#hidden fears

[gravity-rainbow]

What unaccountable longings and hidden fears are swimming on fire in you? ~Anne Carson

[foundfamilywhump]

a character who has bottled up something terrible that happened to them. maybe it's something they saw, maybe something done to them, whatever it is it's profoundly traumatized them. they keep going, pushing it down, dismissing concerns, or even having suppressed it long enough nobody even knows to be concerned at all. and then one day they talk. one day, because they finally can't take it anymore, or they were so triggered they can't keep it in, or something messed with their control (fever, drug, etc) that they just spilled it out.

and the entire time they're talking, they're shaking so hard it makes it difficult to speak. their friends/teammates/whoever try to listen and try to help, extremely alarmed with how seriously they're affected, but the shaking just keeps getting harder. they're not crying, they're just. shaking.

[hychlorions]

What if I told you that I've fallen?

[ID: Art of Susato Mikotoba and Haori Murasame/Rei Membami, done on a stylized background of swirling cherry blossom petals. Haori is falling backward, pulling Susato with her, so close that their noses are touching. Haori closes her eyes as she pulls off Susato’s cap, while Susato — still dressed as Ryutaro Naruhodo — looks down at her with eyes wide. The background is suffused with the faint colors of the lesbian flag. End ID]

[maomango-doodle]

(13 pages) Forlorn

[awesomecooperlove]

THE HISTORY OF PLANDEMICS ‼️‼️‼️

👨🏼‍🔬🧑🏽‍⚕️👩🏻‍⚕️

[dadrielle]

I can't stop thinking about just how emblematic everything in those conversations of Ashton being "a child" are of how, even at her most beaten down, triggered and traumatized, Laudna is not and will not be what Delilah wants her to be.

For Delilah, "they're still a child" is dismissive, a bit derisive, but doesn't even merit being truly hateful. She doesn't find Ashton worth the attention Laudna is giving them, not when there are such more interesting, important things to pull the attention of an adult. Children are only important when they are useful. She will indulge Laudna on the subject, because Laudna is useful, is her vehicle for action in the world, but she only cares about it in the context of getting Laudna to do what she wants. Calling someone a child is calling them unimportant. (Laudna is a child to her)

But for Laudna, who loves children and who understands intimately what it's like to have the helplessness of child, to be trapped under the authority of someone who will never treat you as a full person, even when they are being ostensibly kind, to be so confused and lost and powerless...a child deserves attention more than anyone else. Of course children lash out. Being a child IS in many ways quite awful because the world is so big around you and you don't know yet how to react to any of it, how to soothe yourself - and if you aren't given the attention, you never learn how. Ashton never learned how. Her instincts - instincts trained into her by manipulation and abuse from inside and the world around her - may say kill him, but she fights them the whole way because her heart is stronger and her heart says that the angriest, most volatile child needs care as much as any other. More, even.

Laudna hears Delilah call Ashton a child and agrees on the word, but they have diametrically opposed understandings of what that means, and diametrically opposed instincts on how to treat a child. Laudna doesn't want to hurt anyone, especially children. She loves children. She loves so much and so selflessly. And Delilah is so very very good at manipulating her but she has tried for 30 years to change the bedrock of Laudna's psyche, the truer thing that drives her beyond the base animal instincts of survival, and it hasn't worked.

[chayannesegg]

listen, i absolutely get ramon not wanting to talk to sunny & feeling hurt/betrayed by her helping tubbo

like, i'd hazard he might even feel more betrayed by them than tubbo himself—bc sunny & ramon probably talked about what family meant to him (during their sleepovers or something) and ramon has no insight into why they'd do that whereas tubbo, for all his actions have hurt ramon, very clearly has the emotional capacity of a wet paper plate and issues running deeper than marianas trench

but that makes it all the more heart wrenching that he won't hear her out (and you can see in the backgrounds of vods her multiple attempts over several days to get his attention just to be rebuffed) bc i bet if she could explain herself even a little things could be so different

it reminds of the situation from the other week where sunny wasn't talking with em and tubbo tried to explain that, even if you're mad at them, suddenly stopping talking to someone you love could make them feel awful and worse than you intended

and that is what's happening to sunny. it's miserable to see bc she was already so isolated and ramon, as her big brother, is someone she put a lot of trust in to be there for her and listen to her and it must feel to her like that was an empty promise to have him not even hearing her out.

and it's particularly tragic bc sunny didn't even want to mess with fit and pac. yes, she was "tempted" to aid tubbo in his quest, but I really don't think it was bc she was actually worried about being left behind when she agreed. i think she could tell tubbo was scared and hurting and not ready to accept the change and didn't want him to be alone. she didn't really have another option and every adult can see that but ramon is young and blinded by his hurt

and now sunny is left feeling abandoned and forgotten and replaced and it's exactly what their pa said would happen; self fulfilling prophecy :(

[vickyvicarious]

seeing ppl go "lol jonathan why are you admitting you found them hot what will mina think of you when she reads it!!!" has me go "*shakes you* you are going against the thesis of the book!!!"

I know some of why is dependent on knowledge of future events, and so people new to Dracula Daily won't be aware of it. But to be honest, Jonathan admitting his attraction to the vampire ladies is so, so important to me. On several different character levels, even outside of the entire book proving over and over again that sharing knowledge is absolutely vital (and is also an expression of deep love/trust/support).

Let's just stick the quote in here for reference:

There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina's eyes and cause her pain; but it is the truth.

Firstly - he needs to keep an accurate record. This is his only place to speak freely, his only opportunity to be precise about what he is going through. It is vitally important for him to keep his sanity intact that he be clear and try to remain logical in this diary. We see him fact-checking again and again. We can extrapolate from other statements that he doesn't always mention everything he suspects unless he feels it relevant or possible to prove. For example, repeatedly noting Dracula himself doing things before ever getting around to voicing the theory that the Count has no servants (he collected evidence first, didn't speak his suspicions until they were proven). Or putting the crucifix above his bed and taking the opportunity to sleep elsewhere, thus pointing to feeling unsafe and possibly experiencing bad dreams in his own room (he mentioned what he does about it, but not the feeling on its own or whatever nightmares he may be having). Jonathan works very hard to keep his diary focused on a few things above all: what the Count/ladies are, what everyone does, what Jonathan observes or learns, his actionable plans. He of course expresses his fears and emotions at times in his diary, more than he can out loud, but never going all the way down the rabbithole of fear, hopelessness, etc. He tries to calm himself by sticking to facts (all the harder when something strange is happening), which is in itself a soothing process for him so that's helpful too. His goal is to make this diary useful to himself and to others, if he ever gets the chance to share it. There is a goal here.

And what that means, is that the things Jonathan writes in great detail are things that feel relevant to him. The entire encounter with the vampire ladies was extremely important. It revealed a ton of new information to him, as well as being a truly horrifying and traumatic thing to go through. Jonathan's feelings are as relevant as his observations/actions here, because both are directly affected by the presence of the vampire women. Jonathan can't move. He feels dreamy. He feels attracted to them. He cannot resist and in the moment a large part of him didn't even want to. These are all effects they are causing, at least to some extent. I know mileage can vary a lot on how much of Jonathan's attraction is just coming from him, but honestly, I can't agree with any version that doesn't have a natural attraction at the very least being exacerbated by supernatural vampire abilities somehow. If not caused or called forth by them in the first place. The way he narrates, with so much obvious fear and revulsion mixed in with the desire, makes that clear to me. He sounds like he doesn't fully understand his own feelings at the time, at least where they all came from or why they were so strong. It goes along with all the other symptoms he is experiencing, and the other abilities they demonstrate. And so, to keep his record accurate - it has to go in. He cannot leave it out. It might become very relevant later.

Secondly - Jonathan is honest with Mina, specifically. I love this about their relationship. I don't think it's so much 'I noticed they were attractive' that he fears might hurt her, because Mina isn't particularly shy herself about noticing both women and men as good-looking, and even admiring their looks while on a date with Jonathan (poor Pretty Girl in Piccadilly). He also called local women pretty in his first entry as well (though he did say "except when you got near them" so it felt a bit backhanded to me), so again it's not the noticing that's an issue either way. It's more that he felt actual desire to act on an attraction, or rather for them to act. This is unusual, this is a separate matter from noticing people are hot, this is something that comes much closer to cheating or at least wanting to, and he feels very guilty about it. There's no real sense that he is worried Mina will be angry at him, and there's no sense that he will ever outside of that one moment ever want to act on any attraction he feels for someone other than Mina (or someone Mina also approves of, varying depending on your polycula headcanons). I personally do kind of tend to view Jonathan as some form of demisexual so how much he even tends to feel attraction to other people is often a little wibbly to me, but that's kind of irrelevant for the point of this. We can also set aside the shared language of "kiss" between Jonathan and the vampire ladies, and how this may point to a desire to become available for being drunk from, rather than necessarily sexual desire specifically, even if that's the type of language used. With regards to Mina: he's not worried about being caught, because he is choosing not to hide. He feels bad talking about the attraction because it might hurt her feelings, but he'll admit to it regardless because it's more important to him to be honest with her. Jonathan hates hiding things from Mina. This actually becomes plot-relevant later on. Even when she herself expressly forbids him from telling her stuff, he feels anguished about it and is certain to ensure that records are kept which she can read later. He trusts her completely. Embarrassment, shame, bad behavior, or whatever else - he will still share that with her. The only times he doesn't confide in Mina are when he's trying to repress everything because he thinks he was crazy (and possibly may even have some PTSD-related memory loss as well), or when he and the other men are trying to make sure she isn't exposed to danger (which is wrong in several ways but this post isn't about that so I won't get into it), and of course when she tells him not to. Every single time he feels upset about it. So yeah, he's going to regret that she may feel hurt, but deliberately hiding things from her would be worse.

Thirdly - Jonathan admitting his attraction here is a huge comfort to Mina later on. I truly believe this. I've talked about it before actually, but let me try to rephrase a bit to keep it on the same post. By being open about his own attraction and experience with nearly being drunk from, he provides precedent for Mina's October 3rd trauma. It makes it easier (though obviously still not easy) for her to admit to the same kind of desire:

"I was bewildered, and, strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that such is, when his touch is on his victim."

Mina never blamed Jonathan for expressing such thoughts. She wasn't concerned about the issue being another woman when she came to him in the hospital, and when she read his diary she never mentioned any hesitations or misgivings about this scene at all. But even if she had secretly felt upset before (I personally don't see her thinking that way at all, but for the sake of argument), I think that experiencing something similar would make her grateful for Jonathan's candor. In a moment when she's already feeling deeply unclean and complicit, Jonathan's earlier honesty here relieves her from a little bit of the guilt she is feeling. It lets her recognize her own lack of desire to stop Dracula as something he did to her, just like Jonathan experienced with the vampire ladies when he couldn't/didn't want to move away. It's possible even that Mina felt more explicit desire for Dracula's 'red lips to kiss her' but didn't feel comfortable saying quite that much - even if so, again Jonathan's account would be a comfort.

And having that account written down long ago means she has already internalized this. If Jonathan had kept it hidden only to try and ease her mind later, well... first off, Mina too might have kept her reaction hidden out of guilt. And even if she didn't or he told her then, a confession at that time wouldn't mean nearly as much or carry the same kind of weight, I don't think. It would feel like he's making excuses for her, like he didn't trust her enough to tell her earlier, just... bad stuff mixed in, which are all avoided by having Jonathan be truthful from the start.

[blighted-beak]

(nsfw) full version here

(blood, ghost hands, ball fondling, jacob's ladder piercing)

[whumpypepsigal]

Whumptober 2023 | No. 27

Scars

Willow s01e04: “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

@whumptober @whumptober-archive

[hiddenfolk]

Afraid and peckish

[kinnbig]

I just think Big should have been allowed a knife. or two. as a treat.

[maripr]

I can't properly explain it but burakhovsky and enkivaldr scratch the same brain itch for me

[gouinisme]

i truly do not think alice can possibly stop being a character bc of previously stated reasons so now my working theory is the "i'll die down here" is mostly a distraction from "i was born down here" and alice Is some kind of reborn or construct or undead or something in the way that what she Is, her Current form of life was born from whatever weird alchemist shit is going on in the OIAR and the Magnus institute

[phoebepheebsphibs]

Cough, cough…

[luneariann]

There are rwo wolves inside of me, one wants to show off the cool Makima poster im making for class and the other one is terrified that somehow my classmates will find me