#and i want to see her trauma!!

[grishaverse-chaos]

I might be in a very small minority here, but I actually really don't want Alina to have a corruption arc in any future seasons of s&b! (Mostly because I hate the trope of victims becoming just like their abusers, and it seems to me that that's where the show is going with her arc)

So here's what I want for her. (Under a cut because it got longer than I thought it would)

I want her to be angry and terrified about her new powers. I want her to be furious that the Darkling gave her his powers - one final act of violation that means she will never be able to forget him, no matter how hard she tries. I want her to be scared, constantly. I want to see her break down in tears after killing the Fjerdan assassin, because she didn't know she had his powers and is she turning into him? I want her to be scared of the adrenaline rush she gets whenever she uses her new powers. To refuse ever to use them again.

I want her to have PTSD. Nightmares. I want to see her wake up in the middle of the night, tears running down her face because she dreamed that the Darkling came back and forced her to train her shadow powers. I want her to reach for Mal only to remember that he's not there anymore - and maybe she wonders, is it her fault he's gone? Maybe he knew that she would turn evil. Maybe, just like the Darkling, she's going to push away everyone she loves.

I want Nikolai to transform into the demon, and Alina to see it and have a panic attack because what if that means the Darkling's back? I want her to talk to Zoya, and ask how she manages to stay so fucking calm all the time. I want Zoya to break down when there's nobody around but Alina, and tell her that even if she seems fine, she's terrified, looking around every corner to check for shadows. I want Zoya to confess that she fears becoming just like the Darkling, and Alina to reply "try having his powers"

I want them to bond over their fear, and each promise to pull the other out if they ever do start becoming like him. I want Alina to retreat further and further from the throne because she doesn't trust herself with power, and Zoya to step forward because even if she doesn't trust herself with power, she wants to test herself, to prove to herself that she is nothing like him.

I want Alina to be completely unstable, to panic every time she's in trouble and has to defend herself. I want her to stop using her Sun Summoning because she's afraid that even that might make her more like him, and I want her to get sick from it. I want her to be on the edge of collapsing at any given moment.

I want Nikolai to not notice a single thing about how Alina's breaking down, because he's busy and has a kingdom to run. I want Alina to scream at him and tell him that he's one of the only people in the whole country who actually gives a shit about her so can he act like it? I want him to look at her for the first time in months and realise that oh shit, his best friend is dying. I want him to write to Mal, begging him to come back, because as much as he wants to be able to save Alina himself, he can't.

I want Mal to come back and tell Alina everything she needs to hear. I want him to convince her that her light is beautiful, that it is nothing like the Darkling's shadows, that she is nothing like him. I want her to bury her face in his chest and break down in tears, because she almost forgot how good he is at saying the right thing when she needs him. I want him to offer to take her away from Court, and her to protest, saying that she can't leave.

I want Mal to stick around, and while he's still there, Alina to tell Zoya about his offer. I want Zoya to tell her to take it, to go while she still can, before the wedding. (And if Zoya's saying this partly because she and Nikolai have gotten closer while Alina's been having her mental breakdown, and she doesn't love the fact that he's engaged to somebody else... well, Alina kind of guessed that anyway. She's happy for them.)

I want her and Mal to run away. Maybe they fake her death, maybe she just leaves. Either way, they don't go back to Keramzin. (That would require them to confront exactly how messed up their childhood had been.) Instead, I want Zoya to suggest something that the Little Palace desperately needs - something she knows the pair of them would be good at.

I want them to start a new orphanage, on the outskirts of Os Alta, for Grisha orphans. The Little Palace simply isn't equipped to handle children who aren't being raised into soldiers, and most Grisha children stay at home now, unless they or their parents want them to learn control over their powers. Grisha orphans, on the other hand, have nowhere to go but the Little Palace - so Zoya and Genya work on creating a school, and the orphans Mal and Alina are raising go there to study every day, then come back home to the orphanage. I want Alina to start using her powers again. Slowly at first - creating little balls of light that she plays with when she's alone. Then I want her to remember how much she loves using her powers, how much joy and euphoria it brings her. I want her to become happy and confident in her powers again, and return to full health. (She won't ever be completely comfortable with the shadow powers she got from the Darkling, but one day she uses them with the kids - making shadow pictures on the wall one evening, and she realises that even with his powers, she can do good. She can make them her own.)

I want the news to spread about this. Do people know that it's the Sun Summoner running the orphanage? Maybe, maybe not. Whether or not they know, the orphanage gets more and more well-known. Otkazat'sya parents decide to send their children there so they can study at the Little Palace. After all, they've heard of the couple that owns it, and they seem trustworthy enough. I want Mal and Alina to recruit a team of Fabrikators to help them build an extension onto the building so there's enough room for all the new arrivals.

I want adult Grisha - rogue Grisha, many of them - to stop at the orphanage if they're in need. Whether they've been injured or fallen ill, they ran out of food, they just need a place to sleep for the night - they come to the orphanage. They know it's safe. Some of them have no home to go back to once they leave. I want Mal and Alina to offer them a permanent place to stay at the orphanage. Almost everybody accepts the offer. Many of them find they have something they can teach the kids - whether that's a special trick you can do with specific Grisha powers, or something else (a dish they love to cook, a sport they played as a child, their favourite place to shop in Os Alta) - the children learn eagerly from each new arrival.

And I want Alina to realise, after a few years, that the orphanage has become a sanctuary for Grisha of all ages. I want her to wonder briefly if that makes her like the Darkling. He'd wanted to create a sanctuary for Grisha. Then I want her to look around at the happy children, at the older Grisha entertaining the younger kids, and realise that she succeeded where he had failed. She and Mal have created a safe place where Grisha aren't being thrown into battle. Sure, some of the children from the orphanage grow up and join the integrated army (the First and Second Armies have been combined into one army. Ravka is stronger together, and that's reflected by the army defending it) - but nobody is ever forced into military service.

I want her to know that, without even meaning to, she has become not only the Darkling's equal, but she has become better than him. She has made the country safer for Grisha. Not him. Her and Mal. She and Mal changed the world. (Again.)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Council of lovefools.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[criticalsyourroles]

now i've watched a fair amount of d&d i've started to pick up on the differences between dm style i think

like brennan IS all the bad guys. every game he dms is brennan vs the players. he makes npcs and battles that make his friends throw things at him and he smirks the whole time. he makes them tell him their worst fears and then he makes them do it. and it's awful and amazing and really funny

matt IS exandria. his characters and battles never feel written or constructed, they just feel like things that already existed in the world. it's all about verisimilitude with him, and he's amazing at it. he tends to fade into the background and let the players react to the story and it makes everything he does incredibly cinematic

aabria dms like she's just another player at the table reacting to the story, right up until someone gets lulled into a false sense of security and tries to fool around and THEN she throws a curveball by making them deal with the consequences of their choices. she's like oh you think that's funny?? then i'm about to be hilarious, bitch. and she keeps getting away with it bc she's just that good!

basically, brennan's an evil bastard, matt's the world, and aabria's the queen of consequences

or:

brennan - fuck

matt - around

aabria - find out

[anna-scribbles]

emma dupain cheng on the brain😽🎀

more:

[clairenatural]

okay but you see sam has ALSO fallen for dean's act. sam also believes dean to be the macho, daddy's soldier, beer boobs cars guy he presents himself as. this is why sam makes fun of dean whenever he even lightly steps out of that mold and thinks it's harmless banter instead of attacking an insecurity. it's why he laughs when john talks down to dean in the early seasons and it's why he seems surprised when dean is more comfortable with himself in the later seasons. it's why he just scoffs but doesn't push it when dean puts up a front and refuses to talk about his emotions and just accepts whatever excuse he makes at face value. it's why he offers dean a strip club to make him feel better when cas dies. and this isn't his fault!! dean has spent a very long time perfecting this image in front of everyone and ESPECIALLY to sam because along with it comes safety and security and stability and the only person. who has consistently been able to see through it. is castiel

[untitledgoosegay]

re last reblog I do see fanfic culture pushing/replicating a certain model of "what trauma looks like," "how trauma works"

this is a problem across all areas of society obviously, but transformative works are, well, transformative. they're about crafting and modifying narratives where the fan-creator sees a flaw or a lack -- often for the better! don't get me wrong, I've done my fair share of "I take a hammer and I fix the canon," it's the main thing that gets my creative gears spinning -- but what happens when that "flaw" is simply a narrative not conforming to popular expectations?

some people just don't get PTSD from events that sound obviously traumatic. they're not masking, and they're not coping; they just straight-up didn't get the permanently-locked stress-response that defines PTSD. they walk away from a horrible experience going "well, that sucked, but it's over now." some people do get PTSD from events most people wouldn't find traumatic. we don't really know why some people get PTSD and others don't. but fandom has an idea of events that must be traumatizing, of a "correct" way to portray trauma. you see the problems with this lack of understanding in e.g. fans pressuring the devs of Baldur's Gate 3 to add dialogue where the player character badgers Halsin about his own feelings on his abuse -- because he must be traumatized, and his trauma must fit a certain mold and presentation of sexual trauma, under the mistaken impression that anything outside that narrow window is somehow "wrong" and disrespectful or even harmful to survivors.

take, for another example, the very common trope of a traumatized character who hates touch or sex "learning" to like touch or sex as a part of their healing process. certainly that can be healing for some people; other people will never like, or want, touch or sex, because of trauma or because they just don't. the assumption that someone who doesn't want sex or doesn't like to be touched must be traumatized, must be suffering from this perceived lack, is seriously harmful -- to asexual people, to people with sensory issues around touch, and to people for whom healing from trauma means freedom to refuse sex or touch.

and there's a secondary trope, one that's slightly more thoughtful but ultimately repeats the problem -- that once someone has learned that their boundaries will be respected, they'll feel it's safe to soften those boundaries. once they feel safe refusing touch or sex, they'll feel comfortable allowing it on their own terms. but many people don't, and many people won't! many people will simply never want to be touched, and never want sex, and they are not suffering or broken or lacking because of it. the idea that proving you'll respect someone's boundaries entitles you to test those boundaries -- the paradox is obvious, and yet this is something i've seen hurt (re-traumatize) people i care for.

people are imperfect victims. people don't heal in the ways you expect. many people have positive memories of their abuse, of their abusers. many people hurt others in the course of their trauma, in ways that can't easily be unpacked in a 5k oneshot. very few narratives of trauma and recovery actually fit the ones put forward by popular children's media and romance novels -- which are the ones I most see replicated in fandom spaces, because they provide the clearest narrative and easiest catharsis, and so they're easy and soothing to reach for.

that's not necessarily a bad thing! i am not immune to goopy romance tropes. i am not immune to teary catharsis. not every fic has to grapple with ugly realities. but there's a problem when these narratives become predominant, when people think they're accurate and realistic depictions of trauma, when the truth of trauma is unpleasant and uncomfortable, and doesn't fit any single narrative, let alone one of comforting catharsis

[dulcewrites]

I think the thing that shocks me the most about the discourse, if you can even call it that, around book Alicent vs show Alicent, is the idea that people think book Alicent had full autonomy over all her choices and she wasn’t a “victim” like show Alicent.

Now first, I put victim in quotations bc the way people who do not like her have almost bastardized that word. Alicent is a victim, and those things (rape, abuse, neglect) were done to her. That says everything about the men who did that do her and nothing about her. But people are hellbent on throwing Alicent, a woman in a violently patriarchal environment, being victimized back at people as if it is moral flaw of hers. Which is just terribly ironic bc the same folks who say Alicent “did it to herself” or “deserves what she is getting” also seem to think the crux of the story isn’t about generational trauma catching up with itself, how far people will go for power, or even how all girls and women are harmed - albeit to different degrees. But more the fact that Rhaenyra is the only woman to be harmed - and the only harm done is not getting the throne easily. Those same people wouldn’t be caught dead admitting that Rhaenyra is also a victim in the way they shit on Alicent for being. From the father who sets her up fail, to the baby daddy that’s been eyeing her since she was barely 18, to the uncle that grooms her. It takes away from the fantasy projected onto Rhaenyra if she too is surrounded by men that use her and she never escapes that.

Second, it’s funny how F&B gets heralded by some as this exploration of how history is skewed depending on who is telling it. But people can’t read between the lines (you honestly don’t even have to do that much work) with book Alicent. Showing 14 year old Alicent being preyed on, 16 year old Alicent being pregnant with her second child, and 18 year old Alicent being raped is somehow the show needlessly making Alicent a victim. But reading about a 13 year old bathing, dressing, and taking care of a king who mistakes her for the daughter he abused and neglected, and then that same girl, at 18, marrying another king that killed his previous child bride is just girl bossism on book Alicent’s part?

People hate conceptualizing the idea that (even book) Alicent is caught in patriarchal trappings bc to some that takes away from Rhaenyra’s plight…. Bc they can’t wrap their heads around several women *gasp* all going through hardships, and that ultimately people will respond to trauma differently depending on tools/knowledge they have at their disposal. Alicent neither being gleefully evil nor picking herself up by her bootstraps to somehow end years of patriarchal violence is not the neat box they want for her.

[jinxed-sinner]

Look I know Lucifer isn't the best dad ever but I feel like people who say he's a bad dad are purposely ignoring the context of the show. It is very much implied that he thought Charlie wanted nothing to do with him, and Charlie thought he wanted nothing to do with her. Lucifer’s still dealing with trauma from Heaven and his fall and probably will for the rest of time plus he's dealing with what would probably qualify as clinical depression, and simultaneously dealing with trauma, clinical depression, and autistic traits (which Lucifer absolutely has; I do not say, as an autistic person, that Lucifer is a massive autistic mood for no reason) is a fucking NIGHTMARE.

I'm not saying Lucifer shouldn't take responsibility. He should. But he's already doing better than my dad frankly. Lucifer hits me in the daddy issues, I wish my dad made an effort to be more active in my life. Lucifer is fucking trying, and that's better than a lot of people can say about their dads.

[heybiji]

"Do me a favor and put your arms around me."

[s0fter-sin]

ghost stares at the ceiling, chest heaving in a harsh pant; sweat ice on his clammy flesh and soaked into the sheet he restlessly kicks away.

ears still ringing, his fingertips blindly drift down to trail along his vivisection scar. he half-expects blood to smear in their wake. his own line of solomon, who ordered him split in twain; half of him given to a grieving mother and half left with the grieving to be.

just for both his broken halves to be rejected.

what did it make him that his mother grieved him more than she loved him? that she begged to be relieved of him more adamantly than she begged to receive him? why did his worth spill out with his drawn blood? why was his pain lesser than hers?

his hand flexes, digging into the raised scar like it’ll part beneath his fingertips to plunge into his mangled insides. no one knows the cruelty of reforming the halved; his name, his being, not nearly as important as his body when he was stripped from himself. no one knows the pain of healing and understanding losing pieces of yourself means losing your value along with them.

how many more pieces did he have to lose before he was halved once more? before his very presence incurred grief so strong it was better to be rid of him than cradle his bloodied remains?

did the infant fight himself? did he age always at odds with himself; his halves never truly whole? he hopes he wasn’t, that he was spared the loss of self; the fear that one may be welcomed over the other.

who will he lose when the inevitable comes? when he’s ripped apart again? simon? or ghost? is it better to be cursed with choice just like his mother or live with an aftermath chosen for him? does it matter if in the end, he convinces himself there was nothing of him left to lose?

his head lolls to the side and the wild buck of his chest slows. he watches johnny beside him, his face lax with the rare peace of sleep; his cheek squished against the pillow, his lips pursed as long breaths escape him.

johnny. soap. never torn asunder but two all the same.

he carefully reaches out and ghosts his fingers along the jagged scar on his chin. even in sleep, he presses into his bloodied touch. he’s never fled his half-flesh, never shies away from his gore as it spills unbidden from his cleaved torso. he holds on where his mother let him go; cups his stomach to hold his insides in place and never minds the blood that drips through his fingers.

simon will never let him become his own solomon and cannibalise himself. he will never let him question which half of him has more value; which pieces he can afford to lose before he’s cast aside.

ghost’s soap. simon’s johnny. his.

whole, in any incarnation.

[wis-art]

loving silly

[kindaasrikal]

In dragons rising, Lloyd has three ages.

1) his mental age, probably early 20s

2) his physical age, probably mid-late 20s

And 3) the age he looks, which Arin and Sora has informed him is late 30s-40s

Yes, he did sit in his room and have another existential crisis.

And yes, he did ask both Zane and Kai advice on skincare. Right after trying to find some weird dragoni bull to maybe look his age. Instead he accidentally grew markings similar to Garmadon’s and he’s gonna cry again.

[bansheenolan]

scott being attacked by peter in "wolf moon" vs tamora's description of the beast attack in "face to faceless"

[oddly-casual]

Trolls band together spoilers

I like this thing Viva has going on with her cape being her safety blanket. Especially since it’s literally a patch of fake grass which could also be used to camouflage herself.

Like we’re introduced to her with it on, but only when she finds Poppy and gets excited does she take it off, like rips it off.

And it stays off for the whole song. It’s only later when Poppy starts asking Viva about their separation does Viva visibly get uncomfortable and puts the cape back on as she leaves.

That cape stays on even when Poppy and them all leave. The last time we see it on is when Viva appears with Bridget to help in the fight. She admits she’s freaking out but she takes her cape off anyway and it never comes back.

It gets flung in the water, sis had no intention of getting it back. But I think that’s really cool because this was Viva putting herself on the line, taking a leap of faith for people she loves even when she’s lived in fear for so long.

[valewritessss]

When people say Annabeth was an unreliable narrator and her stepmom was actually nice to her…

[calware]

"i happened to not find this character very interesting or likeable" doesn't automatically mean they're an objectively bland and boring character it just means you have a personal opinion