#once again about the horror of perseverance through trauma

[wolfhorrors]

survival instinct

[the-darklings]

hey, how are u?

so, i was thinking about two things, the first is how sad is the way W sees herself, like a plague, as something that doesn't deserve to be held, loved, and yet she loves, laughs, helps, somehow keeping the bad shit just for herself, it hits right in my heart, because somehow i relate a lot to that.

the other thing is, are we going to see dream's reaction when he finds out that W is staying at Hob's house? that once again she is suffering and has gone to seek help from someone other than him (not that we can blame her for that, right?), and also about the extent of how she is suffering from the consequences of holding and ordering the curse at her own will.

god, there are so many nuances that i would like to talk about, also a little bit about the parallel (which maybe only exists in my head?) of:

"What does the Lord of Dreams dream about?"

A blink, then he's gone.

/

“Yeah? And what did great Lord Morpheus think about during his captivity?”

"You." The beat. “Every day.”

I am doing somewhat better today, thank you!!! Or at least I mark my good days by when I can create and not feel like I'm dragging my feet through glass doing it. I already finished one scene in the finale this morning, and I'm hoping to do another one or two if I can.

As for Wanderer's insecurity, it's very much rooted in the trauma they've been through. No matter how resilient you are, there are limits to how much you can handle before you have to start distancing yourself from things. Otherwise, it'll break you. When you consider just a fraction of the horrors hinted toward in the story alone, it takes another level of perseverance to continue on despite it. Like in the very first chapter, Wanderer says that she tries not to consider the nature of their own existence too much because it's too overwhelming and would drive her mad. That's why she's ignorant that they're not dealing with gods but instead the Endless.

As for that parallel, yes, it's not just in your head. But not many people mentioned that exchange. I suppose several more powerful moments eclipsed it somewhat.

[hiscyarika]

Some Things You Just Can’t Speak About

Word Count: 2.5k

Pairing: Javier Peña x Reader

Summary: Reader and Javier work through the emotional baggage that comes with their jobs in Colombia. (Unofficial Prequel to When It’s Finally Over)

Warning(s): Heavy Angst, Hopelessness, Grieving, Mentions of Death, Blood, Mentions of Violence/Terrorism

A/N: So like a lot of people, I’ve fallen in love with Taylor Swift’s new album folklore. And when I heard the song “epiphany” (which I highly recommend you listen to while you read. I would link it but I’m afraid the post wouldn’t show up in the tags. The hellsite has been weird about that lately), it immediately sparked the idea for this oneshot. I just hope that this hasn’t been done yet, because I’ve already seen that a couple of authors have used songs on the album as inspiration. I really hope you guys enjoy this. It’s taken a couple of days to get it just the way that I want it. And a special thanks to @bestintheparsec​ for beta reading this for me! I love you Lauren! ❤️

Masterlist

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Gif by @pascvl​, originally from this post. Please let me know if you’d rather me not use the gif! I’ll take it down immediately with no questions asked.

The thing about Colombia is that even after the smoke clears, the blood remains. It’s a crimson river that runs through the streets of Bogotá, then dries as a deep, lingering stain. The blood of men, women, and children. Guilty and innocent alike. And so long as Pablo Escobar lives, the stain will never wash away.

Even the sky burns scarlet with the dying sunset when you finally step out of the hospital. Ambulance sirens glow bright as paramedics attempt to bring more people into the already overwhelmed building.

Early in the afternoon, over two hundred pounds of C4 had been detonated outside of a crowded shopping center. Dozens were killed on impact and the death toll has continued to rise throughout the day. For hours, you haven’t stopped moving, trying desperately to save those who’d survived long enough to get to the hospital to be treated. Fortunately, recovery will be possible for some, but what weighs more heavily on your shoulders are the countless others that you could do nothing for.

Even now that you stand outside with a chance to breathe, your lungs can’t draw in enough air. The sharp stench of antiseptic still burns your nose, turning your stomach in violent knots. Every muscle is sore with a bone deep ache as you force one foot in front of the other in the direction of your car. But none of it compares to the stabbing pain in your soul, the helplessness and defeat that throbs more fiercely with every passing second.

You climb into your car, meeting your own eyes in the rearview mirror. You tear the nursing badge from your scrub shirt and toss it onto the passenger seat, not caring when it slides off the vinyl and onto the floor. Immediately, you have to close your eyes at the sight of the bloodstains on your clothes, a gruesome token of a day spent battling death.

All your years of schooling never prepared you to fight this war. You know how to read vitals. You know how to staunch bleeding and stitch wounds. You know how to intubate someone, to breathe for them. These are all things that can be taught. And you’ve learned them well.

But watching a woman die on the table, one close to your own age, is something entirely its own. You never get used to the shrill cry of the heart rate monitor as it flatlines. Nothing can prepare you for standing in front of an elderly woman, telling her that she’s outlived her daughter. They can’t teach you how to crouch down in front of a six-year-old boy and explain to him that he’ll never see his mother again. There’s no way to gently shatter someone’s world. As their reality crumbles, it takes a piece of you with it, and you only have so much of yourself to give.

The drive back to the apartment passes in a blurred haze, your mind on autopilot as you navigate your way in the growing darkness. You repress every emotion that threatens to bubble to the surface of your consciousness. Forcing numbness is far easier than letting your humanity tear you apart.

The last of the light dies from the sky as you pull into the parking lot, right next to Javier’s Jeep. You find your only solace in the fact that he’s home. In what little news you’d been able to hear, you’d learned that the DEA had been called to the scene. Escobar had never claimed responsibility for the attack, but a confession wasn’t necessary to know the truth, so you knew Javier would be part of the investigation.

Sucking in a deep breath, you try to prepare yourself for whatever state of mind he might be in. Javier brings work home in the form of endless files and a guilty conscience. Both he processes with whiskey and sleep deprivation. But you understand. You’re fighting with him on the front lines of this war. Losses are shared just the same as victories. Even the hard ones.

You drag yourself from the driver’s seat, locking the car up once the door is closed. The stairs to the apartment seem so much steeper as you stare at them now, and it takes what little remains of your perseverance to make it up.

The usual squeal of the front door grates on your nerves as you enter the apartment, more so than it normally does, anyway. You stop for a moment in the doorway, toeing off your shoes and listening carefully for any sign of Javier. From where you stand, you can see the soft yellow glow of the lamp in the living room and after a moment you realize that the voice you hear is coming from the television.

Padding quietly into the room, you feel your heart clench when you see what’s playing on the screen. It’s one of the local news stations, replaying footage from earlier in the day. You’re too tired to mentally translate the quick Spanish that the news anchor speaks, but when the numbers appear next to her to note the casualties, it’s not something that you can ignore. There are more than you thought.

You lose yourself in that news report, your mind running back through all of the trauma that you’ve seen. The shouting and screaming and crying becomes the soundtrack of your thoughts, all blended together in a somehow deafening cacophony despite the fact that it’s all in your head. You see that little boy again, the confused look he had given his grandmother as he asked her when his mother was going to come back from heaven. Oh, how her tear-filled eyes had pleaded with you to give some kind of an answer. And you’d tried. You really had.

You’re pulled from the violent reverie when the news report is replaced by a commercial. You pay it no mind, instead looking around the room for any sign of Javier. It doesn’t take you long to find him.

He’s passed out on the couch, sitting up with a glass of whiskey still in his hand. Even in sleep, his brow is furrowed, and worry lines cut deep into his forehead. Upon further inspection, you find the liquor bottle and a messy array of manila folders on the wooden coffee table in front of him, just as you expected.

You shake your head slightly, though he can’t see the action. The ache in your heart grows stronger as you watch him, his lips parted slightly as he breathes deeply and evenly. You suppose it’s the one thing that you have to be grateful for. As closely involved as he is with the hunt for Escobar, every night he comes home is a blessing. And for him to be sound asleep despite the day’s tragedies is truly invaluable.

You decide to leave him. Better for him to rest uninterrupted than to wake him. And though you know it’s better to work through the horrors you’ve been subjected to before you sleep, you don’t have the energy to face any of it right now. So you step closer to Javi, carefully prying the glass from his hand. Against your better judgement, you finish it off. You wince at the way it burns down your throat as you place the empty glass on the coffee table, but the warmth in your chest that follows is a welcome relief.

You scan the room then. It takes you a minute, but eventually you find the remote on the floor by his feet, probably dropped after he’d fallen asleep. You don’t hesitate to press the power button on the TV, and it brings you a bit of peace to watch the screen go black. Silence falls over the room, interrupted only by a soft snore from Javi.

You turn back to the coffee table, making sure that there’s a paperclip in each file to mark where he’d been. All the while, you try to avoid reading over any classified information, not that your brain could truly process a word of it in your current state of exhaustion. You then close the folders and stack them neatly on top of each other, letting out a heavy breath as you push yourself to stand upright again.

Your face falls in sympathy as you look at Javi once more. Even in sleep he looks exhausted. Your own emotional turmoil aside, it pains you to see the way that Colombia has worn him down. Every day he grows more desperate to find the man responsible for so much suffering, and with each day that passes, you know it only seems like he’s getting further and further away. You wish there was something more you could do to ease his mind.

After another moment, you take the blanket that’s draped over the back of the loveseat, unfolding it and gently covering Javi with it. Your movements are slow and cautious in an attempt to keep from waking him. Once you have the blanket situated, you cradle his cheek lightly in one hand, leaning down to press a tender kiss to his forehead.

You close your eyes at the contact, the first and only gentle interaction of your day. As your eyes flutter shut, you feel your chest begin to swell, and emotion wraps around your throat like barbed wire. Your lips linger for a few seconds longer than necessary as the dam inside you cracks, threatening to give way to a flood at a moment’s notice.

But as you pull away, you feel the feather light brush of eyelashes against your cheeks. You open your eyes, finding soft, tired brown eyes staring back at you. You’re frozen in place as he takes a moment to rouse himself, and once he’s more alert, his eyes trail down your body, catching sight of the blood on your scrubs. When he looks at you again, there’s a knowing glint in his eyes. You don’t have to tell him what you’ve seen, because he already knows. He’s seen it too.

Javier places his hands on your hips, gripping them gently as he tries to pull you closer to him. You brace yourself against his shoulders, resisting him while you’re still wearing your scrubs. Your chin falls to your chest in defeat. It only takes a moment to understand, and he carefully pulls the shirt up and over your head, making sure to keep the bloody fabric away from your face. Once it’s off, he tosses it carelessly to the floor.

You collapse into him as the dam breaks, and he takes it in stride, cradling the back of your head as you bury your face in his shoulder. Your knees land on either side of him, and with his free hand he guides you into a more comfortable position against him. In any other context, this arrangement with you straddling his lap would be carnal and passionate, but all Javier can feel now is the same pain that you force from your body with each gut-wrenching sob.

There are no words he can give you that will ease your pain. It’s something he knows from experience, repeated experience that he wishes you didn’t share with him. He knows what this constant fight against death and injustice can do to a person. He’s not blind to the ways that he’s changed in the years since he came to Colombia. Javier would do anything to make sure that you don’t suffer the same fate. You’re too good to have your gentle soul torn to shreds.

But he knows that all he can do for now is hold you. He can let you cry and mourn and release every emotion you’ve had to keep caged since you first stepped into the hospital this afternoon. And as you wrap your fists around the fabric of his shirt, he only holds you closer, clutching you tightly as his own pain begins to bubble back up into his chest. He’d tried so hard to drown it in booze and escape it in sleep, but Escobar had taken it too far this time. The saving grace is that the rest of the country agrees.

Javier cries silently with you, and though the manifestation of his grief is much quieter than yours, it’s by no means trivial in comparison. This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. And break he does, in the safest place that he possibly can. He knows that there’s no judgement here, and that there never will be. So he closes his eyes and presses himself closer to you, your proximity being the only thing that could possibly soothe him.

Time is rendered tangential as you mourn together, though eventually you both fall quiet again with no more tears left to shed. Only when you stir against him does Javier lift his head and open his eyes. He manages a halfhearted smile as you meet his gaze, gently wiping away the remnants of your tears with the pads of his thumbs. In turn, you do the same for him, and he turns his head just in time to press a kiss to the underside of your wrist before you pull away again.

He watches you intently, and for just a moment you seem to hesitate, but then you capture his lips with yours. Javier lets out a soft breath in surprise, but soon melts into your touch. You are the salve to his very being, soothing his soul in a way that no one and nothing else can. At the end of the day, when the smoke has cleared and it’s time to count the dead, he thanks whatever god looks down on him, because he has you. Never will he march into battle alone. And he’s grateful, because he knows that he would never survive the war without you by his side.

You pull away again, and the look in your eyes says far more than words ever could. Because in your eyes is the same reverence for him that he holds for you. It’s night like this where you question why you chose the life you did, why you endure more anguish than any one person ever should have to. But then you look at Javier, and you know that you’re fighting the good fight. You know that with him, you can keep going until you reach the end of it all.

Javier presses a quick, soft kiss to your forehead, then shifts again to turn out the lamp light. In the dark, he carefully maneuvers you with him to lie down on the couch. You’re both still in work clothes and the couch is far less comfortable than your shared bed, but that’s not important now. What matters is the feeling of his heartbeat under your cheek as your head rests on his sternum. In just a few hours, the sun will rise again and you’ll both be forced to return to the battlefield, but for now you can find just a glimpse of relief in each other’s embrace.

-

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[purpleblackmask]

GO theory: Crowley suffers from depression

Making clear that I'm not a psychologist and that all of this is just a theory of mine and/or a character's study from a wanna-be-actress' pov, I'd like to expose this thought that followed me since it first came to my mind.

Let's begin from the start.

Crowley is a demon. But actually he wasn't born this way. Like every other demon, he was something else. Something considered better, pure, flawless.

He was an angel.

Most of all, he was one of God's children. If we consider the Raphael!Theory, which I support, he was one of God's most beloved children. An archangel.

Now let's consider what angels are supposed to be. Soldiers. Or, in a tenderest way, the perfect sons who obey their father's will. No matter what.

Even when He (or She, in this case) creates mankind.

"And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, 'And let all the angels of God worship Him,'" (Hebrews 1:6).

But then Lucifer rebelled and we all know how the story goes on.

Crowley? He fell too.

In the show he actually refers to his fall four times.

But not in a way a demon would do.

If we take John Milton's Paradise Lost, what made Lucifer leave Paradise forever was his pride. Now he is content with his horrors, for he is a king, a ruler. He can do what he wants. He achieves freedom. And all the other demons are free to persevere in their evilness. This gives them a sort of satisfaction.

But when Crowley refers to his fall, he is not satisfied at all.

On the contrary, you can perceive a deep sense of regret.

"I never meant to fall. I just hung around the wrong people."

In.

"I didn't really fall. I just, you know... sauntered vaguely downwards."

Every.

"I only ever asked questions. That's all it took to be a demon in the old days."

Word.

"I never asked to be a demon. I was just minding my own business one day and then... oh, lookie here, it's Lucifer and the guys."

Are you going to tell me that is absolutely normal to refer to something four times in a TV show that's only got 6 episodes? I mean, It's almost one per episode, come on.

These aren't the words of a demon.

These are the words of someone who belonged to somewhere and was forced to leave because different.

Because he asked questions.

Because he was a disappointment.

He is a son whose father decided he was just not good enough, not perfect enough, simply not enough, and so threw him away.

He never wanted to cause a war, or to be greater than God or anything like that. He just wanted to be a good son.

A good angel.

But failed.

That's how Crowley feels every second of his eternity.

A failure.

First great cause of a depressed temperament.

And this leads us to the plants.

I personally think that the plants bits are seriously phenomenal. They tell us so much about Crowley just in a few words.

If we analyse him as a human, Crowley is a man with a trauma, the one we underlined before. And, as in the majority of probabilities, it is common to reproduce a trauma on something or someone else.

"What he did was put the fear of God into them. More precisely, the fear of Crowley. In addition to which, every couple of months Crowley would pick out a plant that was growing too slowly, or succumbing to leaf-wilt or browning, or just didn't look quite as good as the others, and he would carry it around to all the other plants. "Say goodbye to your friend" he'd say to them. "He just couldn't cut it...""

The plants scene is terrific in this way. He threatens the plants to grow better, to grow perfect, or they will die.

I think the echoes in his head whispering "Be perfect or you'll fall" murmured by his fellow angels while he was still in Heaven still haunts him when he takes "care" of his plants.

Is he finally satisfied?

No.

He's just being cruel because something cruel happened to him. But he can't erase the past. He can't change what he is.

And he knows that.

That's the worst part.

"I won't be forgiven. Not ever. That's part of a demon job's description. Unforgivable. That's what I am."

He permanentely struggles between a constant denial and the acknowledge of his self being.

He is not what he wanted to be.

That's why he decided to go away.

He couldn't bare the dark, gloomy, crowded halls of hell. Something that reminded him of his condition. That's why he went up on earth. Because it's the closest thing to heaven he could still approach to.

And there he found Aziraphale.

Aziraphale, who is not like other angels.

Who is not afraid to talk to a demon.

Who is kind and soft and naive.

Who gives Crowley a kind of hope.

Maybe Crowley was convinced that he would have spent all his eternity alone (because, sooner or later, he would have realised that he couldn't fit anywhere, not in hell, not in heaven, not on earth), and sincerely, I think he would have committed suicide very soon.

But Aziraphale gives him a reason to live.

He gives him a friend.

He gives him someone who, deep down, doesn't quite fit well on his side, too.

And that is enough for Crowley.

Enough to stay alive.

And so he starts to find himself little things to distract himself, temptations, demonic works to keep himself occupied. He even starts to have fun with them.

But then something happens.

Aziraphale risking his own life.

For a silly reason of course, but then Crowley starts to think.

Ok, I saved him because I was around, but what if he's risking his life again and I'm not there to save him? What if I'm not able to see him again?

Or what if this happens to me? What if my side finds out I saved an angel? What would they do to him? Or to me?

And that's why he decides to have assurances.

That's when his depression strikes back.

He asks Aziraphale for holy water.

Because after all they did together, after all the relief he had felt all those decades on earth, he can't bare to watch it shatter away.

He can't allow it.

And if that means ending his own life, so be it.

I will not pause on Aziraphale's fear of Crowley committing suicide for it is a parenthetis of the analysing of Aziraphale that would add more pain to this post, forgive me please.

Once achieved the pill of suicide, Crowley comes back to his daily routine, which involves, by the way, hours of sleeping.

This is another sign of depression.

As a demon, he shouldn't need to rest at all. But if we return to analyse Crowley as a human, this is perfectly normal.

The lack of energy and anxiety cause the body to being forced to bed. Crowley sleeping for a whole century because "he hated it" could be equal to a person sleeping all day to avoid the problems of life.

Furthermore, the end is nigh.

The Apocalypse is bringing Crowley's (and Aziraphale's) biggest fear. The disappearing of that life they built together on earth. The distruction of their peace.

And who is the one who first proposes to stop it?

Crowley.

And he fights in every way to avoid Armageddon. Even if he doesn't manage, he's still with his angel. They could go away together. Alfa Centauri or wherever they want. But together.

Because he can't let it happen. He can't leave it all and fight on his side which has never been and never will be his side. He can't go back down there. He can't let his depression overthrow him again.

But suddenly "together" becomes "alone".

Suddenly, there's no more a demon and an angel. There's just one demon, who is terrified of what happens next, of what he's going to go through on his own, who is living the nightmare of a lifetime.

He tries to reach Aziraphale one more time, but fails.

The nightmare is much closer.

It swallows him definetely in a burning bookshop.

This is it.

This is where all his world breaks apart in front of his eyes.

He lost.

He lost the chance of a new start. He lost hope. He lost his best friend.

He lost his fight against depression.

Don't try to convince me that if he hadn't already shed it on Ligur, he wouldn't have used holy water in this exact moment to end his own life.

Because nothing had sense now.

But here he is. Without Aziraphale. Without holy water. Trapped in a glass full of alcohol reminding himself for the fourth time that he never wanted to be a demon.

When Aziraphale comes back it all changes.

Life comes back to his body.

It's not over.

And then they manage. They stop the Apocalypse. They stop each other's death. They're finally free.

Crowley and Aziraphale are alone. On their own side.

But that is enough for Crowley.

Depression can wait.

NOT MY GIFS.

[beanenigma]

MAKE THEM FAT, YOU COWARDS!

A small guide to writing fat characters, by @beanenigma​

As a writer and an illustrator simultaneously, I have the incredible privilege of being a spy for both sides and comparing the community of both hobbies/jobs all in the comfort of my blog. And for a while I have been seeing something that makes me very happy: an effort from the artists to include bigger body sizes in their art - me included. But, on the other hand, I don’t see the same effort in the books I read except for tokens who don’t make that much of a difference to the plot and are only there for certain effects. . 

And even then, the only purpose them being fat serves is them being underestimated, weak, bullied or made fun of. So, with 20 years of being fat in my belt and having suffered through a lot of enraging fat representation in fiction, I compiled this list of things I would like you to remember when writing fat characters:

If you’re character is fat, call them fat 

Have other characters refer to them as fat. Have them refer to each other as fat. Fat is not a bad word… Unless you use it as a bad word. Going around the bush makes it feel like it’s something that should be hidden instead of a natural feature of your character, like being tall or blond. 

Getting thin is not the ultimate victory

 Nothing makes a fat reader feel worse about themselves than this narrative. Not everyone can or wants to get thin. And getting thin won’t fix all of their problems. Especially the emotional trauma of being told (and constantly reminded) the way you are naturally is unfit for life.

Also, getting thin shouldn’t be the only thing on their minds all the time. They should have hobbies and friends and other worries. And if losing weight is the only thing they can think about and plan for, they are probably sick and they need professional help. Eating disorders are real even if we don’t talk that much about them anymore. So keep watch on your characters if you didn’t intend them to be sick. 

Society? B*tch, please

Don’t blame SOCIETY. Society is an abstract concept made of people. People tell fat people shitty things and write shitty things in magazines and purposefully don’t hire them for TV and movies, not “society”. Name the enemy. We know who it is. 

FAT ≠ UNHEALTHY or UGLY

Fatness is not all the same. We are not all thin children that got fed McDonalds and somehow ended up like this. Some people have different metabolisms, genetic components, thyroid disorders, etc, but otherwise are perfectly healthy.

When writing AUs, science and historical fiction, remember in other times, fat had different social meanings. In renaissance Italy for example, the giocondas represented the wealth of the emerging bourgeoisie. Our ideas of fat are very conditioned to our place and time - that doesn’t make them the absolute truth.  

You don’t have to have one designated fat character. 

Make more! Make two! A hundred. Make secondary characters. Background characters. They are not points outside the curve, something that is wrong and should be handled like hot potatoes. They’re a large part of the world’s population (in 2013, there was an estimate of 2.1 billion obese people in the world). 

Choose the right bod! 

Like I said before, not all fat bodies are the same. The artists can help you with these and doctors can too, as well as women’s magazines (surprisingly). Choose your prefered body type keeping your universe and backstory in mind. also, personal choice, let’s normalize stretch marks, they’re so pretty and every girl has them, mention those awesome stripes please? 

Finally, fat characters are characters like any other - that also happen to be fat. They can and should have wishes, dreams, hobbies and relationships. The reader should be able to remember something else about them other than “fat”. Make them human. Please. 

Now, with that being said, being fat can be a great plot device as a physical obstacle towards some objectives. So here’s other obstacles for you fat character that would definitely be more interesting than what’s currently out there: 

Self-esteem issues

Not that we haven’t seen this before in media, but it’s normally caused by constant teasing and bullying. But the thing is that just like it happens to a lot of people with noticeable features, we are painfully aware of our weight at all times. There is really no need for someone to come up to us at our face and say “I hate you because you’re fat”, because we feel that constantly in everything that we do in society. Not that everyone lets themselves be taken by these kinds of stuff - I know some kickass models who couldn’t be more happy to have the body they have - but these things tend to collect a price on our self-esteem (big or small). So keeping that in mind might help not clutter your narrative with unnecessary violence. 

Medical negligence

I know fatphobia is a word people have a hard time believing is real (and I know it sounds weird), but it’s a real thing that happens. Just while writing this, I asked two friends and they both said that they had their concerns ignored by doctors that claimed their ailments would all be fixed once they lost weight. Both me and my mother had that happen to us as well. 

Not to say that weight can’t cause sickness (because it does), but people know their bodies and they know when something is wrong. Personally, I would find it hilarious if a fat superhero went to a doctor to try and find out what their powers mean, for example, and got out with the recommendation of a nutritionist. That’s some relatable content right there.  

Exercising is hard

I know. I know, it’s hard for everyone. But there’s a reason people tie weights to their limbs to carry around when exercising. It makes it harder. We’re carrying a lot more weight on our bones. Muscles get tired easily (and hurt after). Backbones are under a lot of pressure; feet are tortured; speed is decreased. So honestly, no need to trip on the way. Your fat character can run just as well as everyone else on the team, they’ll just get tired faster. Which is great potential for showing physical strength on their part, keeping up with them without showing discomfort. 

AGAIN, REMEMBER: Being fat not always equals being unhealthy. Not all fat people will struggle with exercise. You must decide what’s the case of your character. 

There are sports in which broader body types might be ideal - wrestling, for example - but they could also perform others and be good at it. And if you disagree, I’ll eat you. 

Clothes won’t fit/places don’t have their size

We all remember Mean Girls, when Regina gains weight and the lady tells her she should go shopping elsewhere. Sh*t’s funny, right? Not really. 

But this issue can go further than regular frustration during shopping. What if they want to be a cheerleader and there’s no money to get her uniform (despite them making the team and everyone else getting one their size?). Or, what if, as a superhero, they can’t find the right measures for a uniform that suits them? Or the right mold for knight armor? Or the right size of space suit to go out of the ship in a crisis? It makes you feel unwelcome, unfit, too much, even when people are doing their dang best to help. 

It’s a great opportunity for showing the perseverance of your character or introducing that awesome supportive character who understands. Still on the topic of clothes that won’t fit, here’s the places where normally there are issues:

Thighs and butt (mainly) 

Breasts (for inverted triangle girls, it’s common to have tight clothes at the boobs and loose lower). 

Arms (sometimes they fit but you can’t stretch your arms ahead or up without having the shirt going up)

Waist (and not necessarily belly; when things have a very slim waist, it gets crumpled and what’s down is projected by the belly.

Belly (if you really must)

Chairs are not suitable

Chairs don’t have to break to be mortifying to sit in. Personally, stools are terrible because my thighs go bananas over them. Swallow them whole, and I feel unstable. Some chairs simply won’t be comfortable because parts of me are not on top of them. Having to have someone bring you a special chair is humiliating. 

What if the spaceship was built for slender species? How about the conquerer queen who, upon looking at the pathetic small throne of the territory she just took over, splits it in how with her mighty swords while her new subjects watch in horror as she destroys millennia of history? 

So with those tools, I trust you will not be a coward and give us a thought the next time you’re thinking of your cast of characters next time.

Feel free to reblog this with your own aditions and follow me for similar content! 

[adashi-lives]

What's your opinion on how Adam deals with PTSD? I saw a post about that a while ago and wanted to know what people thought about it.

I feel like Adam got so much more time to deal with the incidents leading up to his PTSD than Shiro did. He survived the crash, either became a rebel leader or remained a Garrison officer, and was able to either seek the help he needed or have the time and dedication to overcome his residual trauma. He most likely had survivor's guilt and insomnia, the lack of sleep being a common effect of PTSD.

He wasn't a complete stranger to these effects. Guilt would constantly assault his thoughts when he effectively had to bury his fiancee after he was declared dead in space and lost his surrogate brother after he was expelled from the Garrison and ran away to a shack in the desert. Sleeplessness came when nightmares and overwhelming feelings of inadequacy wouldn't leave. On the outside, he seemed extremely overworked, but accomplished so much as he pursued both teaching and advancing his own engineering studies and projects.

He had to work to build a network again of people to help him, in addition to practicing his regular healthy habits again until sleep became part of the routine.

In a twisted way, that prepared him for the Galra invasion. Although the PTSD posed more stress, he made sure to build that network of people once again. Therapists, friends, veterans, people joining the cause in preparing the Garrison for war, all people able to help him through this difficult experience.

What really helps him gain control of his trauma is when he can use his own personal journey to teach others. People have gotten better with similar mental symptoms and so can Adam. He can use his experience to be that aid to others, and if he ever sees no point in getting better for himself he can see the progress in getting better for others. As a teacher, he is ingrained with this and this is what drives him to continue and be fulfilled in his own personal journey.

He understands he can't help people if he isn't healthy himself.

It is something he continuously faces after Shiro comes back and they reunite as a couple. He perseveres, excelling as a guide for his love when he has nightmares of horrors Adam can only imagine. Shiro also learns to notice when Adam is avoiding sleep in order to work on another project, to feel useful. They have to help each other, and while it is painful, they understand what the other is battling. They never see the PTSD as a defining trait or inconvenience, but just another challenge to overcome, both Shiro and Adam being confident in who they are to face it and know that they will survive, sometimes if not for themselves then for each other.

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

An Interpretation of an Arc

A/N: I am very firm in “while we should be critical of media, sometimes also we should just have fun,” and I do not write this to challenge the common rhetoric I see about a certain someone in Dragon Age. Rather instead, I write this to offer an alternative viewpoint and how I have come to see a certain arc in D/ragon A/ge. I am not going to touch every little thing, but I will give a broad overview. anyway....

Ask me what comes to mind when I think of C/ullen and my mind may drift to the relationship I envision he has with my Inquisitor. I may also think of the wonderful fan art on here, or I may think about how much of a comfort his romance was back in 2016 when I was going through a very rough patch in college. I was so focused in asserting myself in my field that D/ragon A/ge, and by extension, C/ullen’s romance was something I could dive and indulge in, in a sense be my true romantic self. And while perhaps I started writing my longfic originally with an intellectual pursuit, (Can this relationship between a Circle Mage and former templar work?) The bigger truth was that I wanted to be swept away in a grand, emotional romance. In doing so I filled in gaps in canon and better got into C/ullen’s head space, and did some things that perhaps I wanted to see in canon, like an actual confrontation of his past. I wanted him to redeem himself better in my story than what was available in the base game. However, more than a year has passed, and my feelings on his “redemption arc,” have drastically changed. What I thought back then was that the game kind of touched on his redemption arc, but could have done it better. My thoughts now, however, are actually simpler: C/ullen has a recovery arc rather than a redemption arc, and this “essay,” will explain how it functions and why it hits with me more than a flat out redemption arc would have.

For a background, it’s important to mention what C/ullen did in canon that makes him “need” a redemption arc. he said problematic things, but his greatest sin was inaction. (Samson mentions he never played rough with mages if you talk to him in his cell at Skyhold.) We can talk about the evils of inaction all day long and i would probably agree with you, but there is also the added layer of Cullen being a trauma survivor. He had only a quick reprieve from the horrors of Kinloch before he was sent to Meredith, and the woman essentially took advantage of his trauma to fulfill her own ends. I have spoken about Cullen’s trauma before, but that’s not really the focus here. His inaction however, is what is important to bring up, and this will frame the rest of the piece:

So what is redemption anyway?

The dictionary defines redemption as “the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil,” If we go by this definition however, things get dicey. What exactly is needed to be saved? And what does “saved” even mean in our modern, much more secular world? I really dislike this definition when we apply it to redemption arcs, because it implies that there is an endgame in redemption. You screw up, you realize it, (”What have I done?!”)  you do something to make up for it...poof. Done. But I don’t think it’s that simple. Rather instead, redemption does not, and should never, have an endgame. Redemption is always something to work toward. B/lackwall’s arc in Inquisition exemplifies this. (And I will attest he has a better redemption arc than C/ullen.) He knows what he did was wrong, is willing to die for his act, but when the Quiz exonerates him, he strives toward a better future. 

However, T/hom R/ainier ran from his identity and what he did, he did under the guise of B/lackwall, and acted as the man the real B/lackwall thought he was. it was a mask. It is implied he’s only confronting his past just then when he’s in the cell with the Quiz, and that is why emotions are very high in that scene. After his exoneration he continues to help others, even during Tresspasser. He works towards no endgame, he simply knows he must consistently be a better person and not become the man he once was. 

But let’s talk about C/ullen. By the time Inquisition starts, a period of about four years has passed since the battle of Kirkwall. We know from supplemental information he helped rebuild the city. this was how C/assandra spotted him. She recognized his good works and offered him the position of Commander. While the game should do a better job in explaining what exactly he did and how he processed his inaction, if C/ullen helped rebuild, then he did not run from his past. He had to face it head on when he stayed in the city and helped rebuild. There’s arguments to be made that perhaps the Inquisitor should call him out on what he did...or others as well... and sure I might agree, (there’s a scene in my fic where this happens.) but at the end of the day, C/ullen is important to the game, but not really a focus character, and his arc goes elswhere. It’s an unfortunate oversight, but it’s not as though the Inquisitor can’t ever call him out at all. During Perseverance, this is something the Quiz can say: 

Quiz: The man you were. You can’t pretend he never existed. 

Cullen: Not even if I wanted to. But I am here now. I can make that mean something. 

Alternatively, quiz can say that C/ullen can put the past behind him. He says to that: “I can’t forget what happened., but it led me here. I can make that mean something.” So while yes, I think B/lackwall has a better redemption arc overall, simply because we actually see the full arc, there are a couple things in regards to C/ullen. One: because Inquisition begins a good time after K/irkwall, we don’t see C/ullen’s “oh my god, what have I done moment,” and sometimes fandom assumes he didn’t have one. (which dialogue above indicates to me he did.) Two: He still says some kind of problematic things, but is it realistic for him to do a one eighty...even after so long a time has passed and mental health programs don’t exist in Thedas? In my opinion it’s realistic, and to be honest I get his grievances with going after the rebel mages, because it’s not so much that they’re mages, but that they don’t know the status of the mage rebellion, and then when they find out, they find out they’ve aligned with a dangerous foreign power. (this though is a whole other spiel.) Three: he’s not a focus character. Sure this is probably a really shitty lack of foresight on the developer’s parts, but let me point out that V/arric, the only other person besides H/awke who would probably have some issues with C/ullen...doesn’t at all. In fact they seem pretty friendly during Wicked Grace. Four though, and most important, C/ullen has no clear endgame. Even moreso than J/osie or L/eliana, C/ullen pours himself into his work. It’s even joked that he needs a hobby. He acts, when before, his sin was inaction. In a way, this is a form of redemption: acting now when he didn’t before. 

But hey! You said in the beginning that this was a recovery arc! What gives?

While I argue that the overall “theme” of C/ullen’s story is recovery, I would also attest that recovery in itself is a form of redemption, and this all depends on whether or not you as the Inquisitor keep him on lyrium or not. Your choices depending, C/ullen recovers or he spirals and ends up a lot worse. So let’s dive into this now, shall we?

The Blue Vial and it’s Symbolism. 

We learn early on that C/ullen did something very very dangerous and unprecedented months before the Inquisition formally began: quit lyrium. he did something too that could very well kill him. Putting him back on it nets this dialogue: 

I thought if I removed the part that kept me chained I would find my own purpose again.

C/ullen wanted to be a templar to protect people, something he says. Hell, C/ole even says C/ullen is a “good” one, when asking about the templars because he wants to protect. After the Blight he “served out of fear,” and he was “compelled,” as he said, but as mentioned previously he didn’t receive proper help before he was sent to the queen of insanity. However, he ultimately came to the realization that M/eredith did not represent what the order was supposed to stand for. Too little too late? If you believe that I will not argue with you, but the point is, he came to a realization by himself that many would not have. And to seal the deal, he removes himself from the lyrium, removes the chains to “find my own purpose again.” He stopped the lyrium to remember that when he was a boy, it wasn’t about fear. It was protection. Stopping the lyrium is breaking the last hold the order and his past has over him, and his way of going back to protecting people. it is his recovery. Finding a path again, after treading the wrong one. Putting him back on lyrium is forcing him back into his old viewpoints,not allowing him to fully break the chain. If you do this, he does not recover. The chantry scene exemplifies this: either he’s more hopeful, saying a prayer and having a moment of reflection, or he remains bound to the order. Keeping C/ullen off of lyrium allows him to find a life after. 

There’s a poem Tennyson wrote called “Ulysses.” It’s a dramatic monologue delivered by Odyssues (or Ulysses as Tennyson uses his Roman name) sometime after the Odyssey where the man delivers this long epic speech about how bored he is after the Trojan War and his grand adventure, and wants to go out exploring again. to be honest the poem depresses me, because it’s the narrative I see often, even in my own family. It’s the narrative of the soldier who could not adjust to civilian life after the fighting was done. But C/ullen? romanced or not, he does find a life after. he succeeds, and that to me is very hopeful. perhaps it’s not outright said, but the ending slides, romanced or not, certainly indicate he found a life after the fighting. he recovered, and as the slides say he continues to help people and do good work. He continues to work toward a redemption. this is his arc. It is nuanced, symbolic, and while I have some issues, I think it is not only realistic, but effective, and hopeful. He is like many of us, many of us who did wrong. He doesn’t wallow in the past but he doesn’t forget, and he looks forward. that, to me, is very, very important.

Conclusion and Disclaimer 

I’m not going to pretend like I don’t understand why people have grievances with his arc, but I want to stress that this is my interpretation. I kind of didn’t want to publish this but I spent a huge chunk of time writing, so what the hell. All I ask is please, please, pleeeaaasssssssseeeeee do not be rude or vitriolic. I have thought this for a long time, and I finally wished to share. Now I need a nap.

[ryanmeft]

2019 in Film, Part 1

We’re closing out the decade with one of the best years for film I can remember. There was so much great stuff in 2019 that it got me back to writing reviews after I had given them up as a hopeless endeavor in an age of polarized opinions. We had A-list actors turning in top-notch work about deteriorating relationships and alternate histories of Hollywood. We had forgotten or controversial actors---Antonio Banderas, Sienna Miller, Adam Sandler, Paul Walter Hauser, among others---proving they deserved to be A-list. We had great new films from the likes of The Safdie Brothers, Robert Eggers, Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, Pedro Almodovar and more. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses. Clint Eastwood did his best to undermine his own filmmaking with sexist and anti-press leanings. Disney continued to gobble up everything it could, threatening the future of legitimate filmmaking and the theatre business. And some excellent creators turned in movies that, well, didn’t meet the hype. But what year is perfect? Below, a compendium of every 2019 film I saw, and my absolutely correct opinion on each one. This covers films through the letter G, and I’ll be posting H-N and O-Z shortly. I’ll also be updating these lists as I add new reviews and see more movies, since I live in the arse end of nowhere and there’s still a lot I haven’t seen. Enjoy.

21 Bridges: 3 Stars

-A throwback to the relatively stripped down cops-and-criminals thrillers of the 90’s, this tightly made and well acted tale of corruption will appeal to anyone who remembers the likes of The Fugitive.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/urvdfx2

Ad Astra: 3 Stars

-A toothless finale and a weak role for Tommy Lee Jones can’t derail the quality of Brad Pitt’s performance, one where most of the character is developed inside his head.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/whkonyy

The Aeronauts: 2 Stars

-This attempt to emulate the adventure epics of the Golden Age of Hollywood features spectacular sights and two great actors doing their best, but falters when developing an interesting story or drawing us into their struggle for survival. Currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/tce4ps6

The Aftermath: 1 Star

-Lifeless, listless and generally not knowing what it wants to be, the movie switches back and forth from serious post-war thriller to cheesy erotic novel, and fails at both.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/vjfefuq

Ash is Purest White: 4 Stars

-A patient poem of life, which leads you to believe it will be one thing---a crime drama about small time street hoods in a dying industrial town---and instead becomes a quiet ode to personal perseverance. One of the year’s best films.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: 3 Stars

-Tom Hanks is ephemeral as the children’s icon with the recently resurgent reputation, and Matthew Rhys and Chris Cooper are effective as the estranged, battling father and son who Rogers helps to heal. The definitive statement on Rogers is last year’s documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? This movie is mostly a fantasy drama revolving around Rogers’ ethos, with minimal insight into the man.

Alita: Battle Angel: 2 1/2 Stars

-Featuring stunning technology, good performances (especially from Mahershala Ali and Rose Salazar) and an incredibly weak script co-written by James Cameron, this is the kind of movie that would absolutely kill if you got a better screenplay to go with it. Hopefully they get a second try.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/qnl3ggd

American Woman: 3 1/2 Stars

Sienna Miller has flown under most stardom’s radar, and here in this small film no one saw gets one of the year’s best performances. She’s an irresponsible mother who has to learn to grow up after her daughter’s disappearance, but that is mere plot. The key is the sympathy the film has for the problems of people we wouldn’t ordinarily cheer on.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/uz7x67z

Avengers: Endgame: 3 Stars

-Fan service through and through, Endgame delivers every thrill you could possibly want with few real surprises, but also leaves you wondering where the MCU could possibly go from here.

Birds of Passage: 4 Stars

-A fictionalized look at the rise of the drug trade in Colombia, this Godfather-like film traces the fall of indigenous cultures to the lure of international criminal activity with a steady hand and a de-emphasis on overt violence.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/ww8m98v

Blinded by the Light: 3 Stars

-You really do gotta be a Springsteen fan, but if you are, this one is ready to make you smile and cheer. You may forget it after you leave the theatre, but then, it has already done its job.

Booksmart: 3 1/2 Stars

-Olivia Wilde continues the rehabilitation of the once trashy teen comedy, making a movie about alienation and identity that can stand alongside films like The Duff, Eighth Grade and Edge of Seventeen. It may not break any new ground, but it is so relatable and so funny it doesn’t really have to.

Brightburn: 1 1/2 Stars

-A for effort, F for execution. There’s blood to be wrung from the “What if Superman were evil?” stone, but instead of taking the concept and giving us a unique take-off of the world’s most well known superhero, the movie is content to repeat the famous origin story, weakly flipped to the horror genre.

Brittany Runs a Marathon: 3 Stars

-It isn’t without its cliches, but it’s nice to see a good film like this which doesn’t lionize impossibly perfect looking people as the only ones who can realize a dream. Jillian Bell is both off-putting and likable, a rare trick. Currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

By the Grace of God: 4 Stars

-Frances Ozon’s dispassionate, drama-lite look at three men taking on a skin-crawlingly vile abusive priest is impossible to look away from, even when characters are simply discussing their lives. Ozon makes ordinary life lived with trauma almost as tense for the audience as for those living it.

Captain Marvel: 3 Stars

-When people say the MCU movies are factory-produced, this one could be Exhibit A. It does almost nothing wrong and takes almost no risks, leaving a movie that’s fun while you’re watching it and forgotten as soon as you’re not. Bonus points for Annette Bening playing a murderous A.I.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/sw8247t

Captive State: 1 Star

-An intriguing sci-fi premise with a lifeless script, the potential for interesting twists and turns is neutered by a lack of narrative flare.

Cats: 1 Star

-The kind of movie that makes you want to shower afterwards.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/tzjx5v8

The Current War: 2 1/2 Stars

-More flash than substance, which in an odd way makes it a suitable treatment of the very publicity-minded battle between Edison and Westinghouse. Overall, it feels more like an educational video or a History Channel special, but there are things worth the trip, like the performance of Benedict Cumberbatch.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/urewluk

The Dead Don’t Die: 0 Stars

-Jim Jarmusch has made some of the finest films I’ve ever seen and some of the worst. This unfunny, painfully obvious satire is firmly in the latter camp.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/w8bafdl

Doctor Sleep: 3 1/2 Stars

-An absolutely delicious villain coupled with overall strong performances and engaging, old-school filmmaking result in one of the better of the many Stephen King adaptations.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/sns6nhh

Dora and the Lost City of Gold: 3 1/2 Stars

-It takes a show meant to educate young kids about languages and turns it into a genuinely funny, exciting and engaging adventure movie that pulls of an “All-ages Indiana Jones” vibe shockingly well. One of the few movies that actually needs a sequel.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/t7tzyxq

Dumbo: 3 Stars

-The original is outdated enough that for once a Disney remake doesn’t feel like a cash grab, and Tim Burton turns in a beautiful movie with a great villain (who, strangely enough, is an obvious stand-in for Walt himself).

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/wnkkvuz

Fast Color: 3 Stars

-A decidedly different superhero movie that scuttles itself a bit with its own franchise ambitions, but the first two acts deliver a serious story focusing on things superhero movies rarely touch on: addiction, abandonment, forgiveness and parenthood.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/sgytshn

Ford v Ferrari: 3 Stars

-Two hours of the movie is bog-standard biopic stuff elevated by Damon and Bale’s performances. The last third is an incredibly thrilling, no-special-effects race scene that will get the blood pumping even if you don’t give one whit about race cars.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters: 2 Stars

-An improved emphasis on visuals helps this one be better than its predecessor, but that ain’t saying a whole helluva lot.

Full Review: https://tinyurl.com/vcuhc44

The Good Liar: 2 Stars

-A strange mix of obvious twists and spoilers you couldn’t possibly see coming, the movie feels like it both plays fair and cheats with the audience. It’s a lurid potboiler elevated considerably by the immense talents of Mirren and McKellan, who are playing well below their weight class here.

Gloria Bell: 3 Stars

-Julianne Moore turns in a lovable, relatable performance in a movie that doesn’t otherwise differentiate itself much from the divorced-people-finding-their-life-again sub-genre of feel good movie.

Greta: 2 1/2 Stars

-The sleazy thrills of seeing Isabelle Huppert, one of the best of actresses, playing an unhinged psycho stalker is worth the price of admission, but the film itself doesn’t do enough to stand out from the thriller pack.

[zimniysoldat-fiction]

we killed each other & loved in time

Summary: You look back with fondness on the creation of one of your favourite songs.

Pairings: Bucky x reader

Warnings: I think there’s a bit of strong language in there. Maybe? I curse so often I don’t realize I’m doing it. But I think this is relatively clean. It alludes to sex near the end, and there’s a breakup mentioned. I think that’s it?

Word Count: 1,562

A/N: Based on this prompt (sorry @lizzieangelsaint, I couldn’t find you Disney duet on the googles. It’s probably too new for me––I’m ancient) and inspired by this song (Kentish Town Waltz by Imelda May f. Lou Reed)

"Bucky Barnes? Let me tell you a story about James Buchanan Barnes, one of the strangest, most enticing enigmas I’ve ever met. This was before he was ever Captain America, before he was a fugitive from S.H.I.E.L.D., a time when, as it turns out, he was a part-time spy and full-time nuisance.

He moved into the apartment next to mine years ago, I’m not quite sure when, he was so quiet, so reserved. I heard more from the mice in the walls than I did from him. As time went on, though, he became bolder—smiling at me in the hallway, holding the elevator as I rushed in from the rain, signing for packages while I was out.

It took some time, but when he first started talking to me, I think I jumped with surprise. Somehow his voice was both shy and confident, a quiet mumble and an assertive clarity—all at the same time. The poor guy’s memory wasn’t great, I think I introduced myself a solid dozen times before I gave up and just let him call me 5b, his ‘rocker chick neighbour.’ And for the longest time, that’s all that we were, vaguely acquainted neighbours—5b and the Tin Man.

That all changed with the Kentish Town Waltz.

It started as an upbeat celebration of all that my partner and I made it through, a tribute to our strength and perseverance. It was a happy song about me and the man I moved to New York for.

Never do that, by the way, never abandon your life, never uproot and move somewhere for another person. It’s stupid and naïve. Just don’t do it.

You can probably guess what happened next, so I won’t bore you with the details. Over time, this song became a totem of irony. Instead of being an upbeat pop rock celebration, it became a mellow blues ballad. It became my therapy as I found life after my life ended.

It was during this period that Bucky started coming into my life more. It started with him knocking on my door in the morning asking for cream for his coffee because he ran out. When he found out I drink my coffee black, he forewent the cream and asked to bum a cup of joe instead. He started asking me to take care of his plants while he was away ‘on business.’ Eventually, he had a key cut for me, that’s how often he was away. Before that, I hadn’t even noticed he was gone.

There was this one day, I was coming home from the grocery store after sitting in on a practice session for the Mary Janes at their drummer’s request. I had my guitar with me, and probably three bags of groceries, so it was awkwardly precarious. At best. Add in the little run-in I had at the store with my former partner, and I was just primed for disaster.

I was tired from helping these promising kids with their band, I was upset from seeing my ex, and I was hurt from meeting his new girlfriend. So when I dropped my keys just millimetres from getting them into the deadbolt, I lost it. Not cool, angry rocker temper tantrum lost it, pathetic, burst into tears, ugly crying lost it. I don’t know how long I stood there crying, I can’t remember. What I do remember, though, is what happened next.

“Hey 5b, everything okay?” What’s with that question? No! Obviously everything isn’t okay if I’m standing in front of my apartment bawling my eyes out. Jerk.

I wish I could have said that, but in reality, I couldn’t speak at all. So I shook my head and kept crying, staring forlornly at my keys on the floor. He didn’t even hesitate, swooping in he grabbed the keys, opened the door, grabbed my groceries, and took them inside.

While I collapsed in existential defeat on the couch, he put away my groceries, never once interrupting my pity session to ask where something went. He just figured it out. When he was done, he made me a cup of tea and brought it to me on the couch.

While I cradled the heavy mug, he cradled me. He just held onto me. He didn’t ask what happened, or what was wrong, or why I was crying. He just held me. It wasn’t until this gorgeous redhead showed up looking for him that he even considered leaving. At the time, I remember thinking how lucky this girl was to have someone like Bucky to love and care for her. It was a few years later that I found out that Natasha was actually there because Yelena Belova had escaped S.H.I.E.L.D. custody. Again.

He had inspired me to finish the Waltz, to get that closure. The verse Oh you’re good at the things I’m hopeless at, and I notice what you ignore. But it’s when I see that you’re not perfect for me, yeah it’s then that I love you more, was actually about Bucky, not my ex.

I think I was holed up for about a week finishing this song. I was so proud of it, it permeated every aspect of my life. It was forever stuck in my head, it felt. And this? This is where it all happened. I never realized how thin those apartment walls were—Bucky was always so quiet, I never heard a thing. And he never complained about my noise. I just figured that the walls were well-insulated. Boy, was I wrong. Really, really wrong.

What I didn’t know was that Bucky’s shower was right next to mine, so the only thing separating the splashboard was a hollow complex of plumbing. I found this out during a long, overdue, indulgent shower.

I was soaking in the heat of the rainfall-like stream of water when I started singing, blissing out on the acoustics of the shower.

Do you remember we traipsed around from pub to pound shop up through Kentish Town. Only a fiver to our name, the drunk on the doorstep had more to our shame.

I was listening to the notes carry when I heard this deep voice, a crooner melody like Sinatra or Bennett carry on the verse.

Living over the office had its trials—the fights all night out there and inside. And those stews that lasted three days into four; and the dreaded bailiffs returned to our door.

Jesus! I never even dreamt that Bucky could sing like that! Once I got over the shock of his voice, and the horror of realizing he was singing my song, my song that I hadn’t shared with anyone, I decided to continue. Maybe it was a fluke that he knew the lyrics?

But we stuck with each other with all our might; we pulled it together and held on tight. And I’m glad for us, yeah, I’m glad mo chroi. But it’s nothing to anyone, ‘cept you and me. There were wrongs for every right, there’s ups and there’s downs, but you’re the one for all my life, my true love I have found. Yeah you, my love, I found.

It wasn’t a fluke. I was so freaked out, I felt so violated, that I didn’t bother with anything more than a towel around my torso when I marched to his door. Every knock got heavier, louder, angrier, until I was just impatiently banging on that stupid piece of wood. 

When he opened the door, Bucky was similarly covered, his metal hand clenching the towel around his waist. The second I saw those icy blue eyes, the taint of affection, that subtle shimmer of lust that made them so vibrant, so entrancing. The second I saw those eyes my anger was gone. 

I forgot about my towel and flung myself toward him, wrapping my arms around his neck so I could bring him down to my level. The second our lips met, he forgot about his towel, his metal arm snaking around my waist while his flesh arm slammed the door shut, leaving my towel in a heap in the hallway."

“That was the best, most passionate kiss I’ve ever experienced. The hunger, the affection, our wet, naked bodies molding into one another—everything about it just felt right. And it was right. Obviously. Or else I wouldn’t be here, would I?” You sat back against the metal chair, refusing to break eye contact with the male agent, who was blushing as he cleared his throat.

“That’s all well and good, ma’am,” he hesitated, clearly uncomfortable, probably disappointed that your story didn’t get pornographic. “But I asked if you knew where Bucky Barnes is.” He got his composure back quickly, his stare intense and his tone intimidating.

“Not that your story wasn’t sweet,” the female agent squeaked. The good cop to his bad cop, she smiled sweetly at you. “And I’m a huge fan of your music. But Bucky is a terrorist, we need to bring him in before he can hurt anyone else.” Is that sympathy or pity she’s trying to fake? You found it hard to tell.

Nonetheless, your lips spread into a half grin as you leant forward on the interrogation table, still maintaining intense eye contact with Mr. Bad Cop. “You don’t actually expect me to give up my husband, do you?”

TAGS: @oneshot-shit; @marvel-ash; @bovaria; @hymnofthevalkyries; @bionic-buckyb; @archangel-trauma; @kuren-chan; @lauisspntrash; @theariel85; @ipaintmelodies

[lillymidd]

A little late, but worth sharing:

A little bit over a month ago I had the opportunity to study in Rwanda after taking a course on the Genocide against the Tutsis in 1994 and the peace, reconciliation, and rebuilding the country has accomplished since then. At the conclusion of my stay, I wrote a letter to the country.

Dear Rwanda,

I don’t think I will be able to fully understand the impact you have made on me, but I can feel it deep within my soul and psyche. The ground I walked on, a rusty red and lush green, has seen so much history, devastation, and building. Like many places in the world, Rwanda has seen catastrophe. It was in the first few days there that my mind pre-meditated over these horrific facts. For 4 months I had been learning about death and destruction, mixed in with a few lighter realities. In a classroom, it is hard to understand rebirth without seeing it, and that is where I had been stuck. Before the trip, my mind raced with anxiety about feeling the loss of souls and touching the earth where so many innocent lives were shed. My anticipations were correct. The moment I set foot in Kigali, I felt that immense sort of presence, of weight, of my own pre-conceived thoughts about Rwanda cluttering in my mind.

I felt this weight throughout the first week, as we walked through history, re-opening wounds and uncovering once again what had happened only 25 years ago. The weight in some ways felt good. I felt myself feel truly vulnerable with my emotions, something I have not felt so vividly in a while. I allowed myself the space to feel sadness, to feel anger, to feel sometimes like I was transcending my own body.

The peak of this transcendence happened at Nyamata. It was in this space where I actually felt the presence of the thousands of people who had suffered there. Overwhelming in so many ways, my body almost froze, and my immense sadness and confusion felt insignificant when I tried to compare it to survivors who were tasked to remember, and even more greatly to those who lost their lives in that church. It was also in this moment when I began to see the true humanity in which Rwanda encourages and inspires today. While I sat at Nyamata, tear-soaked and incapable of processing, I was offered support by our dear team member Kenge. He sat with me, validating my emotions without judgment, and became a lynchpin in grounding myself in reality, in life, and in beauty. These messages were furthered for me when we met with Alice, a survivor, and Emmanuel, a perpetrator, who showed me the capability of the human mind. As Hope said at Mashirika, a reconciliation driven dance company, it is easier to create something out of hate than it is to create something out of love, and I saw that dedication and perseverance within both Alice and Emmanuel. The coming days would still be hard, but it was at this turning point where my mind became unstuck from the horror and began to see the immense light that was beaming out of every individual and every space we were able to greet. I was shown the purity of humanity and light, and it began to mend my heart and soul, of the trauma I had learned about, but also my own personal weight that I carry every day.

Rwanda is a country that is dedicated to respecting individuals, their humanity, and the ingenuity and peace that can come from that kind of support. After the first few hard days, I was exposed to so much building, regeneration, and creativity. What struck me most, was the power of trusting one’s own self, and one’s own country to solve problems from within; a message that Rwanda is promoting to other places in the world, leading by example. Upon leaving Rwanda, I have begun to understand humanity again, and my belief in it has been reinstalled. The story of Rwanda needs to be told, from the very beginning. It is through this that we can learn about the power of resilience, self-respect, and care, reconciliation, forgiveness, self-awareness, and most importantly humanity. Rwanda continues to grow today with a deep understanding of what it means to be a country that is conscious of its people, their goals and their humanity, the environment, and the global network of peacebuilding and prosperity.

So to my dear Rwanda and all the people I met, thank you for everything you have given me, and thank you for touching my heart and soul, giving me the tools, knowledge, and spirit to share what I have learned.

www.igscrwanda.org

Rwanda A little late, but worth sharing: A little bit over a month ago I had the opportunity to study in Rwanda after taking a course on the Genocide against the Tutsis in 1994 and the peace, reconciliation, and rebuilding the country has accomplished since then.

[brysonmaverick-blog]

Determination a trait needed for recovery from sexual abuse and human trafficking

Jeannene is a young woman who has found her strength in the determination to persevere in the battle to wholeness. This is her story.   Could you tell me some basic info about what happened to you?    I had two experiences with sexual abuse during my childhood- both relatively close to each other. While both have impacted me, I focus on one much more than the other; so here’s that story. My mother was always dating new guys when I was growing up- most of them losers and deadbeats. Mom made everyone happy when she found a really nice guy with a good job and nice house. My grandparents loved him and on the outside, everything looked perfect. When we moved into his house, he sexually abused me for almost 2 years. I was in 3 rd  grade when it started. Once my mom finally left him, she would still have me go visit him because he was “such a nice guy” and he would still try to abuse me then. When I go to tenth grade, I finally told my family what happened. We proceeded to have him arrested and I endured through the court trial. He received a sentence of over a hundred years in jail without the possibility of parole for what he did to me and another girl whom we found out about later.    The Aftermath    Little did I know, that seeing him arrested was really just the beginning of my struggles. Finally opening up about what happened caused me to have a mental break. I decided to be the put together one- the smart girl who never got rattled and suddenly everything made me angry. I became angry at the world and at the same time numb to everything. Getting close to people scared me, I couldn’t have normal appropriate romantic relationships with boys my own age. Every time someone even tried to hold my hand, my whole body felt like static. I would go numb. I began intensive therapy for two years and even then I still had no idea how to process. In my early twenties, I finally put all this aside so I could heal. I stopped being a slave to my always present PTSD and anxiety disorders. I finally stopped hoping for death.    During the time period you were experiencing your struggle, what gave you hope?    One of my counselors said something that has always stuck with me. “One day you’re going to look around and be so happy and life is going to be so beautiful- it’s going to take work to get there but you’ll never see it if you don’t give yourself the opportunity to live to see it”. That always stuck out to me. Here was this person who knew all the darkest things I experienced and knew all the horror of what was going on in my mind- and even she could say to me that one day the world will be beautiful again- but only if I allowed myself to experience it. And she was right. I wish I could tell her that now but she was right- the world is beautiful and wonderful and I am here to see it.    At the time you thought about committing suicide what gave you the strength to resist?    I always had this overwhelming urge not to let my abuser take my life from me. He had manipulated me so much for so long and everything he did to me affected me so much, I didn’t want to give my life too. I couldn’t change the past, but I had the future and I determined to create the best life for myself. A life full of love and beauty and not the darkness and horror that he presented. And happiness, I wanted to be genuinely happy. So happy that I could laugh freely- I never laughed much as a kid, not truly laugh. I was a stone. Neither overly happy or sad- and never angry. I always worried that if I let myself be sad or mad even a little bit, that I would fall into a deep hole and never come back. Sadness filled my life. I had too much to be angry about. From being sexually abused, to being abandoned by both my parents, to having a mother who did drugs and missed my birthday once because she got arrested. My life was a real-life episode of Law and Order: SVU and I knew that I had to change it- I was determined, so I did. I got away from my toxic family. I found education, I found happiness, and I found a passion for life and I love more deeply than I ever knew was possible.    If anyone ever used a word or description for your inner strength what was it?    Determined.  I feel like I have always had a deep determination to work towards whatever it is I want. It doesn’t matter if it’s school, an activity, or a goal for my life. I have always had a deep intensity about who I am and what I want. My determination helped me find my voice and helped me find what was important for me.    Describe your personal strengths    Passion- I hold a deep passion for life. For happiness and for love.    Intentional- I am always intentional with my speech, with my thoughts, and with my actions.    Congruence- I believe strongly in being the same person in all settings. For a long time, I forced myself to hide. I felt shame about being sexually abused and coming from a tough home life, however, I learned the strength in being truthful and honest with my experiences and the strength that it gave me and others when I did that.    What gives you joy for your future?    One day I will have experienced more of my life happy, loved, and thriving than I have in suffering and surviving. I also realize that I have found my happiness, I have found a man who is everything I have ever looked for in a partner. And my counselor was right- I often times look up and look at our life together and think, “she was right, this is the happiness that was waiting for me. I am so glad I lived to see this”.    Why would you like your story told?    I would like my story told because for a long time shame and fear convinced me that my story was my fault. It would make my family look bad. I wanted to protect my mom. I also know that there are strength and healing in finally saying it out loud. The amount of healing I’ve been able to do since I really made myself experience all the feelings and really deal with them has been incredible.    I also want people to know that yes, that beautiful life is possible. A life where you find someone who loves you and all the little, broken cracks   become less broken.The possibility of loving another person exists even though you have been manipulated and betrayed. You just have to let yourself live to see it.   How you can be involved.  Let me tell your story. Contact me at studio@kateshafferfineart.com  I will send you the questions I sent to Jeannene so I can tell your story from a place of hope and healing. Please comment below to encourage Jeannene in her pursuit of a life of joy. The battle may be hard, but it is worth winning. Let us encourage one another to a life of beauty and wholeness.       The Metaphors  Determination  The first thing was that she used the word determination as an attribute that helped her in her recovery. While I was thinking about that word, the image of the “little ant” came to mind. You remember the song… “Just what makes that little old ant, think he can move a rubber tree plant? Everyone knows an ant can’t move a rubber tree plant. But he’s got High Hopes…��  I know the song doesn’t mention determination. When I hear it I imagine that ant, grabbing the plant and plowing through until it was where he wanted it. That brought to mind rock climbing and that was when I had my “ah-ha” moment.  I knew that was perfect imagery to show determination.  The Promise  Jeannene’s therapist was the next imagery trigger for the painting. She said, “One day you’re going to look around and be so happy and life is going to be so beautiful- it’s going to take work to get there but you’ll never see it if you don’t give yourself the opportunity to live to see it”.  To go along with the rock climbing imagery, I needed some kind of “rocks”. It had to be mountains. The series of mountains expressed the many obstacles that have to be overcome in the recovery process when one goes through a trauma.  The Mountain  This mountain range shows those obstacles we see clearly and also those that are farther away. When recovering from a trauma, there are many ups and downs, however, we need to be determined. It takes that to fight through those downs. We fight until, like the rock climber in the painting, we can see far enough ahead to see that it is a beautiful landscape.  The Beautiful Life  The last imagery in the painting is the hazy distant landscape. This is a metaphor for the future. We don’t always see what is there, but from the top of the mountain, we can see that whatever the future brings, it is a beautiful landscape and well worth the climb.  How to Get Involved  Have you fought hard and achieved a level of recovery so you can begin to see your Beautiful Life? I want to tell your story. Contact me at studio@kateshafferfineart.com  You can also get involved in helping rescue someone or help in their rehabilitation. Contact Give Them A Voice Foundation at http://www.givethemavoice.foundation/

http://www.drjohnaking.com/the-voice/determination-trait-needed-recovery-sexual-abuse-human-trafficking/

[miketurnbull86-blog]

Determination a trait needed for recovery from sexual abuse and human trafficking

Jeannene is a young woman who has found her strength in the determination to persevere in the battle to wholeness. This is her story.   Could you tell me some basic info about what happened to you?    I had two experiences with sexual abuse during my childhood- both relatively close to each other. While both have impacted me, I focus on one much more than the other; so here’s that story. My mother was always dating new guys when I was growing up- most of them losers and deadbeats. Mom made everyone happy when she found a really nice guy with a good job and nice house. My grandparents loved him and on the outside, everything looked perfect. When we moved into his house, he sexually abused me for almost 2 years. I was in 3 rd  grade when it started. Once my mom finally left him, she would still have me go visit him because he was “such a nice guy” and he would still try to abuse me then. When I go to tenth grade, I finally told my family what happened. We proceeded to have him arrested and I endured through the court trial. He received a sentence of over a hundred years in jail without the possibility of parole for what he did to me and another girl whom we found out about later.    The Aftermath    Little did I know, that seeing him arrested was really just the beginning of my struggles. Finally opening up about what happened caused me to have a mental break. I decided to be the put together one- the smart girl who never got rattled and suddenly everything made me angry. I became angry at the world and at the same time numb to everything. Getting close to people scared me, I couldn’t have normal appropriate romantic relationships with boys my own age. Every time someone even tried to hold my hand, my whole body felt like static. I would go numb. I began intensive therapy for two years and even then I still had no idea how to process. In my early twenties, I finally put all this aside so I could heal. I stopped being a slave to my always present PTSD and anxiety disorders. I finally stopped hoping for death.    During the time period you were experiencing your struggle, what gave you hope?    One of my counselors said something that has always stuck with me. “One day you’re going to look around and be so happy and life is going to be so beautiful- it’s going to take work to get there but you’ll never see it if you don’t give yourself the opportunity to live to see it”. That always stuck out to me. Here was this person who knew all the darkest things I experienced and knew all the horror of what was going on in my mind- and even she could say to me that one day the world will be beautiful again- but only if I allowed myself to experience it. And she was right. I wish I could tell her that now but she was right- the world is beautiful and wonderful and I am here to see it.    At the time you thought about committing suicide what gave you the strength to resist?    I always had this overwhelming urge not to let my abuser take my life from me. He had manipulated me so much for so long and everything he did to me affected me so much, I didn’t want to give my life too. I couldn’t change the past, but I had the future and I determined to create the best life for myself. A life full of love and beauty and not the darkness and horror that he presented. And happiness, I wanted to be genuinely happy. So happy that I could laugh freely- I never laughed much as a kid, not truly laugh. I was a stone. Neither overly happy or sad- and never angry. I always worried that if I let myself be sad or mad even a little bit, that I would fall into a deep hole and never come back. Sadness filled my life. I had too much to be angry about. From being sexually abused, to being abandoned by both my parents, to having a mother who did drugs and missed my birthday once because she got arrested. My life was a real-life episode of Law and Order: SVU and I knew that I had to change it- I was determined, so I did. I got away from my toxic family. I found education, I found happiness, and I found a passion for life and I love more deeply than I ever knew was possible.    If anyone ever used a word or description for your inner strength what was it?    Determined.  I feel like I have always had a deep determination to work towards whatever it is I want. It doesn’t matter if it’s school, an activity, or a goal for my life. I have always had a deep intensity about who I am and what I want. My determination helped me find my voice and helped me find what was important for me.    Describe your personal strengths    Passion- I hold a deep passion for life. For happiness and for love.    Intentional- I am always intentional with my speech, with my thoughts, and with my actions.    Congruence- I believe strongly in being the same person in all settings. For a long time, I forced myself to hide. I felt shame about being sexually abused and coming from a tough home life, however, I learned the strength in being truthful and honest with my experiences and the strength that it gave me and others when I did that.    What gives you joy for your future?    One day I will have experienced more of my life happy, loved, and thriving than I have in suffering and surviving. I also realize that I have found my happiness, I have found a man who is everything I have ever looked for in a partner. And my counselor was right- I often times look up and look at our life together and think, “she was right, this is the happiness that was waiting for me. I am so glad I lived to see this”.    Why would you like your story told?    I would like my story told because for a long time shame and fear convinced me that my story was my fault. It would make my family look bad. I wanted to protect my mom. I also know that there are strength and healing in finally saying it out loud. The amount of healing I’ve been able to do since I really made myself experience all the feelings and really deal with them has been incredible.    I also want people to know that yes, that beautiful life is possible. A life where you find someone who loves you and all the little, broken cracks   become less broken.The possibility of loving another person exists even though you have been manipulated and betrayed. You just have to let yourself live to see it.   How you can be involved.  Let me tell your story. Contact me at studio@kateshafferfineart.com  I will send you the questions I sent to Jeannene so I can tell your story from a place of hope and healing. Please comment below to encourage Jeannene in her pursuit of a life of joy. The battle may be hard, but it is worth winning. Let us encourage one another to a life of beauty and wholeness.       The Metaphors  Determination  The first thing was that she used the word determination as an attribute that helped her in her recovery. While I was thinking about that word, the image of the “little ant” came to mind. You remember the song… “Just what makes that little old ant, think he can move a rubber tree plant? Everyone knows an ant can’t move a rubber tree plant. But he’s got High Hopes…”  I know the song doesn’t mention determination. When I hear it I imagine that ant, grabbing the plant and plowing through until it was where he wanted it. That brought to mind rock climbing and that was when I had my “ah-ha” moment.  I knew that was perfect imagery to show determination.  The Promise  Jeannene’s therapist was the next imagery trigger for the painting. She said, “One day you’re going to look around and be so happy and life is going to be so beautiful- it’s going to take work to get there but you’ll never see it if you don’t give yourself the opportunity to live to see it”.  To go along with the rock climbing imagery, I needed some kind of “rocks”. It had to be mountains. The series of mountains expressed the many obstacles that have to be overcome in the recovery process when one goes through a trauma.  The Mountain  This mountain range shows those obstacles we see clearly and also those that are farther away. When recovering from a trauma, there are many ups and downs, however, we need to be determined. It takes that to fight through those downs. We fight until, like the rock climber in the painting, we can see far enough ahead to see that it is a beautiful landscape.  The Beautiful Life  The last imagery in the painting is the hazy distant landscape. This is a metaphor for the future. We don’t always see what is there, but from the top of the mountain, we can see that whatever the future brings, it is a beautiful landscape and well worth the climb.  How to Get Involved  Have you fought hard and achieved a level of recovery so you can begin to see your Beautiful Life? I want to tell your story. Contact me at studio@kateshafferfineart.com  You can also get involved in helping rescue someone or help in their rehabilitation. Contact Give Them A Voice Foundation at http://www.givethemavoice.foundation/

http://www.drjohnaking.com/the-voice/determination-trait-needed-recovery-sexual-abuse-human-trafficking/

[thebrysonsanders-blog]

Determination a trait needed for recovery from sexual abuse and human trafficking

Jeannene is a young woman who has found her strength in the determination to persevere in the battle to wholeness. This is her story.   Could you tell me some basic info about what happened to you?    I had two experiences with sexual abuse during my childhood- both relatively close to each other. While both have impacted me, I focus on one much more than the other; so here’s that story. My mother was always dating new guys when I was growing up- most of them losers and deadbeats. Mom made everyone happy when she found a really nice guy with a good job and nice house. My grandparents loved him and on the outside, everything looked perfect. When we moved into his house, he sexually abused me for almost 2 years. I was in 3 rd  grade when it started. Once my mom finally left him, she would still have me go visit him because he was “such a nice guy” and he would still try to abuse me then. When I go to tenth grade, I finally told my family what happened. We proceeded to have him arrested and I endured through the court trial. He received a sentence of over a hundred years in jail without the possibility of parole for what he did to me and another girl whom we found out about later.    The Aftermath    Little did I know, that seeing him arrested was really just the beginning of my struggles. Finally opening up about what happened caused me to have a mental break. I decided to be the put together one- the smart girl who never got rattled and suddenly everything made me angry. I became angry at the world and at the same time numb to everything. Getting close to people scared me, I couldn’t have normal appropriate romantic relationships with boys my own age. Every time someone even tried to hold my hand, my whole body felt like static. I would go numb. I began intensive therapy for two years and even then I still had no idea how to process. In my early twenties, I finally put all this aside so I could heal. I stopped being a slave to my always present PTSD and anxiety disorders. I finally stopped hoping for death.    During the time period you were experiencing your struggle, what gave you hope?    One of my counselors said something that has always stuck with me. “One day you’re going to look around and be so happy and life is going to be so beautiful- it’s going to take work to get there but you’ll never see it if you don’t give yourself the opportunity to live to see it”. That always stuck out to me. Here was this person who knew all the darkest things I experienced and knew all the horror of what was going on in my mind- and even she could say to me that one day the world will be beautiful again- but only if I allowed myself to experience it. And she was right. I wish I could tell her that now but she was right- the world is beautiful and wonderful and I am here to see it.    At the time you thought about committing suicide what gave you the strength to resist?    I always had this overwhelming urge not to let my abuser take my life from me. He had manipulated me so much for so long and everything he did to me affected me so much, I didn’t want to give my life too. I couldn’t change the past, but I had the future and I determined to create the best life for myself. A life full of love and beauty and not the darkness and horror that he presented. And happiness, I wanted to be genuinely happy. So happy that I could laugh freely- I never laughed much as a kid, not truly laugh. I was a stone. Neither overly happy or sad- and never angry. I always worried that if I let myself be sad or mad even a little bit, that I would fall into a deep hole and never come back. Sadness filled my life. I had too much to be angry about. From being sexually abused, to being abandoned by both my parents, to having a mother who did drugs and missed my birthday once because she got arrested. My life was a real-life episode of Law and Order: SVU and I knew that I had to change it- I was determined, so I did. I got away from my toxic family. I found education, I found happiness, and I found a passion for life and I love more deeply than I ever knew was possible.    If anyone ever used a word or description for your inner strength what was it?    Determined.  I feel like I have always had a deep determination to work towards whatever it is I want. It doesn’t matter if it’s school, an activity, or a goal for my life. I have always had a deep intensity about who I am and what I want. My determination helped me find my voice and helped me find what was important for me.    Describe your personal strengths    Passion- I hold a deep passion for life. For happiness and for love.    Intentional- I am always intentional with my speech, with my thoughts, and with my actions.    Congruence- I believe strongly in being the same person in all settings. For a long time, I forced myself to hide. I felt shame about being sexually abused and coming from a tough home life, however, I learned the strength in being truthful and honest with my experiences and the strength that it gave me and others when I did that.    What gives you joy for your future?    One day I will have experienced more of my life happy, loved, and thriving than I have in suffering and surviving. I also realize that I have found my happiness, I have found a man who is everything I have ever looked for in a partner. And my counselor was right- I often times look up and look at our life together and think, “she was right, this is the happiness that was waiting for me. I am so glad I lived to see this”.    Why would you like your story told?    I would like my story told because for a long time shame and fear convinced me that my story was my fault. It would make my family look bad. I wanted to protect my mom. I also know that there are strength and healing in finally saying it out loud. The amount of healing I’ve been able to do since I really made myself experience all the feelings and really deal with them has been incredible.    I also want people to know that yes, that beautiful life is possible. A life where you find someone who loves you and all the little, broken cracks   become less broken.The possibility of loving another person exists even though you have been manipulated and betrayed. You just have to let yourself live to see it.   How you can be involved.  Let me tell your story. Contact me at studio@kateshafferfineart.com  I will send you the questions I sent to Jeannene so I can tell your story from a place of hope and healing. Please comment below to encourage Jeannene in her pursuit of a life of joy. The battle may be hard, but it is worth winning. Let us encourage one another to a life of beauty and wholeness.       The Metaphors  Determination  The first thing was that she used the word determination as an attribute that helped her in her recovery. While I was thinking about that word, the image of the “little ant” came to mind. You remember the song… “Just what makes that little old ant, think he can move a rubber tree plant? Everyone knows an ant can’t move a rubber tree plant. But he’s got High Hopes…”  I know the song doesn’t mention determination. When I hear it I imagine that ant, grabbing the plant and plowing through until it was where he wanted it. That brought to mind rock climbing and that was when I had my “ah-ha” moment.  I knew that was perfect imagery to show determination.  The Promise  Jeannene’s therapist was the next imagery trigger for the painting. She said, “One day you’re going to look around and be so happy and life is going to be so beautiful- it’s going to take work to get there but you’ll never see it if you don’t give yourself the opportunity to live to see it”.  To go along with the rock climbing imagery, I needed some kind of “rocks”. It had to be mountains. The series of mountains expressed the many obstacles that have to be overcome in the recovery process when one goes through a trauma.  The Mountain  This mountain range shows those obstacles we see clearly and also those that are farther away. When recovering from a trauma, there are many ups and downs, however, we need to be determined. It takes that to fight through those downs. We fight until, like the rock climber in the painting, we can see far enough ahead to see that it is a beautiful landscape.  The Beautiful Life  The last imagery in the painting is the hazy distant landscape. This is a metaphor for the future. We don’t always see what is there, but from the top of the mountain, we can see that whatever the future brings, it is a beautiful landscape and well worth the climb.  How to Get Involved  Have you fought hard and achieved a level of recovery so you can begin to see your Beautiful Life? I want to tell your story. Contact me at studio@kateshafferfineart.com  You can also get involved in helping rescue someone or help in their rehabilitation. Contact Give Them A Voice Foundation at http://www.givethemavoice.foundation/

http://www.drjohnaking.com/the-voice/determination-trait-needed-recovery-sexual-abuse-human-trafficking/

[debrabackwood-blog]

Determination a trait needed for recovery from sexual abuse and human trafficking

Jeannene is a young woman who has found her strength in the determination to persevere in the battle to wholeness. This is her story.   Could you tell me some basic info about what happened to you?    I had two experiences with sexual abuse during my childhood- both relatively close to each other. While both have impacted me, I focus on one much more than the other; so here’s that story. My mother was always dating new guys when I was growing up- most of them losers and deadbeats. Mom made everyone happy when she found a really nice guy with a good job and nice house. My grandparents loved him and on the outside, everything looked perfect. When we moved into his house, he sexually abused me for almost 2 years. I was in 3 rd  grade when it started. Once my mom finally left him, she would still have me go visit him because he was “such a nice guy” and he would still try to abuse me then. When I go to tenth grade, I finally told my family what happened. We proceeded to have him arrested and I endured through the court trial. He received a sentence of over a hundred years in jail without the possibility of parole for what he did to me and another girl whom we found out about later.    The Aftermath    Little did I know, that seeing him arrested was really just the beginning of my struggles. Finally opening up about what happened caused me to have a mental break. I decided to be the put together one- the smart girl who never got rattled and suddenly everything made me angry. I became angry at the world and at the same time numb to everything. Getting close to people scared me, I couldn’t have normal appropriate romantic relationships with boys my own age. Every time someone even tried to hold my hand, my whole body felt like static. I would go numb. I began intensive therapy for two years and even then I still had no idea how to process. In my early twenties, I finally put all this aside so I could heal. I stopped being a slave to my always present PTSD and anxiety disorders. I finally stopped hoping for death.    During the time period you were experiencing your struggle, what gave you hope?    One of my counselors said something that has always stuck with me. “One day you’re going to look around and be so happy and life is going to be so beautiful- it’s going to take work to get there but you’ll never see it if you don’t give yourself the opportunity to live to see it”. That always stuck out to me. Here was this person who knew all the darkest things I experienced and knew all the horror of what was going on in my mind- and even she could say to me that one day the world will be beautiful again- but only if I allowed myself to experience it. And she was right. I wish I could tell her that now but she was right- the world is beautiful and wonderful and I am here to see it.    At the time you thought about committing suicide what gave you the strength to resist?    I always had this overwhelming urge not to let my abuser take my life from me. He had manipulated me so much for so long and everything he did to me affected me so much, I didn’t want to give my life too. I couldn’t change the past, but I had the future and I determined to create the best life for myself. A life full of love and beauty and not the darkness and horror that he presented. And happiness, I wanted to be genuinely happy. So happy that I could laugh freely- I never laughed much as a kid, not truly laugh. I was a stone. Neither overly happy or sad- and never angry. I always worried that if I let myself be sad or mad even a little bit, that I would fall into a deep hole and never come back. Sadness filled my life. I had too much to be angry about. From being sexually abused, to being abandoned by both my parents, to having a mother who did drugs and missed my birthday once because she got arrested. My life was a real-life episode of Law and Order: SVU and I knew that I had to change it- I was determined, so I did. I got away from my toxic family. I found education, I found happiness, and I found a passion for life and I love more deeply than I ever knew was possible.    If anyone ever used a word or description for your inner strength what was it?    Determined.  I feel like I have always had a deep determination to work towards whatever it is I want. It doesn’t matter if it’s school, an activity, or a goal for my life. I have always had a deep intensity about who I am and what I want. My determination helped me find my voice and helped me find what was important for me.    Describe your personal strengths    Passion- I hold a deep passion for life. For happiness and for love.    Intentional- I am always intentional with my speech, with my thoughts, and with my actions.    Congruence- I believe strongly in being the same person in all settings. For a long time, I forced myself to hide. I felt shame about being sexually abused and coming from a tough home life, however, I learned the strength in being truthful and honest with my experiences and the strength that it gave me and others when I did that.    What gives you joy for your future?    One day I will have experienced more of my life happy, loved, and thriving than I have in suffering and surviving. I also realize that I have found my happiness, I have found a man who is everything I have ever looked for in a partner. And my counselor was right- I often times look up and look at our life together and think, “she was right, this is the happiness that was waiting for me. I am so glad I lived to see this”.    Why would you like your story told?    I would like my story told because for a long time shame and fear convinced me that my story was my fault. It would make my family look bad. I wanted to protect my mom. I also know that there are strength and healing in finally saying it out loud. The amount of healing I’ve been able to do since I really made myself experience all the feelings and really deal with them has been incredible.    I also want people to know that yes, that beautiful life is possible. A life where you find someone who loves you and all the little, broken cracks   become less broken.The possibility of loving another person exists even though you have been manipulated and betrayed. You just have to let yourself live to see it.   How you can be involved.  Let me tell your story. Contact me at studio@kateshafferfineart.com  I will send you the questions I sent to Jeannene so I can tell your story from a place of hope and healing. Please comment below to encourage Jeannene in her pursuit of a life of joy. The battle may be hard, but it is worth winning. Let us encourage one another to a life of beauty and wholeness.       The Metaphors  Determination  The first thing was that she used the word determination as an attribute that helped her in her recovery. While I was thinking about that word, the image of the “little ant” came to mind. You remember the song… “Just what makes that little old ant, think he can move a rubber tree plant? Everyone knows an ant can’t move a rubber tree plant. But he’s got High Hopes…”  I know the song doesn’t mention determination. When I hear it I imagine that ant, grabbing the plant and plowing through until it was where he wanted it. That brought to mind rock climbing and that was when I had my “ah-ha” moment.  I knew that was perfect imagery to show determination.  The Promise  Jeannene’s therapist was the next imagery trigger for the painting. She said, “One day you’re going to look around and be so happy and life is going to be so beautiful- it’s going to take work to get there but you’ll never see it if you don’t give yourself the opportunity to live to see it”.  To go along with the rock climbing imagery, I needed some kind of “rocks”. It had to be mountains. The series of mountains expressed the many obstacles that have to be overcome in the recovery process when one goes through a trauma.  The Mountain  This mountain range shows those obstacles we see clearly and also those that are farther away. When recovering from a trauma, there are many ups and downs, however, we need to be determined. It takes that to fight through those downs. We fight until, like the rock climber in the painting, we can see far enough ahead to see that it is a beautiful landscape.  The Beautiful Life  The last imagery in the painting is the hazy distant landscape. This is a metaphor for the future. We don’t always see what is there, but from the top of the mountain, we can see that whatever the future brings, it is a beautiful landscape and well worth the climb.  How to Get Involved  Have you fought hard and achieved a level of recovery so you can begin to see your Beautiful Life? I want to tell your story. Contact me at studio@kateshafferfineart.com  You can also get involved in helping rescue someone or help in their rehabilitation. Contact Give Them A Voice Foundation at http://www.givethemavoice.foundation/

http://www.drjohnaking.com/the-voice/determination-trait-needed-recovery-sexual-abuse-human-trafficking/

[liamkelly86-blog]

Determination a trait needed for recovery from sexual abuse and human trafficking

Jeannene is a young woman who has found her strength in the determination to persevere in the battle to wholeness. This is her story.   Could you tell me some basic info about what happened to you?    I had two experiences with sexual abuse during my childhood- both relatively close to each other. While both have impacted me, I focus on one much more than the other; so here’s that story. My mother was always dating new guys when I was growing up- most of them losers and deadbeats. Mom made everyone happy when she found a really nice guy with a good job and nice house. My grandparents loved him and on the outside, everything looked perfect. When we moved into his house, he sexually abused me for almost 2 years. I was in 3 rd  grade when it started. Once my mom finally left him, she would still have me go visit him because he was “such a nice guy” and he would still try to abuse me then. When I go to tenth grade, I finally told my family what happened. We proceeded to have him arrested and I endured through the court trial. He received a sentence of over a hundred years in jail without the possibility of parole for what he did to me and another girl whom we found out about later.    The Aftermath    Little did I know, that seeing him arrested was really just the beginning of my struggles. Finally opening up about what happened caused me to have a mental break. I decided to be the put together one- the smart girl who never got rattled and suddenly everything made me angry. I became angry at the world and at the same time numb to everything. Getting close to people scared me, I couldn’t have normal appropriate romantic relationships with boys my own age. Every time someone even tried to hold my hand, my whole body felt like static. I would go numb. I began intensive therapy for two years and even then I still had no idea how to process. In my early twenties, I finally put all this aside so I could heal. I stopped being a slave to my always present PTSD and anxiety disorders. I finally stopped hoping for death.    During the time period you were experiencing your struggle, what gave you hope?    One of my counselors said something that has always stuck with me. “One day you’re going to look around and be so happy and life is going to be so beautiful- it’s going to take work to get there but you’ll never see it if you don’t give yourself the opportunity to live to see it”. That always stuck out to me. Here was this person who knew all the darkest things I experienced and knew all the horror of what was going on in my mind- and even she could say to me that one day the world will be beautiful again- but only if I allowed myself to experience it. And she was right. I wish I could tell her that now but she was right- the world is beautiful and wonderful and I am here to see it.    At the time you thought about committing suicide what gave you the strength to resist?    I always had this overwhelming urge not to let my abuser take my life from me. He had manipulated me so much for so long and everything he did to me affected me so much, I didn’t want to give my life too. I couldn’t change the past, but I had the future and I determined to create the best life for myself. A life full of love and beauty and not the darkness and horror that he presented. And happiness, I wanted to be genuinely happy. So happy that I could laugh freely- I never laughed much as a kid, not truly laugh. I was a stone. Neither overly happy or sad- and never angry. I always worried that if I let myself be sad or mad even a little bit, that I would fall into a deep hole and never come back. Sadness filled my life. I had too much to be angry about. From being sexually abused, to being abandoned by both my parents, to having a mother who did drugs and missed my birthday once because she got arrested. My life was a real-life episode of Law and Order: SVU and I knew that I had to change it- I was determined, so I did. I got away from my toxic family. I found education, I found happiness, and I found a passion for life and I love more deeply than I ever knew was possible.    If anyone ever used a word or description for your inner strength what was it?    Determined.  I feel like I have always had a deep determination to work towards whatever it is I want. It doesn’t matter if it’s school, an activity, or a goal for my life. I have always had a deep intensity about who I am and what I want. My determination helped me find my voice and helped me find what was important for me.    Describe your personal strengths    Passion- I hold a deep passion for life. For happiness and for love.    Intentional- I am always intentional with my speech, with my thoughts, and with my actions.    Congruence- I believe strongly in being the same person in all settings. For a long time, I forced myself to hide. I felt shame about being sexually abused and coming from a tough home life, however, I learned the strength in being truthful and honest with my experiences and the strength that it gave me and others when I did that.    What gives you joy for your future?    One day I will have experienced more of my life happy, loved, and thriving than I have in suffering and surviving. I also realize that I have found my happiness, I have found a man who is everything I have ever looked for in a partner. And my counselor was right- I often times look up and look at our life together and think, “she was right, this is the happiness that was waiting for me. I am so glad I lived to see this”.    Why would you like your story told?    I would like my story told because for a long time shame and fear convinced me that my story was my fault. It would make my family look bad. I wanted to protect my mom. I also know that there are strength and healing in finally saying it out loud. The amount of healing I’ve been able to do since I really made myself experience all the feelings and really deal with them has been incredible.    I also want people to know that yes, that beautiful life is possible. A life where you find someone who loves you and all the little, broken cracks   become less broken.The possibility of loving another person exists even though you have been manipulated and betrayed. You just have to let yourself live to see it.   How you can be involved.  Let me tell your story. Contact me at studio@kateshafferfineart.com  I will send you the questions I sent to Jeannene so I can tell your story from a place of hope and healing. Please comment below to encourage Jeannene in her pursuit of a life of joy. The battle may be hard, but it is worth winning. Let us encourage one another to a life of beauty and wholeness.       The Metaphors  Determination  The first thing was that she used the word determination as an attribute that helped her in her recovery. While I was thinking about that word, the image of the “little ant” came to mind. You remember the song… “Just what makes that little old ant, think he can move a rubber tree plant? Everyone knows an ant can’t move a rubber tree plant. But he’s got High Hopes…”  I know the song doesn’t mention determination. When I hear it I imagine that ant, grabbing the plant and plowing through until it was where he wanted it. That brought to mind rock climbing and that was when I had my “ah-ha” moment.  I knew that was perfect imagery to show determination.  The Promise  Jeannene’s therapist was the next imagery trigger for the painting. She said, “One day you’re going to look around and be so happy and life is going to be so beautiful- it’s going to take work to get there but you’ll never see it if you don’t give yourself the opportunity to live to see it”.  To go along with the rock climbing imagery, I needed some kind of “rocks”. It had to be mountains. The series of mountains expressed the many obstacles that have to be overcome in the recovery process when one goes through a trauma.  The Mountain  This mountain range shows those obstacles we see clearly and also those that are farther away. When recovering from a trauma, there are many ups and downs, however, we need to be determined. It takes that to fight through those downs. We fight until, like the rock climber in the painting, we can see far enough ahead to see that it is a beautiful landscape.  The Beautiful Life  The last imagery in the painting is the hazy distant landscape. This is a metaphor for the future. We don’t always see what is there, but from the top of the mountain, we can see that whatever the future brings, it is a beautiful landscape and well worth the climb.  How to Get Involved  Have you fought hard and achieved a level of recovery so you can begin to see your Beautiful Life? I want to tell your story. Contact me at studio@kateshafferfineart.com  You can also get involved in helping rescue someone or help in their rehabilitation. Contact Give Them A Voice Foundation at http://www.givethemavoice.foundation/

http://www.drjohnaking.com/the-voice/determination-trait-needed-recovery-sexual-abuse-human-trafficking/

[coolbyronsummers]

Determination a trait needed for recovery from sexual abuse and human trafficking

Jeannene is a young woman who has found her strength in the determination to persevere in the battle to wholeness. This is her story.   Could you tell me some basic info about what happened to you?    I had two experiences with sexual abuse during my childhood- both relatively close to each other. While both have impacted me, I focus on one much more than the other; so here’s that story. My mother was always dating new guys when I was growing up- most of them losers and deadbeats. Mom made everyone happy when she found a really nice guy with a good job and nice house. My grandparents loved him and on the outside, everything looked perfect. When we moved into his house, he sexually abused me for almost 2 years. I was in 3 rd  grade when it started. Once my mom finally left him, she would still have me go visit him because he was “such a nice guy” and he would still try to abuse me then. When I go to tenth grade, I finally told my family what happened. We proceeded to have him arrested and I endured through the court trial. He received a sentence of over a hundred years in jail without the possibility of parole for what he did to me and another girl whom we found out about later.    The Aftermath    Little did I know, that seeing him arrested was really just the beginning of my struggles. Finally opening up about what happened caused me to have a mental break. I decided to be the put together one- the smart girl who never got rattled and suddenly everything made me angry. I became angry at the world and at the same time numb to everything. Getting close to people scared me, I couldn’t have normal appropriate romantic relationships with boys my own age. Every time someone even tried to hold my hand, my whole body felt like static. I would go numb. I began intensive therapy for two years and even then I still had no idea how to process. In my early twenties, I finally put all this aside so I could heal. I stopped being a slave to my always present PTSD and anxiety disorders. I finally stopped hoping for death.    During the time period you were experiencing your struggle, what gave you hope?    One of my counselors said something that has always stuck with me. “One day you’re going to look around and be so happy and life is going to be so beautiful- it’s going to take work to get there but you’ll never see it if you don’t give yourself the opportunity to live to see it”. That always stuck out to me. Here was this person who knew all the darkest things I experienced and knew all the horror of what was going on in my mind- and even she could say to me that one day the world will be beautiful again- but only if I allowed myself to experience it. And she was right. I wish I could tell her that now but she was right- the world is beautiful and wonderful and I am here to see it.    At the time you thought about committing suicide what gave you the strength to resist?    I always had this overwhelming urge not to let my abuser take my life from me. He had manipulated me so much for so long and everything he did to me affected me so much, I didn’t want to give my life too. I couldn’t change the past, but I had the future and I determined to create the best life for myself. A life full of love and beauty and not the darkness and horror that he presented. And happiness, I wanted to be genuinely happy. So happy that I could laugh freely- I never laughed much as a kid, not truly laugh. I was a stone. Neither overly happy or sad- and never angry. I always worried that if I let myself be sad or mad even a little bit, that I would fall into a deep hole and never come back. Sadness filled my life. I had too much to be angry about. From being sexually abused, to being abandoned by both my parents, to having a mother who did drugs and missed my birthday once because she got arrested. My life was a real-life episode of Law and Order: SVU and I knew that I had to change it- I was determined, so I did. I got away from my toxic family. I found education, I found happiness, and I found a passion for life and I love more deeply than I ever knew was possible.    If anyone ever used a word or description for your inner strength what was it?    Determined.  I feel like I have always had a deep determination to work towards whatever it is I want. It doesn’t matter if it’s school, an activity, or a goal for my life. I have always had a deep intensity about who I am and what I want. My determination helped me find my voice and helped me find what was important for me.    Describe your personal strengths    Passion- I hold a deep passion for life. For happiness and for love.    Intentional- I am always intentional with my speech, with my thoughts, and with my actions.    Congruence- I believe strongly in being the same person in all settings. For a long time, I forced myself to hide. I felt shame about being sexually abused and coming from a tough home life, however, I learned the strength in being truthful and honest with my experiences and the strength that it gave me and others when I did that.    What gives you joy for your future?    One day I will have experienced more of my life happy, loved, and thriving than I have in suffering and surviving. I also realize that I have found my happiness, I have found a man who is everything I have ever looked for in a partner. And my counselor was right- I often times look up and look at our life together and think, “she was right, this is the happiness that was waiting for me. I am so glad I lived to see this”.    Why would you like your story told?    I would like my story told because for a long time shame and fear convinced me that my story was my fault. It would make my family look bad. I wanted to protect my mom. I also know that there are strength and healing in finally saying it out loud. The amount of healing I’ve been able to do since I really made myself experience all the feelings and really deal with them has been incredible.    I also want people to know that yes, that beautiful life is possible. A life where you find someone who loves you and all the little, broken cracks   become less broken.The possibility of loving another person exists even though you have been manipulated and betrayed. You just have to let yourself live to see it.   How you can be involved.  Let me tell your story. Contact me at studio@kateshafferfineart.com  I will send you the questions I sent to Jeannene so I can tell your story from a place of hope and healing. Please comment below to encourage Jeannene in her pursuit of a life of joy. The battle may be hard, but it is worth winning. Let us encourage one another to a life of beauty and wholeness.       The Metaphors  Determination  The first thing was that she used the word determination as an attribute that helped her in her recovery. While I was thinking about that word, the image of the “little ant” came to mind. You remember the song… “Just what makes that little old ant, think he can move a rubber tree plant? Everyone knows an ant can’t move a rubber tree plant. But he’s got High Hopes…”  I know the song doesn’t mention determination. When I hear it I imagine that ant, grabbing the plant and plowing through until it was where he wanted it. That brought to mind rock climbing and that was when I had my “ah-ha” moment.  I knew that was perfect imagery to show determination.  The Promise  Jeannene’s therapist was the next imagery trigger for the painting. She said, “One day you’re going to look around and be so happy and life is going to be so beautiful- it’s going to take work to get there but you’ll never see it if you don’t give yourself the opportunity to live to see it”.  To go along with the rock climbing imagery, I needed some kind of “rocks”. It had to be mountains. The series of mountains expressed the many obstacles that have to be overcome in the recovery process when one goes through a trauma.  The Mountain  This mountain range shows those obstacles we see clearly and also those that are farther away. When recovering from a trauma, there are many ups and downs, however, we need to be determined. It takes that to fight through those downs. We fight until, like the rock climber in the painting, we can see far enough ahead to see that it is a beautiful landscape.  The Beautiful Life  The last imagery in the painting is the hazy distant landscape. This is a metaphor for the future. We don’t always see what is there, but from the top of the mountain, we can see that whatever the future brings, it is a beautiful landscape and well worth the climb.  How to Get Involved  Have you fought hard and achieved a level of recovery so you can begin to see your Beautiful Life? I want to tell your story. Contact me at studio@kateshafferfineart.com  You can also get involved in helping rescue someone or help in their rehabilitation. Contact Give Them A Voice Foundation at http://www.givethemavoice.foundation/

http://www.drjohnaking.com/the-voice/determination-trait-needed-recovery-sexual-abuse-human-trafficking/