not gonna help you though” is a way of looking at it. It’s obviously much more complex than that, but even in the musical he’s passing the same plans and policies, working toward the same goals. Not every element of them is stated (and to do so would be ridiculous), but…that’s what’s going on. 

In fic we like to paint Hamilton as the progressive fighting for the rights many of us believe in and have Jefferson as the old stuffy conservative. I’m not against that exactly, but even in the musical, that’s not how it goes down. 

He’s complex as fuck and that’s why he’s a fave of mine. A problematic fave, but a fave nonetheless.

Thomas Jefferson

In the musical we see him as loud and cocky, meant to represent how he’s remembered in history when compared to Hamilton, as far as my understanding of it goes

Historically, Jefferson was a shy and timid man with a stutter

These are fun to play with - the Jefferson he presents to the world verses who he actually is

In the musical, you only really see Jefferson as Hamilton’s opponent so you do have to get some more info to add depth - and one of my favorites is to look at the Outside Jefferson vs Inside Jefferson

Foodie, specifically wine

Francophile

Obnoxious fashion choices

Interesting relationship with religion - definitely something to explore if you’re ever writing something that goes more in-depth with him as a character

Jefferson was historically terrible for a myriad of reasons

Aaron Burr

Another problematic fave tbh

Burr was shady as fuck - a quick google search of “Aaron Burr water” will take you to pages about The Manhattan Company where he started a new bank to break Hamilton’s monopoly under the guise of a water company. The water company thing did not help the yellow fever outbreak, and instead led to a lot of cholera. Very much the ends justify the means sort of thinking. 

Manwhore - Between Hamilton and Burr I’d put good money on Burr being the sluttier of the two

Burr was hungry, but in a different way than Hamilton. A man without ambitions wouldn’t try to become emperor of Mexico, after all

My APUSH teacher described him as the man who should have become president but never did. (He loved burr a lot, looking back on it) Take that as you will

George Washington

Not the most book-smart, but god did he get people. Wasn’t even the best military strategist, but he knew how to surround himself with good people and how to put them to their best use. 

Very proper, concerned with appearance. Was aware of the affect these things had.

Stoic

James Madison

Did Not follow Jefferson around like a lost puppy. In the musical they’re shown as having a friendship (and I use this a lot in my own fic), but it’s sort of interesting to play with the idea of Jefferson being the much clingier of the two. Madison turned down Jefferson’s invitation to live with him, after all. There’s an interesting dynamic to play with between these two, but Jefferson’s not the one in the lead.

Hypochondriac

Calculating as fuck

I once said I don’t trust anyone who says writing Madison is simple 

Angelica Schuyler

CAN WE GET A ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR THIS WOMAN WITH STEREOTYPICALLY FEMALE CONCERNS AND THOUGHTS 

Dear god people yes she’s a strong woman but don’t be afraid to make her delicate

Her songs are about loving her sister and falling in love with a man and loving her family and choosing her sister’s happiness over her own because she has so much love in her she’s self-sacrificing

She is full of emotion and love and she’s intelligent and the belle of the ball, able to charm anyone

She’s Stereotypically Feminine, down to the pink she wears

Yes, she lashes out against Hamilton, but that’s because she’s EMOTIONAL about it. She’s Angry and Hurt and Betrayed

~emotions~ don’t be afraid to give them to her k thx

Elizabeth Schuyler

yes we all know that eliza is amazing and lovely and kind and living and compassionate and in love with alexander

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE

as a youth she was a tomboy

In the musical she was right there with Angelica looking for the revolution. Her line is “people shouting in the square” that’s what excited her! She’s there for the action! She’s getting excited by this! 

She’s the one that chose to marry a poor soldier boy with pretty eyes, nice legs, and a shit ton of potential

she’s not some goody-two-shoes

HISTORICALLY, THAT WONDERFUL ORPHANAGE OF HERS DID NOT LET IN ORPHANS WHOSE MOTHERS HAD BEEN UNMARRIED

LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR, HER ORPHANAGE, THAT IS PRESENTED IN THE MUSICAL AS BEING AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT IN HONOR OF HER ALEXANDER, WOULDN’T HAVE ACCEPTED ALEXANDER 

thanks for coming to my ted talk

she helped alexander with his speeches and essays and writing

As she got older, she was a bit savage in all honesty. she wasn’t there to put up with any bullshit

She wore mourning clothing for the rest of her life. So not only was she in love with Hamilton, but she was dramatic af

they really were well-matched and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise

John Laurens

A complex relationship with his father. It wasn’t just outright hatred, okay. There are layers here

Anger. He wasn’t calm, he was angry. Bursting with passion.

He left a wife and a kid to join the revolution. 

Nature gay

Rich boy

Lafayette

able to make the best out of any situation

one of those people that’s just bursting with happiness

believed so strongly in america

intelligent

able to manipulate people via the old world diplomacy of the courts he grew up in

literally everyone loved him, historically

generous

[tipsycad147]

Psychic empathy: Understanding and developing your empathic gifts

Posted by Michelle Gruben on Jul 03, 2019

Empathy: It may be the most common of all psychic experiences—so common that it often seems perfectly ordinary. Have you ever “caught” a bad mood from a coworker as if it were a cold? Have you ever been swept up in the excitement of a sporting event, yelling and cheering, even though you didn’t really care about the outcome? If so, then you’ve experienced the transfer of emotional energy known as empathy.

Is empathy really a psychic ability?

As social creatures, most humans have a high degree of empathy. In the language of psychology, empathy simply means we can recognise emotions in other members of our species and tend to respond to those emotions in kind. Empathy can also be observed in social and emotionally perceptive animals like dogs, horses, and elephants.

In humans and animals, empathy probably evolved as a way to maintain group bonds and keep us safe from danger. Brain science researchers are fascinated with empathy and have done piles of research to discover why some people experience it strongly, and others seemingly not at all.  And we’re getting there. “Mirror neurons”—neurons that fire in the brain when an action is observed as well as when it is performed—go along way toward explaining why humans experience empathy.

So…is empathy a psychic ability? A lot of New Age-y, pop psychology fluff writers like to hedge on this question. But as a garden-variety occultist with no letters after my name, I’m going to come down firmly on the side of “yup.” Spiritual people know that material science can explain a lot of our experiences with empathy—but not all of them.

Psychic empathy has nothing to do with observing facial expressions, tone of voice, or body language. For example, that feeling in your gut that a friend has bad news in the moment just before you pick up the phone. Or walking into a room minutes after a fight has occurred and feeling an immediate shift in your mood. These experiences point to the truth of the vibrational theories that have underpinned esoteric practices for centuries.

Everything has energy, and these energies are constantly interacting with each other. A psychic empath is someone who is more affected than normal by this invisible external energy.

How do I know if I am an empath?

Empaths report many of the same traits and experiences: Picking up emotions from friends and strangers. Being told they are “too sensitive” or “too emotional”. Knowing when someone isn’t happy or isn’t being truthful. Feeling anxious in crowds. Being alternately emotionally empty and overwhelmed by emotions.

If you’re wondering whether you are an empath, the answer is probably yes! It’s my conviction that most people experience psychic empathy, although some people are more sensitive to emotional vibes than others.

As any empath will tell you, empathy is not always fun. Empaths often pick up on mild to moderate negative emotions that are streaming in from other people: Frustration, fear, regret, shame, and anger. Empaths can suffer from mood swings as their emotional environment constantly shifts. Empathy is most stressful when you’re near other people, but it’s possible for psychic empaths to pick up on emotions even at a distance.

Empathy can coincide with (and is often confused with) social anxiety. And no wonder: It’s unsettling to walk out of the house feeling fabulous one minute, and then fall into a deep funk because someone smacked you with a sadness bomb.

But it doesn’t have to be that way, you feel me? (Heehee, empath joke!) In this article, I’ll share seven of my best coping strategies for managing psychic empathy.

Learn the art of grounding, centring, and shielding.

Centring, grounding, and shielding are ways of manipulating your own energy body to produce various (positive) effects. They are most often accomplished through visualisation. These terms contain a lot of information, and everyone uses them slightly differently, but I’ll do my best quick rundown of what they basically mean:

Centring: To centre is to quiet external stimuli and become aware of your physical and energetic bodies. It’s often the first step in preparing for meditation, prayer, or spellwork. When you’re centred, you feel focused and secure. More to the point, you’re aware of what energetic “stuff” is yours and what isn’t.

Grounding: To ground is to establish a connection to Earth energy or another primal energy stream outside of oneself. When you’re grounded, energy can easily enter and leave your body as you will it. You have access to all the energy you need—but not too much—and a release valve for the stuff that you don’t want to retain.

Shielding: To shield is to manipulate your outer energy field to control how it interacts with the outside world. Shield comes in all different shapes, sizes, and functions. Many experienced empaths prefer to maintain a semi-permeable shield. With selectively open shields, you’re not sealed off from the world, but not being constantly bombarded, either.

Shielding, grounding, and centring can be performed separately or together, but they are all interrelated. (And there is some overlap in how they’re defined.) This cluster of energetic practices can be daunting to learn at first, but with practice they will become second nature. It’s worth learning how. Empathy is a psychic/energetic phenomenon, and psychic/energetic solutions are one of the most direct ways to manage it.

Choose your friends (and lovers) carefully.

Being an empath means that you are more likely than others to encounter people who are angry, needy, depressive, dependent, and just emotionally screwed up. Why? Distressed and unbalanced people are attracted to empaths because the empath naturally absorbs some of the negative crud they are spewing out there. That’s very convenient for them…less good for the empath.

If you’re around someone who leaves you feeling drained or unhappy, ask: Why do I feel this way? Why does this person want to be my friend? Is this relationship serving both of us, or only one person?

Boundaries are important for everyone—but especially for empaths, who tend to slip into the pattern of becoming emotional providers. You’ve probably heard all this before, but I’ll say it again: You can’t care for others if you don’t first care for yourself. It’s possible to be loving and kind at a distance. Good fences make good neighbours. “No” is a complete sentence.

Speaking of “no,” empaths also need to be careful with physical touch. Touch is one of the ways that emotional energy can be transferred most easily, so reserve physical contact for people who you love and trust.

Embrace the positive.

While being an empath can sometimes be a burden or source of stress, it comes with a bunch of hidden superpowers:

Empaths are great listeners. They have the ability to listen not only to the words that are spoken but the feelings behind them—and often, the unspoken words as well. Empaths also tend to possess a high level of emotional intelligence and a caring disposition. For these reasons, empaths make loyal and generous friends.

Empaths are amazingly good at picking up on subtle emotional signals. You can use this secret sense to steer clear of drama, navigate complex social situations, and even get ahead in business. (Hey, if you’re going to deal with challenges of being an empath, you might as well scoop up some of the advantages too!)

Some believe that empaths are souls that have been called upon to raise the frequency of human beings globally by fostering communication and understanding. If that’s your mission, may you go forth and fulfil it! Just don’t let it erode you in the process.

Which bring us to:

Practice good emotional hygiene.

If being an empath is like being a sponge, you gotta remember to squeeze out that sponge occasionally. Maybe put in the microwave for a couple seconds if it picked up something really nasty.

A daily self-care routine would improve most people's lives, but for empaths it’s an absolute necessity. So make time: Meditate for ten minutes a day. Or five. Go for solo walks. Talk to a friend you can vent to for a change. A beneficial practice for many empaths is keeping a journal—it aids in sorting out which emotions are yours, and where the rest are coming from.

Doing emotional house-cleaning will also improve the quality of your interactions with friends and strangers, I guarantee it. As we often hear in the realm of magick, like attracts like.

You know that beacon over your head, the one that says, “Hi, I’m an empath, please dump all your emotional junk on me?” It doesn’t dim just because you’re carrying around your own emotional junk—if anything, it shines brighter. Misery loves company, and other people will use their empathy to tune into your crappy mood and potentially amplify it. When you’re feeling stable and balanced, you can make better choices about who and what enters your energy field.

Partner with animals, plants, and stones.

Empaths intuitively understand that they are never truly alone. Just as some beings can make your life more difficult by swamping you with energy, some beings can help you shake off the excess and reconnect with your centre. When people are too much to handle, try turning to plants, animals, and minerals and make them your magickal partners.

Spending time in nature is one of the easiest ways to fix your energy. Go outside! Make contact with a tree, a body of water, or even a potted plant if that’s all you’ve got.

Animal companions can help you smooth out your energy when it’s been frazzled by interference. Cats, dogs, and human children are often seen taking on this role lovingly and willingly.

Certain stones and crystals can also be helpful in transmuting and re-directing empathic impressions. A piece of crystal jewellery or a smooth stone can help deflect or absorb energy until you’re ready to deal with it.

All beings (including plants and mineral beings) have consciousness, and any of them can become an ally in managing psychic empathy. As silly as it may sound, be sure to thank any plant, stone, or creature that assists you in circulating and balancing life force energy.

Work with your other psychic senses.

Are you interested in developing your psychic abilities? I’ve often observed that psychic empathy can be a gateway to other psychic talents. If you regularly gather emotional energy from others—then congratulations! You already know what it’s like to receive non-sensory or extra-sensory information.

Psychic empathy is related to clairsentience, the “just knowing” or “gut feeling.” Empaths and clairsentients both tend to receive psychic information in the heart, solar plexus, and belly area. Pay extra attention to those parts of the body—what they are telling you, and what type of care they need.

One of the most frustrating things for beginner empaths is not knowing where all the feelings are coming from. Empathic impressions are usually non-verbal and non-visual—which means it’s harder for our conscious mind to process them. Harder…but not impossible. Practice!

The next time you receive emotional energy that doesn’t belong to you, close your eyes and see if you can pinpoint the source. Where in your body do you feel it? Does it have a sound, texture, or colour? Can you manipulate or change the energy? Are you able to identify a direction that it’s coming from (or even a specific person)? Honing these skills will help you block or deflect unwanted impressions when you’re out in public.

You can also work on your psychic skills while in the presence of a friend or loved one. When you notice that you are empathically “tuned in” to their energy, try reaching out and seeing what other information you can gather. Do you receive any visual images? Any thoughts, sounds, or sensations? With a little practice, using your empathic gift can help cultivate latent clairvoyant or clairaudient abilities. Many empaths also excel at psychic healing due to their natural sensitivities to energy.

Don’t give away your power.

“I match energy, so YOU decide how we’re gonna act.” Wait…what? I’ve spotted this garbage meme-ing its way around spiritual communities. It’s a cute T-shirt (I guess), but the idea it expresses goes against all my training as a Witch…hell, as an adult human being.

Don’t give away your power. In other words, never let anybody be directly responsible for how you feel—much less how you act.

I wish that “I’m an empath” could be an empowering statement for more people, but all too often, it’s used as an excuse. Psychic empathy is very real, but it’s not a good reason to engage in erratic emotional behaviour or blame other people for your state of mind.

If you choose to wear that “E” on your lapel, there are three very important things to remember. One: Psychic empathy is very common. It’s special, sure, but not unusual—imagine if every empathic person acted like a basket case? Two: It’s your responsibility to manage your gift. There’s a big difference between the psychically gifted person who’s tossed about like a leaf in the wind, and the one who has learned to feel all the breezes and come to useful conclusions about the weather.

Finally: The stories we tell ourselves matter. (Especially the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.) If you tell yourself that you can’t have close friends or go out in public because you’re too empathic to function, it’s likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy and your life will be poorer for it.

As an empath, your challenge is to practice openness and compassion without cultivating weakness. May you always be strong and thrive—the world needs you!

https://www.groveandgrotto.com/blogs/articles/psychic-empathy-understanding-and-developing-your-empathic-gifts

[the-irken-moonwalker]

Ivan; G1, H2, H7// Zyra; D1, D3, C2, K5// Rain; B9, A6, J6

AYYYYY!

read under the cut cause i got pretty out of control 

Ivan

G1: Is your OC close to their family?

Ivan’s got a somewhat complicated relationship with his immediate family. His parents have a history of giving him the shaft in favor of his brother Kevin. Examples include better Christmas gifts, more leniency when he gets in trouble, and overall just more positive attention than Ivan, all because Kevin was better at athletic sports. When Kevin finally moved out focus shifted to Ivan, but by then Ivan was already pretty sore. He doesn’t hate his parents, in fact he tries his hardest to impress them, he just feels sort of distant and finds more comfort in friends and other family members like his grandfather.

H2: Is your OC a thoughtful partner, in whatever aspect of that you want to cover?

It changes as he gets older, but Ivan has always kept the interests of Angel in mind ever since they started dating. Obviously when he’s still a kid he’s still got some selfish traits like pressuring Angel to do fun stuff he enjoys rather than she does, but as he ages he listens to her more and keeps her desires in mind when they’re together. Ivan’s change of character gets kickstarted when Rain warns him about possibly losing Angel is he doesn’t fix his petty feuds and nasty behaviors. Ever since then Ivan becomes much more conscious of his actions and more empathetic of his partner’s feelings. Zyra’s however.....he’s keeping an eye on them.

H7: What do they look for in partners? (Emotionally, mentally, physically..)

Before Ivan had any partners, his idea of romance was pretty typical of a horny adolescent boy. He adored pop stars and supermodels with perfect bodies and lots of money despite having pretty low self-esteem himself. By high school and Ivan’s complete overhaul of his appearance, his taste in women was still the same, except now it seemed more achievable to him. Now hoards of pretty girls adored him and the popular elite considered him one of their own. In fact his reasons for getting roped up with Sydney was because he considered her “kinda cute” at first, a deadly mistake. After breaking up with her his taste in women completely changed, and for a little while he was terrified of girls. But after his encounter with Angel, his taste changed to, well...Angel. Ever since then Ivan enjoys a strong quiet woman who keeps to herself, takes care of herself, and can without a doubt can kick his ass.

Zyra

D1: How religious is your OC? What do they practice, if anything? If they don’t associate with any religion, what do they think of religion in general?

The Djragoni people as a whole believe in a sisterhood of mother deities known as The Goddesses, four celestial beings who are responsible for the creation and fostering of the four main races and their respective habitats. Zyra is Ician, part of a race of snow nomads who’s patron Goddess is Icia (or something the names change every time I mention them), the Goddess of Ice. In Djragoni society your patron Goddess is meant to be your guardian and in a way your cosmic mother figure, which in their culture is both the life-giver and the fierce protector. Zyra cherishes his connection to his patron Goddess since she’s the one thing that keeps him tied to his original heritage since most of his tribe is Ulecian and worship the Goddess Ulecia, the Goddess of Water. On Earth Zyra still prays to his patron Goddess and holds her close as a symbol of home and a way of comforting himself. Djragoni don’t often leave their homeworld, but when confronted with the question of whether a Goddess can still protect someone on another planet, many say her reach is infinite and can protect no matter how far from home you are.

D3: How comfortable are they with the idea of death?

In Djragoni society, death is a very open subject since the race is primarily made of hunters. They kill, they eat, they’re killed, they’re eaten. That said they still value the concept of life and believe every living creature has wants and needs and that spark of energy that gives them the will to survive. Death, being the extinguishing of that spark, is opportunity for that creature to begin anew in another form. Long story short the Djragoni are avid believers in reincarnation. Zyra feels differently about these beliefs, tho. For one he chooses to be a vegetarian and a pacifist because the idea of killing deeply disturbs him. He feels very guilty witnessing the death of other things because he sees death as a terrifying end rather than a new beginning. If they move to another form, what’s the form? What of their old life? Isn’t death painful for everyone involved? I don’t want to cause that kind of pain by dying! Zyra wishes he could be more comfortable with the idea of death, but when thrown in a situation like the one on Earth, he’s never been more scared of death in his life.

C2: Would your OC feel bad if they acted against their morals? If not, would they find a way to excuse themselves for it?

Since Zyra has some PRETTY STRONG morals, he would be mortified if he ever acted against them. His moral code is rooted in values he was raised on, which emphasize kindness, forgiveness, and empathy. Basically he can’t ever bring himself to be a jerk. However his strong adhesion to his moral code doesn’t give him much room to express many negative emotions or stick up for himself. And after a near lifetime of being walked on, bullied, and pushed over the edge, one particularly bad encounter with someone willingly trying to anger him would result in him not only breaking his anti-jerk code, but exploding years of bottled-up emotions pretty damn violently. But since he’s still Zyra, he would apologize profusely after he cooled down.

K5: Does your OC feel isolated or unrelatable due to the experience their Paranormal Aspect brings with it? If so, how do they deal with it?

HELL YEA, DUDE. Ever since day one Zyra felt like his presence on Earth was a burden (maybe or maybe not because of Rain’s exaggerations). By the time Zyra is disguised and walking among the humans, he’s constantly afraid he’s gonna be found out and thrown in the back of a government van. It takes some time for him to chill out a bit and realize the humans don’t care. But it’s his relationships with his human friends that make him feel the most insecure. He’s aware Angel isn’t going to find out he’s not human, but he’s incredibly guilty because he’s basically lying daily to one of his dearest friends. Every time one of his human friends say something relatable for a HUMAN, be feels left out and can’t even say why. Many times he considers outing himself just so he can stop feeling so “alienated”, but has to stop and tell himself his safety matters much more than his feelings right now.

Rain

B9: What kind of humor does your OC like the most? Slapstick, ironic, funny sounds, scare pranks, xD sO rAnDoM…

Rain’s got an attraction to more dry or absurdist humor. Some examples of stuff she likes includes Eric Andre, meme humor, old school YouTube Poops, and just stuff like “my pengy???” However she still gets laughs out of blue stuff like toilet humor and can enjoy a good sex joke if it’s tasteful. But any well-structured joke will always be overshadowed by something like “succ”.

A6: Does your OC tend to assume their interpretation of events and reality is correct, or do they question it? I.e., “I’m sure that’s what you said” versus “It’s possible I misheard you.”

Typically Rain will assume she’s correct because she thinks she’s pretty good at interpreting things, but there are still many times she has had to second-guess herself because of anxiety. She’s willing to argue that she’s correct if it’s with someone she knows is wrong, but if she’s with someone who could possibly get angry with her or out-debate her, she will always assume she’s wrong, even if there’s proof she’s not.

J6: How do they react to people whose political viewpoints are very opposite of theirs?

Rain’s personal political standing leans towards the liberal left. Her parents are self-sustaining freedom fighters from Southern California, so it’s no surprise Rain shares their liberal views. Rain feels very strongly about her beliefs about social issues, the environment, and especially the government, so she WILL speak up if she hears someone spouting hate or ignorance. Now Rain is still just a young teenager so she’s still shaping her personal beliefs and how to properly debate them, but her current feelings on issues like gender politics and industrial pollution WILL earn someone a few missing teeth if they’re aggressively opposite to hers.