#my ability to dissociate is going with my youth

[the-many-children-of-the-void]

...

[sophieinwonderland]

My headcannon is that when human beings first came to existence, they were supposed to have alters and headmates to share the load of work, but then it just went away, but all of them are still in the back of every person’s mind like: “Dude, what the hell? Tell Tiffany you didn’t wanna go to that party! Screw being late to school, pet that damn dog!” And we just perceive that as our thoughts and talking to ourselves. /j

—Geovanni

Seriously though, what do you think (or is there evidence of) a survival mechanism behind plurality, or did it begin when urban and modern society began due to stress and such?

Ooh! There are so many layers to this! This is going to be fun! 😊

20,000 BC

I think we can start with dissociation, because let's face it, living in the past probably would have been pretty traumatic. And it makes sense people would have a mechanism to separate themselves from that trauma.

Imagine the year is 20,000 BC. You're a child being raised in a home made of the bones of the mighty mammoths. The world outside is a harsh, frigid wasteland. It's kill or be killed. And you've been taught this from a young age. Your youth is preparing to hunt the monsters that stalk the land, like the great beast whose bones were used to construct your home.

As you grow, you likely would find yourself living a dual-life. On one hand, you're the killer, the hunter of monsters. On the other, you need to be kind and caring to your family and friends because humans are social creatures. You need to be able to put the killer inside you to sleep when you're at home.

I don't usually think of the metaphor of having a work self and home self as being a plural thing. But I think it might become one when your "work self" involves entering a dangerous world of monsters where you need to hunt to survive every day.

This, I feel, is a good explanation for the evolutionary advantage of dissociation to our ancestors

But that leaves out non-traumagenic plurality.

Before we get to this, let's talk about something that isn't plural itself but is related.

Evolution of Dream Characters!

Here's one curious feature of humanity that we all kind of take for granted...

We have a holodeck in our head! An ability to, every night, create realistic mental simulations of the world.

There are many explanations for this ability, but personally, I take the view that it's intended as a conflict simulator. A danger room without the danger. How do you ensure that a species will survive the dangers of the world? You let them simulate the dangers they expect will happen every single night. It's like how a speech will go better if you rehearse what you're going to say first. Being forced to simulate a hunt will you make better prepared for it.

In my opinion, dreams are rehearsal for battling sabretooth tigers.

This is why so many dreams involve conflict, and even why we so often have nightmares. A nightmare is just your mind simulating how you would deal with something you're afraid of.

But where this gets really interesting and scary is that dreams don't just simulate circumstances and creatures. Dreams simulate people.

This also makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary perspective. There's an advantage to being able to predict how other people would react to you, and replay scenarios in your mind to train yourself for human interaction.

The strange thing is that these temporary people that we call dream characters are often fully autonomous. Even most lucid dreamers who learn to control other aspects of their dreams still can't control their dreams characters.

To me, this only makes sense if dream characters are temporary dissociated agents. Not exactly alters since they don't front. And not even full headmates since they don't last longer than the dream. But using similar mechanisms.

Evolution of Tulpas and Daydream Characters

With all of this in mind, I want to point out that daydreams and imagination exist for a similar reason as dreams. They're to simulate things. The difference is that daydreams and imagination are usually more controlled and less autonomous. You choose the simulation you want to run.

The reason that tulpas are able to exist is that, if someone were to imagine the same character over and over again, the brain might see that character as being more important. Conscious control over an imaginary character slows the simulation down and can interfere with it running, so the simulation needs to become automatized. And over time, with repeated interaction, that simulation could grow to develop its own autobiographical memories and become fully sapient.

In 20,000 BC, it wouldn't be recognized as a headmate, but probably some sort of external spirit or deity.

But why do these things work this way? Why is it possible for tulpas to exist, be sentient, and even front?

The brain is lazy

I think the brain's design cut corners and uses the same mechanisms for all of these that it uses to make the singlet "self."

There's a certain logic to this. If you need the brain to simulate other sentient people, why wouldn't it just use the same ones it uses to simulate the host?

Especially when the brain wasn't designed. These various mechanisms likely just evolved out of each other. Did the brain evolve to simulate a "self" first and later evolve to simulate "other" people? Or did we have the ability to simulate other people first, and later our sense of self evolved from that?

Whatever the case may be, I'm sure one did evolve from the other, and this is the reasons for a lot of the oddities we experience in plurality.

Anyway, that's my theory! 😁

[granulesofsand]

Renaming Programmed System Origins

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA w/ programming

I want a positive origin label for edit: programmed systems, because MC leaves many of us feeling distinctly not “adaptive” and we deserve a word that makes us proud to have survived.

I get that we’re traumagenic, but I want something specific. I’ve seen a few, but none of them are positive. Like ‘adaptive’ means formed around trauma, but highlights the system’s ability to learn and change to survive. Something that takes the spotlight off the perpetrators, and redirects it to the survivors.

So far, we got:

Programmgenic — from programming. Full points for accuracy, more creative than RAMCOAgenic, which is not listed

With special mentions to:

Mixed origins — specifically adaptive and created. I like identifying as created, especially because some of us were taught how to structure the system. More than trauma, but also still trauma

And that’s it. There’s a few hyperspecific and extra vague origins that could apply to all RAMCOA systems or a select few system members, but none that entail forming as a requirement to survive. And ‘adaptive’ doesn’t count, because those are different kinds of required.

A good number of programmed systems don’t feel adaptive; that we are adaptive is still true, at least in my mind, but the utter twisting of that adaption is what made us. The biggest reason I want a positively connotated origin is to change that perspective; to show survivor systems that our members are more than scars to fuse back into the skin, more than shards with sharp edges.

It’s a fairly common experience that perpetrators will kill a system that they can’t program, or a singlet that they can’t make multiple. So much of our lives we do anything to stay in their good graces.

Systems who deprogram, whose programming fell apart, or who were never successfully programmed are the picture of rebellion. But we didn’t form out of rebellion, not most of our members.

Our perps made us to be perfect, to go further than a singlet could for purposes a singlet would dissociate from (see BPD in youth and OSDD-2 in adults).

This is the struggle. Everything beautiful we are came after. Everything beautiful we were was because of perpetrators. What made us beautiful that was us?

I’m taking answers from any, whether you& survived programming or not, in hopes that there will be an answer. If it takes months, we will find words for us, because there has to be something I can’t see from my vantage. Anything, find me the beauty that I cannot see.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for feeling exhausted by offering comfort and support to my friends?

So for context, I've always preferred to help my friends with their problems. I think I've done a pretty good job of knowing when to stop and not micromanaging with this, and it's worked out well for a lot of my relationships in my life.

Last year, I joined a new fandom space and made fast friends with a person who lived in my city. Though I was excited about this, I understood that it was unlikely we would meet up unless we got to know each other. We started talking, and I soon found out they had a lot of issues with their mental health. I had no problem allowing them to vent, though I did set some boundaries there so that it wasn't just traumadumping in my dms, and everything seemed fine. They would often ask for my advice on specific things, which I would always offer to them. Everything was fine for a while. I appreciated that they took my advice, such as going to see a counsellor outside of their school counsellor, as well as joining a youth group to make some more friends.

This person, sometime in the summer, began to have a significant decline in their mental health. It was a gradual decline, so I guess I got sort of frogboiled into what eventually happened. Essentially, they began to have dissociative/depersonalisation episodes which they would describe to me asking for my help. Sometimes they would describe to me past traumas they were reliving through their episodes, most notably of which included a physically and mentally abusive father who was (importantly) still in the picture, as well as being groomed online at the age of ten.

Well, I later found out through a mutual (irl) friend who it turned out went to school with them and was decently close to them that it's pretty likely that none of this was true. Their father had been out of the picture since they were born, they often complained about how their mum had never let them have a phone or social media until they were in secondary school, and they weren't a member of any youth groups that my friend knew about. According to this friend, too, they'd been attending counselling for longer than they'd known me, so the big amazing moment I inspired them to get therapy was totally fake.

I ended up confronting this person, and they admitted that it had been a lie, and that their "episodes" had really just been them feeling upset. They justified this saying they were forced to make it seem worse or I wouldn't take them seriously. They also revealed they'd never read any of my fanfics, when their gushing over my writing had actually been the main reason I'd bonded with them in the first place. I cut contact with them completely.

I'm sort of over this now, but ever since I've been extremely weird about giving my friends advice on anything. I know most of my friends aren't like this, but ever since this whole thing I've found my ability to offer advice has just stopped being a point of positivity for me. Other people take my advice well, but I just feel a little uncomfortable when I do it nowadays, rather than getting the satisfaction of helping a friend, and it leaves me feeling tired and burnt out.

I guess my question is am I the asshole for caring so much about my feelings when trying to help my friends?

What are these acronyms?

[kienansidhe]

hi, im kienan! im the current host of the disaster hearts system. we are a korean american body with dissociative identity disorder and have had multiple diff hosts over the course of this blogs run. i or some variation of me have been host since around 2017-18ish. for transparencys sake, the body is 25+. do not ask abt age specifics please.

we are a survivor of csa trauma, parental abuse, religious and cult abuse, and generally very traumatized, and our experience of life is irrevocably colored by that lens.

we are disabled and unable to hold a job ever since we got long covid in april of 2020. we are fully dependent on our partners, working on our disability application, and still coming to terms with the reality of being probably permanently disabled.

unless otherwise specified it is probably some variation of kienan speaking.

-♡♡♡-

i, kienan, am queer and i prefer to be addressed by strangers with he/they/it or fae/faeself pronouns. i dont rlly care which of those you use, tho, no need to rotate or anything.

some other labels that generally describe me: nonbinary, transmasc, gnc, cuntboy, [redacted], [redacted], femme, femboy, genderweird, bi, aro/ace with a couple exceptions, sex favorable, kink obligate, freak, degenerate, pervert.

i currently have 4 partners, referred to here as prettyboyfriend, nesting boyfriend, girlfriend/daddy, and moirail.

no dni, i think theyre stupid and the only ppl i would not want to interact would not respect dnis anyways lmao. if i have a problem with you i will just say so or block you or whatever.

some of my beliefs and what to expect on this blog are under the cut.

i believe in rehabilitation and compassion, full stop. yes, even for those people. i think that othering and dehumanizing others sucks, that thoughts do not define you (yes, even those thoughts), and that the only thing that matters is your actions.

i think callouts are never helpful, ever. ive literally never seen one do anything helpful or good.

i try my best to interact with others in good faith, and i expect the same in return.

we were homeschooled in a cult and our education was heavily ~moderated~ to keep us brainwashed, and every time i think ive rooted out all the misinfo new stuff comes up. please be patient with me if i ask stupid questions, i literally am stupid. i have so much literal actual brain damage. i will do my best to be open minded, i rlly want to learn!

i believe that the best ways to combat csa are better sex education, breaking down the sanctity of the nuclear family, youth liberation (more legal rights and self advocacy for children), and not clogging child abuse report portals with fucking fictional art, jesus h christ.

medicalization of identities sucks. sysmeds, transmeds, im sorry youre miserable but thats not an excuse for trying to make everyone else miserable with you.

labels are only useful insofar as they help you connect with others like you and form solidarity in order to combat systemic oppression. if labels make you angry or miserable, consider not taking them so seriously.

its okay to just dislike ppl. its not always that deep. trying to come up with moral reasons to justify disliking ppl is rlly fucking catholic.

dont talk to me abt christianity. im aware that my trauma affects my ability to be compassionate in this area, so im staying in my lane. in fact probably dont talk to me abt religion in general.

im not a proshipper or an anti i touch grass <3, HOWEVER:

antishipping / purity politics / anti-kink / whatever you wanna call it, ppl equating fictional depictions of Obvious Bad Things with condoning, supporting, or normalizing them in real life are fucking stupid and have done unbelievable amounts of damage that has now reached far beyond fandom and kink circles. get a life, for fucks sake.

ppl who call themselves proshippers and then go around harassing antis are fucking stupid and have lost the original spirit of the term proship / anti-anti, which hinged around not harassing or harming others over fiction. get a life, for fucks sake.

just be kind. dont be a dick. treat others how you wanna be treated. we are all traumatized but thats not an excuse to be cruel. leave the world better than you found it.

youre gonna make mistakes. you just are. youre not perfect and also the world is complex. remember that you cant help everyone. try your best but dont lose yourself in the process.

art is everything. the act of creation is holy. more progress is made by creating -- building communities, making art, growing plants, building houses, building relationships -- than by tearing things down. there is probably a time and place for violence, destroying oppressive systems, bombing weapons factories, but if we arent creating a positive, healthy society alongside the destruction we are just leaving fertile ground for new oppressive structures to take root. create. create. create.

-♡♡♡-

many hosts has left a chaotic mess of tags on this blog but here are some we use pretty consistently:

#headspace: original posts. diary rambling, random thoughts, actual semi coherent opinions, anything

#my face: the body

#humans are good actually: reminders

#recovery things: mental health help

#important: there is so much stuff in this tag

#bookmark: too much here too lol

#feel better: just fluffy stuff

#vine: general funny video tag

#about, #me kin id, #i ghostwrote this post: stuff we relate to rlly hard + uquiz tags lol

#posts that are funnier when plural

[texasinnersmile]

things about Some Might Say by Oasis that make me think it's one of the most profound songs ever written:

it's not just about hope but about people who quite literally cannot afford to not hope. "some might say they don't believe in heaven; go and tell it to the man who lives in hell." it's so profound for its time because a) it clashes with the nihilism of so many other 90s bands, like nirvana and b) it was written during the miserable post-thatcher years in britain, during which the divide between rich and poor got bigger, there were cruel conservative policies, and general dissociation by the youth from their newly materialistic society. to be so boldly optimistic about the world and life generally, especially with noel growing up in the surroundings he did (more on that later), is, to me, an immaculate display of the human ability to endure and survive, but also, thrive, during hard times.

"some might say you get what you've been given; if you don't get yours I won't get mine as well" - i see this as a lyric reflecting some kind of brotherhood, either literal (noel and liam) or the 'society' thatcher told us didn't exist. noel says: my brother should get what i get, and if he doesn't, then we live in a bit of a fucked up world, don't we? and like: yeah!!!!! fucking yeah!!

noel wrote this having endured severe childhood abuse from his father, so much so that he was left with a stammer. his mother had to leave with him and his brothers in the night and even after the brothers were famous the dad would haunt them and torment them, culminating in that famous incident in the hotel when he just showed up and liam threatened to break his legs. and yet it was in the wake of this trauma that noel writes a song like 'yeah im in hell and it sucks but heaven exists and you're an idiot if you think it doesn't.' remarkable

'you made no preparation for my reputation once again' is literally a baller fucking lyric and the way liam delivers it is...i'm sorry for the cliche....biblical

nonsense lyrics like 'my dog's been itchin' in the kitchen once again' being alongside all this. we get it noel you like the beatles

[sisterdivinium]

what do you think suzanne was like in her youth? she says she doesn't see herself as modern, but what do you think that means to her?

Those are interesting questions! As they require a little more imagination than I usually apply to my posts here, I'll ponder them one by one, even if they're interconnected. This will be long, of course, because it's about 💕❤️ Suzanne ❤️💕 my beloved.

1) On Suzanne's character in youth

The first solid clue we're given about what Suzanne used to be like comes from the conversation she holds with Duretti on Crimson, of course:

As much as Mother Superion ends by radically dissociating herself from Crimson in the similarity established by the cardinal, adding that the younger nun is "possibly sociopathic", she makes no effort to refute the adjectives of "aggressive" and "undisciplined" as applied to herself. She must, then, in some level recognise these traits as her own.

When we are treated to the flashback she has with Shannon in season two, confirmation on both characteristics is clear: a determined halo-bearing Suzanne eschews "Christian compassion" in slaughtering a gang of men without pity and without any real backup plan should her charging head-first into battle yield less than desirable results. She is aggressive and undisciplined, quite evidently.

Here is a little problem, though, because discipline is indispensable to obedience — and obedience is, of course, amongst the vows taken by those who enter monastic life.

This could nudge us towards seeing a certain rebelliousness in young Suzanne. Fitting in and taking orders from someone else might have been a challenge for her, as it always is for prideful people, even when those "superiors" have their respect.

Her tempestuousness seems, to me, to have manifested in another physical manner as well. Regardless of my own tiny sin of "headcanoning" her as a lesbian, there's the other side to this competent swordswoman — not the one in the heat of battle, getting up close to her enemies in order to slash them down, but in the proximity shared with her sisters, her body language and closeness to them.

Season one shows us a detached, distant Mother Superion who almost never directly touches the other women. In season two's flashback, however, our Warrior Nun Suzanne strokes Shannon's cheek before whatever halo trick she pulls in pressing down on Shannon's chest. There's an easy familiarity there, a confidence in breaching Shannon's personal space — an intimacy as well as the conviction to assert it. Whether this type of gesture was exclusive to Shannon or dispensed on the other nuns as well matters not so much as the fact that it happened and how it contrasts with the Mother Superion we know of the first season. I'd guess that young Suzanne wasn't all that keen on repressing the ways by which her body, then still wholly able, interacted with those of her sisters. Opening up to touch as she does throughout season two, slowly as it might be, might not be a novelty as much as a "coming home" for her, regaining some of her lost confidence in her very ability to love other women — or express it, rather. It wouldn't be far-fetched to assume that the guilt she felt for being a sinner encompassed more than just the grief of killing a mother...

Liberal closeness to other nuns alongside a lack of discipline mustn't have garnered her a great many favours in her time with the Church... So I suppose her combat skills, her sharp focus, and her devotion to the cause must have spoken louder than her blatant (cardinal sin of) pride when she rose to the position of halo-bearer.

And maybe, just maybe, the fact that there was someone to vouch for her played a part in it as well.

Mary had a mentor and a protector in father Vincent and I suspect something of their relationship might be mirrored in how young Suzanne might have sought guidance in an ambitious, younger father Francesco. They "go back many years", Vincent tries to sway a reticent Mother Superion by claiming Duretti used "her history" against her... It's possible that a young Suzanne, like Mary, would have depended on a man of the cloth to secure her place within the OCS even as her very personality at times clashed with the demands of the institution. Men who, for one reason or another, could help direct these young and ferocious women's energies towards a specific goal, give them a purpose. Needless to say both Suzanne and Mary seem to stay on board for the same reason, even if as Mother Superion Suzanne might have later repressed it: their sisters.

For all of Suzanne's cockiness, she does quite obviously do it all for them.

So to sum up my vision of young Suzanne and move on: I see her as a brash, somewhat rebellious girl in need of a cause through which to channel her passions and a speciality to prove herself to others (given how she is already so sure of her own value). As far as faith goes, she appears to have deposited it mostly in herself, which would account for a greater degree of godly devotion after losing the halo in order to expiate her sins. She's in this (always has been, even despite later shame and fear and concealment) for the women, most of all.

2) On what "modernity" might mean to Suzanne

In order to assess what modernity is, it's necessary to define the term it's contrasted with as well — we need to think of what tradition could mean for her.

And this is... Difficult. "The Church" isn't an easy way out; Duretti is part of the Church, a constant in her life, a guide... Yet Suzanne's words about needing "a more modern approach to the job" are very reminiscent of something Duretti himself had said back in that same season one scene:

There's a bit of a paradox here if we try to see things through her eyes.

Her need for "modernity" arises from another exchange with this same man. But can we say Duretti truly embodies tradition when here is a religious person who has no qualms about setting sister warriors to kill a girl who accidentally has the halo? (Well, perhaps so, given how the Catholic church is stained with terrible actions...) Suzanne might not know about the torture chamber in the Vatican, but she did help save Ava in the catacombs from the OCS rejects under his orders. She is perfectly aware of how violent he can be.

Perhaps that is in itself a part of her wanting to break out; we can't ignore the fact that the above screen captures show us his line of dialogue ending while we see a take of Beatrice offering a hand to Crimson — showing her the opposite of the ruthlessness Duretti and Crimson carry.

It's also peculiar how she mentions modernity while inside a library or archive, the very home of history and tradition. Are these the "old teachings"? This unending amount of precepts all around, gathered with the passing ages?

We wouldn't do well to argue that the blood-soaked books recounting the past or the violent strategies of Duretti are necessarily what trouble her seeing as she is still a warrior currently at war; Suzanne isn't exactly a pacifist.

However, the phone call that originates the "modern" comment is a failed attempt on her part to get Duretti to act, to take a first and definite step against Adriel — to enter the fray, as young Suzanne probably would have already.

He beckons her to "have faith in God" — and perhaps that is the issue, the "old teaching" she feels insufficient and which, examining her (possible) past as in the first part of this very long answer, was never enough for her to begin with. Heeding the words of men, believing in God... And what does that amount to shortly after they hang up? She couldn't predict the future, but she saw something wrong with the method — and the intuition proved right.

I can't tell precisely what her "modernity" entails since I cannot pinpoint "tradition" either; they seem a bit intertwined. It's tempting to say Jillian fills the role of providing the "newness" through her technology, but it isn't as if Mother Superion were a luddite: she's using a smartphone and a computer just fine, if perhaps not as modernly as Camila and her TikTok. She is not an "outdated" person. We could assume that this "modern approach" has less to do with the instruments and more with perspective, with priorities, guiding principles... On a superficial level, it's about coming out from under Duretti's wing — from Church structure's shadow, from the patriarch's rule, from following someone else's lead.

And that, funnily enough, assuming this post is in any way correct in its hypothesising, would lead us right back to our rebel from youth, if hopefully with more wisdom to guide her steps this time around.

Season three would have allowed us to see Suzanne be without the anchor of Duretti (as season two could have let us see Mary away from Vincent) and maybe elucidate the matter... But, as it is, I think this is as much as I can surmise with what we've been given!

[multiplicity-positivity]

Hey weirdish question, do you think it would be weird to ask my father/siblings about my childhood? I want to remember more about my life growing up, I know it sucked and I have some memories about how it sucked, but I've also lost more memories, not just from dissociation but from a history of concussions and so I hard remember even my teen years as a minor even though I'm only 20 and I just want to know more? I feel really bad about never remembering things, like I forget birthdays, important events, vacations with my father (probably the happiest points of my life since I was away from my mother) and it just feels so bad. I also have second question, how do I figure out if I'm disordered or not? I have aphantasia so I can't inner communicate but a lot of my alters are very similar to "me" "me" being the fronting consciousness seems to always be here even if I specifically am not, and we do seem to generally retain some memories between us but we're still constantly losing memories and time within a week of forming said memories but I don't know that you could call that amnesia?

-Newt

Hi! We’ll try to answer these questions to the best of our ability!

Would it be weird to ask your father/siblings about your childhood?

We don’t know you or your family, and this will seriously depend on the dynamics you have with your family members and how each of them view y’all’s collective history! Is there any chance they might have harmed you in your childhood, or might become defensive if you ask about your history? Are you in a place now where you are safe and/or independent?

As a system who also has lots of amnesia surrounding our childhood, we honestly haven’t been able to recover many memories through conversations with our family. If someone tells us something that happened to us in childhood, it feels to us like a story or something that happened to someone else. We haven’t been able to recover many memories this way. We’re not a doctor and we’re not sure how amnesia really works entirely, but asking other people to recount your childhood may not be the best way to try and recall memories you’ve lost.

However, if your father has pictures, a photo book, or some other sort of album containing images from your positive experiences in childhood, it may be worth it to ask about this. Many parents do keep some sort of photo evidence of their children’s lives and upbringings. Looking at images or videos of your youth might help to jog your memory!

When it comes to keeping track of events in your life, you could try keeping a calendar in which you write down important dates like birthdays and future important events. We keep track of these things in our phone’s calendar, which can actually alert us when the event is approaching, so it’s super helpful! Without some sort of calendar/alert system, it would be incredibly difficult for us to keep up with everything in our lives! 😅

And with regards to your second question: How to tell whether or not you are disordered, that’s really tricky and the answer will vary vastly from system to system (and even headmate to headmate)!

We wrote a post outlining our own system’s experience with disordered plurality. We’re just going to link it in hopes that it may help answer this question! We do believe that it’s up to the individual, not any outside party, to determine whether or not an experience they live with is disordered or not.

We also wrote a post specifically about dissociative amnesia, with our experience and some additional resources! Maybe it can help y’all figure out whether or not you’re experiencing amnesia to some extent.

We hope this helps! Good luck with everything, Newt - we hope that if you do talk to your family it goes really smoothly!

🌷 Corrie and 🐢 Kip

[jakowskis]

sloppy gay ramble about why i ship owento lets go

(this was meant to be a server ramble but it got too big for discord so here’s a ginormous messily formatted semi stream-of-consciousness type essay on why i ship owen x ianto and what’s compelling about it to me. starts out kinda babbly n then i got serious abt it n then i got babbly again so sorry for the tone switch fhsdjkfd. i do not know if this is cohesive, let alone persuasive, i'm not trying to sell you the ship so much as im yapping incoherently about the Themes n Motifs that drive me mad. but yeah. also this is purely based on the first two seasons of the show, nothing else. im not normal about these guys btw im Deranged. anyway here.)

for starters, background. i must explain what first roped me into this pairing. the answer? season 1 episode 12. singlehandedly. and then i felt Haunted for a while, and then i read some fic and something clicked in my head and it's been my torchwood otp since. im very consistently an enemies/rivals to lovers enjoyer so at first i was just like 'heh nice i love toxic yaoi' but then they decided not to leave me alone. and a lot of it's bc of the Themes 🫵 do not underestimate my ability to overthink and overcomplicate a barely-there relationship whose connotations are entirely subtextual

see, owen and ianto are mirrors in like ten ways, and where they're not mirrors, they’re foils. on the mirror end, their backstories are jarringly similar (abusive parental figure; rebellious phase as a youth (punk vs goth); losing their fiancée/serious girlfriend as a young adult to an alien threat). their relationships with jack are adjacent (emotionally unavailable authority figure they look to for approval; owen as jack's second in command versus ianto as his right hand man). most interestingly, imo, is their personalities. at their core, theyre not entirely different. owen in his backstory? he's a lot like ianto. faithful, loyal, quiet, gentle. they're not markedly different in who they are deep down, they just have extremely different coping mechanisms that make them look like opposites. ianto dissociates + turns things inward - owen self-destructs AND lashes out. owen's like a ianto that hardened and got mean - ianto's like an owen who still values being quiet and dutiful and not making trouble. (basically, history + personality-wise they’re mirrors, coping mechanism + temperament-wise, they’re foils. two sides of the same coinnnnn)

they both recognize this, although possibly not consciously - and it bothers them. ianto dislikes + feels threatened by / wary of owen's impulsivity and aggression (partly bc he fears he himself is like that deep down, and he isnt willing to access that part of himself. we see a handful of times that ianto does in fact have repressed anger and its SCARY. and i wouldnt doubt hes intimidated by that part of himself, given his control issues. esp considering his plot in adam, if you wanna read it that way). meanwhile owen dislikes ianto for what he perceives as subservience + weakness (partly bc those are things he sees in himself and HATES. a lot of owen's character is his struggles w his own nature + feeling a need to compensate for perceived deficiencies). and they also look down on each other for these qualities, and, i think, bolster themselves a little bit by comparing themselves to the other. we know owen does this (“it’s like you finally won.” “i didn’t know we were in competition.”), but considering ianto’s preoccupation with competency, i don’t doubt he also feels a little bit better about himself when owen fucks things up by acting rashly.

so ianto's like a version of owen that he tried to bury entirely and move on from when katie died, and owen's reminiscent of what ianto's afraid he's capable of becoming. and they both project these things onto each other - owen more outwardly, in the way he feels the need to attack ianto in both of their significant one-on-one scenes. in ianto we see it more as avoidance + slight disgust. in their lighter scenes ('lets all have sex', and the tin tin discussion) we see owen trying to be companionable (...can u call the sleeper scene that fhsdjkf) and ianto having none of it. funny enough, i think owen likes ianto more than ianto likes owen, at least by s2. liking aside, though, ianto does care for him. but another thing i like abt owento is owen's a litttttle bit fixated on ianto for some reason (i think it could be interpreted ten different ways, but him repeatedly bringing up ianto & jack's relationship is wiiiild to me) - n then ianto doesn't think abt owen much at all, he's just sort of there. it's fucking funny. i like a darker take on owento, as u can probs tell, but also they can be hilarious if you want them to be. two guys who can't stand each other and should kiss about it is always good. but yeah, as they exist in canon, as of s2, they're just sort of... comfortably colleagues, albeit maybe still a bit combative.

but i’m eternally caught up in what episode 12 teased me with. (and i knowww ep12 was specific desperate circumstances, that's not their norm, but what's presented when they're both at that point is soo compelling to me. i like characters at their worst.) see, episode 12 is when we really see that half-mirrors half-foils thing come to a head. owen’s spiraling because he just lost diane. he feels weak, he feels powerless. he’s essentially doing what ianto did in episode 4, putting love first, and you can tell owen was kind of disgusted with + felt betrayed by ianto in that ep, so he’s also being a hypocrite and breaking his own standards for how a torchwood agent ought to act. (not to mention i think owen deeply resents his own emotionality, but that’s another topic.) and during that spiral, ofc, he gets mean and frantic, in typical owen fashion. then we have ianto. despite the threat of losing jack, ianto does his best to stay level headed and focus on what their job is, rather than personal feelings - something owen usually values.

so there’s this moment where their traits are both blurring a bit, where roles are being swapped but without straying from the heart of each character, where the mirrors are RLLY reflecting each other (infinity mirror? on and on and on...). owen’s simultaneously being self-destructive and rash, but also vulnerable and love-lorn, which is something he looks down on ianto for in regards to lisa and then jack (and his verbal attack on ianto is majorly projection, too. ‘part time shag’ is especially notable when 1) him and gwen’s affair literally broke off last episode. owen was HER part time shag, and 2) him and diane were meant to be casual too and owen caught feelings - same as ianto with jack. major projection lawl. and we see owen do this multiple times, it’s a trait of his. another notable instance is him telling tosh “you want someone as broken and screwed up as you��, lmao).

and ianto’s being pushed to his limit, too; he’s trying to hold firm and stick to his values about the rules, but it’s the most hardened and merciless we ever see him. when you’re carefully watching, there’s a Brutality in him in a few key moments when he’s pointing that gun at owen and it’s SO critical to my understanding of + enjoyment of the character. i just find ianto’s inner darkness reallyyy compelling haha. my other fav ianto moment is “pray they survive” in meat. there’s something SCARY to him that the show doesn’t often bring out, and it’s what i find most intriguing about him. (both moments are also some of my fav bits of acting from gareth, too. i also think burn’s a much better scene partner for him than barrowman, there’s just something about the way they play off each other in ep12, man. i am… not always impressed by gareth’s acting, but in those scenes i think he’s brilliant.) 

so ep12 introduces the things that my concept of owento heavily revolves around - and then you expand upon it. see, the ship is almost entirely hypothetical. what they Could be - what they have the potential to be. that’s not everyone's thing, especially in a fandom with canon gay relationships, but i loveee it, and i love that there’s tons of freedom in it. it’s also fun as hell + very stimulating as a fanfic writer. other writers have done a lot too, there’s been many fantastic interpretations over the years - there’s a fair amount of rlly rlly good owento fic, particularly by one author back in 2007 who wrote t o n s of amazing stuff + rlly established a great dynamic that most other people have kind of followed (including me). my favorite take on owento (and, imo, the best, and the most plausible, one) is that they hooked up between s1 n s2, while jack was gone. i think its brilliant, i think there's a LOT of rlly insane connotations there + in a show like tw its not far-fetched, like i could see it happening. it's an extension of things we see in canon - for starters, when they’re desperate, they end up in bed with another member of the team. and then the way owen’s always in jack's shadow… gwen wanted jack from the start but she turned to owen instead bc he was there. the idea of that happening again, with a ianto who wants jack but can't have him… owen's consistent trend of being someone's mistake, of being someone’s second choice. his consistent tendency to be there when someone hits rock bottom to offer them a sexual reprieve. because he’s always down there himself, and misery loves company. he doesn’t like being alone in it. (torchwood and its persistent loneliness, btw.) and then there’s the recurrent theme of the power struggle between jack and owen - owen often wants to get one over on jack, which occasionally entails trying to covet the things jack has/wants… rubbing his grubby little hands all over jack’s toys. or maybe that’s just the only way he knows how to establish some claim over torchwood - sleeping with half the members. why not add another? why not give jack the finger a third time? i love drama 🕺

and on ianto’s end… for starters, owen’s a lot like jack in certain ways. a lot of it seems to be a front he puts on (and i wont get into the intriguing implications of owen choosing to or perhaps subconsciously emulating jack in certain respects when he started fresh at torchwood) - if ianto’s kind of like owen was, jack’s kind of like what he’s trying to be, he just doesn’t pull it off as well. not quite as good at being superficially charming. pulls it off in his own way, though. point is, despite the fact that canon implies ianto has zero interest in owen, some of the things he’s intrigued by with jack are in fact present in owen. the inaccessibility, the compensatory arrogance, the brooding, the intensity. this is arguably further present in gwen’s attraction to the both of them. there’s some surface level similarities that canon even seems to reflect on a few times (esp in s2). additionally, i don’t tend to think owen was in charge while jack was gone (i think he stepped back and let gwen do it, but maybe took charge during field missions, as implied by kkbb), but it’s an interesting angle in some owento fics, ianto gravitating towards whoever’s the boss. more than that, though, after losing lisa AND jack, he’d probably end up looking for someone else to preoccupy himself with, against his better judgement. a trait owen and him have in common, it just manifests in different ways. (and, finally, i think he'd also be compelled by the differences between jack and owen. owen's a complicated guy, but i think ianto understands him well enough. there's not really a mystery, he doesn't have to guess with him. owen straight-forward and a bit of an open book, and i think ianto might find that a relief.)

the other thing that compels me, and that i think would compel ianto, is that, oddly enough, owen's someone ianto ends up having power over pretty easily (although not without a fight). this is a sharp contrast to jack, where jack's always the dominating force (i dont mean that perversely, i mean, like, he's all-consuming), and ianto's always kind of at his mercy. a really interesting part of episode 12 is that neither of them, owen or ianto, really win, and yet they both score a victory over the other in different ways, too. owen successfully opens the rift; but ianto prevents him from doing so for quite a while, and does in fact shoot him over it. owen may have succeeded, but ianto established physical dominance by putting a bullet in him. which, cough. that in itself. and not to get additionally horny with it cuz thats not what this is about, but there’s this other really interesting bit in the episode that haunts me, as well: when ianto tells owen to go home, owen sneers at him and refuses, and then ianto stares him down - and owen caves. he’s still sneering, but he caves without fuss. that right there… is the crux of what i find so enthralling. owen, for all his rebelliousness + pride, does briefly bend to ianto’s will. but he does it in such an almost back-handed way, he twists it, almost like ‘you forced my hand, happy now?’ even though… ianto didn’t try hard in that moment to coerce him. owen gave in on his own free will, but had to feel like he’d been made to, and tried to twist it to take some of the ‘satisfaction’ away from ianto (even though it’s not about winning and losing to ianto, at least consciously)… the mind games u guys!!!

and on the flip side, the way ianto was able to come out on top (NO EUPHEMISM INTENDED I PROMMYYYY) simply by standing firm. not raising his voice, not being physically aggressive. he stood there and looked at him. thats insaneeeee. and that's a moment of control for him that he doesn't get in his onscreen relationship with jack, or in his career at torchwood. and we see it for just one moment the only time owen & ianto interact in an substantial way. there's so many crazyyy things that could come out of those two falling into something messy, and i think it's really interesting that the power dynamic that's implied by canon puts ianto in a position of power we don't get to see him in in his canon relationship with jack. i want to see more of a ianto who's not just an accessory to jack, who stands on his own two feet, and that ep is honestly the only time in all twenty-six s1 and s2 eps where that happens. he's not only owen's equal in that ep, he fights for control and manages to command things. that? is a ianto i'm endlessly intrigued by. and then there's the fact that this is all right after owen's gay little fight club episode, where we learn that owen's a guy who lovessss mixing homoeroticism with violence. not only that, the power plays and mind games mark and owen play with each other in ep 11 - ep 12 is a direct continuation of that, between ianto and owen. and thats SOOO sexy to me fhdsfjkds.

so we have something angry and visceral and raw - which isn't everyone's cup of tea but its my LIFEBLOOD. they bring out the worst in each other, the aspects of themselves that they dislike. and personally? im always compelled by ships that have that dynamic - but then they both get a bit Addicted to it. i LOVE the thematic theme of surrendering to the worst parts of yourself, and of being drawn in by the ugly parts of someone else. and i think there’d be smth rlly interesting in the form of them each realizing the other’s their mirror, as well. something almost self-punishing, potentially. lil bit psychosexual. i like the thought of owen recognizing that ianto’s more than meets the eye, recognizing that he’s got a sadism to him - i think he could be compelled to draw that out, because that’s already something we see with owen (most explicitly during the whole gwen affair). owen’s someone who wants to find someone as fucked up and lost as he is. we see this with gwen and diane - and we can deduce that's what drew him to suzie. but it should also be noted those relationships were all with women - in the show, as previously mentioned above, owen’s attraction to men is always associated with aggression, with violence. a lot to be said about that, and i have a wip essay on owen’s sexuality in my drafts, but the point is owen’s queerness exists in anger and in power struggles with other men - which makes it obvious to me, given how they're presented in ep12, that him and ianto’s relationship could very, very easily trip over the line into being something More. owen’s turned on by aggression, he’s canonically attracted to ianto - i really dont think it’d take much for him to make a move. particularly if jack were gone. and i could very easily see him ending up looking at ianto and thinking ‘hm. there's something fucked up about him. i bet i can make him worse’. 

and ianto… see, this is where it gets fun, and also where my personal interpretation deviates from most owento writers, because a lot of people write this pairing as very brutal; the ianto in owento fics is usually much harsher than any ianto i’ve seen elsewhere. it’s rarely ooc, bc we see that ianto in the show, just not often, and it’s one of his most interesting forms n i’m fond of him. that being said - i’m personally intrigued by the idea of ianto figuring owen out and realizing that aggression and casual sex isn’t what he really wants after all. owen’s soft, deep down, and there’s a need to be understood and cared for. that’s… kind of ianto’s specialty. and there’s an angle of power there, too. maintaining control in a way that simply being rough could never sufficiently achieve. because i dont tend to ship enemies-to-lovers in a way where the characters aren’t being self-serving and conniving. i like when two characters are exploiting each other and fucking themselves up in the process. that’s my shit. i especially like when it eventually becomes something that almost looks like a really bastardized version of love. all in all i think they just have the potential to bring some crazyyyy shit out of each other

um. theres a lot more i could say but this is already really long and i ran out of steam. basically i think they should have hatesex but then get obsessed with each other and wage psychological warfare on each other👍

[isaacathom]

my thing is that im now just imagining the multiverse of florians based on three flex points in his life, and its like. what am i meant to do with this (ramble, clearly)

so there's three things that make Florian de Kasimir who he is, at a base level, at the start of the campaign. These are: The Incident in his youth, his father's debts, and his decision to join the Temerian army. so, what happens when you take the diverging paths at each point?

the most interesting alternate florian, to me, is one unburdened by the incident or the debts, but who still joins the army. This is a Florian who has no reason to especially dislike his family, who has been raised and loved as best his parents are able, who continued his education but did not excel, who was not prevented from entering the high life of nobility. This is a Florian who, given he's 34 at the campaigns start, almost certainly is married, and who more than likely has a child, if not children. This is a Florian with serious, genuine ties to his home and his family. A Florian who could never have been in the campaign as written, because the moment he found out about the war he would have returned home. Instantaneous. Hell, canon Florian only joined the campaign's quest because he wanted money - with the debt not a factor, there's no reason that the NNY Florian would have any reason to do so.

The tragedy of NNY Florian to me is that he was certainly in the Temerian army during the third northern war, and given that Florian's from Temeria's south... well... The likelihood that he survived the crushing defeats Temeria suffered under Nilfgaard in those opening weeks is low. This is a Florian probably as happy as he could be, multiversally. A Florian who has seen suffering, but has plenty of joy to propel him forward, rather than spite. And he would predecease YYY Florian.

So, i guess run down:

YYY Florian - Canonical. Had the incident, had the debts, joined the army. No loyalty to his home beyond the abstract, joined the party on the promise of an extravagant payday, decided not to return to Temeria when he found out about the war bc he knew that would get him killed immediately.

YYN Florian - incident, debts, not in the army. I have no fucking idea who this cunt is. Given Florian's upbringing, the diversion required for this one to not join the army is significant. Depressingly, I assume this Florian was one who suffered a serious injury before he could enlist, and is therefore... not doing... great... this is i think the closest we can get to a 'Bad Timeline' Florian, emotionally.

YNY Florian - incident, no debt, army. The lack of debts is not quite so significant (since canonically they've become irrelevant), but it would change his post-2nd war life a decent bit. Possibly he even completely quits the place, as canon florian would consider the existence of those debts the main thing shackling him to his family. So, sans debts, Florian might just peace fully the fuck out. Fuck off up north, even, completely dissociate from all the shit. Just invent himself a new life now that he doesn't feel like he has to save any of his money for dealing with debts that will, hereditarily, become his responsibility.

YNN Florian - incident, no debt, no army. ???? who is this man. whats he doing. all the non-army florians confuse me because his physical ability and prowess is like. his thing. its what he has going for him. for the sake of distinguishing YNN from YYN, we'll say that while he also suffered an injury which prevents him from being a soldier, the fact his family aren't skint broke means there's the option to find him SOMETHING to do despite that? some nigh-do nothing job working for some other noble. an irrelevant man, by all accounts, just quietly hobbling around a duke's estate carrying out menial tasks. When that duke or whatever inevitably gets steamrolled by Nilfgaard, Florian probably just keeps working because ? what's he gonna do. can my boy cook? we must ask these questins

NYY Florian - No incident, yes debt, yes army. Now the key different here is that this Florian is decently educated and *not an bastard*. He's nice enough, jovial even if you catch him in a good mood, and he likely volunteered for the army with the intent of earning money to pay off the debts as the primary motive. The debts reduce the marriage prospects, so he's not married, but DOES care about his family (more than YYY, anyway). This connection prevents him from fucking off up north when the 2nd war ends, but he likely still ends up doing mercenary work to cover for ~things~. Likely still in Temeria when the war breaks out though.

NYN Florian - no incident, yes debt, no army. Now, because the N-- series Florian's aren't bitter jaded assholes as a general rule, and were continuously educated into their teens, this means that the N-N ones have options of finding alternate employ. Instead of volunteering for the army as NYY, this Florian may find himself in a similar employ to YNN, just in a more 'this is a way of paying of the debt' way. indentured servitude-y vibes? this may actually go better for florian in the long run because that situation probably bothers the fuck out of him, so when nilfgaard storms in hes like 'hey nilfgaards whats up. we can be chill' because the loyalty isn't quiiiite there.

NNY Florian - no incident, no debt, yes army. the lovingly married man from earlier. Joined the army to defend his family, is still in the army now, and the nilfgaardian invasion has not gone well for him, i can tell you that.

NNN Florian - no incident, no debt, no army. who the fuck is this man. who are you. are you real? is this even still a florian de kasimir at this stage. is this a misnomer. i genuinely have no idea. best outcome for this guy is he's just like NNY except the angle he takes of 'defend his family' is more... political? and that, in the absence of any combat prowess (some injury in his teenage years, we'll say), when presented with the nilfgaardian army, he's like 'hey. how about you don't kill me or my family and we just chill?'. nilfgaardian collaborator. not sure he's happy, per se, and the fact some of his cousins are in the army doesn't help that, but like. sure. alternatively instead of collaborating he flees with them up north? both are options. the nilfgaard collaborator one's the funniest in the overall context of Florian as a canon character because he *hates* nilfgaard. so the idea that 2-3 versions of him are either nominally onside or fully onside is funny.

vibes!

[butterycube777]

You should consult an organization who assists people in escaping abuse. There are many. You're an adult, you could also get a job or covertly reach out to social services for help, or even seek a free/low income therapist or counselor who won't coddle or enable you while also giving you the tools to deal with any trauma you might have. If you're lgbt, reach out to a local lgbt organization. If the situation is truly that bad, you can and SHOULD find a way to leave asap even if it's scary as hell because the truth is that when you're being abused anything is better than allowing it to continue because despite FEELING powerless, you are not at all powerless- you do have the ability to live life on your own terms and I know that you will go places in life if you seek out real support. Not furries on discord- REAL support from the people in your local community who care. This doesn't mean its your fault for being in a bad situation however you cannot just lay down and hope that you will raise enough money from your ugly furry artwork to get away from it all (speaking as someone who lived in a youth emergency shelter at 15 after running away from an abusive home, and then was placed into shitty group homes, and has been on and off the streets since. I am now in my mid 20s and have a relatively stable life, a job I love, drastically improved mental health, and success with my art which has improved since taking some life-drawing courses from local artists- very affordable btw, and some will even let you in for free if you explain that you are low-income- but I would never have tried to rely on making money off of my art in an emergency! Its too unpredictable and too unstable an income especially if you're formally untrained in any arts, and actively being abused. You remind me of my sad little fucked up 19 year old self. Just know that you have the power to improve your life and break these patterns if you choose to do so. Pro tip: get away from the furries and delusional people and anyone who thinks DID is anything other than a hobby for people who love to roleplay. The DID thing is a horribly unhealthy larp. Find humans to identify with and connect with. Get off your phone. Leave consumerism and individualistic self-obsession with identity and labels behind. Get a real hobby- try lifting weights, you'll love it, it greatly helps if you're a dissociative person like me. Really helps you feel alive and connected to your body and less dysmorphic, and if gives you something to feel proud about too) so instead of using abuse and threatening to archive your account as a way to get people to pity-commission you, please take responsibility for yourself and your life, and find a way to take control of your outcome. You're NOT weak or stupid- your circumstances have just warped you. Life is short- you're capable. I know this seems harsh but the only thing that ever helped me was people who CARED enough about me and were brave enough to shake some sense into me and help me break free from the delusionland I was living in.

[monocytogenes]

OC ASKS FOR AGENT PRAVIN:

15. What places hold significant meaning or memories for your OC? Do they have a positive or negative association with those places?

and

DA!Pravin:

19. Has your OC ever had an experience with the paranormal or the divine? What happened? Was it a one time encounter or is it a normal part of their life? Did they find it terrifying or thrilling?

What places hold significant meaning or memories for your OC? Do they have a positive or negative association with those places?

Pravin has a weird little affection for some of the corner stores, hole-in-the-wall cantinas and other quirky local businesses one finds in Hutt Space. He spent the bulk of his Intelligence career on Hutta, and something he really enjoyed about it was the sense of community borne of necessity in the urban neighborhoods--Imperial culture tends to have a strong distinction between public and private life, but on Hutta it was so easy to bond with clerks, barbers, waitstaff, random dudes who frequented the same cantina every day of the week, and so on. He always had his colleagues when things got rough, sure, but some of his best memories there include a twi'lek shopkeeper who served him tea and sweets in the stockroom when he walked in rattled after a difficult op, the trio of barfly rodians who taught him bawdy songs in their language and bought him a bottle of fine brandy for his birthday (not his actual birthday, of course, but one from a fake ID), and the gran woman who, despite her unsettling appearance, trimmed his beard and hair with impressive precision, clucking and cooing about how handsome he was before sending him forth through a cloud of spicy aftershave. Those experiences broadened his perspective--he still makes some racist assumptions of aliens' abilities, but not to the extent he used to. There's a lot of good people in the galaxy, even in dark places.

He dreams of Kaas City a lot, the good and bad. He grew up in the greater Kaasian metropolitan area, and has many pleasant memories of the city--time spent in cafés and clubs in his youth, coming to Home Office for the first time and meeting Shara, going cantina-hopping with colleagues after his promotion and getting ridiculously drunk--times when he considered the place home. He remembers when it stopped feeling like home, a flight back between bright spires shrouded by lingering fog, his mental and physical wounds fresh and smarting. Shara unconscious in a hospital bed, Watcher Three being tortured--there's a lot in the aftermath that he prefers not to recall.

His actual nightmares are mostly on Quesh. Some of the other excursions he made with Kothe's group come to mind in disconnected fragments--partly due to neurological trauma from the mind control and its undoing, partly sheer psychological dissociation--but he remembers most everything that happened on Quesh in stark clarity: the red-orange, murky light from a polluted sky, the rocky hills, the fear and pain. Sometimes he wakes up and the impressions are so strong that he thinks he's still there for a few terrified minutes. He hopes to never have reason to return.

Has your OC ever had an experience with the paranormal or the divine? What happened? Was it a one time encounter or is it a normal part of their life? Did they find it terrifying or thrilling?

Pravin's pretty superstitious despite himself--he is, after all, an actor--and he's thus experienced or witnessed a few mishaps in rehearsal or performances that he thinks of in supernatural terms while simultaneously dismissing them as silly: stuff like 'I accidentally cursed my colleague with bad luck by pointing a prop weapon at him while not en masqué and failing to ask the Maker for mercy.' That's little stuff, though; he's had a few larger experiences too, notably this one:

When Gaubert was injured, there were some fraught early days where his health was touch-and-go; if his lung scarring progressed to infection, there was little healers could do. He and Pravin had had a difficult discussion about what should happen to Gaubert's possessions should he pass, one where Gaubert had intimated to Pravin that he thought of him as his son and given him one of his treasured possessions, a silver Andrastian medal. Pravin hadn't been able to sleep after that; he'd gotten up and walked around Val Chevin's downtown a bit and wound up in his local chantry. The place happened to be empty after an early morning liturgy, and the solitude appealed to him; he went and sat in one of the pews near the holy brazier at the front and figured he might as well pray for Gaubert.

As soon as he started, he just broke. He'd been holding himself together for the sake of his housemates, and in the silence and the solitude of that place he started openly weeping and muttering incoherently: Maker, I'm so sorry. I know I'm a sinner. Have mercy on me. I can't endure this again. Andraste, Our Lady of Sorrow, have pity on me.

Then, after some indeterminate period of time, he received something--less in words than a sort of calm, firm impression: it'll be all right.

It was such a bolt from the blue that he looked up in shock at the brazier's licking flames, then around, as though someone had approached him. He was still alone.

He didn't mention the experience to his housemates immediately, but ultimately told Lautilde first, in confidence and with much qualification: I don't know if it was my own mind or a spirit or what, and I don't know what it meant, if anything at all.

Lautilde dismissed all of that. You know it was she.

Pravin still isn't sure Andraste and the Maker particularly like him, given all he's done, but he thinks about the experience from time to time, and wears that medal constantly beneath his shirt.

[arcanistsdelight]

Okay, I'm a transwoman, and it's time I talk about the list. This is going to be a long post.

What list, though?

The list of things that were *definitely the real reason* of why I felt like I needed to transition - according to my mother.

It's been over a decade since then, so the list I provide here will not be comprehensive, just the big players that I remember well enough to discuss.

Body Dysmorphia Depression SAD (Seasonal Depression) Bipolar II PTSD

Some non-falsifiable uh... *conditions*: Just an effeminate man Maybe it's the bisexuality? Literal Demons

When I started seeing a therapist to seek a diagnosis for gender dysphoria, we worked our way through that list, at my insistence that we take every potential diagnosis seriously. We talked through them one by one. It took over a year, and a lot of journaling to disprove those that could be disproved. Here's what I learned:

Body dysmorphia is the persistent belief that there is something wrong with the way you appear - typically a small unnoticeable, or non-existent flaw, but not always.

Whoa - that does sound pretty familiar, right? Being concerned about my body and how I appear. That hits home with gender dysphoria really well. So, let's inspect the specifics - what was I so concerned about? Oh... there was nothing wrong with my body... I just didn't feel like it was my body, well, that's dissociation. That's a different symptom. Did I think there was something wrong with my body? No, I was in good shape - I was in the military at the time, my body was hella fit. Was there something that would make me feel more comfortable in my body? Well, it really just came down to the fact that I wasn't a fan of being perceived as male, because that didn't reflect how my brain was processing the world... sounds more like gender dysphoria than body dysmorphia and there's a solution. Let's not rush things though, let's work through the list.

--

Depression is a common comorbidity with gender dysphoria, and this was an accurate diagnosis! Aaaand that made it a very difficult thing to parse. What direction was the depression coming from? What would alleviate it? Well, fortunately, the answer, after nearly 3 months of journaling, one-on-one therapy and a lot of introspection became clear. I was depressed because I had a fair amount of dysphoria about how people addressed me, and how I looked, about how my muscles grew and the way I-myself, and the world at large, perceived me.

--

SAD - Easy, nope. Not Seasonal, the ebb and flow of my reaction to gender dysphoria was just a reflection of my own ability to repress and cope, which I was a master of. You want me to live in denial? Baby, I got you. I know all the tricks... I'll only have a complete mental breakdown every 2-3 years.

--

Bipolar II - Maybe, it's entirely possible. There is definitely a more-energetic and driven/less-energetic and sad cycle in my life that does sometimes resemble a very mild form of Bipolar Disorder. Also, entirely unrelated to what I am experiencing with gender dysphoria. I can be productive, happy and energetic and screaming on the inside; I can be depressed, sad and screaming on the inside; I can be not screaming at all in either of those states. The screams of my dysphoria do not relate to the cyclical pattern of my joys and sorrows.

--

PTSD - Yep, I got that too. Specifically, in the form of CPTSD, and specifically, related to how I've been taught to hate myself for my entire life. No the PTSD didn't cause my trans identity, being a queer youth in a christian town raised by christian parents caused my CPTSD. It wouldn't have mattered what the particulars of my queerness were, it would have all resulted in the same beatings, bullying, and awareness of just how sinful and evil I am in the eyes of the christian god. The cause of that lay with our culture's unnecessary violence and hatred towards those of us that are different.

--

Now, for the non-falsifiables up there, I couldn't really disprove them, hence the title I've given them. Maybe I am just very effeminate... but at some point, does that really matter? I am the type of feminine that I would like it to be known and recognized in everyday life, please and thank you. I am also bisexual, it's true! I would like to be a woman no matter the partner. As for demons? Well, take that up with your god, I can't do shit about it, that sounds like a purview far beyond my own. If he can't control them, how the hell should I? And yes, I spent years in my youth praying for help from god.

So... I did it, I went through the list, and I convinced my mother that I am definitely trans... right?

No. The list never mattered. It was fully a waste of a year of my life, a lot of money and the time of a skilled psychologist. My mother still denies that being trans is a real thing. It doesn't matter that hormones have stopped the depression, that I live far happier and healthier than I ever have before. There is nothing I can do to prove my identity to another human. You just have to trust me, you just have to find some way to believe that I am who I say I am.

I don't believe in extra gatekeeping. Because I tested the gates, they couldn't stop me, only keep me from knowing myself a little bit longer, only give me more time walking the razors edge of suicidality. They won't realistically stop anyone else either, because if you're sure you're trans... you're trans, it's not something else.

[absolute-flaming-trash]

Ahhh Illumi + Control by Halsey?

Meve my lovely lovely friend I am so sorry this took this long, but your song choice… *chef’s kiss*

Beautiful for this.

I hope you like it!!

Warnings: Forced relationship, Forced marriage, Implied noncon, Forced pregnancy, Dissociation (I guess, reader is locked away in their own mind for a while), Escape attempt.

Control - Halsey

Time was… irrelevant. Had been for a very long time.

Your moments of complete clarity were few and far between, but you knew a few things for certain.

One. You weren’t dreaming, although you wished you were.

Two. You had a gold wedding band around your finger you didn’t remember accepting.

Three. Illumi had complete and utter control over you.

The time it took for Illumi to snap was surprisingly short. For someone with the demeanor he had, you always thought it would take longer for him to hurt you.

That wasn’t exactly true, he hurt you plenty every night. It was just a surprise when a few months into your… relationship he glared down at you in a way that frightened you terribly one night after you had bit him hard enough to draw a substantial amount of blood. Before an apology could form on your lips, there was a sharp stinging in the center of your forehead, then just… black.

After that, things were hazy.

No matter how much you wanted to resist him, it was impossible. Screams of hatred were replaced with moans of bliss, and words of affirmation were substituted in the place of the most vile insults you could conceive. It almost felt like you were watching someone else live a life in your own body, and it was soul breaking.

Although you supposed that was the idea.

Your best judgement of time of time wasn’t the clocks. The antique analogue’s were little more than a jumbled mess of Roman numerical symbols by this point as passing of hours was completely and utterly useless to you.

The months of your child’s age was how you measured time now.

They looked so much like him, but you could not bring yourself to hate them. They were different. The words that were said to you from them resulted in a smile that wasn’t the result of a nen manipulation, and it brought tears to your eyes from how genuine it was.

Illumi didn’t seem pleased for a multitude of reasons, but made no comment on his child’s behaviour, even when your child reached 4 years old - long past the time Illumi began his training during his own youth. A small blessing of the needle was that you couldn’t think long about the possibility of your child ending up with the same as you at such a young age as a substitute of the horrific training Illumi had shared the details of.

Maybe it was that moment of horror for someone’s life other than your own that brought about the first change.

The first time you realized you were resisting him was when he held out his hand expectantly for the child’s snack in your hands and you hesitated before giving it to him, the comment of “rude bastard” managing to slip past your lips in a ghost of a whisper.

You thanked whatever gods existed that your child chose to throw a tantrum right at that moment.

It was kept secret, of course. To the absolute best of your ability, which to your credit was exquisite. You’d been a passenger in your own body long enough to know how to act in front of his family. How to kiss him properly, and react to him the way he liked.

His only moment of suspicion came from a moment where you were not as wet as you normally were, but you passed it off as dehydration.

You were patient. You could wait. You could wait for him to get called away for a mission that would remove him from the house for a few days and you could run. You could take your child and the few belongings you felt you could carry reasonably, and go. And eventually the day came that you were able to, and it was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.

You would have a few days head start for sure. It would be a while before Illumi would realize you were gone, and by that time you planned to be far away from where you came.

“Momma?”

The innocent voice of your child in your arms snapped you out of whatever freedom hazed thoughts you had.

“Yes baby?”

“Why isn’t daddy coming with us?”

You shifted the child on your hip so you could hold them closer while you jogged.

“Dad is going to be very mad at momma if we stay, sweetie.”

There was a pause for a moment before you felt the first small tear fall on your hands. You didn’t look at it.

“I don’t want daddy to be mad at you, momma.”

Pain radiated sharply from the center of your forehead and you gasped in shock from it, but you pushed forward - your own tears forming when the pain grew with the distance between you and the house.

“I know, baby,” you pressed a quick kiss to the tear stained cheek of your child’s face. “I know.”

© absolute-flaming-trash 2022. Do not repost, modify, copy, or claim.

[mymidwestheart]

I don’t like to get political on here, but it’s a political day.

I don’t like what the military has been in the US. At all. Like not even 1%. But I 100% have honor and respect for those who and have serve/d. Many get taken advantage of by a broken system of a country and it’s military regiments, filling its ranks with undiagnosed or hidden diagnosed neurodivergent, trauma survivors, and low income and minority groups. While ability is supposed to rule out vulnerability, over and over again I see recruiters target foster youth and youth of oppressed groups, with the intention to give them a positive way out. Instead what they often reinforce is PTSD and dissociation.

And many, oh so many, didn’t survive. But they signed up, despite difficulty and often hopelessness, not just for what the military could ever give them, but because they truly believed in their country— so much they were willing to die for it. Over the years many have come and fallen, and because of them we have seen some changes that were important. But I often wonder what they feel from the other side of death when they watch what our country has become.

America is a complicated mess of narcissism, and many very good people have sacrificially died at Her behest.

I honor the fallen soldier. Despite the ugliness that exists in a nation in turmoil, they gave far more than many of us ever would.

Ps. Also, the government does not take care of its surviving veterans very well at all. They are one of the largest homeless populations, struggling with healthcare despite the overcrowded and underfunded VA, as well as often going hungry. So for a government that values it’s military so much— does it really? (I think I just ruined my positive ending 🤦‍♀️)

🇺🇸❤️🇺🇸🤍🇺🇸💙🇺🇸

[vasiktomis]

The Father’s Grooming of Faith Seed

That’s right, it’s an analysis in defence of (the late current) Faith, mostly in her younger years. Please scroll past if you’re not interested in this take. Please also keep in mind that these are personal opinions that I’m pulling based on game backstory and character portrayal, but I’m not without my biases. I wholly support members of the fandom who enjoy Faith being empowered in her evil, but it’s just not for me. I’m writing from the perspective of a former homeless youth, and while most of my thoughts are a personal interpretation of gameplay and conjecture from lazy writing limited information, I believe that I do have some insight into what Rachel may have gone through in terms of her attraction to Joseph and her recruitment into the Project at Eden’s Gate. Warnings under the cut: Mentions of child grooming, drug use and misuse, indoctrination, abuse, religious trauma. It’s Far Cry.

Yes, she’s flawed and she’s an absolute shite of a person. She’s a cultist. She’s a liar. She’s just as forceful and twisted in her indoctrination as Jacob and John are. Her methods are awful, and she’s complicit when it comes to Joseph’s orders and his corruption.  No Seed sibling is anything short of a monster, and Faith is no exception.

At the end of the day, though, she WAS a kid when she was recruited by the cult. Before Joseph found Jacob, he’d already committed atrocities. Before he found John, the lawyer was a corrupt executive and a sadist.  Rachel was a rough-sleeping teenager with one friend. She absolutely grew into the monster that she would become in her 20′s and there’s no excuse for her actions as an adult, but just as Jacob and John’s traumas were used against them in fostering their dependence on Joseph, so was hers.  What makes Joseph’s influence over his adopted sister so much more insidious is that he couldn’t rely on family sentiment in recruiting her initially. Instead, he found a lost child and manipulated her naivety and her desperation for acceptance.

Rachel was a minor who was groomed by a strange man in his 30′s, and no resident adult stepped in to prevent this from happening.

I realise there are many fans who disagree with the point I’m making here about the vulnerability of Rachel’s youth, but your brain has not even developed fully by 25, let alone 17. She was a minor, and no matter the claims that she was happy to go along with the cult from the start, I believe her when she says that she was drugged by Joseph and forced to take on her role as Faith Seed.

The earliest information we have on Faith is tidbits from her teenage years. In-game dialogue from locals like Tracey and Virgil.

Disregarding the argument over whether she is or isn’t Rachel Jessop, Faith’s overall sentiment remains the same: She was a child without a community of adult role models. She and Tracey were drawn to commune-style living in their teen years before the Seed brothers arrived in Hope County. They had both turned to drugs, and were ostracised by the locals. Rachel grew up in absence of a safe space. She had little guidance, and those she could depend on and confide in were, well...pretty much just Tracey.  Neither had healthy guardians to steer them in the right direction. They were on their own, and despite being of an age where (in an optimistic setting) their developmental needs should have been met by responsible adults, they were instead brought up without aid, and without acceptance.

Tracey mentions Rachel’s people-pleasing habits from way back in their childhood, even in the days where they hadn’t started living with the Project. She avoided conflict and wanted to be liked. She didn’t understand that acting as if everything was fine didn’t necessarily make it so.  I applaud Tracey’s scepticism of Joseph, and her ability to see through what was happening early on when the two of them first joined the Project, but I don’t blame Faith for her blindness to it.  She’s not even old enough to graduate high-school at this point. She’s been ostracised from an early age. She’s been swept under the rug. She’s got suicidal ideation and no one in this world loves her. What wisdom is she supposed to have gained? Tracey might be strong enough to carry on with the ‘us against the world’ mantra, but Rachel doesn’t want conflict. She wants a community to take part in, and to be understood and accepted. One day, the enigmatic leader of their church shows up. Everyone in the Project worships him. His importance is in their very scripture. He’s their Prophet. He, of all people, takes a liking to Rachel.  It’s easy to point the finger and judge her naivety, but when you’re a displaced kid and a cool adult takes a shining to you, it’s very fucking difficult to resist keeping away from them. It’s very fucking easy to get star-struck by what appears to be a healthy role model, even if your friend knows better than to buy into it.

I grew up with a lot of friends who dated college guys when we were in high-school, and the argument was pretty similar. Most of us were able to see how insidious it was from the outside, but when you’re the minor in that scenario, it’s not the adult whose attention and affection and praise of you is wrong; it’s the other kids. They don’t understand. They’re jealous. You’re special. You’re mature beyond your years. Smarter than them. That’s why you’re hanging around adults and they aren’t. Reading Rachel’s letters to Tracey at the church, in which she implies Tracey’s envy over her spending more time with the cult than with her, I felt that Rachel’s lens had by this point been entirely clouded by Joseph’s influence. She cared about her friend and wanted to keep her by her side, but she’s entirely unable to compromise the feeling of acceptance that she’s found with Joseph.  He’s all-knowing and all-loving. He understands and forgives. Everyone loves him, and because he puts Rachel on a pedestal, they love her too. Tracey disrupts this. Tracey doesn’t fucking get it. Tracey is the poison. 

Rachel was Joseph’s best prospect for a new Faith. She was a blank slate and she’d obey him in earnest. She wouldn’t doubt him, because she never knew any better. She was legitimately happier in the Project than she was on the outside, and her honest belief helped to quell arguments of corruption and ulterior motive. She was pretty. She could sing and dance, and once they cleaned her up a little, she’d make for a perfect Siren.  Typical of an abuser, Joseph successfully isolated Rachel from her circle. By now, he was likely her only voice of guidance. He and his terrifying older brother who has sworn to protect them no matter the cost, and his charismatic younger brother who gives her pep talks and knows what it feels like to suffer from drug misuse. Joseph helped Jacob bounce back from post-traumatic dissociation. He saved John from self-imposed hell. He could help Rachel, too. I believe that Rachel was invited to take the role of Faith, and instructed to get clean in order to do so. That at some point amongst her attempts to stop using, when she was totally alone and suffering from withdrawal, her invitation wasn’t nearly as loving as it once was. It became an ultimatum.  I believe Rachel was given a heavier dose of scopolamine than Joseph claims they gave her. That in her lowest moments, her role model fed her the fear of banishment should she turn back. With the added aid of a powerful drug that massively affects decision-making and short-term memory, Joseph forced Rachel to destroy her identity and assume the role of Faith Seed. Whether or not she recalls this due to being under the influence at the time, I’m not sure, but the Bliss has set her free, and she’s now the Herald who will help recruits take the same leap she did. She’s in Joseph’s inner circle now. She’s trusted enough to be exposed to the ugly side of the Project, and while the view from the top isn’t nearly so wonderful as it once sounded, Faith Seed has no life to return to. She only has Joseph, and he knows it. She’s just as dependent on him now as his brothers are, and if she doesn’t please him, she won’t just lose that sense of acceptance she’s been chasing since she was a teenager. She’s too close to him now to know that the other Faiths didn’t just quit. They were disposed of. Once upon a time, Rachel wanted to die. Now she’s terrified that she just might.