#but like. if you have a difficult family relationship that involves a lot of trauma

[thatswhatsushesaid]

i think most of my wwx opinions are unpopular outside of my little patch in this fandom, but i genuinely do believe that post-canon wwx and jc are just better off being out of each other’s lives as much as possible, crossing paths only out of necessity for jin ling.

sometimes when the wounds cut deeply enough, even if none of those wounds were inflicted intentionally or maliciously, it doesn’t matter how much you loved your family member, how much you sacrificed for them, or how much they sacrificed for you. your presence in each other’s lives just aggravates those injuries and prevents them from healing, and maybe the kindest thing you can do for each other is to just leave each other alone.

[loveemagicpeace]

🎲Lilith in Signs 🎲

Lilith in Aries- your dark side is that you want to be independent and confident about yourself. Nothing and nobody can stand in your way. When you set your mind to something, you want to have it and you stand behind it. You don't give up until you reach your goal and you can also be very competitive. Sometimes, your need to prove yourself can spill over into hypercompetitiveness. You must learn to love your tender parts of yourself.

Lilith in Taurus- You deeply appreciate life's pleasures and enjoy luxuriating in them whenever possible. indicates that your sense of security is violated. You can feel that it is not safe to have fun, be yourself, or to be happy about the beauty of life. People with this placement can feel that if they share what they have, others will take everything from them. Intimacy is very important to you. They can be quite possessive of their partner.

Lilith in Gemini- your trauma involves many people, from your neighborhood, classmates, relatives. Maybe as a child you felt like they had control over you or they hurt you in a way that made you feel like you weren't smart enough. Communication could also be a problem for you. Lilith in Gemini is often involved in conflicts. People with this placement can unintentionally say things that others misinterpret, or they find offensive. You are always careful when u say something.

Lilith in Cancer- your traumas come from your family, people who are close to you. It also includes your home and your comfort. Feeling like you can't find your home. You can feel like you want to control relationships, especially if you create a really beautiful and vulnerable relationship with someone. At the same time, it is difficult for you to be vulnerable in front of others or to show this side because you have the feeling that someone will destroy it. It is hard for you to ask for help and accept it. In extreme cases, this placement can even indicate trauma. It can also play out as one of the family members having serious problems that poison the domestic atmosphere. Cancer is all about being safe, nurtured, taken care of. Lilith here can either manifest as rejecting the idea of nurturing, or alternatively, being obsessed with it and overcompensating it. Your relationship with your parents is usually troubled, especially with the mother.

Lilith in Leo- your traumas come from childhood. Maybe in your childhood you felt that you didn't get the joy you wanted as a child. It's hard for you to show pride, ego and passion for the things you love to do. It's as if the energy is constantly pulling you back to do something you really want and to find pleasure. Here may be the pleasure you want but just can't find. Lilith in Leo can suggest that the father was very domineering, dictatorial, even abusive. Love had to be earned, if there was any at all. Lilith in Leo people have a strange relationship with attention. They want it, but they are afraid of it too. Admiration is a wound-healing balm, or at least it soothes the pain. In chart can suggest imbalance between masculine and feminine energy.

Lilith in Virgo-your trauma can come from your daily life, routine, things related to order, work, health, animals, caring. You may have a problem with not knowing how to serve others or be there for them (take care of them literally). Maybe you want to express this side of yourself more, but you don't know how. You can have a lot of problems with animals (they can die a lot), and every time you get a new pet you are afraid of it dying. Also shows a strong desire for control, order, and perfection. Lilith here suggests that you are very sensitive. It is not easy to express yourself in a healthy way with this placement. Lilith doesn’t tolerate being controlled, forced to stick to routines, and it can rebel against planning and logic too. It is extremely critical and analyzes everyone it meets if they meet its standards. You don’t like to let others see your vulnerable side.

Lilith in Libra- a lot of trauma comes from relationships and romantic relationships. You are hungry for love, but you can’t get enough of it. There is a tendency to see your shadow side mirrored back by others. You pay a lot of attention to what others want from you, even define yourself as the function of your relationships. As an adult, you probably dislike conflicts. If there is a lot of drama in your relationship, you want to get out of it. Libra want to be close to someone, but they are afraid of it too. Unconsciously they often sabotage their relationships. There can be a tendency to project your own insecurities onto others.

Lilith in Scorpio- There was lot of dark things that you experienced as child. And there may be secrets that you have to keep and could also be that you're afraid of the dark thing somehow. Can create an overwhelming desire for control and power in your life. There is a lot of tension in your mind, but it is hidden from the external world. Lilith in Scorpio forces you to face your shadow. Secrets come to light sooner or later. You can’t hide from your problems for long. This placement can help you find your power, but the road is not easy. Being at the mercy of someone else is one of your worst nightmares. Lilith here can be obsessed with safety.

Lilith in Sagittarius- This gives you warm and bright energy that other people can't help but fall for. And while you love the attention you get from others, you're not as keen on settling down. There is a strong desire to carve out your own path. You tend to go to the extremes with this placement. However, integrating your Black Moon Lilith can help you understand yourself on a much deeper level and find your personal power. People with this placement have a strong desire to understand themselves on a very deep level, or alternatively if they try to avoid self-reflection, life forces them to be more introspective.

Lilith in Capricorn- you can have traumas involving your father or a person who may have had control over you (adult - older person). You may have trouble connecting with people who are older than you. You can have many fears. Becoming emotionally independent but at the same time being able to experience love and intimacy is a core theme here. Lilith here asks you to find balance between independence and acknowledging vulnerability. Learning to let go is another important lesson. Feeling safe in a relationship is not easy for you. However, Lilith here can also manifests as trusting the wrong person.

Lilith in Aquarius- you may often feel like you were a stranger in this world, detached from other people. However, understanding your Lilith can help you accept yourself and find your personal power. You want to maintain your independence at any price, what needless to say, makes relationships hard for you. This placement can even suggest being adopted or having unusual genetic heritage. As a child, perhaps you learned that trusting others can get you seriously hurt. Perhaps you experienced traumatic betrayal.

Lilith in Pisces- with this placement you are either overly realistic, or you for some reason don’t seem to able to pull your weight when it comes to dealing with reality. This Lilith sign tends to get lost in fantasy. They want to understand themselves and other people on a very deep level. As you grow older and integrate this placement properly, you can become very wise. This placement can also manifest as not being aware of your emotions, especially the negative ones. You are way more receptive to influences around you than most people. This placement can even indicate relationships with people who need help or who take advantage of you. You can have illusions about others and their intentions.

🎸For personal readings u can sign up here: https://snipfeed.co/bekylibra 🎸

-Rebekah💗

[theleotarot]

How Your Person Of Interest Sees/Thinks/Feels About You

Choose the image you are most drawn to or resonate most with… pile 1, pile 2, & pile 3 ✨

——————————————————————————

Pile 1

(Knight of Pentacles, Nine of Pentacles, Three of Wands, Knight of Swords, The Unknown Card, Three of Swords, Mentor, Plane, & Thriving)

Hi Pile 1! Welcome to your reading. ♡

Your person of interest sees you as someone who is very hardworking in all areas of your life. Perhaps, right now you are pursuing a degree or job, or maybe you are working towards a goal that requires lots of resilience and financial responsibility. Your person sees you very successful as well. I am also getting this energy that they may think you are above them in some way, whether it be financially, emotionally, or mentally. I really think they do look up to you in every way regardless if you feel like you are struggling yourself or you feel like you can do better. They see you as someone who is very helpful to other people and the community. Your job or every day work may involve with interacting and helping people out, and this is confirmation that this is your pile! They might find you very funny and young at heart as well. I'm getting that some of you may not think you're funny, but your person definitely thinks that you are. I'm getting that you may be the type of person to also laugh things off when you feel scared or hurt, it's kind of like a coping mechanism, only for some. Besides that though, I really do think your person sees you as someone who radiates bright energy and that's why people and even animals enjoy being around you. Not only they see you as bright energy, but they also see you as someone who attracts very much positive things into your life, again, abundance, school, work, you name it. What your person thinks about you is that you have a huge future ahead of you, and you have the ability to achieve your goals if you just go for it. I believe that they also think that you are very good with your words. Again, I keep getting this energy from your person of interest that they do not think they are as good as you. Honestly, I feel like they are intimidated by your potential and success. I believe that your person is going through something difficult or heartbreaking. It may be because of a separation, insecurities, or any kind of past trauma, but it is unknown. I think that this difficulty they are facing has an affect on how they feel about you. I do think that their feelings for you are developing though. I think that this person just cannot show your their full interest or attention because they need to focus on themselves more. Even though they are facing their own difficulties, I do believe you cross their mind, and their feelings for you have potential in growing into something bigger within time. Overall, I feel like your person sees you as a light in their life. They really look up to your for your positivity and ambitions. I think that once they get their life together and feel better about themselves, their feelings for you will escalate and they will start to show how they truly feel.

——————————————————————————

Pile 2

(Ten of Wands, Ten of Cups, The Fool, King of Wands, Eight of Swords, The Magician, Shape-Shifter, Flowers, & Transformation)

Hi Pile 2! Welcome to your reading. ♡

Okay pile 2, before I start your reading, I just want to say that this is the sweetest pile. 🥺 Okay let's carry on. Your person sees you as someone who carries or has carried a lot of baggage on themselves. Perhaps, you have struggled financially or educationally, or you have really struggled with your family or friend relationships. I also get this energy from you that part of your baggage has something to do with the fact that you always put others as a priority rather than yourself. You are always sacrificing yourself, even if it costs you your happiness. Even though you've been through so much emotional baggage, you continue to persevere through adversity, and your person of interest definitely sees this about you. They see how hard your life has been, yet you find the power to proceed with your life, and they find this absolutely inspiring about you. It's like, you have the choice to stay in despair and yearn for a better life, but you choose the opposite and make changes to your life to be happy instead. Your person sees that you have amazing grit and can also adapt to your environment, whether it be difficult or easy. They might also see you as someone who is very emotional and someone who wants to have their own family and children in the future. They can see you feminine as well. The way that your person sees you is very warm and precious. There are lots of pink and purple in your reading pile 2, so this means that your person sees you very delicate and they are really romantically connected with you too. I think they think you are confident in your actions as well, and whatever risks or actions you take, you are able to go through with it. I think your person thinks you're very playful as well. Even though sometimes you may feel stressed or upset about certain things in your life, your person knows that inside of you, at the very core of you, you are actually a very warm, delicate, loving, affectionate, and playful individual. I think that they believe that you deserve the best, pile 2, especially since you've gone through so much. They also think of you as a flower. Not only are they beautiful and delicate, but they're also a product of growth and transformation. Your person not only sees you for your beauty but for also all your hard work, tenacity, and sacrifice. Pile 2, I believe that your person has very romantic feelings for you, but they do not know how to come forward with it towards you. I believe that they want to turn your bond with them into something more, but they are intimidated at the same time. I think that maybe you have a chance to come forward instead, and this will save your person a headache lol because they feel for you so much. One more message I'm getting is that they see you as a butterfly. Again, you have transformed so much in your life. You may have felt stuck in the past and over worried, but you will grow into your wings and you'll be set free to fly. Your reading is beautiful pile 2. Your person deeply feels for you.

——————————————————————————

Pile 3

(King of Pentacles, The Hermit, The Star, Seven of Cups, The Tower, Four of Wands, Servant, Unity, & Protection)

Hi pile 3! Welcome to your reading. ♡

Your person of interest finds you very, very attractive, and maybe even very addicting pile 3! I say this because The Devil card popped out twice in the back of the deck. You're quite appealing to them I would say. 😏 Anyway, I think you give off independent vibes to your person. You're very successful, and you're independent. You're not a loner, you're in solitude. There's a big difference between those two. I think they see you as someone who does not take bs either (I'm getting that some of you here are more mature so I can insert bs here lolol). I think they see you as someone very helpful to others. Maybe you are a people pleaser, for some? I just got that. Your person also might see you as quite mysterious. You may be more of the quiet type, and they are intrigued by you. They just want to know more and more about you. I get the feeling that your person also thinks that you may have a lot of people lined up for you in regard to romantic partners. Your person may think that they don't even have a chance with you because you're so hot lol. They do think of you as a star though. You radiate light in their life, and I think that they may admire you from a distance, and they keep their feelings to themselves at times. I think that when you or if you have conversations with them, they will feel very emotionally connected with you. Your conversations with them are easy, and they feel like they can open up to you about pretty much anything comfortably. I think this is what separates you from others. You just get them in a way that no one else does, this pertains to your conversations with them, as well as your looks. 😉 One random thing, I think they might like your hands lol. Your person's feelings for you are strong pile 3, it's a given here. I think they did not expect to be this attracted to you though. Maybe some people here are in a work or classroom environment with your person, and your relationship with them could almost feel "taboo" but they can't help but be so drawn to you. Another situation I’m seeing here is a friend dynamic. Just take what resonates. I think that your person does really want something more with you though. I think if you two were together, they would really make it known to the world that you are theirs and they would celebrate your love lol. They also feel very protective over you. Even if you are already strong on your own and independent, your person still wants to be the one to protect you at all costs and even be your knight in shining armor. I believe that your bond with this person does have potential to lead to something more pile 3, even if you do not talk to them, the both of you still have potential together. Overall, they are so attracted to you pile 3. Do you ever have that person that you like so damn much that they are ruining your life???!! Yeah, that's you to them. Lol.

——————————————————————————

[lua-magic]

Intresting Astrology facts.

If your ancendent has Rahu, ketu, or even Saturn your present life will revolve around your past life, you will meet many past life relationships.

If your Jupiter is with Rahu, ketu or Saturn,or your ninth house has rahu, ketu or Saturn it also shows born to finish your pending karma of past life.

Mercury in water sign( 4,8and 12) natives are extremely creative.

Mercury in Earth sign (2,6 and 10) have logical approach.

Mercury in second house also shows that in your childhood, lot of preference to studies and reading were given.

Mercury in air sign, 3,7 and 11 are natives who could speak to anyone anytime.

Mercury in fire sign( 1,5,9) are self starters and can take lot of initiative.

Second house also shows your child hood upbringing and values that you were given in childhood.

Saturn in second house or in twelfth, and fifth house shows alot of importance were given to work.

Jupiter in second house is good, as it shows moral values were given to native.

If Jupiter is present in eighth, sixth and tenth house as well it shows good upbringing.

If Mars is present in second house, six house and seventh house it house, native in early childhood either seen lot of domestic fight, or was involved in some kind of sports or frequent fights.

Second house is also of wealth 🤑

If Rahu is present in second house, then native will receive sudden wealth and love to show-off to others.

Rahu in second house also shows lot of childhood traumas.

If ketu is in second house then native will receive wealth slowly but will not show to others.

Ketu in second house shows your detachment from family.

If your Jupiter has Mars or jupiter in ancendent then you will always feel divine presence in your life, especially no enemy can harm you.

If Jupiter is in sixth and tenth house, Jupiter blessings will come especially when someone try to defame you, or put wrong allegations in you or criticizes you.

Moon Venus in close conjunction or in trine, native has to face lot of blames in his life

If Rahu goes in twelfth house, then in this life you have pay lot for your karmic debt of your ancestors, but you will be liberated from your ancestral debts.

If your second lord is with melefics like Mars, Rahu and ketu, Saturn , sun or even Debilitated then it shows problematic and difficult childhood, only if Jupiter is not in second house or aspecting second house or second lord.

If you have Saturn retro or Jupiter retro it shows you are getting results of immediate past life karmas in this life or you are here to finish your immediate past life karmas.

Sun Rahu combination natives should avoid eating, "refined wheat flour" as wheat flour is sun but when you refine it, it becomes rahu, if you eat it, you will damage your sun.

Mars , Rahu and Saturn in second house native should avoid spicy food, (if possible avoid non veg) as you will damage your second house, second house is also your eating habits..

[adventuringblind]

Solace

Max Verstappen x Reader

Genre: angsty AF but happy end don't worry

Request: No, but they're open! I love seeing your ideas so please send them! I promise I don't bite... most the time ;)

Summary: you and Max get to grow together. Neither of your dads being the best parenting model. When Max sees what your dad has don’t to you, he knows something has to be done.

Warnings: Jos Verstappen, depictions of most forms of abuse, descriptions of injuries

Notes: written in second person. I’ve noticed a theme with my writing… we’re just going to ignore it and I will continue to heal my trauma this way :)

Masterlist

Everyone expected great things from you. Expectations you wanted so badly to meet. Yet you always felt like you were falling short.

Your father is a Redbull mechanic. A good one at that. He's incredibly smart and respected within the paddock. One of Max's top engineers.

Your mother had left during your childhood. This means you got to spend your time traveling everywhere with your father. Him even being your teacher until you started online school and graduated.

Christian offered you a job that involved being on the pitwall. One you took happily. It meant you didn't have to spend the race in the garage with your dad.

From the outside, you looked happy. But you weren't up to standard with what your father wanted. You weren't perfect.

Behind closed doors, things were much different. You were blamed for your mothers disappearance. Blamed for your fathers woes. Used as a physical and verbal punching bag to help him feel better.

All the while, you convinced yourself it was for his benefit. That you deserved this for not being what your father wanted. He provided for you all these years, why couldn't you do this for him.

When Max started at redbull, both of you were still young. Regardless, the friendship was meant to be. No matter how much wither of your fathers hated it.

It led to secret rendezvous and stolen moments of escape with each other. You understood him and he understood you.

Max failed to realize how you understood. His dad was open with his behaviors. Jos had yet to back down from a session of publicly shaming his child. Your dad didn't do anything close to that. So how on earth could you know exactly what he needed during those hard nights.

He'd asked Christian about it a few times. Why you were so shy and timid around adults. It was difficult to understand.

Christian had told him not to worry about it and to focus on his racing. He was watching out for you.

It was true. Christian had been your Guardian angel on multiple occasions. Even staying with his family over long breaks why home was too difficult. He made sure you were fed and had clothes that fit. Everything you lacked in your own house.

The one thing that stopped him from getting him away from you is that you never explicitly told him or showed any signs of it. He was working on assumptions and possible hints.

He'd tried to catch anything that would give him a leg up, but he'd yet to het anything.

Your relationship with Max grew over the years. The two of you melded. You knew how to tame the Mad Max that fought to escape, and he knew how to soothe your tears.

You found solice in each other. Stability in your friendship. A love you both were willing to fight for.

Which happened a lot.

Neither of you knew how to communicate properly. Resulting in hard arguments and yelling matches. One of you is always shutting down before any real reconciliation can happen.

Christian got to be a father to both of you in this way. Coaching you two on how to express your feelings healthily. He was routing for you two. Knowing both your fathers weren't the best, you and Max needed to learn and love with someone safe. He was glad to take you both under his wing.

Then you were able to flourish. You started smiling more. Your eyes lost the bags from underneath them.

Max started opening up more. Standing up to his father slowly became easier. His smile and silly attitude got to be more prominent.

You started showing affection to each other in public. Openly spending time with the other. Not caring what either of your fathers thought.

After all, you were both adults. Right?

You thought everything was going to be over when you moved in with Max. You were nervous about it, mainly because you were self-conscious about your body. Nevertheless, you knew it would be a good change.

~

It was a soft moment between you two. Your giggles as Max left chaft kisses all over your face made him smile.

He felt bad for looking. He knew you were struggling with insecurities, and he wanted to respect your privacy.

But as your shirt inches up your body, he catches sight of the dark marks along your hips and torso.

He immediately stopped everything. His breathe hitched in his throat.

You looked where his eyes had landed. The secret finally out. One part of you wanted to be relieved, but right now you were panicking. Your brain reeling with every possible outcome.

You did the first thing that came to mind. You apologized. You begged him not to tell anyone. Tried to convince him that it was your own fault. Your breath becoming more uneven with every word.

Max was taken off guard. He knew it had been bad, but he’d never seen it and you’d never shown him. His emotions were bubbling to the surface rapidly. But you didn’t need him to be angry with your father right now.

He removes his hands from your body to give you space. He didn’t want to scare you anymore then he already had. “Don’t apologize, none of that is your fault, okay.” It felt like he was trying to soothe a wild animal. “Can I hold you?”

You nodded your head yes. Eyes moving rapidly to every sound. Your senses hyper aware of everything happening.

He reached out for you slowly, making sure to stay within eye view. Something that helped him when he’d come to you. Slowly you made your way into his arms. Basking in the way he felt like safety.

“We don’t have to talk about it now, but when you’re ready I’m going to spend hours kissing all your bruises better.”

~

The next morning, Max took it slow. You both were needed at the track but he wasn’t in a rush. He wanted to give you time. You’d fallen asleep in his arms. Him soothing every tear that ran down your cheeks.

When you two arrived together, he made his way through the back entry with you in tow. Attempting to avoid cameras and your father. He needed to make sure you got somewhere safe first before he even attempted talking to his lead engineer.

He immediately went to Christian. His face when he saw you two approach made Max want to turn around.

“I can see on your face that you want to punch someone.” Christian sighs in exasperation.

Max looks between his team principal and you. Words now refusing to form in his mouth. How was he supposed to explain this? “Can Y/N stay with you while I run around doing things.”

Christian hesitates, confusion evident. “Only if you tell me what’s going on.” He could see you were in pain. You looked like you’d been crying.

Max leaned into whisper. Worried about cameras and the nearing possibility of your father spotting you two. “It’s worse then we thought.”

Christian rubbed his temples. Motioning for Max and you to follow him into his office. The door closing the a soft click behind them. Neither sat down, the anxiety too much for either of them.

Christian was trying to get a read off of you. You, however, had yet to even look at him. Your body language had reverted back to when you were small. When he let you pretend to work on the cars. It hurt him.

He was about to say something when a knock sounded at the door. A rough knock. A familiar knock. You flinched away from the door. Your survival instincts kicking in.

Christian motioned for you two to sit down. Max gently gripping your wrist to get you to follow him. You flicked unintentionally but he just looked at you knowingly. You needed to move and he was just trying to help.

You sit down across from Christian. Max’s leg was bouncing up and down so fast you thought he might put a hole in the floor.

“Come in.”

You don’t turn around when the door closes. You can hear his breathing. Aware of his every move without even seeing him. Fighting every urge to run away.

“Oh- I was looking for Y/N. We need to go over some data.” He picked up on your fear. You knew it as he walked directly behind you. His hand gripping your shoulder.

You flinched and turned away from his hand. The tension in the room was to thick for you to breath. Max was already out of his chair and ready to connect his fist with anything.

Christian put his hands in between the two men. Aware of the still open door and people peaking inside.

You were trying to cower away from the aggression. Away from the onlookers. Into the safety of Max.

“I think Y/N was busy going over some things with Max, but I’d be happy to look at it.” Christian gave his best attempt at a neutral smile.

Your father was growing angrier. It’s the first time he’d openly tried anything. The grip he had on your shoulder already bruising.

“Busy doing what? Trying to ruin her future even more?”

Max saw red. He was already angry, but now he’d crossed a line. He knew he shouldn’t have done it. However, the feeling of his fist connecting with the jaw of your fathers was to satisfying for him to care.

Your father reeled backwards. His hands clutching his face.

You jump from the chair. Finding refuge behind Max's body.

Max was ready to go for another swing. Before he could lunge, Christian grabbed his shoulder.

"Why don't you Teo cool off in Max's driver room. I'll come find you later."

Max didn't move. His chest heaving. The two men willing eachother to make a move.

You take Max's wrist. Gently trying to lead him through the door.

You, however, didn't get far. Your father knew something was wrong the second he saw you come into the garage. He’d been around Max long enough to know that he’s a protector. He knew that if you wanted, you could ruin his entire life.

So, he lunged for you. Grabbed hold of your hair and pulled. You were in his grip again before Max could even register what was happening.

“Max, go get security.”

“But-“

“Your going to be faster then me.”

Reluctant, Max sprints out of the garage. Making his way swiftly to the nearest security checkpoint. He was grateful it was only Thursday. The amount of fans in the paddock significantly less and he didn’t have to drive with his adrenaline already so high.

You were silently pleading that Christian is able to talk some sense into your father. His previously free hand now covering your mouth.

You’d been here before. Breath. Hold. Exhale. Repeat. The mantra you’re mind recited through your entire childhood.

You could see Christian saying words but couldn’t hear them. He was trying to get closer but the hold on you became stronger with each step he took.

Your mind goes blank for a moment. Your body present but your mind dissociated. You can see the interactions take place, but you don’t feel present, or even real.

He is shaking you now. Your body jostling. Then the floor. More footsteps.

Max.

He’s leaning over you. Checking to see if your okay. You can see the panic in his eyes. A soft blue that you will your mind to latch onto.

You can hear him now. He’s whispering to you. “Your safe now” falling like a prayer from his lips.

Max cradles you in his arms. Holding you close as the noises of your father struggling slowly get quieter.

Christian also appeared at eye level. Crouching down beside the two of you. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t see it.”

“I didn’t want to cause my trouble.”

“You never cause trouble.” A smile ghosts across Christian’s face for a moment. “Your dad will not be allowed back into the paddock. And you already know, but if you ever need a place you’re welcome at our home.”

~

Unfortunately, the events that transpired were within view of people and cameras. Christian deemed it a ‘family emergency’ and let you two go back to the hotel. Leaving the media Max needed to do for tomorrow and Checo to replace Max at the press conference.

Now you and Max lay facing each other on the bed. Neither has said very much. Only trying to process the events.

Then you remember something Max said last night. “Can you kiss it better please?”

Max smiled softly and inched himself closer to you. “Stop me if it becomes to much.” You nod at him.

He lifts up your Redbull polo uniform just above your waistline. Placing gently kisses to every place on your body that your father had marked in some way.

He pulled you into him after he finished. The two of you just staying their. Embracing the new possibility of peace you’d both wanted for so long.

[nymphia-tarot]

✞︎ All About Your Past Life 🦢🩶

pile 1 ----> pile 2

pile 3 ----> pile 4

🕊️ meditate on the pics and pick whichever one calls to you the most. you might feel drawn to more than one pile, which means you may have messages in other piles for you as well! if you don't feel particularly drawn to any pile, the messages in this reading might not be intended for you. since this is a general reading, take what resonates! 🕊️

🩶Pile 1

For my pile 1s I'm getting a lot of yall had very hard and stressful lives 😭 You might have faced a lot of societal and systematic problems which kept you worried throughout your life. With the world rx I'm getting that yall were deeply unsatisfied with the way your life progressed in the past and that there were a lot of regrets and unfulfilled wishes in the end. You were very intelligent and clever and it helped you survive the tough times though you might've been denied of a formal education due to your background and were kinda inhibited in a way from reaching your full potential. But from some of you, I'm getting that you did get to pursue the field you wanted initially but it didn't pan out due to practical issues and you had to abandon your own happiness. For some of you, I'm getting like street thug or thief? Where you were involved in illegal stuff and did a lot of questionable shit to survive and in the end it cost you a lot. I'm getting overall that money was a big issue in your life. However, you guys were very mentally strong people who had a "come what may" attitude towards hardships because you were so used to it.

You might've been in love with someone (I'm getting a woman) of high status in society but you couldn't dare to court her due to the difference in your social positions. For your career, it's like no matter how hard you worked it was extremely difficult to get to where you wanted and you might've also been burdened with the worries of feeding and supporting you family because you were the primary provider. Eventually, you ended up in a conventional marriage, probably arranged too, but you were never satisfied with your spouse truly. You always yearned after someone else (the lady mentioned earlier?) and couldn't give your heart to your spouse fully. For some of you guys, I'm getting you were a woman forced into a marriage with someone you didn't love just to provide for your family and fell in love with someone else (a foreign man I'm seeing) and tried to elope but it caused a huge scandal and you ended up homeless and abandoned.

You might've lived during a time where the economic situation and all wasn't really the best and the common folk were always under the worry of starving the next day. I'm getting like, a cold place too? You had to give up a lot of your dreams for the sake of either other people or due to the bad luck handed to you during your lifetime. It's like you lost sight of your purpose in life at the end and ended up deeply unhappy.

🩶Pile 2:

[TW: mentions of abuse‼️⚠️]

Pile 2, I'm getting you guys grew up in an affluent or well-off family. Probably like upper middle-class or something. Many of you guys' fathers were probably some rich businessman/trader. However, I'm getting that you guys had very unhappy childhoods. For some, I'm getting you guys were orphaned early due to an accident and may have been in grief for a long time. The trauma might've stayed with you guys for a good amount of time and it deeply affected you future interactions and capability to have relationships. For others, I'm getting like childhood abuse? By a male figure, or bullying by the rest of your family members, and it deeply impacting your self-confidence. As an adult, you might've closed your heart off entirely but deep down your biggest wish was a desire for a genuine connection free of deception, and true love. You guys were genuine romantics at heart. I'm getting that you guys in pile 2 didn't really marry at all and that romance wasn't really a big part of your life.

Spirituality was a major part of life for some in this pile and you guys might've become nuns that swore a vow of chastity or just some other religious/spiritual figure who inspired and taught people. My pile 2s are very nurturing and gentle souls deep down and it seems like people may be drawn to your warmth and caring personality. You guys provided comfort to a lot of people in your past life. Even if you weren't a religious figure, I'm getting that you were in some sort of position where you took care of people like a nurse or something. After a certain point in your adult lives, you guys took to travel: for some it was a spiritual journey, for others it was just a normal journey to aid those in need and help the impoverished in society like maybe social workers. You guys had innate spiritual gifts and intuition and your purpose in life was to help people. Very kind souls overall. Many people might've looked to you as a wise and knowledgeable figure in your later years and you became a symbol of knowledge and learning in your community. You might have even travelled from place to place to spread your knowledge and aid people.

In this life, a lot of you guys in pile 2 might be very passionate and dedicated individuals with a zest for life. Maybe a water sign too? Or like prominent water placements in chart. I feel like your past life purpose carried over to your current one as well and you might be very spiritual and intuitive people. "Learn to let go of your fears and let loose" is what I'm hearing?

🩶Pile 3:

Pile 3, It seems a big theme surrounding the energy of your past life was a certain lack of control you had regarding your destiny and choices. You might've been born to a life where you were put under heavy obligations and duties because of your position. You must have felt really restricted and burdened, as if there are eyes all over you, and pressure from everywhere, to the point you felt really burdened and suffocated. You might have been born at a time and place where there was a lot of upheaval and chaos and you were a key figure regarding the events, or at least you played a part in maintaining the balance of the situation no matter how small. For a huge part of your life, you might have been a part of a "higher order" (whatever that means) where you had to maintain a strong front. Perhaps there was a lot of conflict involved in your era and you were forced to participate or mitigate the issue. For some, I'm getting you had a very strict and controlling maternal figure in your life who made all your choices for you and shoved you into the path you were headed without really giving you any free will. And fir some, I'm getting a vindictive and malicious feminine figure of authority who posed as a thorn throughout your life.

There seems to be a lot of trickery and manipulation surrounding your relationships in this past life reading. Perhaps due to your position, there were a lot of malicious individuals who coveted your downfall. There were a lot of lies, backstabbing and secrecy involved in your interpersonal relationships, most likely due to the chaotic situation fate had handed to you. It was as if you could never fully trust anyone around you with your back. Due to these complications, it seems you never really found someone to commit yourself to.

One of your biggest desires in your past life that went unfulfilled was a desire to take charge and carve out your own path by yourself. You had to live in constant worry and fear of betrayal and death. Quite a lot of you in pile 3 were those who had a more creative streak to you and maybe what you really desired was to start a business of your own or to pursue the arts. A lot of you ended up as martyrs in your life which was the necessary step to pave the path for everyone's happiness but it ultimately made you sacrifice your own. I'm getting a lot of you also just wanted to live a life if simplicity in a small-scale area or community, away from the burdens of your position. An advice spirit is telling my pile 3s is to "drive out the negative influences and to take back your power".

🩶Pile 4:

Whoo pile 4 you guys are the most "tame" pile so far in the sense that you guys probably led the "happier" life compared to the other piles lol. The other piles' energy were so heavy 😭

I think my pile 4s were leading relatively simple and cosy lives but I'm getting that work/career was a significant source of stress for you guys in your lives. You guys were hard workers who probably worked in a job where you had to collaborate with or meet a lot of people. Maybe you guys were severely burnt out by your work to the point you felt your spark diminishing. Or perhaps life was so easy that you felt bored and wishing for adventure and excitement. You guys were very grounded and stable individuals however. I'm getting there might have been a lot of workplace drama in your lives though. Your co-workers may not have had your best interests at heart and you might have gotten cheated or manipulated by them. I'm getting workplace injustice. They took advantage of your kindness and giving nature and used it to exploit you. You might have even gotten framed for something you had no hand in and had to suffer for it.

You were, however, very loved and abundant when it came to suitors and friends. You might have even gotten a lot of love offers and proposals. You eventually ended up in a happy marriage with a very sensitive and emotionally mature person who cared a lot for you. I'm getting Aquarius vibes? Your spouse had a lot of love for you in their hearts and was someone who was willing to dive deep into anything for your sake.

I'm getting that a major issue surrounding your past life is work-life imbalance and diminishing creativity/passion. You guys might have been depressed at some point too. Perhaps you were chained to a very conformist lifestyle where you did not get to have a lot of fun. An advice I'm hearing from spirit is to guard your possessions and be wary of whom you give to. Don't just let people take what's yours freely and be open to what's different from the norm from time to time.

[caustinen]

Hollywood!Clegan AU request.....the proposal (and maybe a little bit of exploring how they handled John's desire to be more public vs. Gale's desire for privacy beforehand?) <3 <3 :)))))

hi dear, thank you for the ask and sorry for delay!! i was vacationing with a lot of people so it was difficult to find time to write anything and i still feel a bit out of the flow but i hope you like it <3

hollywood au! publicity talks and the proposal

initially the decision to date in secret comes from just convinience; john’s career is skyrocketing when they’re still deep in the honeymoon phase and there’s just so much going on that they don’t really even think about it, just start to be careful not to put gale in uncomforatble situations as bucky starts getting also unwanted attention from the public — he doesn’t know how to deal with that even by himself and seeing gale has a natural tendency to shy away from cameras/any attention it feels like a no-brainer. from there, the conversation comes slow but still years before they actually go public; at first, it’s not like a debate they choose to have at a certain moment or something, but it kind of happens naturally over the years — they talk about the public and the hiding and the pros and cons in all differnet contexts anyway — so it’s not a big deal when one day gale casually drops that he’d probably be willing to go through with it if they were married or getting there, kind of making it more long-term commitement despite both already feeling like this is the endgame since early in the relationship and not necessarily needing marriage as an institution to seal that. maybe gale said this very early on, maybe even jokingly, but bucky put it in a box in his head and sealed it.

after five years together talking about almost anything comes naturally, but it’s still a complicated subject so i think it would take quite some time to reach the decision. a lot of it would be filled with flirting too of course since it now involves a possible proposal, with bucky always talking about a hypothetical situation, very unlikely, that he would propose, what would happen then, and gale would tease him back, maybe even saying he’d take the heat of the public just to get access to bucky’s money if they were married or something silly like that. but they both notice the jokes are getting more frequent, and the emotions underneath are very real.

gale is mostly scared people will find shit about him/his family/esp his dad that would bring problems to bucky or revoke his own trauma; he’s no contact with his dad and doesn’t want that whole can of worms in some gossip magazine, and he definitely doesn’t want his dad to be able to make money out of selling his childhood pictures or stories to the media, using his relationship that has healed him to bring up old wounds again. over the years however he’s been able to work through some of his emotional locks with john and the past doesn’t have such a chokehold on him anymore, so it’s not as scary of a thought. the relationship is also established enough that all kinds of commenting can’t shake it as easily as it might have in the beginning. he’s also madly in love with bucky and thinks that it will probably anyway leak through some documentation if they get married so they might as well do it on their own terms! it’ll be easier to buy a house together etc. and just overall the more he thinks about it the more he wants to celebrate their love rather than let the world or the past control the good he has now.

to bucky, to be able to be open about their relationship is also pretty much a must if they get married; he’s tired of living a double life as if gale was some shameful secret, and he doesn’t want to have to hide his love anymore, and he doesn’t want to see gale pretend he’s single and being constantly approched by everyone even when they’re out together. he wants to put a ring on it and leave lovebites on his neck and rave about how talented and hardworking and kind his partner is. luckily they both reach this conclusion around the same time, so despite there of course being some tenseness along the way they both are confident in it when they decide gale will accompany bucky to his next premier.

i might come back to the propsal sometime later because i’m not getting any good ideas right now, but it think i’d like to write it as something quite simple — bucky would know the last thing game would want is some big public event — he’d plan something private and romantic, or maybe it could be even a ’heat of the moment’ type of a thing despite him having planned it for a long time; maybe they’re visiting Wyomming (ofc not for Gale’s parents but maybe old friends or for something else) and you take the man out of the city not the city out the man because gale is still a country girl at heart, he’s relaxed and flirty and laughs more freely than anywhere else when he gets to ride horses and do dirty work at a farm, i could imagine him just excitedly babbling about the day when they’re getting ready for bed and when he turns around after putting his pyjama shirt on Bucky would be on his knees, pulling him closer by the sides and almost teary eyed as he begs him to marry him, that he wants to make gale as happy as he is right then as often as he possibly can and by the time he starts brokenly pleading to get to grow old together with him gale needs to stop him by agreeing before he too starts to cry.

(gale doesn’t have any emotional attachement to his father’s last name but because of business he thinks it’s easier to keep going by it as he’s professionally established with that name. officially he changes it to cleven-egan but bucky knows that nothing gets him going like calling him ’mr egan’ after that; the only thing that has similar effect is calling him ’husband’ 🤍🖤)

thank you for the ask & inspiration!! 💘

[cowboyjen68]

hi jen, i just followed you and this is really random but ive seen some of your posts helping younger people and it really struck a cord and i need to just let the words fall out of me.

ive been having issues with my girlfriend she cheated on me but this situation is very complicated and we're both fucked up people but i know she still loves me and i really love her. but my anxiety and our lack of communication is really bad right now and im so worried she might not love me the same anymore

ontop of this im 18 and for the past id say 5ish years my mental health and family life has been getting worse, getting diagnosis is hard especially with mentally ill and just overall bad parents that somehow dont understand or believe. i know im deppresed and have been i have anxiety, sever paranoia maybe bpd and bipolar and autism and everything is just so much. now the one person i had is something thats making everything hurt more and i just don't know where to go, im trying to get help but its so slow in this country and i feel so lost and tired i barely eat now and when i do its ether rare or unhealthy and everything is so much i want to collapse.

i hope this isn't to much to randomly send anonymously but you just seem really kind and helpful. thank u for your reply if you do

HI and please accept my apologies for the delay on answering this. I am sorry you are going through so much. My kids are adopted from foster care and I had many kids in my home for up to 5 years who eventually went back home. That is to say I have a lot of experience with mental illness, the systems that treat them, trauma and kids who came from unstable home lives.

At the ripe old age of 18 you have plenty of time to find love and contentment but right now might not be the time. I understand there might be odd circumstances that caused your girlfriend to cheat on you. If you feel betrayed and lost trust that is a feeling that is next to impossible to overcome for people with no comorbidities let alone a teen trying to figure herself out and deal with navigating the broken mental health/care system.

It is actually quite normal for young love to change and get redefined into friendship even when the circumstance are the best. Her cheating on you might very well be a sign that your relationship is in flux and not what you thought it was. A romance that has run its course is not a failure, relationships do not have to last forever to be important and real and worth having had.

It might be scary to think of not being with her, of not having your "one" person that you can count on but I do believe you can get farther working on yourself if you put time and energy into you and not dividing it up between you and her.

There is a lot of precedent set for women to set aside their romance and intimacy in order to be just friends while one or both does some work on herself. Sometimes it is necessary to stay involved for emotional support or financial support, that is just the reality of our world. Living single can be very difficult.

Please consider letting go of the relationship in its current form and putting your energy of yourself. Letting go of the stress of trying to repair what you had with her will remove so much pressure from you and from her that you will feel much more ready to tackle your mental state.

I promise. You are not a failure, she is not "the bad guy" in this story. Take all the wonderful things you shared with her keep those with you when you want a reminder that it loving her was worth your time even if it didn't end like you planned.

Seek mental health help but starting small. A therapist can help you begin to talk through things and often she can help you find additional resources like a medical Dr, public subsidies for insurance or free clinics to assist you in getting medication and mental health support. Most counties have a social services office and those employees are a wealth of information.

[alienguts]

SFW Alphabet (Bruce Wayne x GN!Reader)

Warnings: none

A/N: I know I had a poll going, but this one was already finished.

A - Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Bruce wasn't the most affectionate partner in the beginning (thank the unresolved childhood trauma for that), but once he realised that it's okay to touch you and be touched, he couldn't get enough of you. He likes to be as close to you as he can in public and private, and he can be a little overprotective.

B - Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

Relationships of any kind can be difficult with Bruce, but he's one of the best friends you could have. He's a very private person but he's also loyal and always willing to help you out of a problem, whether that involves money or not.

C - Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Bruce is only really a cuddler for you. He'll give his kids hugs but obviously not in the way he hugs you. Whenever he has some downtime (which isn't very often), he just wants to cuddle up on the sofa or in bed with you and just enjoy your company. He's always the big spoon, he likes being able to wrap you in his arms and bury his face into your shoulder.

D - Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

Settling down isn't really in the cards for Bruce, given both of his lifestyles. The daytime life of a billionaire philanthropist and the night-time life of a vigilante doesn't leave a lot of time for a domestic life.

Is Bruce good at cooking and cleaning? Of course not. This man could burn a cup of water and it's well documented that he once fucked up a simple sandwich.

E - Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

Bruce is a lot of things, but he's not a coward. If he had to break up with someone, he'd do it in person. Not over the phone, text, or send someone else to do it for him. Unfortunately, he's done it many times but it never feels good.

F - Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Oh, dear, Bruce. Commitment has never been a very easy thing for Bruce. Deep down he truly wants to get close to other people, but he knows that he can't. It took him long enough to open up to you, it takes even longer for him to propose, but once you're engaged, he wants to be married ASAP.

G - Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

Bruce is a lot more gentle than he looks. He's a lot of hard edges and knows how to be scary and intimidating, but he truly is a teddy bear. He doesn't want to do anything to hurt you (unless you want him to) and he knows how dangerous his life can be for both you and him, so he wants to keep you at ease as much as possible.

H - Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

When it was just him and Alfred, Bruce wasn't really one for hugs. He wouldn't really know how to react and would be awkward, but that changed with his little family getting bigger and starting a relationship with you.

Bruce's hugs are always warm and soothing, but there are moments when he'll hug you as if he's scared to let you go.

I - I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Bruce needed a while before he said he loved you. He knew that he had some pretty serious feelings for you, but he felt like he couldn't say it to you until he fully understood how he felt.

Once he did it felt like a giant weight off his shoulders and couldn't stop saying it.

J - Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Bruce isn't really the jealous type, but on those odd occasions when he does get jealous, it can be a little overbearing. He'll see someone try to sidle up to you at an event and immediately appear out of nowhere to remind them that you're his.

K - Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

I may have written some headcanons about this already...

L - Little ones (How are they around children?)

Considering that he has a small army of children, it's easy to see that Bruce is very good with children, no matter their age. He never planned on being a father or even a father figure, but he's happy to have his family.

M - Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Mornings with Bruce are relatively relaxed, considering that he's 3/4 asleep and refusing to get out of bed. He hates being woken up and turns into the biggest baby when he doesn't get at least five more minutes.

N - Night (How are nights spent with them?)

It's no surprise that time spent at night with Bruce is very short and not all that relaxing. You've had countless sleepless nights when you've worried yourself sick about him, only for him to come home and reassure you that he's fine.

O - Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

It takes Bruce a very long time to start opening up to you. Being in a relationship with him is putting a giant target on your back and he wants you to be safe more than anything. At first, he tells you surface-level things and once he knows he can trust you, he'll tell you the super secret things.

P - Patience (How easily angered are they?)

Bruce can't really afford to lose his patience easily. It would ruin his public reputation and also cause him to not think as clearly when fighting crime. He's had to train himself to stay as calm as possible at all times.

Q - Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing or do they kind of forget everything?)

Bruce remembers everything about you, even the smallest things. He knows exactly where you like to put things, the way you eat your meals and every little quirk that you have.

R - Remember (What is their favourite moment in your relationship?)

Bruce can never really pick one specific moment in your relationship that's his favourite. He cherishes every second that he gets to spend with you, but the times when he truly understood how much you trusted each other are precious to him.

S - Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

Bruce is very protective of you, but not to the point of being suffocating. He respects your independence and doesn't want to keep you in a gilded cage but he wants you to be safe. Having ties to the Wayne family can be a little dangerous at times.

T - Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

Bruce puts a lot of effort into your relationship because he knows how much being Batman can get in the way. In the beginning, he had no problem with throwing his money around and getting you the best version of something you wanted, but down the line, he eased off.

U - Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Does moonlighting as a costumed vigilante count as a bad habit? Bruce has an incredible memory but there are times when he's so hyper-focused on his work that he forgets that there's a world outside of crimefighting.

V - Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

As Batman, he couldn't care less, but Bruce Wayne the famous playboy needs to keep up appearances. As long as he's clean and his body is at the best it can perform, he's relatively happy.

W - Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

It's difficult to say. If the two of you broke up, Bruce would definitely feel like a part of him was missing, but he wouldn't realise it until a while after.

X - Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

Bruce has absolutely no knowledge of pop culture. He often has to look through the tabloids for things to talk about at galas unless you tell him about something.

Y - Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

It shouldn't be said that Bruce doesn't like criminals. He can excuse something small like petty shoplifting for survival, but anything with serious repercussions is a deal-breaker.

That hasn't stopped him in the past, though...

Z - Zzz (What is a sleep habit of theirs?)

Bruce gets so little sleep that any etiquette about sharing a bed goes out of the window when he does. He'll sleep diagonally and hog all the blankets and pillows but once he remembers that you're there, he becomes a total cuddle bug.

[findmeinthefallair]

A Look at Hunter’s Complex PTSD (Part 2)

I forgot to add in the first post last weekend that I am taking excerpts from Parts 2, 4 and 5 of the book ("What My Bones Know" by Stephanie Foo), in case anyone plans to get a copy of it.

I didn’t use anything from Parts 1 and 3, since 1 involves the author recounting her own childhood trauma while 3 is about the cultural and historical events that are tied to the generational trauma in her family and community, which she researched to find answers.

Also..with two of the Owl House specials remaining, which would definitely give us more major Hunter moments…any additions from those two episodes that relate to the book excerpts will be added as new posts, e.g. if any scenes from For The Future are relevant to this Part 2 post, I will be making a post titled A Look at Hunter’s Complex PTSD (Part 2B).

Anyhow if all this sounds confusing now, there will ultimately be one grand masterpost listing every single part. As usual, take care with the warnings of mentions of abuse and trauma ahead. Here goes, for Part 2:

Hunter’s history differs only slightly from the above. He also played a caretaker role to Belos during the latter’s rage episodes:

which shows the failure on Belos’s part, especially since he’s in the guardian/caretaker role, to own, regulate or seek his own help for his difficult emotions, but it imbued Hunter with that sense of feeling “special”. The Golden Guard role was his, and his alone. Belos could then reinforce the whole “wild magic is bad” narrative, exploit how Hunter loved to feel special and wanted, and continue abusing the boy.

But as Hunter tried harder and harder to get Belos to love him the way he wanted, he too experienced a growing vigilance and desperation that was destroying him more and more, as he was worn down further over time.

I’d say it was like this for Hunter too. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t please Belos enough. It wasn't fixing things and it felt as if he was a ship slowly sinking. As his desperation grew, you could say he ventured out further beyond established boundaries, and Hollow Mind was the culmination of the courage and support he spent the previous episodes building up.

He, just like how it’s stated in the book page above, ended up woven more into the world, sewn emotionally and professionally into a network of lives. He made trusted friends and healthier company at last. Ultimately, all those actions he took nudged him along the path meant for him, and it even ended up with him being brave enough to say this in Hollow Mind:

To ask the ultimate question, "What did you do to the other guards?". The question that got Belos to decide “Okay, time to off this Grimwalker and then make another”.

Following that heart-stopping moment, Luz saving his life, both of them escaping, and then the panic attack scene that we all remember, Hunter’s story isn’t over yet. 

With where he is now, in the middle of S3, he might be mentally and emotionally operating in a way that I can deconstruct while we wait for the next episode.

I am inclined to agree with these.

It’s just…so likely for Hunter. It was the case for me, since the first 5 years out of my 7 years of seeing therapists (2014-2020) were either just talk therapy or with ineffective therapists that I didn't trust enough. It felt more like just maintaining healthy enough functioning in my daily life, rather than having what felt like proper breakthroughs.

What Hunter needs first and foremost is to just continue experiencing the precious trust and presence of the good people he has formed good relationships with. Everyone is now in survival mode and would need the same manner of support.

Frankly, almost everyone in the show needs that too. The Isles will be going through some form of collective grief, if not already.

Processing all that has happened to him, in his young mind, will be hell of a lot of work. He can’t nicely fit all of that horror into a framework of cold logic, and I doubt the mess can be solved just by “talking things out”. After all, he has Complex PTSD: and being entangled in damaged formative relationships (Belos and the Emperor's Coven, basically) - not necessarily involving just people, or his relationship with himself, but also himself with the world - is the centerpiece of Complex PTSD.

Cold logic can't exactly help you make sense of why you lacked warmth in your formative relationships (the more technical term is "primary relationships" where your primary caregiver(s), a parent/guardian, is supposed to supply you with security and warmth in their relationship(s) with you).

The clearest analogy I can think of for how he’d need some time before talk therapy could ever benefit him, is when a computer does that thing where it shuts down outside of your control, in order to prevent further damage. When you switch it back on by pressing the power button, it usually acts as if nothing happened before that. This numbing and calmness has been essential in the short-term for Hunter to function, one example being from Hollow Mind:

because his emotions being almost completely shut down here were crucial for survival: for his legs to carry him, with Luz’s help, to escape Belos’s mind. If he didn’t have such a shutdown, he may have frozen in place due to being too overwhelmed, making it harder for Luz to shake him into being lucid to follow her, and Belos would’ve been able to apprehend and capture him all over again in the mindscape.

Survive first, fear later.

There is the possibility that with Flapjack’s death in particular, he might swing towards more dissociation than ever before. The reason why dissociation happens in the first place is because the brain, like the computer, would be overwhelmed if it stayed online any further. It’s a protective built-in mechanism to numb intense psychological pain. That computer can still work overall for some time, but boy oh boy..it would need some repair shop work at some point to even perform basic functions.

If his best friend’s death, by his hands, shocked us in the audience as much as it did, it goes without saying: he himself is carrying a massive amount of shock. The thing is..for the time being his attention is diverted to fighting back and going after Belos, making sure everyone else is safe. But we shall see how his mental state will be after the fighting is over.

This pattern of shutting down/short-circuiting and then coming back online without proper deep healing, would be detrimental long-term if it keeps happening and if it continues past the point where things start to be truly safe for him. It can sadly go on for years if e.g. a child is trapped until they move out as an adult, which would mean the road to healing is having to thaw out of several years’ worth of survival mode and hypervigilance.

To remain isolated would be the biggest obstacle in any stage of his recovery. Thankfully he is now the furthest thing from isolated, where the story left off. Check out how different the screenshots are below omg…the effects of Belos isolating him versus where he is now:

A consistent theme has been an ongoing tension between his fears and what he chooses to do anyway. It ain't just great storytelling, it also feels damn real because I'm willing to bet many of us experience the same tension in our day-to-day living.

E.g. in Labyrinth Runners, the panic attack he had:

is what made the later moment so much more powerful, when he decides to run towards fear to help Gus:

Over time, he has repeatedly made decisions where he prioritizes care for others, the desire for connection and wanting to do what is truly right, over the fear of being hurt and rejected. My personal fave example of how he worries for others’ safety is this seemingly smaller moment, but it’s honestly heartbreaking and reveals hell of a lot about who he is:

He is so terrified that Belos is back, quivering and exasperated, yet he doesn’t want Luz to call anyone else to help them: and in no way does he do this to show off or anything, he wants to protect his loved ones. But this tenacity that exists alongside his gentle spirit is what got him to rebel more and more throughout Season 2, leading him into greater danger and well..unfortunately all of that plot was also building up to what Belos did to him in Thanks to Them.

…yeah. Talk therapy is not what I think this kid needs right now, not till there is restored peace all around him. Because talk therapy requires quite a bit of usage of the brain’s prefrontal cortex - the part responsible for reasoning and logic - and it is activated when we are in conscious control of our thinking. And facts such as “My ‘uncle’ chose to lie to me my whole life” can’t be understood and analyzed in the same way as a math problem can be deciphered :’) How does one make sense of something like that?

Poor Hunter can only accept the reality that Belos chose to do all that, and a key part of this acceptance is to affirm his own strengths and believe he can accept such hard truths. To achieve such acceptance, treating his condition would most likely require subconscious work that is experiential in nature (involving deeper parts of the mind than just the prefrontal cortex) as opposed to just analyzing and taking things apart. Because I don't think simply talking about this:

on top of a childhood of being manipulated, will get this poor kid to where he'd like to be.

My former supervisor calls experiential subconscious work “heart work”, not “head work”...i.e. experiencing one’s feelings and relationships in a safe space. All of Hunter’s military training and duties are most definitely “head work”, all about strategy and withholding trust, which means “heart work” - building trust and finding authenticity in his relationships - has been a new journey for him. His network of relationships and perceptions need a major, positive reframing. And there are so many emotional wounds, oh Titan, so many from Belos.

Hunter is likely to benefit from experiential subconscious work such as the increasingly popular Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) modality for therapy, because EMDR can be an effective treatment if a client experiences discomfort in the form of physical bodily sensations whenever their trauma is triggered, though it is not necessarily for everyone who suffers from trauma. A Boiling Isles version of EMDR might involve Illusion magic...if a therapist from that Coven can draw out mental images of clients to project into the therapy room, that would be a cool simulation and cool parallel of how therapy works in our world.

EMDR was the biggest, most revelatory thing for me in my own recovery but a coursemate of mine found it to be too much and too direct: instead, she benefited from the Emotion Freedom Technique (EFT) approach which was more physical in nature and relied on tapping acupressure points on the body. Idk, maybe I matched better with EMDR because I have an innate curiosity about things, even if it has gotten me in trouble many times in life (this sounds like Hunter as well) :S Whereas EFT was the better fit for my coursemate because she wanted a sense of attachment and connection with herself via the specific sense of touch.

Disclaimer: I am not yet certified in EMDR, god it will be years before I can afford the training fees but I have been on the receiving end of it as a client in many sessions. So I am no trained expert in it at all.

We see Hunter experiencing physical distress related to his trauma, which is why the EMDR technique, that aims to reduce trauma-related distress experienced in the physical body, could be the right match for him. Since he loves the Ruler’s Reach and Cosmic Frontier, he might like how EMDR is like letting your subconscious re-tell your story as a heroic triumphant story, and the treatment feels like rewriting your painful memories while still acknowledging how they actually happened. Because the treatment helped me learn that it is possible to hold both of those in your mind.

To sum up EMDR the best I can, the client replays their difficult memories in their subconscious imagination. It relies on a phenomenon called bilateral stimulation (BLS) which is related to how making left-and-right motions (e.g. going for walks, or swimming) while holding upsetting thoughts in our heads, helps to reduce the intensity of such thoughts.

The general process involves:

Helping the client prepare an imagined safe place to go to (Hunter might choose his fave location from Cosmic Frontier, since clients can choose fictional places if they like) and if needed, a safe person (he might choose Camila) to come rescue them in their mind, in case revisiting the bad memories becomes too distressing. The therapist gets the client to experience the safe place and person, then describe to the therapist what they see, hear, touch etc with as much detail as possible. There will be several practice rounds in those safe spaces, before the client is supposed to do the same imagination thing with their scary traumatic memories in later sessions: once they are experienced with visiting their safe places.

Desensitizing the pain and distress of traumatic memories, working through only one memory at a time, where the therapist gets the client to hold the painful memory in mind while also performing left-and-right physical movements e.g. client moves their eyes left and right, following the therapist's hand motions. The therapist regularly checks in with how the client feels and also measures 1. the intensity of the client’s distress (using the Subjective Units of Disturbance or SUD scale, on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest distress level imaginable to the client) and 2. The strength of the client’s positive belief about themselves (using the VOC or Validity of Cognition scale, on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being complete trust in the positive belief). The aim is to reduce the SUD score to 0 or 1, and increase the VoC score to 7, per memory that the client decides to process with the therapist. This would definitely take at least 3 sessions per memory, based on my experience.

The desensitizing step takes multiple sessions (estimated to be 8-12 sessions for simpler traumas, and many more sessions for complex traumas) helps to make room for new positive beliefs about oneself e.g. “I am worthy of love” to take up more space in the client’s mind, while the emotional space taken up by negative beliefs like “I am unlovable” gets smaller and smaller.

In my experience as an EMDR client, you are just supposed to let your subconscious flow and alter each memory during the desensitizing, because it isn’t about how realistic the memory was, it’s about what meanings you’d like to put into the storyline of the memory e.g. going from “I deserved that abuse” to “You know what, I’m gonna try protect myself”. This means Hunter could incorporate his fave fictional scenes and elements into his own story. I found that my brain went from accurately replaying my traumatic memories, to adding in new things or replacing original parts of each memory. And best of all, I wasn’t actively choosing all these changes - I just let my subconscious run on its own, since it is outside my conscious control anyway. E.g. in a memory where my own abusive mother was yelling at me during a car ride, I saw a tall red tree (red is my fave colour and I feel strength whenever I see it) rapidly growing out of the road directly in front of us. It could cause my mother to lose control of the steering and brake hard, and I could quickly unlock the front passenger door to exit the car and run to my own safety. The most real thing about this was that I now got a taste of how it would feel to use strong boundaries with my mother in real life, and the coolest thing was seeing how my own brain went off on its own to write an encouraging story, which is what mattered and allowed my positive beliefs about myself to start taking root. It all started in my imagination, guided by the therapist.

The best way of putting it is..I realized that when the original traumatic events happened in my life, the bad events happened which then installed negative beliefs about myself (and the world) into my brain's programming, breaking my trust in almost everything except my escape spaces like gaming and art. With EMDR, after feeling the safety of trusting my therapist and my safe place, I had to let my brain create the positive version of the above: letting improved versions of those traumatic events be written by my subconscious: which helped to usher in the positive opposites of those negative beliefs.

It would be too lengthy to go into more detail here about how EMDR could help our boi, so I will instead cover that in my future case formulation post that is separate from this series. But EMDR is not the only way to reach a point of having positive beliefs about oneself. Some people may be able to reach that stage without therapy, using resources like a strong support network and doing meaningful work and activities, which is completely valid and fine as well.

EMDR was the tool that helped the book author reach her first ever breakthrough in her mental health journey. It helped her realize that stuff from so long ago, which she thought she had gotten over, needed to be revisited in order for her to start feeling love for her inner child and younger self. Feeling love for yourself and understanding self-love is very hard work, and it’s not the same as shrugging “Yeah, I guess it’s good to love yourself” and knowing it in theory as an observer.

That section of the book is sort of like how Hunter becomes more and more able to draw strength and other positive qualities e.g. courage, trust, etc, from himself, on his own. The rest of the Hexsquad and Camila came in to help and save Hunter first, which gently reinforced a healthy narrative over time that he is in fact deserving of love, getting him to believe along the lines of “You know what, I don’t want to try being useful to Belos anymore, because what he did to me and what he does as the Emperor is wrong”. This understand was further reinforced when he was the one to extend help to Gus towards the end of Labyrinth Runners.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this post is how Hunter’s friends helped to positively reshape the way he saw himself, when they modeled how healthy relationships should be for him. Many posts have already made in the fandom about how this was the case in every episode that Hunter was featured in (from Hunting Palismen onwards), so I’ll only show the recent examples from Thanks to Them below:

I like how during all of his screentime, it wasn’t obvious to us whether he had good beliefs about himself, right up until we see him at his happiest, in his cosplay outfit and secondly when he expresses his desires out loud to Belos while being possessed.

Learning healthy behaviours from positive influences outside of himself (sometimes, in therapy speak we call this “introducing a foreign element” outside of the client’s own familiar world, to introduce real change), because he had no reference points to draw upon from his own knowledge, is what got him to begin understanding and believing he deserves better. Such recovery work can’t happen within a vacuum, since no man is an island. Some form of connection is needed as a catalyst.

And ajhdhkjkljdfd I am so so proud of him that he could already practice these modeled behaviours himself at least a couple of times, supported by Flapjack's love, after being equipped with the love he needed:

Now, without Flapjack, I am on the edge of my seat wondering how he sees himself, and while he will never be the same again..I wonder how he will find his way back to liking who he is. I hope to see a more in-depth, layered and raw version of these where he has to face himself...and Flapjack is not going to be there this time..:

Especially since his “I like who I am right now” has been so greatly challenged by Flapjack dying by his own hands.

The author's breakthrough after meeting her younger self in her imagination, during her own EMDR sessions, was that she now understood in her heart, not just knowing in her rational head, that her parents did not provide her with healthy love. With that, it became clear what it was that she needed.

This is crazy important. Gradually, Hunter made his way from merely knowing (suspecting that the 'love' provided for him by Belos was not right) to fully understanding (feeling what love is supposed to be, through his friends and Camila). This concept references what I said very early on in this post about “heart work” vs “head work”. Head knowledge is the knowing part that looks for facts and can be reached quickly, but heart knowledge - trusting, believing, seeing the meaningful significance of something - can be tough to find without the aid of a support network, therapists and any form of meaningful inspiration.

The following life-changing truths that the author found in the challenging parts of her EMDR therapy sessions, are truths that were also revealed to Hunter in his character arc through difficult experiences:

I'm sure there will be amazing upcoming dialogue where his support network and found family help to further reaffirm the positive beliefs that he has began to trust about himself.

And that’s that for Part 2!

I wonder if any of the above was helpful, and feel free to comment and discuss in the notes.

Importantly, to put up a word of caution here: please do not try any EMDR on yourself under any circumstances, of course xD

Which stuff did you guys find the most interesting from this part? If anything above is pretty complex for you, feel free to DM me or comment to ask further questions~~

Part 3 will be posted next weekend.

[darkfictionjude]

I was so focused on the romance that I never gave my thoughts on the family relationships based on the time jump. I feel like I failed as an overthinker (I'm the etymology nonnie by the way, I'm seriously considering beginning to use an special greeting like selfie does on her asks). Not that my opinions have any major weight, yet I like to give my two cents. Probably in part because I think about this story and characters a lot (especially MC and Imre, but followed closely by Lorcan, Percy and Sally).

Of course, I cannot have any sort of categorization when it comes to the family matter. Unlike the romance and the relationship MC has with their body, family is something that is significantly less predictable, or, at least, less viable to put in easy to understand boxes. Not only because there are more individuals involved, but also because the relationships are more complex. Plus, and this cannot be understated, we still don't know how much MC will be able to fix/improve/worsen/cut their bonds with their family in season one. Because of this, we don't have a more or less defined start as we do with the RO's. For all I know, at the end of episode 13 MC leaves their family behind, for example. And if that happened, any speculation I do that begins from another possible perspective would be, if not pointless, most likely fruitless.

Yet, I must admit, is an interesting topic to think about. It's clear to me that family is something you want to explore with this IF. The latest update made it definitive if there was ever any doubt.

At the same time, as much as this relationships are given importance, I also think is very early to say where they're going. MC is barely capable of noticing the cracks with their relationship with Sally, and can easily deny them. MC is still too far from establishing their own personhood to actually build a closer relationship with Percy. MC has not even talked with Victor, and is doubtful trying to talk with Prudence would give anything at this point.

From this, then, we can conclude that the place MC is in their route towards personhood, or in their character arc, is of great importance to define if the relationships with their family can go anywhere. But it's also important to note that the family also seems to not be ready to get closer to MC.

Victor, even if he feels some fondness for MC (although only compared to Prudence, and only in the flashbacks so far), is distant. So much so he has not interacted with MC yet. For what MC knows, he could be secretly dead. His avoidance of everything probably would not be very helpful at building a relationship with MC, or anyone for that matter.

Prudence most likely hates MC wholeheartedly. I'm not sure if any affection that was once felt survives. And from her POV, MC is the root of (most of) all the problems and tragedies in her life. She needs too heal a lot, and even if she does, I'm not sure she'll ever want to get closer to MC. Especially with Orla's shadow being so ever present.

Sally. Dear Sally. He is probably the one who some would believe is the easiest to get closer to. Yet, I disagree with such notion. His own trauma, involving being parentified, and the way he sees MC, simply make it a lot more difficult than it would be otherwise. After all, MC is not only infantalized by Sally, but Sally does not seen MC as an individual. I'm not saying he doesn't see MC as human, but in a way MC is closer to pet than to a sibling. So, even if MC actually improves, they would have to work a lot for Sally to recognize it, and to be able to actually listen MC.

Finally, Percy is, in my opinion, the easiest one to get closer too. Not easy, however. Percy is closed off, and a part of him resents MC. And his has a lot of his own traumas to work through. But, unlike Sally, he does treat MC as an individual, and as an adult. Sure, Percy is insensitive and rude when it comes to mental illnesses, but he listen to what MC says and doesn't immediately refute it as the ramblings of a kid.

Overall, I think this was mostly a pointless ask. Simply because I just reproduced what I have said in previous ones, and because I cannot speculate about season 2. Which is the only worthwhile conclusion of this rambling. There are too many unknowns about how the relationships evolve (or not) in season 1 to determine how they are going to be able to be experienced in season 2. Or how we could conceive how they change during the time jump.

That said, I do invite another nonnies and non nonnies, as well as you dear Jude, to debate me if they disagree with me. Or if they think there is something more to add that I have not considered.

I must admit I'm probably making this worst on myself. Since now I'm very excited for season 2. And we are not even at half of season 1 💀. So, don't despair (of despair, if you dislike my long ramblings), because I'll come back in the future when we the story advances! Till then, other thoughts may bring me here.

You know what’s funny? When I conceived of this IF I didn’t think family would be such a major theme. I thought “MC’s family is fucked oh well they’ll make a new one with the ROs” they weren’t going to have such a big role in MC’s life from episode 1 on. But then I kept thinking about it, I thought if MC is like this then how are the other siblings? They couldn’t have gotten unscathed from their childhoods and then I got into how much our family shapes our lives and what we become for good or for bad. It become such a rich avenue to explore

Victor is very old school father in that he believes mental illness is something you can just stop and when MC couldn’t he just threw money at the problem praying it would go away.

Prudence does view MC as the nucleus of the ruin of her and Orla’s life.

The stand outs to me on what you said is how Sally is the hardest to get a revolution in his relationship with MC while also seemingly be the closest family member to them. Very true, it’s hard to respect someone you love when you don’t them as a person but more an extension of yourself. An interesting someone said was that MC and Sally are actually not close at all, truly they’re distant as Sally doesn’t really MC and vice versa

And yeah it’s not an assured thing that Percy and MC will ever be super close a la Sally and MC but they could get to a better place. It’s especially fun if you choose options for MC when talking to Percy that makes them seem so similar to him in terms of humour

Yeah I’m so excited about season 2 and it’s so far away 😭😭😭 if only I could just snap my fingers and have episodes written magically

[demonic-shadowlucifer]

Let's talk about Online Grooming

(TRIGGER WARNING: As the title suggests, this post talks about grooming and sexual abuse. Reader discretion *HEAVILY* advised). I'm sure most of you already know about this (Especially if you're involved in gaming), but for those who don't or are just finding out (like me lol), YandereDev- yes, *THAT* YandereDev, was recently outed as a predator, and was revealed to have groomed a minor. Now, I've seen multiple conflicting posts on this, so I won't be getting too deep into it. If you'd like more info on it, I advise checking out this video from callimara. However, one thing I do want to point out regarding this subject, is the victim continuously defending her abuser, which has unfortunately resulted in victim blaming from multiple of YanDev's supporters. And that's actually why I'm making this post in the first place. While grooming can be done both online and offline, this mostly focuses on online grooming, as well as E-CSA, which is something I don't see talked about often at all. This gets pretty triggering, so if you don't have the stomach to handle this, go back now. Lastly, YanDev defenders and 'Narc Abuse' believers do NOT fucking touch this. You WILL be blocked on sight.

What is Grooming?

Grooming is a series of abusive behaviors that are used by abusers as a means to establish a relationship with their victim to eventually exploit. While it can be used with any form of abuse, the most common is sexual abuse, particularly towards children. What is E-CSA? E-CSA is the use of technology or the internet to sexually abuse children. This can be done in many ways, and one of the most common forms of E-CSA is grooming. How grooming occurs.

Predators will usually pretend that they are a minor themselves in order to get with their victim, which can make it difficult to identify a predator. Offenders will usually try to develop a bond with their victim, typically using the promise of gifts or something else. Disturbingly, offenders might resort to threats, or manipulate their victim into accepting their behavior. Once the victim is vulnerable, the offender may make an advance onto their victim. The offender may also try to isolate their victims from their friends and family, making the abuse worse. When called out on their abuse, some offenders might also deflect their blame on the victim, making it harder for the victim to seek justice (Does "Colleen Ballinger" ring a bell to some of you?) Why might victims defend their abusers? Unfortunately, a lot of victims tend to defend their abusers as well. To make it clear: This does NOT make the abuse okay nor does it mean the victim was at fault. There are multiple reasons why abuse victims, grooming victims or otherwise, will defend their abusers, the most common reasons being: -The victim might be thinking the abuse was normal, and are in denial that they were abused. -The victim is being threatened by the abuser. -The victim might have developed a genuine bond with their abuser. This is what's known as "Stockholm Syndrome" or "Trauma Bonding". Victims with disabilities such as autism might also have trouble realizing that they were abused. The victim's environment can also have an impact. Signs of grooming: -Heavy age gaps. This one depends on how old two folks were when they met. -Sexualized behavior, especially if that person is a minor. -Isolation. -Being secretive. And so much more. What to do if you have been groomed: -If you can, cut off contact with the abuser and contact authorities. -Remind yourself that it's not your fault. -If you can afford it, consider getting a therapist to check in with your mental health. -If you have met up with the groomer and have had sexual contact with them, get a STD test just to be safe. STDs can result from sexual abuse. -Additionally, if you are someone who can get pregnant, get a pregnancy test. Additionally, if you know someone who has been groomed, tell them any of the above. My Experiences: Unfortunately, I myself was groomed online many times by different people. However, the experience I'm sharing is the one that impacted me the most. The abuse happened on Discord and at times DeviantArt and Hangouts, but mostly Discord (Sidenote: If I see you making a "Discord Mod" or "Discord kitten" joke, you'll be blocked /srs. I hate that I even have to say this). I was 10, and he was 16 at the time. The abuse first started via roleplay, which was normal at first, but then it started to become sexual. And me, being the naive fucker I was, didn't even notice it was wrong. And I thought it was okay because we were both minors. (There is also the chance he could've been lying about being 16, however I have no intentions on digging that up). People were quick to catch what was happening, however, instead of helping me, most folks got mad at me for it and I ended up banned from a server as a result (The reason for the ban was "NSFW"- even though I wasn't the only person posting such). This also resulted in a series of harassment which has negatively impacted my mental health. The harassment has since stopped, but it still hurts me to this day.

The harassment from others led to me getting closer with my abuser, which resulted in the grooming continuing for atleast two more years. It was only after someone intervened (via even more traumatic methods, but I'll spare you the details) in which the roleplay stopped. However, thanks to a friend (Who had recently been promoted to mod within the same community the abuse occured in) who eventually enlightened me on what actually happened, I was able to cut off contact with him for good. I will admit, I still feel guilty for letting this happen, though I am working on it! At this time, I don't plan on reporting my abuser to authorities, nor will I be able to since I unfortunately lost most screenshots of the abuse (That, and this individual isn't in the same US state, so it'd be kinda difficult to do so).

[chounaifu]

Since it's Sunday and the topic of the this day is always centered around dating, sexuality/gender preferences, etc., here's some thoughts about this guy:

Dating/getting romantically involved with Proton is a really complicated process. There's definitely an allure and curiosity that comes with him because of his status in the underground, and his unique, attractive features. It's understandable why people are drawn to Proton.

Keeping him as healthy company requires understanding that he is mentally ill and physically disabled.

There are a lot of things that he can and cannot do, depending on the day and whether or not his Fragmentation Syndrome is flaring up. Physical touch and activity can be extremely painful for him on low functioning days. He needs to be able to trust that his partner is going to be patient and help him.

Mentally, Proton has many traits of AuADHD, and has experienced a lot of physical and mental trauma related to racism, prejudice, food insecurity, poverty, violence and assault. His coping mechanisms aren't exactly the healthiest. He's prone to lashing out and getting defensive, both verbally and physically, if he feels as though he is unsafe, or someone is getting combative.

Anybody who Proton would consider a partner, needs to understand these things, and be willing to create safe and comfortable boundaries for both parties in order to have a fulfilling relationship with the guy.

In terms of where he lands on the gender/sexuality spectrum? It's something that Proton is still unpacking. He grew up with a lot of toxic and misogynistic beliefs that he has had to unlearn. Someone on the outside looking in would probably classify Proton as pansexual, but he hasn't come to that conclusion yet. He just uses the word 'queer'. He's attracted to people with queer lifestyles. Gender expression is also complicated to him; unlearning gender roles and stereotypes for clothing, behavior and appearance is an ongoing task. Interestingly enough, he has had an easier time expressing himself since his accident. Something about a near-death experiences forced him to live a little more authentically. He uses He/Him pronouns, but, They/Them would probably apply to him in the future once he feels more secure in being "different," so to speak.

In terms of building for the future? He's very unlikely to want to start a family. He's actually unable to reproduce because of Fragmentation Syndrome, for starters, but he already has a difficult enough time taking care of himself to begin with. And he doesn't take to children at all. Sure, he interacts with younger characters from time to time, but, he has no paternal drive. He's also unlikely to pursue potential partners if they have their own children already.

All in all, it takes work with Proton, like it does with anybody else. But there's some specifics that needed to be invested in for someone to achieve a long-term dynamic with the guy.

HOOK UPS THOUGH? That's easy. Just don't expect him to call you back unless he really liked you.

[domini-porter]

🍓🥭🍐! (ooh it's a streetlight)

🍓: I don’t really feel like anything is underrated; that’s not really the vibe of this whole enterprise for me. And I've been really lucky in that a lot of my work has been well-received, which is v gratifying and nice! But in the spirit: I kinda wish my companion stories Honeysweet and Saltbitter were more widely-read, even though they’re certainly not everyone’s cuppa, either thematically or stylistically (vaguely experimental writing about—you know it—trauma and its fallout, written as mirrored pieces). Definitely my most poetic stories, but both antique (originally from 2012/13 on FF dot net) and relatively less accessible than straight prose.

🥭: CRACK (which is basically the fic label for high-concept), then angst and smut are tied (for these two idiots? how could it not be), fluff. I prefer crack/high-concept because you can really do whatever within it; angsty crack, smutty crack, fluffy crack, seriously-treated crack. And since it’s by nature a wild setup it allows for all kinds of extremity and maximalism—when you’re talking about sex pollen or magic dicks or zombies, it’s kind of pointless trying to tone anything else down (even though I do tend to engage with writing crack in a more naturalistic way).

Angst is fine, smut is fine; smut is, for me, more often than not a writing exercise. It’s incredibly technical and challenging (sometimes tedious) to write, not because I lack for imagination, but because it’s almost entirely mechanics, which is up there with the tedium of describing a room. There’s a lot to keep track of from beat to beat, and since I’m under no illusions as to how closely the smut chapters/passages will be read, it’s more like writing stereo instructions—very clear, very detailed, one step to the next. It’s also a good challenge in that there’s a pretty limited vocabulary for doin’ it, so avoiding repetition is another huge element of writing smut that doubles as craft exercise.

Fluff is my least fav not because I don’t value it, but it’s . . . fluffy. It’s meant to be a confection. I’ve done it plenty of times; it’s easy, it’s cute. It’s often an excuse to write humor or comedy, which I find very fun! But it’s difficult to sustain for more than like, a one-shot or a scene without more depth starting to sneak in, at least pour moi. I also don’t love the whole hyper-domesticity angle that a lot of fluff relies on; it’s usually way heteroromantically structured, and I just have zero, or perhaps less than zero, interest in cozy family stories, particularly ones involving babies, which comes up a lot in Rizzles fluff. Just not my bag!

🍐: Oh, so many. Aside from the obvious (canon rizzles), I straight-up refuse to engage with Maura’s mob daughter storyline. It felt cheap and melodramatic at the time, and it feels cheap and melodramatic now. I’m half-convinced they just wanted to take advantage of the similarities between Sasha Alexander and Sharon Lawrence. It’s confusing, underdeveloped, and not something that feels true to anything—maybe it’s in the books, but on the show it just feels like a way to give Maura’s character Something Else To Make Her Interesting, and it just doesn’t, not least of all because the character doesn’t need that, she needs to explore all her other, already-rich backstories and relationships. Her neglectful adoptive parents are compelling enough, and I think narratively more believable and complex (or could be), but that’s also kind of shoved aside. And, per my usual complaint, it’s just unexamined trauma on top of unexamined trauma (like, yes they spend a lot of time on it, but it never feels integral to her—the stuff with Paddy, etc, has its arcs and stuff, but . . . who cares?). Anyway, I hate it! 

(love youuuuuuuu tho)

JUSTICE FOR MAURA ISLES

[homophobicgerardwayau]

Ok, I’m going to foolishly weigh in on the Gerard gender theorising and pronouns debate. I don’t really have an audience so whatevs. But i do have thoughts 💭. I’m seeing a lot of reductive posts that lack nuance or critical thinking (the internet). Here’s the thing. We need to remain cognisant that at the end of the day none of us interact with ‘Gerard the Person’. We interact with ‘Gerard the Concept’. The rockstar, the artist, the cultural icon etc.

There is a filter, constructed by Gerard themself in response to a culture that must know him, by virtue of his fame and the deeply personal nature of his work. We only see what we are allowed to see through said filter. And when fans speculate and theorise, they are bringing their own biases and interpretations to a limited portrait of a person, a double that stands in to take the criticisms (and disproportionate praise) that comes along with being a successful artist.

I bring this up because when we jump up and down getting mad at people for publicly using “she” pronouns for example, we need to remind ourselves of a couple of things:

Gerard the Person likely does not have the hours in a day to worry about what pronouns people online are using for him. From interviews over the years, we can deduce that he has come to terms with fame and worked through much of his trauma associated with it. He has also expressed that he doesn’t care about pronouns. At present, this squabble is happening laterally between fans and does not involve him in any direct way. He does not need defending (what is he being defend from? Being gnc or trans is neither morally good or bad) from being misgendered. It seems the sticky point is ‘misgendering’ in general, which is a much broader discussion. One that is particularly hard to have when we are all out here with some kind of minority related trauma.

Because he is not a whole person, but an icon to us (it is difficult to conceptualise of someone as both simultaneously) we all tend to project a whole lot of ourselves onto him, more than we would someone we know personally. This is how being an icon works. Here we project different ideas about our own gender and sexuality and our differing conceptualisations of gender altogether. Personally, while I would not label Gerard as trans online, by my own personal definition of transness, he is part of our family. The issue is not defining him as trans by our own metrics, as we are entitled to our own conceptualisations of transness (I am of course, speaking from within the community). We should take into account that trans is not a clearly definable label. For example, there are people that are medically (for lack of a better word) trans that do not see themselves as trans. All of this is to say that people see something in Gerard that reflects back parts of themselves. Being trans is one of those things, whether Gerard defines himself as such or not.

The way I have seen Gerard called ‘she’ online, often seems in jest and I chose to engage with these types of posts in good faith and with a sense of humour. I assume that most people making these posts are aware that wearing a skirt does not make someone a woman. I feel that a lot of the ‘Gerard is secretly a woman’ is just a projection of a posters own insecurities around gender non-conformity or quite simply the desire to feel that they are in on something others aren’t, in turn making them feel closer to the ‘Gerard’ that they have constructed in their head. Instead of calling these folks trans misogynists, I think it would be more helpful to ask the ‘truther’ why they think they are so fixated on it and why would it matter if Gerard came out as something? What would it change other than give you a sense of validation?

We should remember that the topic of Gerard’s relationship to gender and sexuality is unavoidable once we get into the nitty gritty of his work. Deconstruction/reconstruction of identity and the gender politics of violence are some of my favourite ideas that Gerard revisits over and over again. It is there by design and it is also part of the character he plays by design. Kids are picking up on something but it’s the lack of media literacy that leads them down these strange roads of thinking. We should try to be sympathetic if we can. Why? Because if it’s trans people doing the transvestigating then it all comes down to the lack of representation that we all feel. Gerard shouldn’t have to carry that weight of course, which is probably one of the reasons why he doesn’t use labels for himself. He has the privilege of ‘hiding in plain sight’ as he calls it, and that is his choice to make.

The discussion then shouldn’t be be weather it is wrong to wonder about another person’s gender and sexuality (if we weren’t curious, how would we ever find others like ourselves?). It should be how should we treat others? It should be as simple as don’t send someone fan fiction of themselves.

As a community, we should be redirecting this energy into figuring out how to put Gerard’s gender into the hormone injection. I think this would solve a lot of societies problems lol.

[tsarinatorment]

i've been keeping up with eclipse and I love it but I do wonder: if you were chained to a desk and told to write a nico & will book- presumably like rick was- what would that be like? their ending in tower of nero always felt different from the others to me; like everyone else is moving on with their lives and finding their place, but nico and will are still at camp half-blood, and they're both year rounders.

Hi, anon! I'm glad you're loving Eclipse :D I had a lot of fun writing it and the reception it's got so far has been amazing - almost overwhelmingly so, at times, given the amount of people so far who have told me they prefer it to TSATS...

As for what would I write if I was told to write a Solangelo book... I'm actually not going to go into any real detail here because I'm actually working on a new longfic right now which is exactly that - taking the epilogue of TON as it is and drawing that out into a Solangelo-focused quest rather than the detour I took with Eclipse, so hopefully you'll see that appearing in a few months' time :D

I will give a few little hints, though:

More Will-centric plotlines and story. I love Nico, but one of my main issues with the overall TSATS concept long before it was published was that Nico's story arc seemed to be over (he's found his place, he's in therapy etc.) so I wasn't sure what exactly Rick thought he could do with him that didn't ruin what he'd already achieved... Will, on the other hand, has a lot of untapped potential to unlock still, so I want to highlight him a bit more here

Supportive, healthy, Solangelo. I don't believe that you need to put a rift or relationship drama in a story just for the sake of it. We see so much of this healthy support in TOA that I'd love to keep going with that, expanding upon it. That's not to say that they're each other's yes-men, of course, but small disagreements that they resolve with respect for each other's points of view? Always good

Apollo and Hades ares still present and involved. I've actually described working on this plot so far as feeling like I'm having to bat Apollo away with a cardboard tube, because he still doesn't want them to go on a dangerous quest, but also this time I'm not letting him lock them up and go in their place, otherwise that would defeat the whole object of doing a different fic on a similar premise

Plot twists. I'm not saying what they are, but I will say that this quest is probably not going to go the way people think it is - not even Nico and Will!

Regarding your comment about how it feels like all the others are getting on with their lives while Will and Nico are still at camp - Jason's death broke Piper, and Leo's found a family that works better for him than camp did. The likes of Percy and Annabeth are off to university.

But Nico and Will are younger than them. It's difficult to remember at times, especially with Nico because he's been floating in and around the main story since TTC, but as of the end of TOA they're both fifteen, to Percy's nearly eighteen. There's two and a half to three years between them and the original PJO (human) cast, there's about two years between them and the HOO cast - it makes sense that they still have years left at camp. Percy's story as the camp's Big Three Kid has come to an end, and good for him - Nico is now the one stepping up into that role. In many ways, Nico's story, or at least this new, better, chapter of his life, is just beginning. Let him have fun at camp, let him be the child he's suppressed and get up to mischief! Let Will take time to be less responsible, less in charge of not just a full cabin of siblings but also the entire camp's health, and be a child himself. It's true that neither of them will be fully free of their responsibilities, or their trauma, but they've still got so much time to adapt in CHB's understanding environment.

Really, they shouldn't be forced into another Big Thing at all, but we're also looking at the Olympic Revolution looming threateningly in the background, the natural progression that the overarching story Rick's been telling is heading towards, and of course we have this quest teased in TON - which, again, I think should be far more geared towards focusing on Will and his trauma rather than rehashing what we already know and have seen resolved, as much as trauma can ever be resolved, with Nico.