#'Trauma metaphor'

[youareinacomawakeup]

I play this old game, this old MMO, called Nexus. It was the first MMO I ever played, as well as the first one to ever exist, as far as I’m aware. (Those who read my fics might be interested in knowing that my love for this game was what inspired The Shattering of Altea. There are little nods to it here and there in that story, like the walls around Arus with its four gates resembling the walls around Buya and Kugnae.)

At some point, during the late ‘00s or the early ‘10s, Those On High decided to segregate registered players from unregistered players and made a new area in the game called Tangun. This was obviously a bad move and the rate of new players joining the game took a nosedive because...what’s the point of a free trial that’s basically an entirely different game?

That move has been backpedaled since, but now there’s this funny little...issue, with it.

See, there’s this bridge between the area where the game started you and the main village area of Tangun that used to be guarded by a short quest. A big man guarding the bridge would tell you that he would only allow you passage if you brought him the scalp of a bandit called Le Chipe.

Well, thing is, the village, with the inn where you’re transported to automatically if you come to Tangun from another part of the game, is on the other side of that bridge. And since that area, north of the bridge, would be where you entered the area from the first time now that the segregation is no longer there, as opposed to the kitchen in the southwestern most part of the map...that means that the cave where Le Chipe spawns is on the opposite side of the bridge, and passing the bridge guard would be impossible. It would be a key inside a locked box.

So they removed that quest, and the guard on the bridge.

But you can still go into the Bandit Cave, kill Le Chipe, and pick up his scalp. It’s just not used for anything anymore. A worthless solution to a problem already solved, like a boat left on the shore of a lake that’s long since dried up.

...Anyway, I still freeze every time I hear footsteps on the other side of a door, even though I no longer live with my abusive mother and the sound of footsteps on the other side of a door is no longer a sign of danger.

[butchostile]

[y-rhywbeth2]

Apparently, Shar literally eats grief and misery - she needs it to exist, "for human suffering is her sustenance." When she consumes your negative emotions it gives you a temporary high. This also applies to the suffering caused by some mental illnesses.

And that's how her religion works! She makes you fucking miserable and then feeds of your suffering, in a cycle.

[mickeym4ndy]

I won't be alone for the rest of my life I'll build a boat for when the river gets high

[uncanny-tranny]

Going to be really honest, if you're disabled, you truly don't owe people - or the world - access to your diagnoses, symptoms, accessibility needs (and why you need them), mental health history, trauma, or anything like that.

The urge to force people to lay themselves out so they can be picked apart, consumed, and feasted upon by people who demand that their comfort outweigh that of a disabled person's is an ableist pipe dream. It is the urge to control that which you feel you have no control over, and it's your right to refuse to play that game, that role.

[falmerbrook]

Vivec and Vivegg

(close up under the cut)

[ineffable-suffering]

Trauma-Dumping on your plants: The Anthony J. Crowley Chronicles

This has been living in my silly head rent free for so long, I finally decided to slap it on here in hopes of thinking about it a little less (than three times a day. It's been years. I need to get over it.)

Also, I'm absolutely certain I'm not even remotely the first person to realize or post about this, since it's not the hardest of parallels to figure out. Alas, I still shall, because out of mind, out of sight and all that. So:

Let's talk about how Crowley is using his houseplants to work through his own Trauma of the Fall. Or, well, maybe not work through it per se, but more so roleplay it to give it somewhat of an an outlet because he never got over it. Lol.

It's not rocket science to figure it out and God Herself actually gives us a pretty spot-on explanation of it in her own narration.

Crowley's plants are perfect. They're, as God Herself tells us, the most luxurious and beautiful in all of London. He takes great care of them, waters them, mists them. Does any and everything to give them the perfect conditions so they won't have a worry in the world.

And yet, we're immediately shown that despite the seemingly perfect conditions they're living in, Crowley's plants still get *gasps quietly* spots. And we all know how Crowley feels about that:

It seems like such an unnecessary tiny thing to get upset about, right? Like, plants get spots all the time. They're not perfect, they're part of nature and nothing is ever perfect in nature. Crowley would know that by now. Imperfection is the whole point of nature. If everything had stayed exactly the way it always was, nothing would have ever changed or evolved.

Besides, Crowley is a demon. If it were merely about aesthetics to him, he could easily miracle away any spot with a blink of his serpent eyes. But he gets so angry about it, it's almost comical. At first we think it's just to show us, the audience, that, in contrast to Aziraphale, who cares very dearly and lovingly for his books, Crowley is a mean, mean demon who, instead of being outwardly nice to the things he loves (like Aziraphale does), yells at his plants because he's a mean meanie.

But! If you look at the whole scene and what God says, it's pretty obvious what he's actually doing is something else entirely: "What Crowley does is he puts the fear of God in them. Or, the fear of Crowley. The plants are the most luxurious and beautiful in London. Also the most scared."

Folks, this man dude serpent is literally roleplaying the concept of God/Heaven threatening angels with their Fall in order to keep them obedient ... with his houseplants.

Have I mentioned yet that I am absolutely obsessed with him and also desperately wanna get him a therapy voucher?

Because what does he do once he sees a plant disobeying his rules of perfection and acting out? The same thing God did to her questioning, equally disobedient angels (including Crowley): Parade it in front of the very scared rest, making an example of it ...

... only to then, well ...

... quite literally chuck it out.

To anyone else, this seems like a completely ridiculous thing to do over a tiny, minuscule spot. There would have been a bunch of other ways to go about fixing that spot.

Figuring out what it was the plant needed that might not have been given to it yet.

Taking care of it in a different, individual way so it would have been able to thrive again.

Listening to the plant and letting it tell you why its spot appeared in the first place.

Telling the plant, that loves and relies on you entirely, you love it too, despite it not being without fault, despite of it not fully living up to your unreachable standards of perfection.

Caring for the plant not because you want it to be perfect, but because you're okay with it being imperfect.

(We're no longer talking about plants here, as you are probably aware.)

Alas, this isn't what Crowley does. Because it wasn't what God did, either. We still know very little about Crowley's actual Fall and the Fall of Lucifer and the rest. But we do know that Crowley was never like or even with them.

All he did was ask some questions. A tiny spot. A seemingly insignificant blemish in the luxurious, beautiful flora of Heaven.

And yet, before he knew it, he did a "million lightyear freestyle dive into a boiling pool of sulfur". Cast out, chucked away, just like his little spotty plant. And for what? Well ...

... to keep the others angels plants check, for the rest of time.

***

(Addendum from the comments: If we go by what the book tells us, Crowley doesn’t actually end up violently throwing out the ‚bad‘ plants. He just finds a different place for them and makes sure they‘re looked after. So much to him being a big, bad, meanie-mean demon.)

[lumberjerk]

its bugs me so much when horror media/content starts out with a really great concept and then runs it into the ground by inflating the lore and over explaining everything

[princessamericachavez]

like yes yes eddie needs to choose and buck needs to be chosen but also 

Eddie needs to get over the very big trauma of losing his wife. Last time he dated someone he had literal panic attacks at the thought of her being mistaken for Chris’s mother and as much as we saw him work through in therapy we never?? really?? talked?? about?? that?? So, yeah, Eddie needs to realize that he’s at a point where he’s ready to risk his heart and give love a second chance 

(and maybe realize he already did becase there already is a partner in his life who gets consistently confused for Chris’s guardian and it feels natural to him?? but he still needs to realize he’s ready for love)

And Buck needs to be ready to be in a relationship where he’s loved for who he is, where he doesn’t bend and twist to fit someone else’s expectations. And for that Buck needed to die, and needed to come back, and now he needs to process that trauma and steady himself. 

(and Buck loves so quickly, so openly, so loudly, and he gives so much of himself and he wants to be loved that way, and maybe he’ll realize that he already?? is?? loved?? but he needs to let himself accept it)

so basically, it’s not only a matter of choice... eddie needs to be ready to love and buck needs to accept that he is loved if they are ever going to find each other properly together

and that, my funny little friends, is the point of their arcs were we are at right now

[buff-muffin]

ASL thoughts and head canons.

1. Sabo’s missing tooth he had as a kid didn’t actually fall out. He chipped it back when he was still living with his family. And his parents thinking that made him look disgusting and rowdy had the rest of the tooth removed before his adult tooth was even remotely ready to move in. Thus there was a gap in his teeth for ages. It started growing in when Sabo set sail.

2. Luffy loved using Ace’s freckles as a dot to dot. Both brothers heavily think he doesn’t have a fucking clue what animals he’s trying to conjure and Ace is getting sick of having to fight him tooth and nail every time Luffy finds a marker

3. In his early days of friendship with Ace. Sabo refused to believe that he could eat an entire bear by himself. He thought Ace was exaggerating like when someone says “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse” yet when he saw it with his own eyes he was horrified. Ace was also confused why Sabo didn’t want a bear to himself. But didn’t complain. Hunting one bear for the both of them and fighting over it was pretty fun. And scavenging berries for a desert never bothered them.

4. Sabo grew his hair out while he was a run away. He hated how it looked buzzed. And while he probably didn’t let it get any longer then his brother’s he loved the freedom. His mother cut his hair the second he was taken back home

5. Ace and Sabo hadn’t thought twice about bugs. Ace saw them as pests like the moths that would huddle around the candle light and Sabo was taught that they were gross. Luffy on the other hand adored them. He showed them bug fighting and showed them all sorts of cool and pretty bugs. He would also put beetles in his brothers’ shoes for fun but in the end they had come out of it for a new respect for bugs and a little bit more love-hate for Luffy.

6. Sabo tried to tell his adopted brother about his real brothers but he refused to believe Sabo was telling the truth. I mean beating up a giant tiger in the woods? Being made of rubber? Being able to eat 5 times their body weight in a matter of minutes? He thought Sabo was loony.

7. When taken back to his parents, Sabo refused to eat with his brother. Sharing a meal with someone made you friends and sharing a cup of sake made you brothers. And he wanted nothing to do with him.

8. Sabo was Dadans favourite. At first. Originally Sabo was… as well behaved as he was going to be around his brothers because that need to respect authority was so engrained in him. Though as he grew more comfortable with Dadan and trusting she really wasn’t going to kick him out other dumb things. He started joining in on the bullying Dadan band wagon. And she hated them all equally again.

9. Luffy and Ace find it absolutely hilarious how bad Sabo would get sun burnt in the summer. They would chase him around trying to slap him for hours. Dadan taught him how to make a remedy and over the years he gained a tan and freckles that he knew would have his bio dad blow a fuse.

10. Luffy always wants to be in fights of strength with his brothers to prove he’s strong. You know, arm wrestling. That weird thing were you put your feet together and push with all you’re might. And of course rough housing. But in the super early years of being a rubber man that was impossible cause his body would just. Bend. Arm wrestling? Womp womp no elbow for you. Foot wrestle? His legs fold like a piece of paper. He was humiliated and his face was bright red every time Ace and Sabo would laugh.

11. One of the best training methods the brothers had found for Luffy was actually made as a joke. Still completely pathetic at landing a damn punch Sabo jokingly said he should train by trying to catch bugs by stretching your arms. And after a lot of frustrated afternoons his aim did improve an alarming amount. Luffy to this day continues to train that way and he always thinks of Sabo when he does.

12. They never finished that bottle of sake they stole from Dadan. At the time they all thought the drink was absolutely putrid though drank their cups if it meant they were brothers. The bottle is still in the treehouse. Even after everything. It’s completely oxidised but the smell keeps animal from making their treehouse a nest so Ace and Luffy never minded all that much.

[gideonisms]

What always gets me is that anyone handwringing about tlt usually misses the most fucked up parts and fixates on the stuff that is kind of a side note. like try harder there is way more than that

[ariesbilly]

nothing but respect for MY fruity four

[sammygender]

spn 7x15 was truly crazy. having the resurgence of the narrative showing us sam’s hallucinations of lucifer in the same episode where we see ex-vessel of a demon, his entire life wrecked by the possession, completely obsessed & in stockholm syndrome-y love w the demon that possessed him. i want to analyse this episode scene by scene. who wrote this one. what did they mean by it

[aroanthy]

i love how fraught and complicated discourse around various utena characters ‘dying’ is when anthy is literally stabbed to death eternally by a million swords imbued with human hatred. and then utena gets stabbed to death by them also. like. ‘death’ is incredibly interesting in rgu because most of the time it’s this ambiguous figurative thing that has interesting implications re: ohtori as a closed-off world one can escape. we are all trapped in our coffins. mamiya is the only named character with a grave. nemuro memorial hall functions as one all the same. ruka is implied to have died in the hospital— was he dead all along? who was the boy we saw for these two episodes? is this dead boy the same boy, or is this just another coincidence from the shadow girls, cutting like a knife? it’s heavily implied that akio and anthy murder kanae by poisoning her, adding to the previous implication that they were poisoning mr ohtori too, but there are no perceptible consequences of this. kanae’s absence is not felt. she’s fed an apple slice. what happens to the bodies? we know what happened to the 100 boys, but what about everyone else? and so on and so forth. ‘death’ is a tricky thing in utena, i think it’s constantly functioning on figurative and literal levels in very different ways for very different purposes. dios died. dios was dying. dios didn’t die. he grew up. etc etc

[jellysshitpoems]

my Body, my Blood - Poem by me (jellysshitpoems)

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

i just HAD to say "worm life series au" and now my brain is spinning

this is gonna distract me from current ongoing fics i just KNOW IT