#they project the emotional pain and trauma of their past onto everyone around them

[subconsciousmysteries]

it pains me to announce that if you got fucked over by someone with a mental illness and now you project that mental illness onto everyone mildly strange who you come into contact with

you too are MENTALLY ILL and you need to stop scapegoating others for your problems because you are the fucking problem.

[tex-now]

I think my interpretation of what mephone4's recovery would look like shifts a little depending on how old he is. Like, not by much, but by a little bit.

This is basically just me rambling about mephone4 during/post-canon. I love mephone4 he makes me ill so I want to ramble. Let me have this.

If mephone4 is an adult I think that putting more responsibility on his actions than if he was a child is necessary.

He is an abuse victim, he was scared, unsure, desperately trying to escape his abusive father and became extremely jaded (?) and traumatized because of it, BUT he still put a lot of mental turmoil on his contestants, and traumatized many of them in turn. He still hurt so many of them so badly and that is inexcusable (he is aware of this).

Hes emotionally constipated and repressed to a fault and is by no means a bad person but like. Tissues. Suitcase. Taco. Bow. Any of the contestants that wouldn't forgive him are completely valid to do so, and it's HIS responsibility to improve himself and his behavior so that, if he ends up meeting them again, he doesn't repeat the previous patterns he has in the past.

His general veneer of cockiness, apathy, and being kind of an asshole to his contestants, his showing bias and unfair inconsistent challenges, being generally dismissive of his contestants feelings, are all things he did. I do think it's a result of having cobs as a father and all the trauma he's experienced as a result of that, buuuuuut he needs to work on himself and only he can fix his bad behavior (with the support of family and hopefully a therapist).

Which is why I think mephone4's apology was extremely needed and I am SO FUCKING GLAD that they were like "yeah mephone4 fucked up. He should give everyone space to grow into new people and so that he can also grow and finally do something for himself so that he can be truly happy instead of just living on the high of escapism and and projecting his issues and problems onto his contestants." (<- all of this is said lovingly. I promise I love him so much. nomming on him).

He absolutely needs a loving support system and also 10 years of therapy and he's already on the right track :) he needs to learn to hold himself accountable for his actions (which he is starting to I'm so proud), and how to effectively communicate his feelings along with not taking them out on others and that takes time, but I believe in him I love him so muchhhh hic hic sob.

If mephone4 is a child then his situation is 10x more tragic oh my god. You can definitely acknowledge that his actions were fucked up on several levels, but him being an abuse victim (which definitely hindered his emotional development) PLUS literally most likely not physically mature enough to process his own feelings and the actual implications of what he's done to his contestants then, yeah, I would give him more grace.

(I'm pretty sure this also applies to if he was an adult but yeah), I can't speak for everyone, but a common defense mechanism ive noticed in young people around me (and myself personally) is apathy and indifference towards everything, even topics that would typically be upsetting or uncomfortable to talk about.

Instead of dealing with your emotions or the pain you cause other people, you laugh it off and avoid it for as long as you can, and usually when you can't avoid it anymore, you become defensive and anxious. (Once again. In my experience. And from what I've seen from other people. Avoidance instead of acceptance).

Of course, this doesn't mean that the contestants would be evil for not understanding or not forgiving him. What he did was fucked up, and children also need to take responsibility for their actions as it is a crucial part of their emotional development.

But he's still a child. The things he would need to work on would not be things he could do on his own. He needs someone to take care of him and help him.

Not any of the contestants, definitely, but someone to take him in and show him the unconditional parental love he never got to have. It's less on him to deal with his shit (even though it's still on him to an extent) and moreso about having someone to help him fix his behavior less so by like personal self reflection on his own (too young for that) and moreso by being shown the right behaviors and having a safe person to tell him when he's wrong who will still provide unconditional love to him and help him reflect on his behavior. (Like like ballpoint pen 🥺🥺)

Anyway I love mephone4. Idk I just wanted to ramble this has no real point. Lol

[cosmichighpriestess]

Chosen Ones, Cursebreakers, Black Sheep,

Many people are holding onto the past and the older version of you and you can feel this energy because of your sensitivity but you are stronger than this false projection of you. You know who you are and gone are the days that you accept less than you deserve. You don't have to worry about these people anymore. God and your ancestors are silencing them and you will no longer have to see people you are no longer aligned with. Just mind your business when dealing with them until they disappear from your life. Mind your business when you see their life in shambles. That's not for you to focus on and you're not going back there.

Remember, anyone not aligned with you is not on the same planet as you even if you are in the same room with them. We can observe other realities right next to each other. But anyone not on the same frequency as you, and not aligned with you will disappear eventually from your reality. You are not better in any way, you choose a better reality for yourself that is all. But everything is always neutral, and has no meaning so don't define everything you see. Just observe it and realize you are the eagle soaring up above the snakes and rats. They can look but they can't touch you. You're also like a cat with nine lives because you live your life so carefree.

You are so trusting that the Universe is always supporting you one hundred percent because of how much you already survived, that you can always land standing on your two feet. & It pisses everyone off. No matter what you are faced with because of how optimistic, authentic, and aligned you are with yourself, with Source. Even when you have negative emotions, you know they are temporary and you know how to move through them without hurting anyone around you. You always apologize to people when you are having a bad or off day because you never want anyone to experience the pain you did.

They tortured you didn't they? You warned them what happens to people who ignore God didn't you? They allowed certain false rumors to be spread about you because you threatened their ego and unhealed wounds, so they wanted the false rumor to be true to make them feel better about themselves because they can't validate themselves or regulate their own emotions. They could have stopped the rumor and said, "Oh no that's not that person's character, that's not what they are like." But they continued to let it spread because they wanted to see you as beneath them. But in truth, God knew you would rise above it and forgive yourself and them for creating the experience to grow from.

Their punishment is going to be far worse than the crime and it's going to last years, not days. All they had to do was leave you alone. But they couldn't stop themselves from torturing you because they received so much pleasure from watching you in pain and keeping you right where they wanted you until you finally freed yourself. They blamed you for the cause and reason for their conflict. They based your entire personality and character based off the way you reacted to their abuse. When you spoke up for yourself, then you were the abusive one and they were the victim even though they hit you, manipulated you, controlled you, dominated you, gaslit you, or tortured you emotionally. If you stayed silent, then you were manipulative, or vindictive.

If you treated them how they treated you by matching their energy then that was proof you were the problem and being petty. But you were being constantly gaslit and they were the perpetual victim. Your tears were real but theirs never were and that was the truth. They didn't even cry, they just pointed the finger at you and told everyone you were the problem and everyone believed them because they were only treating you less than human and to them they were equals. They received acceptance from everyone around them by always pointing the finger at you. I'm so sorry you had to experience that kind of trauma that just kept repeating itself over and over.

I'm so sorry you continued to be triggered by your abusers and they never tried once to understand your perspective and the hell you endured. I'm sorry everyone disappointed you, breadcrumbed you, didn't see your worth, let you down and saw you as nothing when you were everything in truth. I'm so sorry everyone looked at you like you were crazy and you were not believed when you had very normal reactions to extreme abuse people normalized and swept underneath the rug. But the joke is on them now. They now feel unfulfilled with their choices to mishandle you and earn a place out of your life for good. They now miss your abundant, fortunate energy because you were their blessing in disguise they decided was unworthy of them because of their superiority complex.

They called you the narcissist because they were the narcissist in denial. They are in denial that they are in denial. They now have to accept they were wrong about you. You treat everyone with respect, dignity and love even if they mistreat you. You just love yourself and they mistake your love for yourself as faked just like they are fake. They will receive a reflection of the fakeness they are and project onto you. Fake people, fake love, fake opportunities etc. You will receive a true energetic vibration of the authentic frequency you are within all people you will meet and opportunities. You are actually who you say you are and you are actually the first one to break the toxic cycles and heal yourself first while everyone else still has unhealed wounds bleeding onto everyone else because they refuse to see themselves accurately because they are afraid that you're right about them.

You unchained yourself from the false realities and said, "Nope. This ain't it. I'm better than this because I'm doing the inner work to heal and I demand to see better. I validate myself and I trust my truth is right and I will NOT accept a life I do not deserve. Period. Show me the true reality Universe that I created." And the Universe said, " You must be patient, it's coming." And you trusted and you waited, and waited and kept working on healing yourself and your triggers and your reality still was not reflecting your new inner self. And you became angry but you thought you were the problem. Again. So you experimented and tried new ways to heal yourself and kept replacing old outdated beliefs and thoughts that did not belong to you.

And you waited, and you were patient and you accepted your reality would change but not on your time, on the Universes time. And you waited, and you cried for your situation to get better and it did, but you were still being breadcrumbed by everyone and by the Universe and you were still not where you wanted to be. And now, here you are, still wondering, "Is it me? Am I not being delusional enough? Am I not healed? Am I not letting things go enough? Am I not detaching from the outcome? Am I not reprogramming myself enough? Did I lose my faith? Did I ask for too much? Or not enough? Am I the problem? Where's what I worked hard for?" And the Universe is now saying to you, "it's not you. It's me." Your blessings are on the Universe's time. But the timing is not timing. So what gives?

In actuality they are saying to you, "You're actually doing everything right. But you healed sooner and better than the Universe expected you to. You are healing faster and ahead of time." Even though time is an illusion. The Universe still uses our illusion of time on earth to bring about change so it makes sense to us. So you're ahead of yourself and you weren't supposed to heal fully for another year or two. But with all the abundance of information at the tips of our fingers, you used the information to heal yourself rapidly and you stayed grateful and danced through the storms. So now all you have to do is be grateful that you have everything you need, but trust what you desire is coming, you're just ahead of schedule.

So great job? I'm so sorry? I wish I had better news for you. I feel your pain, anger and impatience but you are doing everything correctly and you are NOT the problem. Transmute these intense emotions by letting them go to the Earth and God. Your ego wants to be apart of your new life. So it's trying to make sense of everything but it doesn't understand the Universe or anything other than itself and you. So keep reminding your ego, your heart is in charge, but it can take a back seat because the heart knows the way to go.

Keep reminding your ego, you're not traumatized anymore and bad things aren't going to keep happening to you like they did in the illusionary past. Yes, you experienced it. But now is the only moment that exists now. Your emotions and feelings are real. But the experience was an illusion. Your feelings are the only thing that was real. So keep talking to the inner parts of yourself that are confused and let them know it's all going according to plan and you have everything you need even if it's not what you want. You're still very fortunate and everything is always working out for you. Your ego is triggered and feeling gaslit and manipulated by the Universe and in all actuality everything you deserve is coming to you, but you are taking the necessary actions and you are doing exactly what you are meant to do. It's okay to feel negative emotions, you're not falling back, you're just going back to be triggered to change your perception on the situation. Just relax, and breathe and keep on staying aligned with yourself by feeling how you want to feel emotionally. It's all on its way to you now just keep practicing what you have been everyday to keep your frequency high.

[escape-rock-bottom]

Journal #15 - Hurt People Hurt People

Have you ever wondered why some people who have been in a place of hurt end up harming others? To me and many others, its a conflicting concept: You know what the pain feels like and know how much it harmed you, yet you project the pain onto others regardless? It’s very strange.

After a while of gaining insight from trauma victims, abuse sufferers, the mentally ill, and the generally uncared for, I learned something fascinating: It’s a coping mechanism. Much like someone in pain from lack of feeling or self worth would inflict pain on themselves, those who were wronged by others turn the blade on others.

It’s a concept that gets a little difficult to wrap your head around. Heck, I doubt the people who do it truly understand why they do it. When you dig deep, it makes sense. If you faced constant verbal and emotional abuse in the form of gaslighting and degradation from a parent growing up, you would likely adopt their habits alongside a negative self image. When you feel the outside world is constantly wronging you, you lash out in the habitual way your abusive parent taught you. Or, you get angry because you hate the constant reminder of your past pains you never patched up.

How about the person who was made insecure about their appearance who judges others’ appearances, or the person who feels they never amounted to anything that criticizes others’ lack of achievements? Or, the person who can’t handle having their knowledge and beliefs challenged because they feel a constant sense of dissociation and disconnection from themselves so they direct hate towards those they do not fully understand or deem unfamiliar?

These people are merely coping with internal turmoil. The criticism of another’s faults is a way to place everyone on the same playing field or elevate the accuser’s ego and self-image. It’s a “I may be like them, but at least I’m not as bad as them” type rationalization.

The issue here is simple - both sides get hurt, sometimes irreparably. If you had to listen to someone constantly judge you, it eventually wears you out. If you had to be the person who always feels judged or inferior to others, it’s emotionally and mentally taxing.

Stopping the cycle of torment is difficult but worthwhile for both sides.

If you are on the “being targeted by someone’s negativity” side, try these things to increase your emotional and mental stability:

Distance yourself if you can. This is the most foolproof way, but the most difficult to achieve

Learn how to detect “red flags” early on. These will vary greatly from person to person

Build a solid self-esteem foundation! It’s hard for someone to degrade you if you value your sense of self over their negative perceptions of you.

Try not to take criticisms too personally, even if they are intended to be personal. More often than not, you’re being degraded rather than actually being at fault. However, learn when to and when not to take responsibility

Talk to the person who’s perpetuating the negativity. Some people are truly willing to listen and work out their problems upon knowing they’re hurting the people they care about

If you are on the “I’m hurt and I lash out at others” side, try these things to help break the cycle and improve your sense of self-worth:

Build a strong foundation of self-esteem. Love yourself and your flaws, and work towards ironing out the flaws you have control over. For example, if you find you dislike your fashion style and feel insecure about it, change it! (If you can afford to.) Things like your race, natural hair texture, skin color, and height are unchangeable and you need to learn to accept and appreciate them. Things like your fitness, eating habits, substance use, positivity, and negative self thoughts can be changed and managed- work on those if they trouble you

Learn to think before you react. Understand why you react the way you do to certain things. Did someone say something that upset you? Were you in a bad mood at the moment? Did they trigger an insecurity or traumatic memory that distressed you?

Learn to apply therapy concepts on-scene. If someone triggered something within you and you catch it, what specific mechanism can you apply to soothe yourself without causing harm?

Communicate. Only do this when you are in a clear mind space. Never confront someone looking for a fight, apology, or are in a bad mood, you will only distress yourself further and damage the relationship. Tell them how you felt about what they did and ask about their side - you often misinterpret others’ comments when you are in a negative place

Seek therapy. Yes, you pay the person to listen to and help you solve your problems without judgment, but that’s exactly what you want! There’s nothing more relieving than knowing you will not be confronted but rather helped. Your therapist should not get defensive over you expressing a negative emotion.

[sunflowerhotline]

ASTRO OBSERVATIONS PT. 4

🪁gemini venus gets a lot of flack for having non-commital tendencies when really, they avoid committing to the wrong person. i’ve noticed that when they get into relationships they’re quite steady and remain with their partner for a long while, especially if their venus is aspected by saturn or pluto.

- i’ve also never met a non-committal aquarius venus. idk maybe y’all are just coming across the wrong people

🪁people with taurus moon, cancer moon and cancer/taurus/libra on 5th house cusp are very natural with children. children usually like these people

🪁composite saturn in 4th and 7th indicates a couple that stays together forever

🪁fire moons have a habit of falling in love with air venuses.

🪁scorpio and taurus moons tend to be very loyal and possessive in love, regardless of their venus sign/placement. they usually are committed to their partners and have a laser-focus on them and only them.

🪁leo and libra rising guys are the guys that everyone kinda just falls in love with because of their charm. they are usually so charming, clever and attractive that it’s hard for those around these guys not to be drawn in. leo rising men are usually just really handsome so they especially can just attract lots of female attention.

🪁depending on the signs, people with moon opposite venus can be either very clingy or very detached. i’ve never seen a middle ground with these people. their affection nature is so polarised.

🪁virgo venuses are soooo hard on themselves and usually look for (and find) a million reasons why they’re undeserving of love. they can really project their own low feelings about themselves onto others to almost try to convince themselves that others see them through the lens of meanness and criticism that they see themselves through.

🪁moon-uranus (hard aspect) people usually had a childhood/adolescent conflict involving their mother. they either had a problem with their mother or endured circumstantial hardships with their mother which challenged (uranus) their emotional security (moon). the house uranus is in will show the type of conflict.

EX: if you had your uranus in an earth house (2H, 6H, 10H), you could have endured financial hardship with your mom during your childhood/upbringing. she may not have been able to keep a stable job which was why you may have faced financial instability. in your childhood, you may have moved a lot for financial reasons or may have had to go without certain material comforts for the same reason.

🪁taurus moons usually wanna become parents and libra moons usually wanna get married at some point

🪁libra women and sagittarius men are so similar it’s actually crazy. they both also kinda...dislike each other usually??? yet they’re so ??? similar??? it’s pure comedy honestly

🪁people with cancer venus and cancer in 7th are usually attracted to people after they see them interact (lovingly or gently) with kids.

🪁 4th house ruler in 10th and 10th house ruler in 4th can indicate fame - the native can be a household (4th house) name.

EG: Billie Eilish - 4th house ruler (mercury) in her 10th house. she is known for (10th house) her songs (mercury).

🪁people with mars conjunct mercury have a tendency to talk over people

🪁people with venus-saturn aspects, capricorn venus and venus in 10th tend to fall in love with people who make them laugh. they love people who can make them feel young and free. in their relationships, they like to feel like they have a place or a person with whom they don’t have to be so heavy and responsible - someone they can just let their guard down with and just enjoy themselves.

🪁 “high cheekbones...defined bone structure....thin” etc are generally used to describe capricorn risings. HOWEVER lots of cap risings don’t fit that description because lots of (younger) cap risings have neptune and/or uranus in the 1st house. these planets change, distort and soften whatever they touch. if it comes into the 1st house of self, cap risings are likely to look different than their traditional interpretations. especially in the case of neptune being in the 1st, the natives may look younger and have rounder, softer features.

🪁no matter the venus sign, jupiter in 7th and uranus in 7th natives NEEEEEEEEDDD freedom in their relationships. these people are the types to not get [legally] married and might opt for other options like domestic partnerships or civil unions because they are the kinds of people who think “if you leave the door open, i’ll never walk out of it”. they want to feel like they have other options...this IS NOT ALWAYS A BAD THING!! don’t feel like these people can’t commit - they commit when they want, to who they want, when they want to...it has to be on their own terms though!

🪁cancer moons give the warmest, most tender hugs i’ve ever received.

🪁i’ve never met an aries mars who wasn’t competitive as fuck and hated losing. these people always wanna be the best at whatever they are doing and can take it to heart when they come in 2nd but they’re the types to dust themselves off and try again instead of stewing in the pain of their own failure forever

🪁people with moon-uranus hard aspects may like dating air venus people because air venus people could keep them entertained and give them the space they need. bonus points if the native has sag, aqua, cap or gemini placements.

🪁pisces venus people love love but tend to run away from it when it comes close

🪁mercury retrograde people are always so fucking late all the damn time

🪁for scorpio moon, scorpio venus, moon-pluto and venus-pluto people, heartbreak is literally the end of the world. we are not joking when we say it feels like death.

🪁sun opposite pluto people often try to fight their plutonic tendencies and have a particularly gnarly disdain for their father while other sun-pluto placements tend to accept their plutonic nature and allow themselves to overcome their father-related trauma.

🪁sun-pluto people (especially conjunction, opposition, square) tend to go through phases in life where they stop talking to their fathers.

🪁aquarius and pisces risings have an affinity for changing up their hair. they love wigs and dying their hair a different colour is like one of their favourite past times. they always make the different colours and styles look good though - they’re just blessed that way.

🪁saturn in 9th people don’t like going to church lol.

🪁saturn in 9th people may want to move to a different country but may have responsibilities in their hometown/home country that prevents them from doing so. they may also have a hard time trying to figure out what they want to study in college

🪁 2H uranus and 2H saturn people are very smart with money but the 2h uranus person is quicker to spend it than the 2h saturn person.

🪁 sagittarius moons 🤝 aquarius moons

being literal fucking soulmates

🪁ALL fixed venuses (taurus, leo, scorpio, aquarius) display the same level of devotion, commitment, loyalty and fixation on a chosen partner. it is literally in their venusian nature ... hence it being FIXED!! once they have their heart set on someone, it’s a done deal. they want that person forever which is why it takes them forever to move on from a former partner

🪁4th house synastry is so cute. my venus and mars falls into one of my closest friends 4th house and we always hang out at her house like literally every time we hang out, it’s at her house. we wear pajamas and eat a whole lotta food while watching animé in bed lol

🪁 cap venus 🤝 aqua venus

“i’m so in love with you, please go away though”

[ceoofuwu]

𝐈𝐂𝐘 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 ;; 𝘥𝘢𝘣𝘪 𝘹 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐒: 𝟏.𝟒𝐤

𝐀/𝐍: So, FINALLY I finished this piece and I’m so happy bc it took nearly a month AHAHAHAA (I know I’m terrible) AnYwAy, I think Dabi is “sweet but a psycho”? (yeah sweet inside VERY DEEP DOWN) and... inspired by this... here you go, everyone! <333 Lots of love, stay safe, positive and hydrated!!!

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒: As long as you had discovered that place, everything was great. But, at the end of the day, you weren’t the only one to have made that discovery....

𝐓.𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: hurt/comfort

Tranquility.

Gentle breezes swirling around, fiddling with light hair, caressing an innocent face. Soft moonlight showering the concealed glade, eventually lighting up the night sky.

Serenity.

A reflection of the star-kissed canvas above depicted on the frozen surface before you. The sight seemed to have been plucked out of a fairy tale. Until that moment, not even the thought of a frozen lake serving as a prism to the infinitude of the stars had crossed your naïve mind.

This small fragment of Heaven had been a recent discovery of yours. In need of a break, a relief from all the duties chasing after you in the League, a walk was the least you could ask.

Yet, who could have possibly foreseen the blessing you’d come across?

Wandering around there, watching miracles unfolding before your eyes…. That was by far the most tranquilizing activity you had engaged yourself in.

Complete and utter silence, the moon shining upon this otherworldly scenery in its full glory and merely the humble sounds of nature dolling this fantasy up. The most mesmerizing trait though, was the lake made of ice, which looked exactly like a crystal mirror projecting the star-blown sky. Its glossy transparency was little by little dazing you into attempting to walk on it.    

Well, not that you could blame yourself. You’d always hear people commenting on how amazing the experience was. Besides, you couldn’t help but imagine how mind-blowing it would be to see the stars, those unreachable sparkles of light, under your feet.

Curiosity urged you to take a step farther and bring your delicate body in the edge of the lake.

Would it be slippery? Icy? Smooth maybe?

You wouldn’t know unless you tried.

You outstretched your leg quite hesitantly, with a surge of doubt washing over you, what with this whole novel array of emotions. Your heart had begun to pound insanely fast inside your chest as you were overwhelmed with excitement and impatience but, just as the tip of your shoe brushed the surface…

«You must be one hell of an idiot to throw yourself in a frozen lake without knowing the odds of falling in» a familiar voice spoke behind you, as you felt a strong grip on your arm.

Come to think of it, you never considered the possibility of the ice being too thin to hold you, but…

«Dabi?!» you exclaimed as you turned around and saw your “savior”.

The raven-head immediately let go of you.

«Dude, what the hell are you doing here?! How did you even find this place?!» you asked frantically, shifting your body so that you could face him.

Dabi was looking down at his feet, hands on his pockets, minding his own business as usual and, of course, being unreadable. That lousy attitude of his was getting on your nerves from time to time but, he hadn’t done anything to intrude your privacy during the time of your comradeship. However, his way of acting in certain situations seemed really annoying to you.

His turquoise gaze flicked as it met with yours slowly.

«You don’t own the place, as far as I’m concerned».

Cocky bastard.

He had a point though. It was simply a glade, hidden in the density of the city’s forest. It belonged to no one, which simultaneously meant that everyone could have access to it.

You rolled your eyes, feeling quite irritated by the fact that he was right. It’s not like you had some sort of problem with him, it’s just that you didn’t like it when others proved you wrong.

«I don’t alright but… how did you end up here?» you asked, fiddling with your fingers nervously, genuinely feeling curious.

«Well… I was just… walking the other day and then I found this place… which ended up being to my liking…» he said, his gaze moving around the place and never focalizing somewhere specifically.

You nodded in agreement, «That lake is so… magic—«

«I hate that lake».

You averted your goggled-up eyes to meet your companion. He was standing upright; head tilted upwards, black hair and coat getting carried away by the soft currents of wind, bright cerulean eyes, suddenly narrowing to a dark, nostalgic glare.

You could confidently say that you were witnessing one of the most terrifyingly beautiful sights in your life; the horrific murderer of a man bowing to the one and only indomitable conqueror: the past.

You felt tiny beads of sweat coursing down your forehead in nervousness, searching frantically for something to grasp onto, as the urge to run away took your being over. Dabi was a horribly dreadful man; what made him like this though, weren’t his capabilities as a serial killer but the fact that, you knew so little about him. The unknown is and will always be by far the most frightening thing.

«I don’t like the ice…» he spoke menacingly low, his obscure look still transfixed to the void. You chose not to reply and await his word instead, feeling too self-cautious to find the courage to talk.

«It reminds me of… back then…» he murmured as a twisted smile bent his lips slightly. His stance didn’t alter one bit, standing haughtily against the wind with the soft moonlight steeping his form delicately.

Back then?

«Does anyone know about… back then?» the words slipped out of your lips involuntarily, making you cover your mouth with your hands in embarrassment.

The twisted smile stretched exceedingly, eventually managing to distort his facial features into a sick, maniacal expression. A psychotic laugh followed shortly, echoing in the nightly horizon, bringing out the derangement hidden within his broken soul.

«Back then… is Hell» he retorted coldly, no emotion but aversion, lacing his hoarse voice.

Just how traumatized are you, Dabi?

Silence. Long, comfortable silence. You took your sweet time to process your comrade’s pained words, seeking some way to comfort him. Could you though? Years of trauma was weighing down on your shoulders. You had no idea what he had been through, you didn’t even know his real name, for God’s sake! How could you help someone without knowing even the most basic things about them?

But I need to help…

Taking one swift, curt breath, you plucked up the courage to speak up, «Was it… that bad?» you asked with a cautiously low voice, not entirely sure what to expect as an answer.

Dabi’s slim body shifted immediately, his sadistic grin once again deforming his features, to something truly repulsive and… horrific.

«Bad you say?» he laughed ironically, «Do you even have the slightest idea how it feels to wake up every day and genuinely believe you’re a piece of trash, an unworthy dross?» he raised the tone of his voice taking a step closer to you, «Or to wonder if you actually should have been born?» another step, «Have you ever been rejected by your own family?» another, more infuriated step, «Have you questioned your existence?» he stopped in front of you, looking down on you, his judgmental finger pointing to you, «HAVE YOU—«

Without allowing him to finish another self-distractive sentence, you dived in instinctively, your arms wrapped around his built torso, and before realizing it, you were embracing Dabi in your miserable attempt to comfort him.

«No, I haven’t. But that doesn’t mean you can’t share your thoughts and pain with anyone, Dabi» you inhaled some of his scent, «…the more you bottle up your emotions and shut them in, the more drained you’ll feel…» you expected his arms to wrap around you too, yet, it never happened.

«How do you know?»

A hefty sigh of relief jumped out of your lips, «It happens even at the simplest of situations… sometimes when I feel down and don’t let it out somehow, I feel like I constantly have something weighing down on me… something that’s holding me down…» you explained, slowly letting go of him.

When you looked up and saw his clouded eyes, you noticed something converted in them. As if all this psychopathic tension had been replaced by something more… gentle… mundane… and the light smile that grazed his lips accounted for that.

«If you ever want to talk to someone… I’ll be here…» you informed him and carefully strayed, far from that place, leaving Dabi all alone, while he stared at that frozen lake, which brought back so many grievous, icy cold memories…

Hope you enjoyed! Leave a heart, comment, reblog! 💕

[fairycosmos]

i really don’t know why i want to kms to be honest... i know i don’t have it as bad as other people because i am pretty privileged to even know english or having somewhere to live and the opportunity to pursue an education and yet i’m so tired. i think knowing that i come off as ungrateful makes me feel worse? i’ve tried killing myself multiple times and i promised i wouldn’t live past fifteen and i am now one year close to becoming an adult and i still want to die... i don’t want to overwhelm you with my family’s traumas and my own stuff that made me like this but yeah i’m a weak person and everyone around me says i’m just ungrateful when i cry and they’re right

hey i’m really sorry you’re feeling that way :( i think the guilt could be a side effect of the mental illness though not like, an actual indication that you’re truly ungrateful about anything. obviously that doesn’t make it feel any less real and painful to you,  but like idk. knowing it’s ok to process whatever you need to process without self scrutiny or judgement can be really freeing. it’s never going to be a competition, you know what i mean? someone is always going to have it worse than you and someone is always going to have it better than you and that still doesn’t change the reality of YOUR hurt and the heaviness you’re carrying. it’s like that saying, it doesn’t matter if you’re only drowning in 10 ft of water while someone else is drowning in 50 ft of water, you’re both still drowning. you could go up to someone who just idk, got hit by a car, and be like well at least you’re not homeless :) wouldn’t change the fact they they’d been hit by a car. so try to approach yourself with that same level of sensitivity, even when you wanna do the opposite and destruct. obviously it’s good to recognize what you do have - which clearly you have been trying to do - but that doesn’t lessen what you’ve been through, the trauma etc. also, mental illness can simply occur in people for no reason and it doesn’t have to make any logical sense for it to be a real issue that you need help with. honestly, a sick brain will always try to convince you that you’re not “bad enough” because it’s trying to keep you from reaching out and confronting the underlying issues, as some form of self punishment. and anyone who says you’re ungrateful is just projecting their own bullshit onto you, honestly. they have no idea what it’s like to live in your mind so they have no idea what they’re talking about and their opinion is not valid. quite literally. they’ve spent forever repressing their own problems and they want you to do the same out of selfishness. it says more about them than it does about you. you’re not weak, you’re struggling to figure out your own head and your own past, and that’s ok. you’re not alone, and you don’t need to continuously invalidate yourself for it. it gets you nowhere. i know it’s a lot easier said than done to stop, maybe it’s something that takes years to really learn how to do. but i hope you can begin to cut yourself some slack even for a few moments each day where you can sit with your thoughts and feelings and just accept them for what they are. cry if you need to, all you want. write it down. and most importantly, if and when it’s possible i would really urge you to seek some form of professional help. like i said to that other anon, whether it’s through a hotline/support group/loved one/your doctor etc i promise you have options and it is not going to be as bad as your brain is building it up to be. mental illness is just like a lot of physical illnesses in that it needs real treatment and time in order to learn to live/overcome it, and you do deserve that. talking to someone, learning how to implement healthy coping mechanisms into your daily life, having someone witness your sadness/anger/pain, learning where these emotions and suicidal thoughts came from in the first place  - none of it is a cure but it is definitely a way forward. i’m very glad you’re still here and i want you to know the world is lucky to have you. even if you can’t see it, your existence has made a difference in ways you can’t even see and ways you’ll never even know. focus on getting through one day at a time, for now. sending you love - you don’t need anyones permission to feel the way you do ! and the way you feel is not a final state of being x

[violethowler]

Break the Wheel

It’s a common point of discussion in the Kingdom Hearts fandom how often the main heroes are screwed over by the actions and attitudes of their various mentors. Ansem the Wise, Eraqus, the Master of Masters... Nearly every mentor figure in the series has contributed in some way to the pain the young people they interact with have endured over the course of the series. 

The Master of Masters deliberately manipulated his pupils into turning against each other and starting a war to further his own agenda. The Foretellers spread that suspicion and mistrust of each other outward to the members of their respective Unions. From what we’re seeing so far, the Dandelions are removed from the Master’s direct influence and are handling the Potential Traitor discussion so much better than the Foretellers did in Back Cover, but something still clearly went wrong that left at least four of them thousands of years in the future with only vague memories of their past at best. 

Birth by Sleep showed how Eraqus’ paranoia and distrust of darkness directly lead to the suffering of his pupils. His attitude toward Terra’s darkness in the beginning drove the latter to seek validation from Xehanort, who used Terra for his own agenda causing Aqua to trap herself in the Realm of Darkness to save her friend. Eraqus’ insistence that she spy on Terra and bring Ven back to the Land of Departure drove a wedge between the trio at Radiant Garden. And his willingness to kill Ventus to stop Xehanort leads to his duel with Terra and subsequent death. 

Ienzo’s role in the experiments performed by the Organization’s founders prior to the fall of Radiant Garden is unclear, but his conversation with Ansem in Kingdom Hearts III suggests that the older apprentices kept him in the dark about many things and might have potentially used Ansem’s fondness for him to manipulate their mentor. This resulted in Ansem’s banishment and - if DDD is any indication - turning Ienzo into a Nobody against his will when he was only 8 years old. 

Ansem himself went on to openly seek the destruction of Roxas, Xion, and Namine for the sake of his revenge against everyone who wronged him, using his prejudice against Nobodies to justify the things he did in pursuit of his goals. And despite guiding Riku to accept his own darkness in Chain of Memories, Ansem still fundamentally buys into the view of Darkness as something inherently negative, best illustrated at the end of Riku’s side of that game where DiZ attempted to make Riku choose between the “road to light” and “road to darkness”, implicitly trying to force Riku into a rigid either/or path that Riku rejects in favor of choosing “the middle road”.

This pattern has repeated often enough that when fans on Twitter shared screenshots of Dark Road from the game’s prematurely leaked website showing Master Odin, several fans - myself included - began eagerly anticipating the ways in which this pattern of old men failing the young would rear its head in Xehanort’s time as an apprentice. 

The fact that this pattern appears so consistently across the entire Kingdom Hearts timeline is not an accident. The entire starting point of the Heroine’s Journey is built around the idea that the protagonist’s environment - parents, mentors, peers, sometimes even their entire society - has failed them in some way[1]. By forcing them to adhere to a rigid binary of what traits are considered desirable versus undesirable, it forces people who do not fit those standards to cut themselves off from vital parts of who they are in order to be recognized and validated.

So when the younger generation grows up with these standards and is called to fix the mistakes of their elders, they are expected to do so on their mentors’ terms[2]. In doing so, they will ultimately continue the cycle that led to those problems in the first place. But the central protagonist of the Heroine’s Journey is different. The qualities which set them apart are the same ones that allow them to think outside of this rigid binary and ultimately break that cycle. In the course of their growth, the main character learns to create a new, better world not by vanquishing a villain who represents the failures of the old one, but by healing the wounds those failures created. 

Kairi said it best in Kingdom Hearts III that Sora’s journey is about helping people, many of whom he’s never met before. This is significant because the protagonist breaking out of the cycle has commonly taken the form of learning to solve problems with compassion and understanding instead of violence and punishment[1]. The main character cannot improve the world around them by simply killing the villain and calling it a day. In order to achieve meaningful change they need to help the people who have been hurt by this rigid cycle. And as the contrast between Sora’s attitudes towards the dying Organization members in Kingdom Hearts II and III demonstrates, that includes the same villains he’s fighting against. Yes, even Xehanort.

Because when you look back and think about it, every non-Disney antagonist in the Kingdom Hearts series is shown to be motivated by the pain and/or trauma inflicted on them by the worldview of their peers and mentors, which they then took out on the people around them. 

Marluxia as Lauriam was powerless to stop Strelitzia’s murder, and then he lost all memory of his past when he arrived in the present from the Age of Fairy Tales. That knowledge casts his behavior in Chain of Memories as someone trying to control the people around him as a proxy to feel like he has control over his own life[3]. 

Ienzo’s words when Ansem returns in Kingdom Hearts III[4] and the fact that he was a child [5] when Radiant Garden fell[6] paint his words toward Riku in Chain of Memories about the latter destroying his home as Zexion projecting the repressed guilt over the destruction of his home onto Riku. 

Saix’s cruelty toward Roxas and Xion in 358/2 Days is revealed in Kingdom Hearts III to have been driven by jealousy towards Axel and the feeling that he was being abandoned and replaced[7].  

All of these characters’ villainous actions can be traced back to the influence of the mentor figures of their generation. Marluxia’s survivor’s guilt over Strelitzia’s death is the result of her killer attempting to defy the manipulations of the Master of Masters. Saix was gaslit about his own humanity by Xemnas and Xigbar for over a decade with Xemnas’ manipulation and whatever effect Norting had on him on top of that. Ienzo’s conversation with Ansem in Kingdom Hearts III indicates that he didn’t fully understand what Ansem’s adult apprentices were doing around him when they were conducting their experiments, and the flashback at the start of Dream Drop Distance suggests he had not become a Nobody of his own volition. 

Xehanort too, is someone who was hurt by this destructive cycle. The things he indicates he saw during his world tour - people refusing to acknowledge the darkness in their own hearts and allowing it to grow [8] - showed him the consequences of repressing one’s darkness and negative emotions as he and Eraqus were taught. He wanted to change this, but he was still so entrenched in that system that the best he could think of ultimately amounted to the same rigid viewpoint but flipped so that darkness was on top. 

The merciless death many fans felt Xehanort deserved would only reinforce the “darkness evil, light good” worldview that Riku’s redemption arc was built on overturning. In order to truly heal the wounds created by the rigid belief system that made the villain who they are, the protagonist needs to be able to extend their compassion and sympathy even to their greatest enemies, or else it fundamentally breaks the narrative. The idea that there should be limits or conditions on such compassion is exactly the kind of mentality that led Eraqus to try and kill Terra and Ventus in Birth by Sleep. It doesn’t mean the main characters will ever forgive the villain(s) for what they’ve done, but that they are choosing to let go. To focus their energy on self-care and rebuilding, instead of more violence and more destruction[2].

Regardless of how individual fans feel about it, Xehanort being treated with dignity in his final moments needed to happen in order to show Sora’s growth. If Kingdom Hearts III had given Xehanort a violent demise like some of us wanted, it would have been a betrayal of the Heroine’s Journey’s major themes. Treating opponents with sympathy and compassion is a critical element of the framework, and is necessary in order to allow the protagonist to break free of the destructive mentality that created the story’s overarching conflict in the first place. 

Sources:

[1] “The Heroine with a Thousand Faces”; June 13, 2019;

https://www.teampurplelion.com/heroine-with-a-thousand-faces/

[2] “On Love and Lions Part 1: An Analysis of Love in VLD”; February 14, 2020. https://www.teampurplelion.com/on-love-and-lions-1/

[3] Analysis of Marluxia by @mlhelena;  https://mlhelena.tumblr.com/post/185211447430/thought-that-ive-been-nursing-for-a-while

[4] Kingdom Hearts III. Square Enix, 2019. 

[5] Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Square Enix, 2010.

[6] Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. Square Enix, 2012. 

[7] Concerning Atypical Heart Regrowth in Nobodies: Saïx Case Study by dicax; June 23, 2019.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19329115

[8] Kingdom Hearts III Re:Mind. Square Enix, 2020. 

[lacroix-suckatron]

Emma x Tracy is an underrated ship

tw// suicide mention (Hell Ember’s backstory), electroshock therapy reference (Emma’s backstory)

HI so ive been thinking about emma and tracy all day so here I am with this abomination of a headcannon:

before I begin, note that everything I say was derived only from my personal interpretation of the deductions, but if any of it is wrong please feel free to correct me

 -their backstories are eerily similar; both of them have similar trauma but starkly different ways of coping with it. I think, however, that their coping mechanisms are complementary in a way? which is why I believe that they could help eachother a LOT 

similarities between their backstories: 

-both had mothers who died when they were extremely young. Emma was a bit older when hers died, leaving her with vague memories that indicated the affair going on, whereas Tracy was an infant. However, both ended growing up with a single father who they grew very very emotionally attached to 

-tragically, both of their fathers "died" in separate fires when they were little kids. Emma was sent to an unsafe orphanage and Tracy was just... kinda left to live in the destroyed shop. 

-both developed a very unhealthy obsession with inanimate objects to help comfort them in times where there was no human to. 

 -Tracy's obsession was with creating and perfecting them, and Emma's obsession was with interacting with them.

 How Emma could help Tracy:

 -Ever since his accidental(?) death, Tracy's entire life goal has revolved around creating a doll that can resemble her father as much as possible. However, no matter how much she tinkers with it, it is never perfect in her eyes as nothing could truly replace or represent the bond she had with her father.

-I feel like Emma would LOVE the doll and could help Tracy begin to see that all her creations, but especially her doll, don't need to be perfect in order to live up to her father's memory. 

-Emma finds most things (besides herself) beautiful, and by projecting this mentality onto Tracy, it would help Tracy slowly accept that she CAN have a life, and a beautiful one at that, that does not need to revolve around making her father proud. This could theoretically help Tracy process her grief and lonely childhood, and eventually might lead to her finding peace.

-I also feel like Tracy would be the type of person who would LOVE making gifts for Emma, which would both make them super stoked.

How Tracy could help Emma: 

-Emma has been looking for nothing but pure stability her entire life, as her entire childhood had a theme of having everyone and everything taken away from her due to powers beyond her control. She finds that stability by showering love onto both people and inanimate objects (ex: doctor and scarecrow), but the way she has done it up to this point has been INCREDIBLY unhealthy because she has such a fucked up view of what the world should and shouldn’t be due to her developmental years spent in the orphanage and hospital 

-It is also implied in the deductions that both fleeting memories of her father and internalized homophobia cause her intense stress and pain 

-Tracy is kind, stable, and curious in ways that I believe Emma would latch onto instantly. However, given both Tracy's innocent past, empathetic nature, and intense love for gadgets/people to share them with, this relationship would be INFINITELY healthier than that of emily and emma. Unlike Emily, Tracy doesn't fret over her mistakes and run from all the people hurt by them. This girl is entirely SOLUTION ORIENTED because of the time spent admiring her father. In addition, she would not view an unstable person like Emma as someone who needs to be 'cured', but rather as someone who needs to be loved. 

-I also feel like Tracy's trinkets could help Emma remedy the painful memories of her father by reenforcing all the positive memories of him? But this one is kinda a stretch. BUT with this support, Emma could possibly begin to reconcile with her abandonment issues caused by his attempted suicide and transform into Hell Ember. 

Other things: 

-neither of them are really the talk-through-emotions type, so I don’t think that either of them would feel.. pressured to spill their trauma to the other?

-both of them love gadgets and tinkering!! and I just think that's funky

-also this scene in the stageplay:

yeah if you guys have any other thoughts or corrections to my idea please let me know I’d love to hear them :)

[oiseaux-de-proie]

Even when it is the weekend my chest often feels tight and I feel like I am running out of time. It’s harder for me to slow down. I think it’s an anxiety response due to overthinking about the responsibilities I have. Anyways, I’m sitting down now to take some time to think through things.

This past week has not been bad. I still feel like things are shifting and I’m making progress in some way, I just don’t feel as much momentum as I did the previous week. My mood is a bit lower and my anxiety is higher. It’s a bit of a trudge and an active struggle but I am still moving forward I think, with processing things, navigating my own emotions and thoughts, and trying to be more aware and less judgmental of them. I have been trying to meditate at least a bit every day, and do grounding exercises. There hasn’t been much going on otherwise other than working. The other night I did go to hang out with some people I knew from community college for a bit and that was nice. Nick showed me this anime called Wonder Egg Priority and I felt drawn into it. So far it’s struck me because I’ve related a lot to the main character in it, and the parts about friendship remind me a lot of myself and Lost. I’m hoping to watch more of it later. I went hiking today too, just like I did last week,

I should talk a bit about Lost even though for some reason it’s a bit painful- hell I don’t even quite understand why it’s painful. I don’t know why my mind’s made it this thing that I walk on metaphorical eggshells around. I can’t think of something that is tangibly wrong or that’s happened. The conclusion I’ve come to is that what’s going on is systemic to me and relationships right now and it’s due to things that have accumulated a lot over time.

Ever since last year- last winter- winter of 2019 into 2020 something shifted. Lost and I connected just as well as we did before then. Our connection is electric. Things flowed so well- but also my thoughts flowed far better too, and I had less anxiety than I do now. Then in October something snapped in me. I still have those blogs from then. In hindsight I know it’s the accumulation of everything that’d happened with the spn I’d been suppressing for years. I started to have emotional flashbacks and nightmarish episodes that spiraled and repeated through the entire winter. My worldview crumbled. Everything in my mind crumbled and I became very paranoid and insecure and fell further and further into the rote pattern I have of feeling guilt and blaming myself and thinking that everyone will eventually unveil me to be a fraud- including Lost. And the depression. It’s hard even now to remember the transition of it all because of how foggy it was, but I think it shifted the foundation of everything for me including how I cope with relationships, and my trust in people and in myself eroded.

On the tail end of that Lost and I had decided to jointly study a bunch of philosophy things but I had a very hard time keeping up with it due to where I was mentally- and when I started medication I went even more numb. Especially with the coronavirus lock downs. My anxiety and self judgement worsened and I became more judgemental of myself the more I couldn’t keep up with studying and the more I felt I couldn’t comprehend the abstract concepts that I used to. Summer was a clusterfuck, and further and further removed from myself I got into the stuff with Lans that caused things to be more tense between Lost and I for various reasons that are not worth going into now that it’s over. But just since then things have felt tense and I haven’t known what to talk about, often even hiding my own thoughts from myself, and just...

I know that a lot of problems lately are due to the anxiety I am experiencing, and emotional trauma responses I have mentioned before. I have been constantly harshly judging myself in my own mind and as a result I project that onto everything around me and I am always searching for ways to confirm that bias, now even in Lost, especially since I am the most vulnerable to her. Ever since things with my parents, especially, I have been trying to minimize my vulnerability to emotions and people as much as possible in a frantic attempt to minimize the extent to which I can get hurt- but as a result I have just been shutting down more, even to Lost, and presuming that she is going to judge or misread me when she is genuinely trying not to. As a result of my compounded behavior changes over time she senses my assumption that she will attack me and has developed her own pattern of holding things back and assuming that conversations will go nowhere...That’s why we mutually agreed to take a break. To reset this. It won’t be reset entirely but we want to let go assumptions and edge back a bit towards square one of things. I was very terrified of this at first because I have serious abandonment anxiety I am realizing (primarily from a lot of spn things in hindsight) but I did reason that out and come to the conclusion that space for a while is healthy. So we will not be talking until her semester is over sometime in early May. I am not sure how I will unravel things. I hope that time will tell. Sometimes I feel bursts of clarity. I just know that to be able to clarify our relationship I need to specially *not* focus on it much, and focus on myself and continuing to heal, because my wellbeing is what will promote the wellbeing of my friendship with her and all of my other relationships.

The changes I have felt I am not sure how to articulate even still but I will continue to move forward. I feel as if I continue to throw up as many things as I can the pieces of the picture will eventually begin to come together of their own accord.

I’ll continue some other things later.

[heat-riser]

Some weird analysis of when you knew me.

I’ve thought about doing this for a while. One part screaming into the void, one part for anyone who was on tumblr in it’s heyday and watched me be strange and into- frankly- the worst characters and really terrible ships. I’m 26 now and understand a bit more about myself after finally finding a good therapist who specialized in sexual trauma and delving into the deepest darkest parts. Maybe it’s part insight for people who were friends with my at the time- and by ‘at that time’, I guess I mean any point in my life up until a couple years ago. From around 5 years on- I was in a constant state of incredibly deep sadness and anxiety but was too numb to even really consciously feel it. I learned some of the worst things about people and became acquainted with some of the worst things a person can feel at 5, and then again multiple times around 9 due to rape by two different boys. The first, my family and people around me knew about pretty immediately. The second was completely unknown to people until recently. It’s not an easy thing telling your parents another neighbor boy who was a ‘friend’ raped you too. I can’t really explain properly how deeply this effects a person and how people don’t really understand it. Things as little as not being able to be outside my house without a jacket and full pants to cover my whole body because I internalized that showing your body is vulnerability opened up the possibility of sexualization and therefore- attack. All the way to now with everything being resurfaced and having nearly no sex drive and being unable to feel arousal without more anxiety coming in and overpowering the arousal feeling. It was recently recommended to me by my therapist to not play horror games because the feelings of arousal and fear are so tightly linked. I’ve been with the therapist for three years and anticipate at very least another 3-5 and she has clients who have been seeing her 10+ years for having experienced childhood sexual abuse. I can’t remember if I’ve talked publicly here about any of that but most of my friends are aware of the first one (it’s not really something I want to throw out there randomly and conversations in covid time are strange). I was only aware of the first one up until a couple years back. When talking about buried memories, how they come up, how to tell if they’re legit, I halfway thought “what if there was more” and felt sick to my stomach. One of the sure signs of a memory being true is an emotional response. I’m in the process of reclaiming the memories of the events involving the second neighbor boy. But point being- I learned the world was awful very early on and it became the background for all future development (sexual, social, self, etc. etc.). I began to numb myself after the first event and went through half of elementary school and middle school angry, sad, and hateful- I especially hated men, but also just the world at large. By high school, I had learned to shove all of that down. I can’t really recall feeling much of anything in high school. So the people that knew me at the time really only knew a weird ghost of a person. Then there’s this thing called trauma reenactment- where victims are drawn to things relating to the trauma situation. So this is what takes me to explaining the characters I was interested in. 1- Adachi. I now see as little more than a sad incel but it does say a lot about where I was at the time to be so fascinated with him. He shared my resentment towards the world, the idea that anyone who wasn’t depressed simply didn’t understand, and saw more of a problem with the world than his current state of being. Of course that was relatable. I very clearly remember in middle school believing people that weren’t depressed simply had no idea what was going on around them. Of course I thought that and still struggle with that mentality. All I had really known was deep despair and numbing myself from the world. I didn’t understand how other people didn’t realize that but now know what the emotional world I was living in was not typical of children. So here was someone that knew how bad everything around was and how bad the world felt and I clung onto him the same way I did my own idealizations. With what I’ve been processing more recently, the dude needed therapy and to unlearn that depression was cool and correct but had shown multiple times he was unwilling to challenge any of his issues and just started killing people. There were a lot of favorite characters through this but one that sticks out as another really fucked up example of where I was was Damon Gant. I look back at liking him as the ultimate symbol of trauma reenactment. He’s older, he had power, he was creepy, intimidating, unsettling, and controlling. Everything my predators had been to me at the time. So- all of those things were in a way intertwined with my own sexuality as they’re what I first learned with anything ‘sexual’. Some of my favorite ships are due to the same reasoning. Gant and Lana- again, kind of inherently controlling, imbalance of power, and ends horribly and tragically. I always found something intriguing and beautiful about the most horrific and sad feelings. And I’ll touch on it just for the record. Cyrus is big fucked up- but I think he is, though maybe incorrect, well intentioned with his main goal being what he believes will actually be better for everyone cause of his projection of the awful things he feels on everyone. He doesn’t go out of his way to hurt anyone and certainly doesn’t enjoy other people’s pain but rather wants to eliminate what he sees as the reason for people hurting others with and end justifies the means mindset. His numbing/attempts to numb, hatred of emotion, and hatred of people inflicting pain on others is all incredibly familiar and I’m certain a part of me in middle school knew that when picking him as a fave. As I progress, I’m more interested his potential to relearn people and start opening up to feeling. (Pokemon Master’s definitely more than hinted at him changing and I’m hoping that means they’ll go that route with remakes.) I should note that during my most ‘numb’ parts would sneak out and I would be very- and increasingly over time starting with 6th grade- suicidal and became addicted to cutting and self harm (which I realize now are both just further numbing techniques). I described the feeling at the time as a parasite controlling your brain and a part of yourself knowing you had to fight against it. There was a period I was certain of how I would die, it was just when I would finally snap. I should also say how much people are able to numb themselves. I can remember getting so anxious that my heart would race and the world felt fast- I would get to the point of gagging but can’t remember ‘feeling’ any ounce of anxiety consciously. When first becoming sexually active, I had extended, horrific anxiety that would have hospitalized me for a couple weeks if not for my mom being able to stay home with me (also out of work for a couple months and left addicted to xanax for a bit). And still didn’t quite believe her all the way when she suggested it was anxiety. And I sure as hell didn’t make any connections to any possible mental issues around sex. So I’ve ranted enough but saved this bit for the end cause it hits kinda hard. People tend to feel the same things they felt in locations. Curiosity got the best of me and I drove around parts of my childhood I spend a lot of time at and specific routes I would take. (It’s called state dependent memory if anyone’s interested). I’m learning just how much I was numb to everything and wondering just what it was I was covering up my whole life. This isn’t easy to really type out cause of how fucked it is with the realization that I didn’t really experience childhood to a degree. During my drive, past my high school, up near my friends houses, the route I would take coming back from college- I was deeply, and very profoundly sad in my core. Nothing near what a person should have felt through their childhood. I missed so much. And I’m sorry to my friends at the time who only got to know a strange, numb, trauma reenacting, ghost of myself. I’m not going to be able to relive those times in a better light but I can at very least do some work to prevent a future spent numb and profoundly sad. But my brain is finally allowing me to remember some things because it’s deemed that I can handle it, I’m learning more about myself and my past, learning how to listen to what my brain and body are telling me and why, and getting better at expressing grief and real, raw, sadness and a touch of deep-seated anger so I think I might be starting to turn this around.

[har-rison-s]

meds, baby

Request: hi would you please do a bucky or steve x reader where she forgets to take her medicine and then gets in that habit and doesn’t wanna take them and she ends up just staying in her room cause she is so tired x

A/N: hi hello everyone. having a bit of a crisis here :D. anyways, lovely request, it's a theme i like writing a lot, but don't get the chance to. maybe i should start writing my own ideas. i tried my best on this one, having, unfortunately, never been on prescription medicine because of my mental illnesses (this is my take on it). i should have a prescription. but this feels natural to write. this might be short. anyways, hope this does you and all of us good and enjoy! happy reading!

main masterlist

mcu masterlist

Warnings: dealing with mental illness, refusing to take medicine, results of that, eventual comfort

You stare at the pills. The little buggers in the classic yellow box that are supposed to make you feel better, take the pain away, make you do things, make you smile, make you eat. Make you live. Like anyone else, like a normal person. But you weren't that. And you were tired of putting up a fake effect that you were someone that everyone wanted you to be, expected you to be, someone you weren't.

Someone you forgot how to be. Your depression had taken over when you were young. And took away any trace of the person you could have been. You don't know who you are, who you would be, weren't it for your illness.

Some say depression is uncurable. Others say it is curable. But the ways, some of them, that work for curing the disease, don't agree with you. Don't agree with your mannerisms, your life, with how you'd like to be treated. Your teammates disagree with that - they say you should use every chance and different way to cure what you have. You may think they don't understand, but really, they don't understand the curing part.

How do they cure themselves? They fight, they almost kill themselves saving others, build new suits, new machines, get onto new science projects, train, work out, talk about other people problems. But you weren't them. You were not like them at all.

Not everyone was like that. Bucky was the only one who seemed to understand you best. He... Well, he may not be the exact same, but he was also going through the actual, real curing part of depression and trauma to deal with.

The man had a lot in his history. Had a lot to remember, a lot he's done, a lot he wants to forget, a lot that makes him who he is, actually. But not his illnesses. They don't make him who he is. You both have had talks about it. And you've told each other over and over that a mental illness is not a part of you. It's a parasite. Not a permanent part of you. And you have to work every day to get the parasite out.

No one ever said it's gonna be easy, or that it will happen fast. No one promised that, although it's all you ever hope for. A naive hope you had. Not now. Now you just can't wait for it to be over.

Somehow, with absolutely no logic, you think that disregarding your pills will help you on the way to curing yourself. But, the truth is, that action does not help you at all. It just makes you feel overwhelmed and makes you spiral back into your hole of depression and too many thoughts. When you take your medicine, you feel empty and strange, but it also makes you border yourself from the thoughts you want to escape.

Too many thoughts. Too loud. Too much noise in your ears, in your head. Too much of everything. Makes you tired, unable to function like a regular person. That's what you feel like without your medicine. And sometimes, being a mazohist, you even like the feeling. Laying on your bed or sitting on the floor, just staring ahead, as if there was some sort of long tunnel of space and stars staring back at you, never-ending. At least it felt like that.

Bucky had found you on your third day being like that. He was going around town, buying groceries, doing laundry, training and working on himself the past few days, a bit busy for him. Forgetting to check up on you, which he felt guilty about. So he came into your room. 

Saw you sitting down, your back against your bed, legs out-stretched, your arms by your side. And staring. Your blank, tired eyes staring in front of you. At first, he'd thought that something had happened or you had done something, cause the scene looked so wrong. 

He sat down beside you and thankfully, your head moved to look at him. Who it was. Ah, Bucky, the only one who speaks your language. His hands move to yours, examining every spot on your body to notice, not really hopefully, something new. There was nothing. He sighs and looks at you finally.

“Y/N...” he whispers quietly. You blink, hearing and acknowledging him. You were almost catatonic when you went into your trances. He hated it. He hated for you to be unreachable. “Have you eaten?” You shake your head. “What about water? Your meds?”

You shake your head violently then. “I don't want them. I don't want to take them. They're just... They're stealing anything that's left of me. I don't need them. I need to survive without them.”

“Hey, no, no, no, you look at me,” Bucky starts to say when your hands go into your hair and your knees against your chest. You're closing down on him, on hope. So Bucky takes your wrists in his and brings them down and away from your face so he can find your eyes. He knows that his always calm you, “you look at me, alright? Do you trust me?”

“I...” it takes a moment for you to calm down and realise your surroundings and what Bucky is trying to do, “I do, I trust you.”

“Okay,” he says, kissing one of your hands then, “if you trust me, then you have to do what I say. Because I want only the best for you. Okay?” You only nod. “If so, we're going to take two of your little pills together. Okay? Can we make a deal?”

You start shaking your head again, your face now warping into a scowl or a crying expression. But no tears come, so you're only scowling and shaking your head, incomprehensible whines and moans coming from between your lips. Whines of protest. 

“Y/N, they're meant for you to be okay, for you to get better—”

“NO! They make me—they make me feel nothing! They make me live like a blank page! Someone without a face!” You cry. “And I don't want that!”

“Do you want to sit in your room for the rest of your life and stare into a wall, then? Do you want your dreams gone? Not fulfilled? You want us to live without the amazing Y/N, the shining girl with a head full of dreams and ideas?” Bucky asks in a confronting way, looking dead serious in your eyes. And his words make you emotional. “Do you want that girl gone? Or are you going to let her live?”

You gulp and calm your breathing, though it takes a few moments. Moments you spend looking into Bucky's eyes, that truly do help you calm down. His fixated and empathic gaze fixates on your over-the-top full orbs, with storms and confusion and searching in them. He knows what you feel. He knows what you're going through, because he once went through it all as well. And he's telling you the words he would have liked to hear when he was like you. But no one told him those words. And he was alone. But he doesn't want you to be alone like that, in a mental state like that.

“We let her live.” You whisper, nodding. Bucky nods as well and drops your hands, they land in your lap. He scoots closer to you, the big ex-soldier actually scoots, and pulls you into his chest.

Warm, big, embracable. You collapse against it, and almost instantly fall asleep. You haven't known sleep for the past three days and this warmth, this comfort, this... giving makes you function again. You've been tired for such a long time, feels like ages, and now it's adding up. You realise that. And you don't mind sleeping now. You know sleep now. 

You'll take your pills, with Bucky's help, eat something, and then sleep. Rest for a while. Rest your heart, rest your mind and body and the storm in your head. You'll be okay.

Permanent taglist: @v0idbella @inlovewithmiddleagedcelebs @works-of-fanfiction @destiel-stucky4ever-loki-queen @stfxlou @ur-gunna-h8-ths @one-taylor-one-vision @empressdreams @betweenloveandfire @but-legendsneverdie @deardeacy @mavieesttriste16 @fvckyeahbenhardy @thewinchesterchronicles

Let me know if you want to be added!! :)

[alilaro]

Hi!! I'm back and bothering you again!! Mind doing both Caius and Aro for the asks? 🤐😈👀👂Thank you!!!

👀 - who, upon being approached, do they watch fearfully, expecting pain?

No one currently, but obviously in the past members of the Romanian coven being near made them both extremely tense and on edge.

👂 - what sound grates on their nerves, makes them lose their composure?

I don't know about it causing them to lose their composure, but Caius still gets tense hearing dogs barking

😈 - tell me how badly you want to see them break (if you don’t want to see them break, how close do you want them to it?)

Oh gosh, its almost embarrassing how many times I've pushed Caius to breaking point. He's kind of my vent character, so unfortunately for him he gets a lot of my emotional nonsense projected onto him.

But if I do make something "canon" in my mainverse, I always make sure they can and do recover. I don't want to break them down to the point of no return.

🤐 - have they ever been threatened into silence? gagged? rendered mute?

SO SPEAKING OF ANGST I'VE RECENTLY INCLUDED IN MY HEADCANONS.

I kind of have this dark headcanon that Aro has had his mouth sewn shut. It's basically when the Volturi were still at war with the Romanian coven, and Aro and a few guards end up in an enemy camp.

Now Aro is like a huge target at this point, so they can't kill him on sight, but plan to take him back to more high-ranking members to find out what to do with him, BUT that doesn't mean they can't push him around in the meanwhile.

One of the first things they do is cut his hair off, and they're not gentle about it, leaving his scalp bleeding and bruised. And Aro isn't one to be silent about anything, let alone this. In fact he's fucking mouthy, constantly making jabs and talking back, complaining and threatening almost smugly, which surprise, doesn't go bode for him, and they end up literally stitching his mouth tight shut as a consequence.

Obviously they get Aro back fairly quickly, and recovers with no real trauma, and the entire camp and everyone in it is set aflame, but Aro is a little more smarter after that about blabbing around unfavorable company after that.

(As for Caius, he temporarily lost his voice after his close call with werewolves, but having a giant wolf stand on your neck will tend to do that.)

[carewyncromwell]

18, 27 and 35 for the OC ask :D

18. What are your OC’s greatest fears? Weaknesses? Strengths?

OOC: Carewyn at her heart is scared of being helpless or hurt and thus loves a certain level of control over whatever situation she finds herself in -- so her greatest fear, in an abstract sense, is something so dangerous and threatening that she would have no chance of overpowering, outsmarting, appealing to, rationalizing with, or escaping it. Boggart-wise, that’s expressed as Voldemort, who sort of ticks all those boxes.

Carewyn’s weaknesses -- gosh, let’s organize this...

Does not trust other people with her problems, flaws, insecurities, or feelings. AT ALL. She is very happy to help other people with their problems and comfort and counsel them, but she just cannot open herself up the same way, thanks to the trauma her brother’s disappearance caused. She would rather shut her friends out completely than let them see her at her worst. Despite Carewyn’s outward appearance of confidence and paragon virtue, she’s actually very difficult to get to know well.

Puts on a strong face rather than admit there’s a problem. This is kind of attached to the first bullet, but it can also mean she’ll try to bury any pain she feels and soldier through if it means sparing her friends’ feelings or reaching a higher goal.

Has way too high of standards, especially for herself. She’s never satisfied with anything she does, so although she puts on a pretty face, she secretly struggles with deep self-loathing and will often push herself past the point of reason. This can make her very judgmental of other people too sometimes -- if she sees you in a negative light, like that you’re vain, cruel, selfish, or stupid, it can be hard to change her mind or prove that you’ve changed for the better.

Overly sensitive. She’s been forced to toughen herself up on the outside, so she isn’t as prone to cry or lash out angrily like she might’ve when she was a little girl, but that sensitivity can still get her in trouble, as rather than expressing any hurt she feels openly, she cloisters it away, which can make it fester and then express itself as passive-aggressiveness or cold resentment. This is also the reason why Occlumency is harder for Carewyn than Legilimency.

Overly serious. This is attached to the above bullet point -- she doesn’t enjoy most pranks or practical jokes because she gets focused on the pain and embarrassment it could cause someone else, projects her own experience with bullying onto the person, and thus takes the situation too seriously. Just because she’s toughened herself up on the outside doesn’t mean she doesn’t still project her sensitive emotions onto everyone else.

Surprisingly ruthless when backed into a corner. If Carewyn is terrified for her life or her emotions are very raw and painful, she’ll ditch any wit or subtlety and she can bite back really hard. She always regrets it afterwards when she gets her head back.

Fortunately Carewyn has some nice strengths too!

Has a very strong personal moral compass. Even though she can often be a victim of her own pride and stubbornness, she legitimately wants to be great, and she’s decided the best way to do that is to be someone who can help others. Although her wish to be a great witch who helps people is self-focused in a way, because helping people makes Carewyn feel happy and better about herself, it’s undeniably a noble wish all the same.

Empathetic. Partially thanks to her great sensitivity and partially thanks to her latent Legilimency potential, Carewyn has never had trouble putting herself in someone else’s shoes, so she can be incredibly accepting and compassionate to those different from her.

Maternal. Because of her insight and compassion for others, she will look after her friends when they neglect their own physical or emotional well-being, whether by making sure they eat and sleep more, giving advice, or encouraging their personal ambitions.

Clever. Carewyn isn’t as academically brilliant as her brother, but she’s got great interpersonal intelligence, making it relatively easy for her to predict other people’s behavior. That being said, she’s not half bad at magic either! 

Organized. Carewyn has a talent for seeing the big picture, analyzing potential assets or liabilities, and looking ahead toward the future with a plan, which makes her an ideal choice to organize any sort of project or movement.

Brave. No matter how scared or full of self-doubt she may be in any given situation, Carewyn is no pushover and she will stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.

27. What kind of childhood did your character have?

[Carewyn shrugs.]

“It was all right.”

School wasn’t so fun -- but at least Bobbie and his gang backed off and stopped calling me “Gingersnap” after Jacob broke Bobbie’s nose...

“It was a little hard for Mum, Jacob, and me to afford things sometimes after Dad left, but we managed all right. Hogwarts’s student fund helped a bit with Jacob’s school supplies, so we could get them second-hand a bit easier. We had to get a lot of my stuff second-hand too, but...well, it wasn’t so awful. Mum was able to find me some pretty dresses at the thrift stores and flea markets around town.”

The kids at school loved mumbling and laughing about me wearing the same dress three times a week, but they were still pretty -- did it really matter, that I didn’t have more of them?

“Then of course Jacob would tell me all about Hogwarts whenever he came home during spring, summer, and winter break.”

I always missed Jacob so much when he went away...

“And when Jacob was at school and Mum and I had time at home together, she’d teach me all about the Wizarding World. So even when things did get tough, I knew I had something great to look forward to.”

35. How is your character’s imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried most of the time? Living in memories?

Do I ever stop dreaming -- dreaming of what would’ve been, if things were the way they should...dreaming of everything I could’ve done -- should’ve done better?

“(lightly) I suppose I have a pretty good imagination -- it really helps me get into whatever music I’m singing along to, if I can imagine someone behind the words. I like picturing the imagery in my head when I’m reading Talbott’s poems, too.”

OC Ask! or Send Carewyn an Owl!

[seasaltmemories]

Tales of Berseria Review/Analysis

So Berseria is my first Tales game I’ve played, but despite all the praise I’ve heard for many of its titles, I knew I wanted to start here first and foremost.  Having not only having the first solo female protagonist and a darker story of revenge kept me glued to the story.

But to go more into the summary:

Many hundreds of years before the events of Zestiria, the continent of Midgand suffered under a terrible curse called "Daemonblight". Ordinary humans and animals became possessed by evil spirits and were transformed into bloodthirsty monsters that preyed upon the living. That was until the day a saviour named Artorius Colbrande appeared and united the world against the bestial hordes that threatened to destroy it. Wielding a holy sword and a philosophy of "reason over emotion", Artorius causes the Advent of angelic malakhim into the world, and leads the Exorcists of "The Abbey" in a crusade to eradicate Daemonblight once and for all.

Yet in a dark prison cell far from human contact lies a woman named Velvet Crowe, whose peaceful life was shattered three years ago in one of the "Scarlet Nights" that used to inspire terror the world over - the same night the rest of the world knows as the Advent. Velvet knows the terrible truth of how Artorius gained his divine strength during that Scarlet Night, an incident that twisted her left arm with daemonic power, left dark scars upon her former kindness... and left her bereaved of her little brother. One night, a mysterious woman, who Velvet suspects she knows, visits her cell. The woman has a proposal: if Velvet can escape from the prison, the woman will help her take revenge upon Artorius. With burning hatred in her heart, Velvet embarks on a quest that threatens to uproot and revolutionize the world order.

If you can’t tell, this game is a prequel to Tales of Zestiria, which I never played, but as I was more interested in this and had absorbed a lot of plot points from mutuals who loved Zestiria I thought I would be fine.

And starting off I was really endured by the cast.  As you can see, you kick off the main story breaking out of prison and most of the rest of your party are other outlaws, criminals, and morally ambiguous figures.  At first they mainly work together out of mutual self-interest, but after accidentally kidnapping a young Malek, corrupting/raising him begins to bring the party together

I gotta say Act 1 was my favorite part of the game, Velvet is a sharpened sword brought to life living nothing more for her revenge.  And her quest brings an actual moral dilemma, Artorius is bring peace to a world on the verge of chaos, yet what is that peace worth if it came at the price of an innocent life?  Is it worth burning down the rest of civilization to get vengeance for her little brother?

Aside from this, her growing her growing relationship with Laphicet, the young Malek is also interesting, in a fit of trauma she named him after her younger dead brother and the sibling-like bond they develop make it seem as if she is taking out a lot of her grief through projecting onto him, it’s all fascinating stuff

However I found things started to drag for me during Act 2, plot-wise we have to take some time from directly pursuing the revenge plot bc Artorius is too strong atm, and i understand that out of universe we need to give time to explore the rest of the cast, still this really hurts the momentum of Velvet’s arc

And while I enjoyed the rest of the cast, none of the stuff we got focused on them ever felt like it reached its full potential whether individually or game-wide, part of this might be my fault as it seems there might have been some side quests i missed (although I tried to stay on top of most of them and what I got never seemed to be very necessary for getting the main plot) still i feel like if you’re going to make me run all across the world it shouldn’t be that hard to weave more in, there’s just a lot of focus on past backstory rather than active story moments which is frustrating on top of what I previously mentioned

Going into Act 3 spoilers, things did pick up, until then I had tried to construct a consistent morality of the game and came up with the idea that, “sacrificing for the greater good isn’t inherently wrong, but often those who are asked to sacrifice had no choice in the matter” the plot twist of Laphi having been in on the sacrifice and now acting as Innomenant really was great, shaking both the narrative and Velvet, making almost all the pain and hurt she had inflicted on the world for nothing.

The moral ambiguity gets a little simplified when the stakes escalate to world-ending levels, while it fits in with the other themes of independence and free will, it does make our group that gleefully dragged small children with them on assassination attempts into undeniable good guys, not a bad choice but it does leave most of the rest of the narrative pretty straight-forward

I also feel like i never got a good grasp on the lore, like part of this is also me looking stuff up, but Melchior and Artorius seemed to be not human or very old and apparently followed that Claudin guy, but i don’t know if Innomenant was always their main goal or what

As for the actual ending, this is when I really felt like it would be more emotional if I had played Zestiria before bc a lot of stuff felt as if it should have been more meaningful

Ranking the Cast:

1) Phi: the beating heart of the narrative, bringing everyone together and growing into such a strong person, like i said the highlights of the narrative was both his slow “corruption” and then how he matured and began to stand up for himself, his speech to Velvet in the Earthpulse was 10/10

2) Velvet: what can I say, give me a morally ambiguous lead girl and I am hooked, i feel like they did a good job of balancing out her closed off new nature by giving the audience just enough information to know how she must really be feeling, which made her more than just “angry and revenge” focused, but I feel like bc of the break in the 2nd act a lot of the immediacy of her trauma and desperation was kinda lost

3) Magilou: a fun character that worked as comic relief a lot of the time, but the teases about her backstory/true nature were great, and I especially love her scene where she single-handedly holds back Melchior to save the rest of the party, still this is where some of the “only getting to hear backstory” stuff really began to drag on me

4) Eleanor: a good foil for Velvet and solid member of the party, adds good world-building, however I was less invested in her development bc a lot of it was centered around Kamoana who just irked me, after getting such a good kid character with Phi, she was just so baby-ish and ended up dragging Eleanor down

5) Eizen: Nothing wrong with his character, but i feel like he definitely would have meant more to me if i was more familiar with Zesteria, contributed to the themes and had a nice relationship with Phi, but I again a lot of his more personal character moments just weren’t delivered

6) Rokurou: As a character I like him, especially in Act 1 his relaxed personality is good for the party’s chemistry, I just could not get into his arc at all, there’s just a lot of generic ‘I need to get stronger vibes’ and what pathos surrounding it isn’t really utilized the most effectively, like in a game all about family and people going to insane means for them, the fact he just really wants to kill his brother should be a big deal, but while you can read between the lines about likely having a pretty shitty childhood but again I wish we had seen more of that on-screen stuff, for a guy defined by his anger, we don’t actually get a lot of it explicitly which makes it hard to connect,

Also with the ending, I knew Velvet had a tragic fate and I feel like her sacrificing herself was fitting, I guess just the way the last cut-scene was shot gave everything a happy and triumph tone which didn’t really fit, Velvet’s fate seems pretty shitty and so at least getting to mourn that/a more tragic but necessary tone would have made it slide down easier

Overall I may seem so critical was bc I really wanted to love this game, and while it didn’t deliver everything I want and fall into that adoration camp, the fact it left with so much to talk about is definitely worth something

[ofravensandgenesis]

The Investment of an Antagonist - Part Three

Entry 04 continued. [Trigger warning content: post contains discussion of Far Cry 5 details for the main villains including violence, brainwashing, torture, child abuse, neglect, emotional manipulation, dark backstories, drug use, cult content, etc. Spoilers for Far Cry 5 inherent. Part 03 of 03.] [Link to part one here.] [Link to part two here.]

— Faith —

Lastly we have Faith, née Rachel Jessop, the youngest of the Seed family. The easiest themes to assign to her are unsurprisingly drug-use and escapism. She is an intriguing and complex character with some very beautifully done layers, in particular playing with gender expectations of behavior both in-world and on the meta in what may have been either intended brilliance of foresight or fridge brilliance by the dev team.

Thematically speaking though, as with the other Seeds, she is projecting her past experiences onto others and turning into the abuser in the recreation of her trauma. In this case, it could be taking up the role of a manipulator using soft-coded presentation and masking shaming techniques with positive wording and oblique expectation-pressures to get people to go along with what she’s saying...as well as making them more pliable via the Bliss. It could be that part of her escapism theme manifests as disassociation, separating one’s self and in this case Rachel from Faith, her followers from their worries and problems, and at the most extreme end the Angels from essentially their entire personality and past. In contrast to John, Faith seems to be much more so about forgetting/burying/separating one self from one’s past problems, sins, unhappiness, etc rather than facing it head on. In a way, it could potentially be interpreted as a denial of those aspects of a person, and herself, through the Bliss. This could be a better parallel to how Jacob also breaks the unwilling down in his Trials, albeit for more specifically war-like purposes than Faith. We don’t get to hear if John has opinions on how the “new recruits” up in Jacob’s neck of the woods are treated well or not, but he doesn’t include Jacob in his jab. The absence could be used to infer that John has either separate issues, less issues, or no issues with how Jacob runs things, but that’s the problem with this kind of absence: it lacks definite, concrete matter to build with. We hear only a very vague telling of the details of Faith’s life from Faith directly, which in this instance is going to be presumed to be true, albeit perhaps glossing over the details and told from a carefully crafted perspective for a desired end result. Others also have their own opinions to fill in on the details of Faith as she is and was, and her life before, including but potentially not limited to Tracey and Sheriff Whitehorse, as far as I’m aware at this time. What’s really interesting is the almost split presentation we get at times with Faith: in some moments she is the epitome of her title the siren, bright, friendly, seemingly warm and enticing. Other times she has some lines that cast very long, dark shadows. Three of the phone calls one can find in the Henbane are particularly dark, if one assumes the call with the sounds of a crying woman on the other end to be Faith. Even disregarding that third one, the other two show more of Faith’s darker aspects, as noted below: “Rachel’s so sad and alone. Once was lost, never found. She lead a faithless life and it brought her low. Faith rose up in her, but Rachel stayed low, down. Faith flies divine, and Rachel...Rachel gropes around in the darkness. I left her there, a long time ago.”

The second phone call text:

“A baby is a sack of screaming, shitting, crying impulses with no personality, no thoughts, no understanding of the world beyond feelings. It has no soul. You have to give it one. The only soul we ever have, we receive from others. And it is only others, who can take it away.” One possible interpretation from these two comments from Faith would be that she was very strongly shaped by her family and friends before she ran away with Tracey to join a commune out west. Not into total obedience without personality, but perhaps instead placation and appeasement behaviors, attempting to make the other people in her life “happy” as a form of self-protection coping mechanism to deal with living in an abusive home environment, and later on refined into intentional choices as these lines from her might strongly suggest: "All my life I dealt with people like you. People who underestimate sweet, innocent Faith. You see what you wanna see... a playful butterfly, a delicate flower... a child with childish thoughts. It's easier to disregard a child. Tracey made the same mistake as you. While you all ignored me, I walked right through every one of you." From Faith’s wiki page, it also states that Sheriff Whitehorse talked about “Tracey and Rachel, who were friends, 'joined a free spirit movement in the west, smoking doobies, banging on drums’. But Rachel and Tracey fell on harder drugs and fell out of favor with their community. Tracey searched for a new home and found the Project at Eden's Gate, and Faith decided to return with her to Hope County to join the cult.” From there, with Rachel going through the painful and dangerous process of withdrawal symptoms while attempting to end her addiction, it might be that she also felt that her new self, Faith, or Faith-to-be, was shaped by Joseph and the Project. That this new self was a new soul, and that her old soul, her old identity, Rachel, had been cast away. Perhaps that was another motivation for her to possibly split with Tracey, staying with the cult over staying with her best friend whom she had left her home behind with once before—the friend she’d run away with into the unknown at what was likely a rather young age. Perhaps staying with Tracey, Faith felt too much of Rachel remained. Rachel, the addict. Rachel, the powerless. Rachel, the abused. Perhaps those reminders were too painful for Faith, and she wanted to separate from them as much as possible. If she wanted Tracey to stay though...perhaps she had also hoped Tracey would have a fresh start. That Tracey would be “happier” at the Project. That the two of them would be born anew and cleansed of their sins, as the Project promises. All of the Seeds are in this interpretation trying to cope with their traumas. Faith in this aspect is perhaps the one closest chronologically in time to her trauma, being the youngest, and thus perhaps still emotionally rawer at times underneath it all. Rawer in a more youthful sense, not related to the innocence she tries to project as a front, so much as how she cries out in panic and fear during her boss fight’s finale, when the Deputy strikes the final blow, and how her tone changes when she’s threatened during the fight, talking about how Joseph threatened her and plied her with drugs. In this regard, it is very easy to read Faith as still placating, still coping, still appeasing the powers that be in her life, in this case the Project, Joseph, and the other Seeds to a degree. With being Faith, and not even the first and only Faith but at the very least the third in a series of adopted “sisters,” the danger of being killed, cast aside, or deemed unsatisfactory for whatever reason is very real, and could echo possible fears she’d harbored of her parents, other friends, and community members in her past. How much danger she was in from her parents is unstated as far as I’m aware, but that she was abused and likely was afraid is enough. Fear itself is real enough and a weighty factor in any situation where it exists, as it was meant to be by biological design. So in recreation of that potential trauma-build, Faith placates all of her followers with the Bliss and gentle words, making some members of the Resistance note in commentary that they feel special, loved, cared for. Drawn in to become a part of Faith’s idealized dream of everyone being predictably calm, and open to suggestion. While it is still technically appeasing behavior, with Faith being in control of the Bliss’s drug production and seemingly also the hallucinatory effect it has on people, she is also master of the realm and thus the one with the keys to the kingdom, and I daresay enjoys her power with how she mocks the Deputy upon their return to the Jail after the cutscene of her reasserting control over Burke and the ensuing happenings. Her methods on the surface are soft and appealing seemingly, but she is ultimately now able to control those in her region and under her power with a far more beautifully beguiling and insidious form of puppeteering. She makes a splendid contrast in that regard with how Jacob brainwashes people, with making Angels versus the brainwashed fighters of Jacob’s. Another piece of interesting dialogue regarding the Angels as mentioned by Faith in I believe the Whistling Beaver Brewery is as follows: "Have you seen their faces? On the Pilgrimage? Oh, you should see it. To see the sin fly from their heads and their faces slacken to peace. The vanity shaved from their heads, evil taken from their lips. Never to speak a sinful word, any word, again. It gives me life. Every time a bell rings..." Combining that with the above comment about how Faith believes people don’t have souls until given them and shaped by the others around them, Faith certainly seems to have grabbed the reins on shaping who people are, with the intent to “smooth out” any disagreeable parts. To the point of perhaps erasing a person’s individuality entirely, thus producing an Angel. She like her brothers is also driven by purpose, as she mentions in her first cutscene of being given purpose, and from the random encounter line below: “I’m going to tell you a secret... Eden’s Gate is not here to fix your life. That’s your own selfish dream... No! Eden’s Gate exists to save something greater than you and me. It is here for the Father to bring salvation to the world’s very existence, and you’re trying to destroy that. I put so much hope in you. I thought you’d be special. Was I wrong?” That first bit about not fixing one’s life feels like a potentially open admittance that the Project is not trying to fix people at least in her region, so much as to re-purpose them to the Project’s own ends, and Faith fulfills that with a gentle kind of at-times-gaslit brutality that she selectively applies more forcefully when someone isn’t playing according to Faith’s own preferences. While the doubting may also be real in her case in the later lines, it also serves as shame-based social pressure to not disappoint her, directed at the Deputy as an attempt to erode any resistance they have to conforming to doing the “right” or “sympathetic” thing—as defined by Faith anyway. Its a good bit of manipulation, leaving it blurry whether its outright just intended to influence the Deputy or if she indeed has any doubts. I lean towards the latter for added nuance of emotion, though I do think she’s more than capable and willing of violence and brutality when desired. One minor example among others that comes to mind would be the signs of violence and likely death in the Chan residence, with the implication that Faith sent some of her people to deal with Jasmine and likely kill her, per the blood on the floor and the unsent note contents: “To whom it may concern, Thank you for addressing my complaints about all that noise coming from that Eden’s Gate construction site. One of your representatives (I think her name was Faith, not sure) passed by and said she’d have a word with the people building the statue. She even said she’d make them come by to apologize in person. Although we may disagree on some philosophical matters, it’s nice to see some neighborly etiquette. I look forward to resolving this amicably. -Jasmine Chan” Aside from that, there are also other mentions such as Ethan Minkler overdosing on the Bliss (while that may be a possible accident, the point likely remains that he either died or became an Angel, much to the mayor Virgil Minkler’s grief,) comments by Resistance NPCs about how forced-pilgrims on the Path are sometimes made to crawl on their hands and knees until they bleed, the ones made to jump from the Statue of Joseph and land among the littered bodies of those who did not survive, etc. Ultimately what all of that might be mirroring is her own treatment at the hands of her family and other people in her past, as well as perhaps what Joseph, the Seeds, and the Project asked of her: not to be fixed, but re-purposed. It was never about her, but what she could do for someone, be it her family, friends, or the Project. In that, the Angels are an elegantly simple solution: they are obedient to the wishes of the Project, and are loyal to a fault without any chance of wanting anything to the contrary than what is asked of them, provided they are provided with a steady supply of Bliss (presuming they require it as a continued addiction, though that is purely speculation.) The Angel’s Grave in the Horned Serpent Cave seems to be a lake of boiling muck that is implied to be a mass grave for Angels, per the Grieving Note found therein: “Lana. Christ in heaven what they did to you. The fact that they could make you believe all that nonsense, make you forget yourself so hard. Forget your own name? How, Lana? What did he say to you? What kind of fucking dirtbag blood ritual could make you think your name was “Faith”? Doesn’t matter how, I guess. He told you you were special, but in the end he threw your body in here to disintegrate in the boiling muck, like a common Angel.” This certainly shows the Project has little to no respect for the dead, or at the very least those turned into mindlessly loyal Angel minions. It echoes back to the lack of individuality Faith may struggle with internally as a theme—it may also be that her parents abused her through the unrealistic-expectations archetype of wanting and pressuring her to be what they wanted, without any regard of who she was as an individual or what she wanted out of her life. Perhaps during her life she was treated as nothing more than a commodity, trying to forever appease and live up to her parents’ expectations. I sadly have very little on the Jessop family as a whole, so this is all once again pure fabricated speculation. This lack of personal worth through individuality does thread through the recurring instance of there being multiple Faiths before Rachel, and it is shown in the notes to the two known previous Faiths, Lana and Selena (both referenced from Faith’s article the wiki.) “You’re not the first one, Selena. You’re not the first woman he’s used up and thrown away. For years I’d been hearing this Faith Seed was tall as her brother, with black hair. Couldn’t miss her. And then I saw you in one of their trucks last week, yellow hair in the breeze, and heard them calling you Faith. He thinks he can just SWAP YOU OUT. Like you don’t got a brain of your own. God knows who you are, and so do you. Selena. I love you. Don’t lose yourself to this.” Both of the above notes have mentions to identity issues with taking on the new name of Faith, of losing oneself or forgetting oneself. With the note to Lana and the last note from one of the Faiths there is also the double mention of “being special.” “I just wanted to be special. When Joseph came into my life, I felt like you’d given me a true gift, Lord. That a man who talks to you would bring me in on your holy conversation..? And so I too the name that you gave me, Lord, through Joseph: “Faith.” And I am a woman made anew. But now, I’m ashamed to say, even though I carry this name, my devotion to the Project is..plagued. By Doubt. What do I do? I know you will forgive me, dear Lord. I don’t know if Joseph will.“ The above note titled “A Confession” on Faith’s wiki page is possibly from Rachel, though the wording has me contemplating that it’s likely from someone a bit older, and the style I’m uncertain if I’d attribute to Rachel though I acknowledge that writing and speaking can present very differently. I would expect her to write with a more direct style of wording since presumably she had internet access and was familiar with texting, speculating off of Tracey’s note in the convent that mentioned Tracey being “tired of this 19th-century-ass writing shit.” The pauses via commas and more formal-yet-casual feel of the written cadence, along with more talk of God feels like someone else’s voice rather than Rachel’s, but I could be wrong. But that’s also fitting with the theme of uncertainty of who’s who beneath the name of Faith. Therein lies the loss of individuality and lack of clear denoting of which Faith this was, or is.

—  Conclusion —

What I find absolutely fascinating about all of these villains is how they tell the story of the trauma and past experiences through their actions, dialogue, beliefs, and all while moving the main story forward. We do have some direct story telling in the sense of them telling us about those key moments that lead to their revelation and some backstory details, but the fact that even afterwards in a lot of what they do if not all of what they do we can potentially draw more inferences of how they came to be who they are? That is some very beautiful story and character construction in my opinion. In how the past influences their present and relatively speaking future events, so too does their present and future come circling back to tie to their past. This possible feedback loop of influence is just so neat in my opinion and is particularly pronounced here with the Seed family and how they are presented in-game. I feel it works exceptionally well for antagonists but could in theory also work for any main character. The sheer weight of how their past influences them so profoundly is really interesting, and while we all are shaped by our past, it’s particularly highlighted here with the Seeds. Often the trope of a character having a dark backstory is presented as the reason they’re doing X, or are prone to behaving in a certain way (one such popular demeanor being say brooding,) and is particularly common for villains. What I think makes the Seeds for me more interesting in that regard is how individualized their processing of their traumas is. It’s not just out to do evil because they are simply evil and have a backstory to facilitate handwaving as to why they are evil, they’re going about it in a particular way, and have all developed a nuanced system of belief relating to that and likely significantly influenced by those around them as well, with the Seeds all I would say influence each other to varying degrees. Them being a group of villains is part of that complexity with the layers of them having a family dynamic, the cult hierarchy, significantly different styles of managing their affairs while still sharing some core elements, and being such diverse personalities. The Seeds in their entirety as a group are what make or break the story in my opinion, since to have really good conflict I would say you need excellent villains or antagonists, and the Seed family fits that bill in my personal opinion very well. It feels like there was a lot of time and care put into each of the Seeds in different ways and in crafting their stories as well as fitting those stories to the main story of Far Cry 5. The speculation I personally take away from this in terms of developing interesting characters is that sometimes having a very detailed background and having it influence a character heavily and actively both in-scene and on the meta of writing the scene can be really interesting. Obviously sometimes not knowing a character’s past and leaving it a mystery works very well too. But if there’s been care put into how the character is developed and there are in-world, albeit unknown backstory reasons for their actions, words, and beliefs? Then even if we the audience don’t know the reasons, that can make for a very compelling character for audience members to speculate and fill in the blanks about. Obviously there are other builds and exceptions and such for making compelling characters and in particular villains and antagonists, but I do think this style of character construction in relation to the overarching plot is honestly quite gorgeous as a story infrastructure element in its own right and worth taking a look at should it appeal to one to examine it. It’s a really lovely echo of how much investment the dev team’s put into the characters themselves that those characters in-world also care and are heavily invested in what they’re doing and saying too, as an added accent to it all. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, hope you all have a good day/night! [Link to part one here.] [Link to part two here.]