#i know it’s because i have GAD. that makes it a lot easier

[mars-ipan]

oh my fucking god i hate having an anxiety disorder

[ryttu3k]

30 questions, Dark Urge edition! These ones are for Tavias! Spoilers for the whole game, some earlier questions here. I've only just got to the end of act 2 in this run, so some stuff I'm actually not up to yet and it's just based on what I have planned for this run.

Tavias, wood half-elf, draconic bloodline sorcerer

1. What circumstances led to your Dark Urge becoming their Class/Subclass?

Well, when a little kid is born with scales and horns and can set things on fire when they sneeze, there's probably a good chance they're a draconic bloodline sorcerer!

How does that work with the whole Dark Urge origin thing? Who knows tbh.

2. Did your Dark Urge have any romantic and/or sexual relationships prior to their illithid adventure? If yes, who was it with and what was it like? If no, how did they feel about being single?

There was, uh, whatever was going on with Gortash. He liked Gortash a lot, which was a Problem because he had that whole holy mission to MURDER THE ENTIRE WORLD and that presumably included any possible love interests. So. Bit of conflict there. Just a bit.

For sexual relationships, I don't think we want or need to know that :|

3. What would your Dark Urge consider to be their greatest skill? Is this accurate?

He's pretty good at setting stuff on fire XD;; Either deliberately or, uh, accidentally. Honestly, it's probably that he genuinely likes making people happy, and seems to actually be pretty decent at it. More deep-and-meaningfuls than pep talks, I think?

4. What would your Dark Urge consider to be their greatest flaw? Is this accurate?

The murderous impulses are a bit of a flaw, Janet. No but honestly, it's probably his anxiety disorder (I suspect it's more Panic Disorder than GAD?). This was actually easier to deal with pre-Nautiloid, because he could generally just… kill whatever the stressor was. Now, he has to actually try and work through it.

5. What opinion does your Dark Urge have about the Gods?

An assortment of opinions depending on the God, really. Will cover Bhaal specifically in question 26, but he thinks very little of Bane and Myrkul, considering them the weaker parts of the Dead Three. He has some passing interest in Mystra, although that becomes disgust and loathing after he befriends Gale, is a bit frightened of Lathander, doesn't have a lot of consideration for Shar other than, "Well, she exists", although he also ends up pretty disgusted by her after everything with Shadowheart, and is pretty sure Selûne would hate him on instinct but has no negative feelings towards her in return, and is really quite gratified when he's able to help Aylin.

As for Jergal, see question 30 :D

6. How does your Dark Urge react to waking up with memory loss?

With a fair bit of swearing. The only thing he remembers initially is his name, and when he says it to himself - "Tavias" - it's like it unlocks the rest of The Basics. He knows the concept of Faerûn, although it takes him a few days to remember he's from Baldur's Gate, he knows how to speak Common, he knows bits and pieces about the land, although the details elude him for a little while. Like when he sees Shadowheart, he recognises from her symbol that she's Sharran, but not who or what Shar is, for a little bit.

7. Did your Dark Urge recall any childhood memories? If yes, how do they feel about the revelations? If no, was it by choice or lack of options?

Yup, particularly as he gets to Baldur's Gate and starts seeing things that trigger memories. He does remember playing tag with other kids, but he also remembers killing his foster parents. The good times make him feel incredibly sad, honestly, and the violent ones just make him feel sick and scared. There's not a lot of comfort in those memories, unfortunately, even if he does desperately want to regain more of the times when he was still innocent.

8. How does your Dark Urge feel about the wilderness?

A little uncomfy, in that he's very much a city kid. It's actually really nice being out in it! He likes going for nature walks! He just doesn't like biting insects, or mud, or having to do much climbing and scrambling around, or getting sweaty/wet/too hot/too cold…

9. How does your Dark Urge feel about the city?

It's home. He's in his element here, particularly in the Lower City - while he grew up in poverty in the Outer City, the Lower City is where he first found his 'family', and although not all of the memories are fond (there's, um, a lot of murdering), he still feels he belongs there.

10. What motivates your Dark Urge to either embrace or resist the tadpole?

Initially, curiosity. If he can work with his tadpole, maybe it'll help stitch his brain back together? By the time he meets the Emperor properly, he's in full distrust mode and somewhat regretting horking down so many tadpoles.

11. What motivates your Dark Urge to either embrace or resist the Urge?

He wants to be liked!! He wants a place to belong!! Originally, this was his single biggest motivator under the cult to embrace his urges, although they didn't really become The Urge (as in periods of dissociation where he was completely out of control of his actions) until Bhaal returned when he was twenty-one) - he wanted approval from the cult, and especially from Bhaal.

When he wakes up in the Nautiloid, he still has that desire to be liked and to belong, but the context is completely different now. He doesn't remember being Bhaalspawn, so his desire to be liked is in the context of 'being a general nice person', not 'being the best possible heir to the Murder God'. The Urge is very much contradictory to 'being a general nice person', and they horrify and terrify him, that his brain could produce such awful things. So he fights it, with everything he has.

He's just started finding a new place to belong. He will not jeopardise it.

12. How does your Dark Urge feel about being a Bhaalspawn?

Horror and misery, with a side of, "Well, that explains the Urge." In a way, it's a bit of a relief - he knows not all Bhaalspawn are condemned to be evil serial killers, knows (for instance) about Abdel Adrian, and is able to be comforted by Jaheira that his blood doesn't dictate his destiny. By the end of the game, he's owning it - yes, he's a Bhaalspawn, supposedly the most 'pure' Bhaalspawn ever created - but if even he could break free from him, anyone can.

13. How does your Dark Urge feel about killing?

Best godsdamn feeling in the world.

(Followed immediately by crushing guilt.)

A part of him just… needs it wants it loves it. He desperately craves the feeling of life being extinguished under his hands, because of his own doings. He also recognises that, uh, maybe not the best thing to do, fights his Urge as hard as he can, only kills if it's strictly necessary, and tries not to get too visibly gleeful when he's in the midst of battle.

14. How good of a liar is your Dark Urge? How do they feel about lying?

Not good. He gets a bit too panicky to be a good liar, especially when he's already feeling guilty - one reason he didn't even try to cover up Alfira's death. He'd rather use Persuasion - or, in a pinch, Intimidation - rather than Deception.

15. What is your Dark Urge's greatest fear?

Killing someone he cares about. The night he nearly killed Astarion was probably the most terrified he had ever been.

16. What is your Dark Urge's greatest desire?

Being free of the godsdamn Urge. Which he gets! Love that for him.

17. What is your Dark Urge's greatest regret?

Killing Orin. He knew it had to happen, that she was too far gone, but also… she was his little sister. Yeah, they traded literal murder attempts like some siblings trade insults, but she was his little sister. Not all of their times together had been bad. A part of him had hoped, maybe, she'd see what she had helped him see, that maybe she could break away from the cult as well, but…

He keeps her dagger, Bloodthirst, as a permanent reminder.

18. How does your Dark Urge feel about love?

Loves it, also terrified about it. Tries to break up with Astarion several times (or asks Astarion to kill him) because he's so afraid the Urge is going to make him do something terrible, and he knows that the stronger he feels about someone, the more he's going to want to kill them. He wouldn't feel much desire at all to kill, say, Shadowheart, who he likes as a friend but isn't very close to - just the usual odd fantasy about what she'd look like dead. Someone like Astarion, though, or Gale, who's a close friend? The more time he spends with them, the more he has violent fantasies about them.

By late act 3, it's started to become a source of strength as well as fear. He's pretty passively suicidal, sometimes actively suicidal, but is holding on just because… he has people he cares about and who care about him. How could he do anything to hurt them?

19. Has your Dark Urge become particularly close to anyone romantically and/or platonically in their journey? If so, who, and what is the relationship like? If no, why not?

As above, he falls for Astarion. At first it's solely… oh damn he's pretty and also snarky, but by the time he starts seeing more of his vulnerabilities and actual personality, he starts realising he actually wants to be close to someone, and that Astarion is sort of… 'tainted' isn't the right word, but he's not afraid of corrupting Astarion like he would be for, say, Wyll or Karlach. He knows they're both inherently fucked up people, but maybe they can be better people together.

Friendship-wise, he ends up closest to Gale. Magic buddies :3 When Gale realises he does have some latent sorcery, he turns to Tavias for advice, and they can bond over that. He also ends up quite attached to Jaheira, who sort of becomes a mother figure to him.

20. Is your Dark Urge open about their Urge or do they try to hide it? Why?

At first, he hid it. When the whole Alfira thing happened, he came clean - that he has extremely violent thoughts, he's sorry, he's trying to fight them, he never meant to act on it, what happened with Alfira was something he's going to try his hardest to never let happen again, and he understands if they hate him for it.

21. What are 2-3 songs that your Dark Urge would relate to?

I suck at this question, skip :D

22. What first impression does your Dark Urge give off to strangers?

Shiny dragon boy. People notice the horns and scales first, wonder if he's a tiefling or dragonborn or something, which he just explains, no, he just has some dragon ancestry. Personality-wise, they notice him being pretty cheerful and friendly and sweet, if a bit high-strung and nervous.

Prior to brain surgery, similar appearance, but a much more disconcerting stare, like he was sizing people up wondering what their organs tasted like (which, uh, he often. Was. Yeah), and also had a persistent smell of blood.

23. How does your Dark Urge feel about what others think of them?

So how do you go from 'eleven-year-old boy with violent tendencies who's just killed his foster parents and is traumatised about it' to 'sixteen-year-old boy who's just gone on a serial murder spree'? Give him a nigh overwhelming desire to be liked and wanted!

Tavias is desperate for approval and acceptance. Learning he's Bhaalspawn, that he's important, that he's an heir to a god? They take that eleven-year-old boy, tell him everything he's ever felt is right and good, and that if he continues being right and good, he'll win the acceptance and love of his real father, Bhaal. So - he does. He learns to comparmentalise, shut away feelings of guilt, feelings of softness, compassion, all of that. The more people he kills, the more Bhaal will love him. He has a little sister, and he wants to be friends, but if he's not better at killing than she is, Bhaal will love her more. So better to shove her away. Get good at killing. Get to be the best.

And it works! Bhaal comes back when Tavias is twenty-one, looks at all the murders he's committed, and goes, yes, this one is my Chosen! He gives Tavias the approval he's so desperate for, guides him as a voice in Tavias' head, tells him he's doing all the right things. Don't put a foot wrong, or he'll take that approval away, and you wouldn't want to make the God of Murder angry, would you? So best to keep doing exactly what it is Bhaal wants him to do, be what Bhaal wants him to be, so he'll never be alone again.

He starts feeling for Gortash, and oh, that's not in the plan. All he can do is pray for forgiveness, for doing something as unimaginably awful as feeling emotions. He's so damn scared.

When he wakes up in the Nautiloid, he's still scared. Still wants that approval. The context, though, that's gone. He just wants to make his new friends happy, and turns out that it's easy, and it makes him happy too.

24. Does your Dark Urge have a treasured item with them? If yes, what is it and why is it special? If no, how do they feel about item sentimentality in general?

He's pretty sentimental after the Nautiloid, but like, in a practical way? Always picks up little things that remind him of something. Books and scrolls that jog some sort of memory, or an item that ties back to some sort of event he's just lived through. It's not one piece in general, it's more - he keeps items to serve as reminders for who he is, both good and bad (he has one of the bells off Alfira's outfit, and Orin's dagger).

25. How does your Dark Urge feel about Sceleritas Fel?

Pre-Nautiloid, he was extremely fond of Sceleritas. Sceleritas was his guardian from age eleven onwards, and Tavias trusted him completely. Along with Bhaal himself, Sceleritas was someone Tavias always wanted to please, and someone who was quite happy for Tavias to practice killing. When someone tells you you can do no wrong, now go ahead and gruesomely murder me like you clearly want to, well, how is a Bhaalspawn to resist XD;;

Post-Nautiloid, Tavias is fucking terrified of him. Sceleritas, for his part, is quite put out by this sweet, non-violent version of his beloved boy, as well as the fact that Tavias will actually?? refuse his orders?? Unheard of, really. He still wants to believe that Tavias can return to being the blood-soaked murderer he was, but by the time Tavias outright rejects Bhaal, he's actually kind of relieved to be free of what he sees of a parody of the boy he's raised for twenty years, honestly.

26. How does your Dark Urge feel about Bhaal?

Pre-Nautiloid: Adoration, idolisation, desperate yearning for Bhaal to love him, also a healthy dose of terror but that's kind of normal when Daddy's the Murdergod. Refer back to 23, Tavias is just desperate for Bhaal's approval and love, and will accept it in any form it's given.

Post-Nautiloid: NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. Single biggest cause of everything currently causing Tavias suffering. Goddamn terrified of him. Would be very happy if he poofed out of existence, tyvm.

27. How does your Dark Urge feel about giving and receiving orders?

Receiving orders, depends entirely on who's doing it. He has no problem receiving orders from Bhaal, or, uh, stuff from elsewhere in the cult phrased as if it's Bhaal's will. If it's someone like Sarevok, who he doesn't respect and who's on a similar-but-lower status to him (both Bhaalspawn, but Tavias is Chosen and more 'pure'), he'll just get stubborn and defiant, and if it's an underling, he may play along until, uh, he can kill them. Oh you thought you could order me around? Cute :)

Giving orders, not his best skill. When the Absolute stuff kicked off, it'd be like - all three of them working out schemes, then either Gortash or Ketheric doing the announcements. He started with a very respectable CHA 17, yeah, but Gortash had 18 and Ketheric 20 (and even Orin had 19!), so he'd be much happier just standing to the side and eyeing people up menacingly. You can look pretty menacing with gold eyes that you can make glow with a simple cantrip :D

Post-Nautiloid, he's still not comfy with either, and prefers to talk things out with the others. Honestly, even if he ends up 'leader' of the group by virtue of protagonist, I feel Wyll would actually take the leadership roll much more naturally? Either way, Tavias is happy for Wyll to speak for them all.

28. How well does your Dark Urge function under pressure?

Hahahahaha! Bad! (See: anxiety disorder.) He was nearly killed by Ketheric in the Colony largely because he had been fighting a panic attack since meeting Kressa and finding the Prayer for Forgiveness.

29. What advice would you give to your Dark Urge?

Given that I'm pretty sure SSRIs don't exist in Faerûn, he'd benefit enormously from something like cognitive behavioural therapy, both for aforementioned anxiety disorder and also the Durge-specific and general plot-related trauma. Does therapy even exist in Faerûn? Who knows, but he'd. Very much benefit from it. Just someone to talk to and to get some coping skills from.

30. What are your Dark Urge's intentions/goals after the end of the game?

Ooh man I have this all plotted out.

So, Withers? Is Jergal. Jergal? Is not happy about what the Dead Three have been up to, and also here's the son of one of those aforementioned Dead Three who he has now enabled to break away from. He's going to ask Tavias to be his Chosen, and help in his mission to eradicate the Dead Three and their followers from the face of Faerûn.

Tavias is going to agree, because he really does admire and is endlessly grateful to him, on one condition - Withers uses True Resurrection to return Astarion to mortality, then offer him the same deal to be Chosen (which, yes, will involve Astarion having to die first, since True Resurrection works on corpses, not undead, but it's fine he gets better). End result - two golden-eyed freckled elven Chosens of Jergal (Astarion is a sun elf!). S'gonna be fun everyone's going to take one look and go, "Oh, Lathander?" NOPE. THE OG DEATH DUDE.

So yeah, uh, getting into another holy war as the Chosen of a God, but that's okay because he was explicitly given the choice and he's in control of his own actions, and also Withers is basically his Grandpa.

(For the rest: Lae'zel is working with Voss to take down Vlaakith, Karlach and Wyll are in Avernus, Shadowheart is travelling with Aylin and Isobel, and Gale is a professor. Jaheira is retired now tyvm, so is Minsc, and Halsin is running a new community based near Reithwin, looking after orphans (including Yenna), refugees, and others displaced by the mind flayer attack, and lots and lots of critters, including Scratch and Bite (the owlbear cub). After the reunion party six months later, they all gather to go on a mission to Avernus to find a cure for Karlach once and for all. No one is getting left behind.)

[this-is-me19]

Personal revelation/epiphany: the Vagus Nerve and Anxiety

First and foremost, anxiety is typical and part of human evolution. There is nothing wrong with experiencing it but it’s the frequency and how it effects your life that can be the problem.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRtvHwAq/ Watch this quick TikTok video to learn about your vagus nerve and the amazing things that can help you feel better!

Summary. If you’re stressed tf out all the time and/or seriously lack motivation and/sleep, you might be having anxiety attacks or under stress a lot more than you recognize also known as stuck in your sympathetic nervous system which makes you reactionary and in survival mode! To bypass this, you need to engage (stimulate) the vagus nerve.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. I don’t have any medical experience. Everything is my own personal experience and/or research which I try to provide you with valid sources of information. If you know a better one, lemme know!

[ID: So, I've concluded, last night around 2am as I'm laying in bed awake, I'm stuck in a low level panic attack/anxiety and probably have been for years. Probably because I rarely ever finish the actual stress response cycle. I hate the sympathetic nervous system and neural pathways.

So, I'm gonna start trying to stimulate the vagus nerve/parasympathetic nervous system more so and hope I'll eventually change my brain a bit too.

This would explain my General Anxiety disorder so much. Makes me wonder if I've been like this since a child. No wonder I got sick so easy as a kid.

Just an epiphany, I think, after my therapy session that ran 90 mins yesterday since she had a cancellation.]

Think about it like this:

You exercising (stressing out or having anxiety) an hour a day is considered typical (normal); however, your anxiety has you exercising 10+ hours a day. That’s a minimum of 10 times MORE than typical and that is DAILY.

You’ve been unknowingly (without realizing or understanding or consciously aware) exercising for 10+ hours a day for the past 10+ years or longer.

Your brain and body have grown USED to this and have learned to function (adapted) at this level of exercise every day without you consciously aware of it.

That means your new typical (normal) is

You’re tired, probably all the time

Lack of (restful) sleep or waking frequently

Insomnia

lack of motivation

not proactive

feel stuck in your life and/or your head,

you get into depression spirals easier than ever before

You think you’ve become an introvert and/or homebody (when actually your house or room is your safe space and where you experience the least amount of stress or anxiety)

Are you seeing the problem yet?

About me: I have General Anxiety Disorder (GAD)., among other diagnoses. This is a daily, sometimes hourly, occurrence for me. Something I’ve only just realized, as you can see in the text message above, I was today years old in my learning and understanding.

[missing-muses]

Things to know about Reno:

(May contain subjects that can be triggering.All possible trigger will be marked with * and will be in smaller font.)

The real Reno is 163cm (5'4") in real life, however I changed her height to 152cm (5') to make her smaller to fit with being a fairy

Even though Reno loves coffee,she can’t have it too often because it makes her very VERY hyper.

If Reno eats something particularly tasty, she has a very obvious habit of happily wiggling.She never notices that she does it until someone points it out to her

Reno always has a can of icing in her cabinet because sometimes a girl just needs some a little tiny spoonful of icing

Reno has a speech habit of saying “oh” and “yeah” a lot when she speaks….not for any particular reason,it’s just a habit that she can’t break

Reno was in several different group/bands before she began her solo career.

*Reno has and will probably always suffer with mental health issues,she’s been through a lot and it has taken a toll on her mentally.

*Reno has been diagnosed with many things,but her most consistent diagnosis have been PTSD,clinical depression,severe GAD,panic disorder,OSDD.

There will always be one person in particular that will always have a piece of her heart,even if she were to enter another relationship.She just can’t bring herself to refill the hole that they left.

One of Reno’s biggest insecurities is not being able to properly express her feelings towards those she cares about.She is constantly worried that because she not good at directly saying,they’ll feel under appreciated or not as loved.

Renie is still very much apart of who Reno is,however she only makes her presence know to those she feels safe around.It’s just easier and safer for Reno as a whole that way.

After a difficult time Reno moved out of the city and into the mountains in the countryside.It has allowed her to begin to heal from her troubles.

Reno has always been an animal lover and she has 6 pets and often cares for the wildlife that show up in her yard.

After returning to work,Reno has decided to keep her apartment in the city for when work runs late.

After some time away,Reno has returned to her career in music.Something she has always been quite passionate about.

When Reno gets too high her wings naturally come out since she isn’t thinking about keeping them hidden.

Reno absolutely loves tattoos. She appreciates them on herself and on others, she instantly think someone becomes more attractive if they have tattoos.

Reno loves to share her music with others and see their reactions and hear their input. Music is a passion of hers and she loves to share it.

* Reno used to have unhealthy coping mechanisms,and tho she hasn’t become fully sober,she has cut out the more detrimental vices she used to have.

* Reno’s worst coping mechanisms included drug usage,as well as alcohol abuse,and one nightstands.

Reno is still quite submissive,but this time around it’s not because she looks down on herself anymore,no!Its because of the feeling of safety and comfort it provides her.The safety,comfort,and love that Reno still craves despite growing more comfortable in herself.

Reno is newly discovering who she is as an individual.She is moving past who she was and trying to become a better person.She has often referred to herself as “an unfinished puzzle”, meaning she is a work in progress.Reno hasn’t found all of her pieces,but she working hard to find them and finish the puzzle of herself.

Because Reno chooses to live freely amongst humans,she has to constantly keep her wings hidden and will only have them out when she alone,with someone she trusts,or other fae creatures.

Keeping her wings hidden so often can be quite painful for Reno so she tries not to stay out in public longer than necessary.

One thing about Reno that has remained the same,she’s afraid of the people she cares for being upset or angry at her.It’s a bit of a contradiction of the person she wants to be,but it’s something that she just can’t seem to grow out of.

[mental-health-advice]

I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety all my life but I thought I had the panic attacks and GAD under control for years. In the last six months I’m unable to leave the house without having full panic attacks that leave me dizzy and vomiting into bushes and whatnot. I desperately need to go to a doctor but I can’t even go to the corner store without these issues. I live in a big city and I feel like that’s contributing to my pandemic fears. I’m on lexapro and try every technique I’ve heard of to try and calm down (even listening to meditation videos for anxiety) but I feel horrible even laying in bed. I spend 95% of every day feeling like I’m on the brink of d**th and that this is never gonna end. I’m in therapy but I haven’t talked to her in a while, I know I need to reach out but do you have ANY tips besides like, breathing and grounding techniques? I can’t even go visit my mom to be with her since her mom just died. I got too sick to even go to the airport (and the last time I flew I vomited the entire way there). Also, happy holidays, thank you for all you do ♥️

Hey there,

I am so sorry that you are dealing with all of this in regards to your depression and anxiety and the fact that due to these factors you have not being able to leave the house in such a long time.

Sometimes with anxiety, things can be up and down just like with recovery in general with

our mental health recovery journey. This does not mean in any way that you have or are going backwards but rather that something has happened (like a trigger) that has brought your panic attacks back and worsened your anxiety once more.

In regards to needing to see your doctor, is there any way possible that you can do a telehealth appointment with them? I’m sure the receptionists and your doctor will be very understanding of your current situation and will be more than accommodating to your needs. In saying all of this I think it’s pretty awesome that you have been able to recognise and acknowledge that your anxiety and panic attacks have worsened, I think this is great because it will make getting back on track that much easier.

It's unfortunate that the usual grounding and breathing techniques have not been useful this time around but this dos not mean by any means that things cannot and will not get better again. Due to these techniques not being of any benefit as of right now, I gently recommend that you see or just speak to your doctor as a change of dosage in your medication may be needed or an extra medication in the short term until your anxiety is back under control.

I know how hard the pandemic was on everyone and I am wondering if this could be a trigger in regards with your anxiety and struggling to leave your home. Maybe subconsciously you were afraid of getting covid-19 and so this was playing on your mind a lot without you realising it and consequently causing your panic attacks when trying to leave the house – just a thought!

Re-starting therapy I think would also be a great idea but seeing as you are finding it difficult to leave the house at the moment, perhaps start with talking to your doctor and go from there (the last thing we want to do is overload you with things to do as this will only worsen your anxiety which is not what we want at all!)

I really hope that this has helped a bit and please do let us know if we can help to support you in any other way!

I’m thinking of you and hope that you are going OK

Take care,

Lauren

[ajokeformur-ray]

Hey! I'm the one who sent in the ask about online therapy a couple hours ago (I think). If you want, you can check out this place:

It's Complicated (just google search it as It's Complicated online therapy)

Or I can send you the link as a message.

You do have to find your own match there, however you get to see all the therapists there along with their introductions and, most importantly, what their professional qualifications are. It's a bit cheaper depending on who you would choose. For example for my therapists, his current rates are 50€ per session.

Hiiiii!🥰🥰🥰

Thank you so much for the recommendation, I’ll check them out! I’m not too sure if they offer UK services, but I’ll take a look at them. It’s good that they let you choose your own therapist, that makes it easier. I’m actually studying right now the benefits of choosing your own therapist, so it’s a little ironic.😂 Being able to see their credentials is really good, too! It seems that they take client preferences into account as much as possible, which is promising. Your therapists’ rates are really good! That works out to roughly £44, which is still quite steep.

I’m gonna try the NHS again because my anxiety is worsening (I know we shouldn’t self-diagnose, it’s a controversial topic, but everyone I’ve spoken to about this and even some I haven’t, have said that I’m a walking neon sign for undiagnosed anxiety. My suspicions lie with GAD, tbh). This morning my heart rate was 56 bpm at resting and within seconds of picking up my to do list and starting to read it, it shot up to 95 bpm, so I definitely need to address it with a doctor again. Maybe this time, I’ll get further than my 15 year old and 20 year old selves did. Doubtful, though.

Thank you so so much for the resources recommendation and for reaching out to me! I’m sorry for my ramble responses. I think about this a LOT.😂

[iamnmbr3]

Hii, I've been reading a lot of ur fic recs of thorki and i absolutely love them, but i wanted to know if u had any that weren't based on the mcu but on the comics? if not it's okay, thank u either way <3

So gad you've enjoyed my recs! Here are three good ones I enjoyed and that you might like too! The first is full on comics universe - and one of the first thorki fics on AO3 I believe. The second is a heavily comics inspired fusion. And the third is Avengers Assemble and has a characterization much closer to some of the comics than to the MCU. If people have other suggestions feel free to comment them.

Chances Lost by marchingjaybird (words: 980 | rating: E | Comics Universe | Thorki)

Loki falls into old patterns again.

Build Walls for Miles Around by Lise (words: 5,043 | rating: T | Comics Fusion | Thorki)

Amora and Loki's brief flirtations tend to end poorly. This time it's ended poorly for Loki. And he's really, really not happy about what she's making him do.

It Takes the Truth to Fool Me by Skornheim (words: 3,696 | rating: E | Avengers Assemble | Thorki)

After he recovered from the initial shock of learning Thor was in love with him (didn’t just “come home, brother,” “let me help you, brother,” love him but desired him as well, probably wanted to throw him down in the middle of battle and ravish him, wanted to take him hard and fast on hands and knees— Loki stopped thinking about it and got a glass of ice water, because it was making him a little sweaty) he decided the only thing for it would be to seduce him.

There were a number of reasons this was a good, reasonable, practical – just pragmatic, really – plan: regular proximity would afford him a closer strike point, next time he needed one; the intimacy might inspire Thor to spill valuable Avengers’ secrets that could be useful to Loki; it might earn him Thor’s lenience (it was already no challenge to escape Avengers’ custody, but it wouldn’t hurt if Thor went even easier on him. Maybe Thor wouldn’t rearrange Loki’s face so severely next time they tussled if he thought it would hurt his chances of rearranging Loki’s guts later).

[lovelystay]

Sʟᴇᴇᴘɪɴɢ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ sᴀᴍᴇ ʙᴇᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ʙғғ (ᴄʀᴜsʜ)- sᴛʀᴀʏ ᴋɪᴅs 🎬

ɢᴇɴʀᴇ : ʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ , sᴜɢɢᴇsᴛɪᴠᴇ

ʀᴇǫᴜᴇsᴛ : ʏᴇs !

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢ : ɴᴏɴᴇ

ꕥCʜᴀɴ

Chris would probably be a little shy but since you guys are friends already he didn’t mind cuddling .

Do NOT try spooning you might feel something pocking at the back of your thigh .

Chan and you were just cuddling but you were a little uncomfortable so you wanted him to spoon you thinking it would be easier to fall asleep . You asked him , and he did spoon you . 3 minutes later something kept rubbing against your thighs , you asked him what it was and he just hugged you tighter putting one of his leg above yours . You weren’t dumb of course , you knew he was just hard . You turned around and put your hands on his hard member hearing him whimper . I think you can imagine how that went 🤭 .

ꕥMɪɴʜᴏ

Shy , really shy , isn’t against the idea at all but he would get so intimidated by the situation he got himself into .

As soon as you two got into the bed he couldn’t stop worrying about everything . The second you looked at him he became all red .

Can’t figure out if he actually like it or not .

Would be as far as he can from you , his heart can stop beating furiously fast when he’s beside you .

ꕥCʜᴀɴɢʙɪɴ

This adorable man who deserve the world would make everything for you so that you don’t feel uncomfortable . Would ask you if your sure you want it sleep beside him and tell you he could sleep on the couch with his lovely smile . Of course you want to stay with him too . Bring you a big fluffy blanket if you’re too cold and would turn on the ac if you’re too hot.

Would place beside you water and some cookies to make sure you’re comfortable here . How to not fall in love with him ...

ꕥHʏᴜɴᴊɪɴ

His eyes were full of love looking at you . Really romantic behaviour .

You two slept pretty early but he was just eager to sleep with you in his arms .

Little did he know he’s gonna have a wet dream with you in it and wake up with a pretty big boner , good luck to hide it from you when he wake up .

ꕥJɪsᴜɴɢ

He was just joking about it but when you actually came in his room with your pillow , blanket and phone in your pyjamas he then start panicking , he didn’t thought you would actually do it . But happy you did .

Honestly couldn’t stop staring at your boobs , the fact that you weren’t wearing a bra turned him on . Couldn’t stay in the bed beside you with his hard on , had to go to the bathroom and jerk himself off , he may or may have not thought about you 👀

ꕥFᴇʟɪx

Sleepless night , you slept in the morning .

It was the first time you slept in the same bed and honestly instead of being awkward it was more cute than anything . You were playing games , eating snacks every two minutes and even watched 2-3 movies all of that in one night . The morning around 7 am both of you were really tired and just slept in each other’s arms without thinking anything else .

ꕥSᴇᴜɴɢᴍɪɴ

The first time sleeping with his crush , oh my gad . Wouldn’t really mind I guess . Would act like it’s cool and he don’t care even though he was going to have a heart attack because of you . He kept his distance worried that he might annoy you but when you were the one moving near him to hug and cuddle him his heart stopped beating , he didn’t knew what to do so he just hugged you back .

ꕥJᴇᴏɴɢɪɴ

Nervous , a lot , never even thought of sleeping with his crush but here you are beside him sleeping with a cute little angelic face .Get you a man that love you so much he find you cute when you sleep .He couldn’t sleep too , because he was uncomfortable but he still wanted to stay with you .

[bookwyrminspiration]

Hi bookwyrm! it’s the ”Tam in Kotlc frustrates me” anon. I didn’t say this in the first ask bc it was so long, but yeah Tam always seemed vaguely uncomfortable to me. He’s actually my favorite character bc when I first read the series as a little kid, it was the first time I’d felt understood (I have GAD but it wasn’t diagnosed for a long time, and bc of that I was very closed-off and spent a lot of my interaction with people feeling like I was acting.), I was super excited to see him more because to little-kid me it was like seeing myself for the first time. Granted, he barely showed up unless there was a disaster or something, but I reread the scenes he was in a million times over when I was younger. Anyway, his kidnapping hurt to read bc I made that connection when I was little, I’m very glad legacy didn’t come out back then bc I probably would’ve cried lol.

oo welcome back!! hello!

this is incredibly accurate--kinda what I was trying to touch on with the "he feels like he's in a friend group where he only knows one person and is bluffing his way through it" comparison, but you've worded it really well. i mean, we saw in Neverseen that he "didn't give [sophie] permission to bring anyone else" (paraphrased), and was uncomfortable with everyone else being there. he just kinda got thrown into everything and had to go along with it

but I 100% feel what you mean about that being understood part of it! there's something so comforting about characters who just...don't perfectly mesh with the group, who are part of it but not in sync, just a moment off. I also have gad, so those kinds of characters were just like ah, there are other people who don't know how to people either. i didn't talk to a lot of people, and just tried not to talk in general because I didn't know how. like what volume, what topic, what vocab and slang do they use, will I know the subject, should I face them, will anyone else be part of the conversation, what if i'm wrong? and so on and so forth, you know?

tam's out of touch characteristics can kind of mirror that and make him easier to relate to. I'm very glad you had that relation and saw yourself in the series! I think in general he's has a lot of qualities we can relate to. personally, he's just the closest thing to me in the series, so it's really interesting to see what else draws people to him

i've reread the series so many times and I just remember always being like ah yes. tam. there he is. excellent. I like this scene more already. although it wasn't great when he was being kidnapped. that scene hurt, like I was so frustrated with Gisela because my dude! no! leave him alone! can we not just have one thing! do you gotta take him??

tam just has so many details and little things that we can identify and latch onto because we see ourselves in them!! it is apparently tam hours right now and I am absolutely not mad at that

(i got a little distracted while answering this so if I missed something please feel free to come back and remind me to go back to it!!)

[hellitwasyoufirstsergeant]

Hi everyone! I’m not really sure why I’m posting this here, I suppose because I’m not ready for people I know ‘irl’ to see this, and this is the only account I have anywhere where none of my irl friends follow it. As to why I’m posting this at all, I’m not so sure either. I suppose largely for myself, in the hope that it will exorcise some demons, and partly for other people, because eating disorders just are not discussed enough and perhaps by posting this I can show someone else that they’re not alone. 

There may be mistakes in this and it may not all be 100% coherent, I found it hard to write and I didn’t wish to read it back over.

WARNING: The following post contains discussions of eating disorders and mental health issues. Please do not read if this is a trigger for you, and please not not read if you’re only here to pass judgement 

Looking back now, it’s so easy to realise why I felt the way I did, and to see my descent into mental illness. At the time, it was confusing as hell. I wasn’t diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder and clinical depression until I was 17, although I had been suffering from both for six years already, I just didn’t realise it, because I just didn’t know they existed. I didn’t know there were medical conditions to describe how I felt, perhaps if I did I wouldn’t have felt so alone and so alienated. It wasn’t until last year that I realised I’d suffered from an eating disorder. Before that, I didn’t know that binge eating was an eating disorder. 

The words ‘eating disorder’ to me conjured up images of skeletal bodies, of people making themselves sick. I wish that preteen and teen me knew that I was suffering from an actual condition, that other people suffered from too. 

I don’t recall specifically the first time I binged on food, but over autumn (fall) of 2011 it became a regular occurrence, a habit. It was my way of coping with the changes in my life - starting a new school, my mum being diagnosed with a clinical illness and an increasingly fractured relationship with my dad - and my feelings of loneliness. I was also self conscious about my body, I was in a more advanced stage of puberty than most of my peers and I was aware of the fact that I was a little overweight. Bingeing became an outlet for feelings that I couldn’t understand, and therefore that I couldn’t process. 

It was a process that I repeated regularly for six years. It was like a paradox, the more I looked at myself in the mirror and hated what I saw, the more I binged, the very thing that made me carry on putting on weight. I was overweight, I still am today, but I wish that I could have seen myself the way others saw me - slightly chubby but not the ugly monster I thought myself at the time. I ate my feelings away, it was the only coping mechanism I knew. Even when in some ways my life improved - when I was 14 I finally fell in with a group of friends who were kind and who made me feel accepted - my mental state continued to decline and I continued to eat to cope. I was also feeling confused about my sexuality, something that increased my sense of alienation and otherness. It was often the only thing that got me through the day, the only thing that made life bearable to me. 

I never confided the way I felt or my problem with food to anyone during this period. My mum knew that I had issues with food, twice she found hidden stashes in my bedroom. She has been a good parent to me, but I so wish she’d handled it differently. She made me feel ashamed, something that made me more determined to hide my problem and therefore to not confront it. I think perhaps that she would’ve been a lot more understanding had she known the feelings behind the problem, but I didn’t know how to go about telling her. 

I can’t remember how old I was exactly when I shoplifted food for the first time, I think around 14. The £10 a week pocket money was no longer enough to fund my problem, even though I always chose the cheapest food so that I could buy as much as possible. I shoplifted semi regularly from the local supermarkets for around 18 months, I still don’t know how I was never caught. 

In September 2016, I started sixth form college. It was a fresh start that I so badly needed, my five years at secondary school having been so unhappy. It was hard to begin with, only my oldest friend went to the same college as me and old feelings of loneliness resurfaced. A part of me had hoped that the change of school would allow me to leave my bingeing habit behind, but it wasn’t to be. Even when I settled in and began making friends, I continued bingeing. 

New friends at college told me of their mental health issues, and I finally felt understood - there were other people who felt the way I did, other people who wanted to die. These feelings may not be normal, but I’m not alone anymore. Despite feeling accepted properly for the first time in my life, I continued to eat. Perhaps it was the stress of A levels (my fellow Brits know how fucking hard these are), or my mum’s decline in health, or my increasingly worsening relationship with my dad. 

In May/June time of 2017, my oldest friend, Imogen, who was one of a few friends now aware of my poor mental state, told me that I should go to the doctor. After a little persuading, I agreed. She came with me, but the appointment achieved nothing. I tried a few more GPs at my local surgery and eventually found one who made me feel listened to, and who was kind and sympathetic. I don’t recall the exact time I was diagnosed (to be honest this period in my life is a bit of a blur), but after some months I was finally diagnosed with GAD and clinical depression. I still continued to stay silent about my problem with food. 

Ironically, it was actually the further decline of my mental state that allowed me to break my old habit. My mental health had declined fairly slowly over the past few years, but the decline accelerated over autumn and winter of 2017. I don’t know if there was a trigger behind that, I guess mental health doesn’t need a reason. I didn’t know how to deal with the way I felt, I lashed out and fell out with Imogen, which hit me hard. We didn’t talk at all for three months. Before this period, I had often thought that things would be so much easier if I was dead, but my thoughts had never progressed beyond that. Now, it became more active. I actually wanted to die. I stopped looking when I crossed the road, I stopped looking after my physical health at all. Fears about hurting my mum were the only thing stopping me from taking it further. But, I finally stopped binge eating, so disinterested in life that even the that no longer made me feel better. 

My mental state didn’t take a turn for the better, but I grew used to these new feelings and started to process them properly. I got better at pushing them out, but I did eventually decide to tell my parents about my diagnoses. My mum was very supportive, she still is, my dad not so (although I probably should’ve expected that). I made up with Imogen, my behaviour started to normalise. I felt so free from my old bingeing habit, it had only been a few months but it felt like a lifetime ago. 

In February 2018, my mum told me that she’d be moving to Yorkshire. She’d been forced by her job to take early retirement due to ill health, she was only 50 at the time, and wanted to live somewhere cheaper so she could save on living costs and pay off her mortgage. I was scared, and considered for a time moving in with my grandparents so that I could stay in a place where I knew people, but eventually decided that I’d move with my mum. Still, despite the biggest change ever to happen in my life, I managed to avoid a return to my binge eating habit. I’m still not sure how. Perhaps now that the habit was broken it no longer had the hold over me that it once did. 

And then, around March 2018, my dad gave me £500. To this day I still have no idea why, I guess guilt. But it was so much more money than I’d ever had. The temptation not to spend any of it on food was too great. I decided to treat myself, I’d spend £100 on food and put the rest in my savings. 

By the time I finished college at the beginning of June, the entire £500 was gone, at least £450 of it spent on food. I still remember the binge I had the day after me and mum moved out of our old home and in with my grandparents, who we lived with for seven weeks before going to Yorkshire. My mental state declined still further, and I wasted most of those weeks in bed, not having the energy to do anything. I kicked myself later for not using it to spend time with the friends I was leaving behind. 

After we moved to Yorkshire in August, I spent two of the worst months of my life. My old feelings of loneliness resurfaced, not helped by the fact that one of my closest friends just stopped talking to me. I seemed to alternate between binge eating, my binges even bigger than they ever had been, and hardly eating at all. 

But, eventually, I managed to settle in. I got a job, I made new friends. I didn’t make a conscious decision to stop binge eating again, it just happened. I wasn’t lonely anymore, but my mental state didn’t seem to get any better. But, I had healthier ways of coping and I didn’t need to binge as an outlet for my feelings anymore. In September 2019, I started uni, and I finally felt like my life had a purpose. 

Now, I have more and better friends than I ever had. I’m glad I made the move to Yorkshire, where I live now is much nicer where I grew up and if I hadn’t made the move there are so many amazing people I wouldn’t have met. Most of my friends are aware of my mental health issues, although I rarely discuss them in detail. 

However, only one of my friends is aware of my eating disorder. I didn’t realise until last year that binge eating was classified as an eating disorder. I’m not quite sure why, but this discovery prompted me to finally confide in my oldest friend, Imogen. She was very supportive and understanding, and I know my other friends would be, but it’s still something where I look back and I’m like ‘woah that actually happened’. Putting it out of my mind as much as possible has been my way of coping with the fact that it did happen. I have been slightly more open online that I have irl about the fact that I had an eating disorder, but this is the first time I have discussed it this in depth with anyone. 

I’m going to say now what I wish preteen and teen me had known: you are not alone. Whether you’re suffering from an eating disorder, from mental health issues, or from something else, you are not alone. I can’t say truthfully that I have never regretted confiding in someone, but the majority of the time it has helped me, even in a small way. Please talk to someone if you have an eating disorder, be it a friend, a family member, a GP, a teacher, even me. It is nothing to be ashamed of. 

I stopped binge eating as a regular habit at the start of winter 2018. Although I relapsed a couple times last year, it’s been twelve months and counting since my last binge. 

[pilferingapples]

LM 1.1.4

Well this chapter escalated quickly.  Family gossip!  A little snark about grudging charity! Musings on the nature of sin and forgiveness! Abuse of the legal system by the prosecutor to destroy a family! PUBLIC EXECUTION. 

-the bit with the Countess is obviously mostly silly, but--I'm not sure how to say this? -- but ...like,we're told, repeatedly, by the narration and the Bishop , that their family Lost Everything and was in exile and had no one after the Revolution.  But here's this Countess, whose children have such great expectations and such a Promising Future in a very Inherited Position kind of way, not even one generation out from the Revolution.  I don't know if Hugo meant it (for once) , but to me it speaks to just how deeply  entrenched the old power structures were/are.   There was a disruption in the lines of power, but it clearly wasn't a permanent severing...

-I'm curious about the visiting priest and his speech! He may not have moved Geborand (...who I can only assume is a dig at someone Hugo knew , because aren't they always) to especially impressive heights of charity, but it's apparent that his sad little "pennyworth of paradise" is more than Myriel had been able to convince him to give. Is it maybe because Myriel , being Hugo's Ideal Priest , doesn't deal in Threat sermons and that's the only thing that gets Geborand's attention--not hope, or compassion for others,  but a threat to his own wellbeing?

-I love the "fall onto the knees" speech/section for a lot of reasons ( despite the Bahorel who lives in my head rent free definitely adding unintentional lols to that line) .  It introduces so many running through-lines? 

- Gad, the slow horror of the Counterfeiter case.  Sentencing the counterfeiter means leaving the mother and child without support --he was already committing crime to take care of them, so things must be desperate! -- and it means destroying what seems to have been a sincere love on both their sides.  It's very likely the mother and child won't live, or won't both live--and if she can't keep the child alive on her own , it's just as likely this prosecutor or another will be getting to accuse her of infanticide for her failure to survive the justice system.  It's such a direct study in how the systems of power convince people to act against their own interests ??   I'm Upset. 

- The death penalty case!  Beccaria namedrop!  And also first Joseph de Maistre namedrop, and yeah I see how that's already being set up in opposition to ..everything this book is in favor of , really

Abolishing the death penalty is one particular issue Hugo really could claim to have fought for all his life (unlike the republican politics, which, wellllll). He'd had personal acquaintance with it  since he was very young , with his mother's lover/his godfather, General Victor Fanneau de La Horie, being executed for treason in 1812. 

 The most obvious place that he first deals with it seriously is in the Diary of a Condemned Man; as (IIRC) @prudencepaccard once pointed  out, Bishop Myriel here is something like the ideal priest the prisoner of that story hopes for, one who can truly bring comfort and a sense of his God, and offer real sympathy and connection.  There's a lot to say about that--but what's sticking with me this time is the effect that the execution has on Myriel.  Aside from his obvious trauma about it (and this is the first time it's occurring to me he probably had friends and family executed, sight unseen by him, in exactly this way, and that...cannot be making it easier) , there's his speech: 

"I did not think that it was so monstrous. It is wrong to become absorbed in the divine law to such a degree as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing?"

--which feels to me like it's hitting a lot of the same thematic notes as Enjolras does in the "Love, Thine is the Future" speech, but almost from the opposite direction? there's so much to say about the two of them in narrative conversation (the two genuine idealistic priests of their respective ideals, who are actually able to change and grow , who in their own way represent the Just) but..agh, this chapter write up is so long already? well, put a pin in it for later, I guess.><  

..And this read through is the firs time I've consciously made the connection-- Works Like Words, Les œuvres semblables aux paroles , that is, they're both based on the Gospels. Small thing , but it's zoomed past me all these years!

A Final Note for this chapter: I remain highly entertained by the concept of the Phantom of Social Justice haunting Myriel like a Woke Opera Ghost.  PRACTICE CHARITY!  PRACTICE CHARITY,  MY PRIEST OF JUSTICE!

[iplaywithstring]

This week we got the results of my daughter’s ADHD assessment. She was not diagnosed with ADHD, but with Generalized anxiety disorder. The psychologist said that there are symptoms and signs of ADHD, but in her observation, those things were more apparent at the beginning of appointments and then settled down toward the end. She said with ADHD, she would expect the opposite, so the root is anxiety (about what to expect or what is expected of her) is driving the behaviours and as she becomes more comfortable things are easier to control. She also said to follow up before my kid graduates to see if there is anything else she’ll need to be successful in university - basically if we treat the anxiety and there are still issues, we can reevaluate. Having a GAD diagnosis does mean she’ll have access to some accommodations at school, and she recommended some resources for support and some for therapy if we go that route. It was a lot to take in. This is much better than a “she’s fine” result (because there’s nothing worse than feeling like something is very wrong and being told you’re fine), but was not what we were expecting. We knew anxiety was a part of it, but I felt like anxiety was a symptom and not a cause. I’m not a psychologist though. I appreciate the invitation to go back to her and reassess once we get a handle on the anxiety. I’m also so proud of my kid for telling us there was a problem and asking for an evaluation. A lot of times GAD isn’t diagnosed until after a crisis - maybe we’ll be able to get her the support and treatment she needs and she won’t have to go through crisis. I’m sad for her because life is going to be harder than it needs to be, but I’m so thrilled she will have understanding and support and tools. I’ve contacted the school and I’m going to send them a copy of the report and they’re going to meet with her to go over options. I need to call her Dr, but I’m waiting on that. We’re discussing trying meds just so that she has a frame of reference to decide if they’re something she wants or not. It’s up to her - she’s 14, she’s old enough to make that call while things are stable. She’s not against taking meds to help, but she’s not a fan of medication in general because of side effects, so she wants to take time to read more and think about it. My husband took anxiety meds for a while while doing counseling a few years ago, and the meds sort of took the pressure off while he learned the skills he needed, so it’s good he can share that experience with her. I think it would be good to at least know how they affect her and to have a prescription on hand in case she ends up in a bad spot, rather than being in a bad spot and having to deal with meds for the first time.

She’s taken it ok. It’s affirming for her to be told “you’re right, this isn’t how it is for most people”, so that’s good. She’s not quite sold on ADHD not being also a factor though - she’s done a ton of reading over the last year about ADHD and related to so much of it. I’ve reminded her that even without the diagnosis, if the strategies and such help, she should keep using them. We’ve also got a list of local supports (group therapy, study help, etc.) but a lot of things are on hold right now, so those might not happen until school is done for the year.

It’s a lot to take in. I want to give her all the support I can, but I feel so out of my depth. I’m so proud of her for trusting us with the problem and taking the steps to figure it out.

[modsatan-writes]

Hi there! Can I have an Obey Me demon brothers matchup please? My name is Christina. I’m an ENFJ, bisexual, demifemale who’s in her mid 20s. I’m mainly a kind, compassionate, and friendly individual who loves meeting people from different backgrounds. I’m also very loyal, honest, and intelligent. However, I do have anxiety and depressive episodes here and there (I take alternate medication for that). It really gets my self esteem down at times, and I tend to doubt myself and my skills a lot. I am also a perfectionist unfortunately. I also have autism, ADD, and GAD. But I’m also pretty open minded, funny, and very patient with people. I will get stubborn and sassy AF if someone messes with my moral values or my loved ones. I’m an empath, and I tend to attract broken people who need my motherly and nurturing personality a lot. A lot of people come up to me and tell me their life stories after I just met them! But I also try not to let people take advantage of me, and I state my boundaries with them. Animals flock to me since they’re attracted to my gentle energy. I also have a beautiful and powerful singing voice according to a lot of people, so I have major Disney princess vibes! My hobbies include drawing, singing, cooking, playing guitar, yoga, meditation, and crystal therapy. My dislikes are sudden loud noises, scratchy clothing, insects, bullies, liars, judgemental people, and disloyalty. If you want to do this matchup I thank you a whole lot! You don’t have to do it if you want to, but I’d appreciate it! Thank you. 🙏💕🌹🍷✨

Hi beautiful! You sure can. Thank you for sending in this ask, I appreciate it a lot!

P.s. You are an angel sent by God by the way.

- Mod Satan

tw: none.

Requests are currently OPEN. Always remember to read the rules before sending in an ask.

Your romantic match is: Lucifer

He loves your loyalty and your cleverness – this is exactly the kind of person Lucifer needs in his life.

He takes your anxiety and your depressive episodes very seriously – he tries his best to help you, even though he might not understand what you're going through sometimes. He's not the kind of man who would leave you, his loved one, alone when you need him the most. He will also give you your alone time when you need that.

Your kindness and patience are definetly the things he loves most about you – mostly when they are directed at him. He won't ever admit it, but he gets jealous when he sees you're just that kind with other people too.

Your sassyness towards people who disrespect your loved ones always makes him smirk – he just sees so much of himself in you, sometimes. His brothers are the most important thing he has and he wants to protect them. You trying to protect your loved ones in your own way makes him realize every single time that, yes, maybe you really are his soulmate.

You are both perfectionists, which could be good and extremely bad at the same time, but one thing's for sure: you can understand him and he understands you.

Be honest with him – tell him that he's overworking (again), call him out when he's doing something stupid. He might be angry at you for a while, but he will eventually admit (to himself at least) that you were right.

Not gonna lie, he was scared someone could take advantage of your kindness and empathy at some point – he tried to warn you, but decided that his intervention was not needed when he saw you stand your ground. He's so proud.

Being around you just generally helps him, honestly – you have the power to calm him down even in the most stressful days.

Can and will be your Disney prince.

Your platonic match is: Belphegor

(I was really torn between Belphie and Beel, but decided to stick to Belphie because of reasons).

At first, he's attracted by your motherly personality – he might act like he doesn't need anyone (except his twin of course) but, after Lilith's death, he just needs someone he can talk to. No, his brothers are not included.

He just likes that you are open minded – it makes him feel that it's easier to talk to you, this way. You won't judge him.

It will get a lot of time and patience to get him to open up, but when he does, oh boy. Congratulations, you've just adopted a child. There's no escaping now.

He's the number one fan of your singing voice – he asked you to sing for him out of pure curiosity, fell asleep while listening to your beautiful voice, and got addicted.

You hate the same things – if that's not the best way to bond, I don't know what is.

Doesn't like the idea of you dating Lucifer, you could do so much better * cough *. Eventually gets used to it because, well, you are your own person. You can make your own choices.

He's not as good as Lucifer at supporting you, but he tries his best – if you're comfortable with it, he will ask you to nap next to him. That's it, that's all he does, but it's just his own way to make you understand that he's there for you.

[galactic-academia]

I Need Somebody, Help

@korea-fashion-xx​ I’m sorry it took me so long, but here it is, I hope you will enjoy it and thanks for your request <3

Rating: G

Category: F/M

Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)

Relationship: Jim Moriarty/Female Reader

Tags: Fluff, Light Angst, Getting Together, Moriarty Is Cute, Sherlock Is A Good Bro.

Words: 1930

Summary: Previously on “Help”: “You were saying we’re not enemies anymore because your crazy sister forced me to be a monster.” “Exact. So, Y/N, Moriarty isn’t really the monster, you see? I have to help him.” “And how will you do that?” “With your help.” Y/N, at the behest of Sherlock, had reluctantly helped Moriarty to escape from Saint-Bart’ rooftop. Then, she had – still reluctantly – agreed to keep him company...

Notes: This is a sequel to “Help”, reading the summary above is enough to understand the story, but I hope reading the full sotry is more enjoyable by just a few lines about it... ;-) I’m not a native, please, forgive my mistakes. Picture is not mine. I hope you’ll enjoy it <3

Masterpost | Ask | Guidelines | Sherlock (BBC) masterlist | Because I need someone, Help Masterlist

Y/N was staring at the ceiling of her bedroom, lips pursed. She had fucked up and she knew it. She knew it very well now. That night, however…

When Y/N had agreed to help Moriarty escaping from Saint-Bart, she didn’t know what was waiting for her. She didn’t know she would have to babysit the former Sherlock’s Nemesis. But she had had to; before leaving for challenging the laws of gravity, the Detective had made Moriarty swear to not leave the house until he tells him to. How he was supposed to eat and to live decently without any money and without going out for grocery shopping hadn’t made part of the plan. Well, even geniuses couldn’t think about everything while put under big pressure, what can I say?

So Y/N had been forced to visit the former criminal-or-not at least twice a week to feed him and keep the man from going insane. At first, she had been the one threatening of going insane: she had a lot of other things to do than taking care of and illustrious and dangerous stranger! She had a job, she had friends, she had a guinea pig which she already had to take care of, thank you very much! But the more time passed, the more Y/N was starting to like the visits she paid to Jim. The man was funny, quite kind, very clever and always so happy to see her… Twice a week became every other day, Y/N was having tea with Jim, they talked about the news, about what facts around the world may or may not be Sherlock’s activity, about the movie BBC had aired earlier this week… Then every other day became every day, Jim started cooking for Y/N from time to time, inviting her to spend the evening with him, and Y/N started to bring DVD to Jim. They ended up watching them together, when they didn’t just make fun of the actors, their actor plays or the plot itself, and even the three at once. Y/N even showed some pictures of Hilary, her guinea pig, to Jim, no need to say he just fell in love with the little animal as soon as his eyes had been on it. It had been very difficult to believe Y/N once had had to take him out of a mortuary bag, two years ago…

And then, the big day was here. Y/N was used to receive messages from Jim several times a day, at random; she was currently cleaning Hilary’s cage when she heard her phone going crazy. She hastily but carefully put the guinea pig back in her nest before looking for what had made her phone hysterical.

Y/N! He just came! - JM

I’m free! - JM

Actually, no, I’m far from free, but I can go out without risking my life! - JM

You have to come over! - JM

I’m taking you out to the restaurant, it’s my threat! - JM

*treat, not threat…- JM

I hope you’re not driving. Oops. -JM

Y/N beamed to the screen; she was so relieved! Sherlock was alive and had come to free Jim, that meant he soon would be able to start a new life and that was wonderful. And he wanted to take her to the restaurant to celebrate! Yes, that would hardly be the first time Y/N would have a meal with Jim, but this time was special. This time was official. This time was in another context. And Y/N couldn’t help blushing madly while picturing the lovely genius in a tux instead of the worn jeans he had had to wear these past two years. But nobody had talked about a tux or a fancy restaurant. Nope.

But, after picking Jim up and arguing during almost half an hour because he wanted to drive – he knew the address and Y/N didn’t that’s it, it would be easier to just drive himself than indicating her the way! Give him these goddamn keys Y/N! – they indeed arrived at a fancy restaurant after agreeing to take a cab, so no one would drive. And… Oh, what a night! Jim just seemed to want to give Y/N the Full Monty; pulling and pushing her chair, classy wine, flowers, glowing smiles, light chattering, little touches to her hand now and there… Of course, he did pay the bill. Of course, Y/N did want to argue about that, but she had been warned, it was his treat. Of course, Jim asked to their second cab of the night to drop Y/N first and, of course, he went out of the cab – after paying the driver and starting another argument with Y/N about this – to wish her a good night. They kissed. At first, just a little peck on the lips because they were quite tipsy and a little high on happiness; then some more chaste little kisses because, well, why not? That was fun. That felt right. And, finally, losing their patience, good night kisses became a real make out session in front of Y/N’s door. Did it lead to something more? It could have, but, as for the rest of the evening, Jim had been a real gentleman and, after one (some) last kiss (kisses) he just left, wishing Y/N to make sweet dreams.

It had been a wonderful, gorgeous, absolutely perfect night. Then it had been a hell of a morning. Y/N was remembering everything. Every sweet word, every little smile, every light touch, every tiny peck and every heated kiss. And she recognized this feeling making her ribcage a little too tight, making her stomach fluttering each time she was thinking about him. This was love. F*ck… This couldn’t happen. Jim was a criminal, a damn charming and lovely one, but still a criminal! And his life would start to become a real mess now that Sherlock was back, even if he was willing to help Jim in every way he would be able to. It would be courts, maybe prison or evasion again and it already made Y/N ill; not because she wasn’t willing to follow and help him in every deep shit he would be involve, but because she knew he didn’t deserve this, even if he was a criminal. She didn’t know the murderer; she knew the man who was cooing over pictures of a guinea pig. He made big, bad mistakes, ok, but his information had allowed Sherlock to tear the biggest European criminal network down, that should count for something, right? Worse than all these ethical considerations, Y/N was afraid to lose Jim’s friendship. She was afraid of taking him away with unrequited feelings. After this perfect night, after the whole dining and wining thing, after the making out session. Women can be quite thick sometimes, believe me, I’m one.

Since Jim was free to, at least, go for his grocery shopping by himself without putting his life in danger while waiting for a penal hell to fall on him, Y/N decided she was not needed anymore: she stopped coming to Jim’s altogether. She was far too afraid of his potential reactions to last night. When he asked if Y/N was coming, she just answered that she couldn’t, sorry. A few days later, without any news about Y/N, Jim tried to phone her and, after having been dropped on his voice mail, sent a text asking if everything was alright. The answer came a few hours later: “Yes, thx”. Y/N never picked her phone up and stopped answering his texts after that. So much for not losing Jim’s friendship...

After a month of silence, this is how Y/N found herself staring at the ceiling og her bedroom, lips pursed and certain to have fucked everything up. She would have liked to be able to say she regretted that evening with Jim and the few kisses they have exchanged, it would have been far simpler, but she didn’t. She absolutely didn’t. What she regretted, on the other hand, was how she had handeled the situation afterwards. She should have gone to Jim’s and aksed him to talk about their relationship; maybe he would have asked Y/N out? He would; Y/N was sure he would. What had she done?

The doorbell made her emerge out of her regrets; Y/N dragged herself to the door and peek by the peephole. A very pissed off Sherlock was waiting on her mat.

“Open, please, Y/N, I know you’re here.”

Crap. She obeyed and, as soon as the door was open, Sherlock made a step to the side to reveal Jim, who was hiding behind him. Jim, who was handcuffed and freshly out of a police car which was waiting for him.

“Y/N! Give me a minute, please!”

“I... But... I...”

“I would let him talk, if I were you, I won’t be able to hold the policemen back for ver long” Sherlock said, before taking a few steps towards said policemen who already looked quite annoyed.

“Listen to me, please, Y/N...”

“Ok, yes, what...” Y/N was about to say what do you want but it seemed a very harsh thing to say to somebody who did nothing wrong... Well... In the context... “What can I do for you?”

Jim went from pleading to angry in a matter of seconds, it would have been scary if Y/N didn’t know better. He was hurt.

“What you can... Oh my GOD! You can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen, cause guess what?! It did! I kissed you, on this very mat, in front of this very door. I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen, ok? If you never want to see me again, it’s alright, I’ll go and you’ll never hear about me again, I swear, but, at least, I’ll be able to remember these kisses. What do you want? Do you want me to disappear?”

“I... No! I didn’t - I didn’t want to destroy our friendship...”

“Our friendship? Our friendship?! We’re not just friends and you f*cking know it!”

“What?!”

“I don’t want to be your friend! For Gad sake, Y/N, I love you!”

“I’m really sorry to interrupt, guys, but you need to worry...” Sherlock was, indeed, starting to run out of ideas to entertain the cops. The fact that Y/N was looking at Jim cross eyed and mouth open didn’t help the matter at all.

“Y/N... As you can see, I’m quite on a rush right now”, to underline the urgency, he made the chain of his handcuff jiggle, “so hum... I have to make it cheesy and to the point: will you go on a real date with me when all this mess will be over? Will you be my girlfriend?”

Y/N was astounded, but she had understood the main theme: date, girlfriend, cheesy and to the point. So, as an answer, she kissed Jim, deeply. When she pulled apart to breath, he smiled soflty at her “That must mean yes.”

If you would have said to Sherlock that, one day, he would promise to Moriarty’s girlfriend that he would bring him back to her as soon as possible, he wouldn’t have believed it. But that’s what he did, not only he did promise, but he also delivered said promise. Don’t worry about Y/N and Jim Moriarty, they have all the help they might need.

***

Thanks for reading <3

[solest]

This will be yet another mental health post, but I won't put it under a cut this time because a) I'm on mobile and don't know how to do it here and b) yes, friends might read this. I will eben tag this and try not to feel guilty for being an attention whore by doing so. This will be longer I guess, so sorry if you have to scroll through because of a).

I thought I would have stagnated. I went to a psychosomatic clinic this summer and felt like it had not helped at all. I tried to put myself out there again and had a good moment and an immediate throwback in more than one ways. But now I'm lying here, crying over videos I see or stories I read about certain mental health things and for the first time I can accept that what I read is applying to me. I knew before, but now I accept.

I have a trauma from school and bullying. It still feels weird to say it, because I always thought that Trauma had to be something big, something life threatening and not a shitty teacher and a bunch of kids you knew since you were 3, who turned on you all of a sudden. I studied social work, took child care and protection classes, but the Traumas that were discussed there were always cases of severe violence, abuse, neglect and so on. No one ever told me that things that don't seem so threatening can stick to you and change how you react for such a long time.

I've been told by three or four therapists by now that what vi experienced was trauma, but only recently therapists were using actual methods for this on me. I've been a lively and adventurous kid until second grade. I had a math teacher who was hysterical, got emotional outbursts, screamed at us and got physical. This was known, my brothers who's six years older had her as well.

I remember her screaming at us, especially me. I've never been a math genius but this woman managed that I developed a solid fear of maths. I clearly remember her pulling my hair in front of the class, because I did not know what 7x7 was. To this day, I forgot simple formulas, my mind goes blank if too much math is involved and I'm slow calculating in my head. I started to emotionally shut down and burst into tears when doing maths homework. I was 7.

When I got into third grade, we had a maths test at the very beginning of the year and I failed it miserably. I remember I was devesrated and I link the beginning of my bullying with it and just remembered why. I got an emotional outburst. I screamed, I cried I felt helpless and lost and it was too extreme a reaction to a failed test for all around me. I now know that it was a stress response to what I had experienced before and what I linked to it. I feared to get my hair pulled again, to be screamed at. But this odd behavior only made the other kids frown on me and trying to make me this upset again., which resulted in me not having friends and not understanding why people I knew since kindergarten and who were perfectly fine with me some months ago could be so cruel.

And just some weeks ago, I saw a video on how trauma comes to be. It isn't the severity, but the surprise that shake our core beliefs. I might have a genetic disposition to anxiety disorders, which might have made it "easier" to be shaken by what happened, but that's not the sole reason it affscted me like it did. Another video stated that trauma is the way we react to what happens. This firstly made me think "Oh, so you're an over dramatic bitch that was so startled by such a thing that you developed a trauma. How pathetic". How dare I think this about myself.

The way I experienced it is valid. It did what it did to me and I can't change that. Maybe I'm too sensitive, but I can't go back and tell this my sobbing 7 yo self. I lost all my adventurous attitude. I cried a lot and developed a general anxiety disorder that was only diagnosed when I was 21. I was shamed and frowned upon my overly sensitive and emotional reactions, and as the manifestations of my GAD, mostly extreme nausea. All of this only made me hate myself more and more. People said I'm weird, not normal, mentally disabled and I believed them. I tried to please them all, to just not be alone and laughed at anymore. I'm well aware that there are people with far more severe and terrible stories, but this is mine and I can't change either.

My parents tried best their could, but looking back a proper therapy as a child might have helped me. Instead I wasn't doing good in school, because stress let me break down completely. I had anxiety when doing tests and exams, a high perfectionism I'm still not able to act upon though. My parents had not been the cause for all this and tried to help as best they could, but the damage was done.

And still, parts of this personality I had before the trauma was still there, though I felt like I had to hide it, otherwise people would reject me for who I am. I missed out on much, simply because I did not grève the mental strength to try, fearing my peers would not accept me.

My self esteem is pretty low most of the times still, but somehow I'm now at a point where I can look back on this stuff and say:

"This was messed up. There's nothing you could have done better or to prevent it. The teacher should not have acted like this. Adults should have protected you and take your desperation seriously. The other kids, no matter their own awful experiences were not entitled to treat you like shit. You're réactions are not over the top, they were cries for help. You did not deserve this, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. And if I could turn back in time, I would come to your aid and kick their arses."

I wasted so much time hating myself. I might not be perfect, no one is, but I'm okay. I'm enough. I don't have to be outstanding at something to be worth it, I already am, by merely existing. I'm worthy of love. I'm worthy of respect. I might have had a lot of help and I might took longer than most around ne, but I accomplished things. Things people like the math Teacher or stupid parents of stupid classmates told me I never will.

I got my high-school diploma. I studied. It took me 6 instead of 3 years for a Bachelor's degree, but I was experiencing flashback anxiety because it reminded me if school and I had to stay at home for one whole year, because I was so deep into anxiety and depression. And I made it.

I'm the first one with an academic degree in my whole family. Despite feeling like shit and thinking I can do nothing, I decided to pull through. The scores I had on papers do not define how professional I am, because I had to write them with severe panic attacks and procrastination problems.

I had long and stable relationships. I learned to drive. I figured I'm Bi, came out and nothing terrible happened. I went to Japan, with my girlfriend at the time for two months, just the two of us. I moved out and lived with another person. I quit a toxic job, because I knew it was toxic. I made friends.

Writing this down does not come easy, but I'm doing it right now. Being able to admit my successes is a huge step. I'm currently experiencing something like a second adolescents, and I think that's because I finally understand that I have to learn what I really am, what I want. I might overcompensate but that's okay. After 13 years of therapy and meds, and a noch most time without much help in this regard I'm allowed to do so.

I will not be loved by everyone and that's okay, because it means I don't have to love everyone in return. People do like me for what I am, even if it's hard to grasp. I'm not too old for things with 33 and I'm allowed to like "childish" stuff and it does not make me less of an adult. I deserve happiness and to cut toxic people out of my life. I will find a new job and it's okay if I feel like I don't know anything, I'm not dumb and I can learn quick.

I'm more than my mental illness, it does not define me completely.

[afoolforatook]

A RWBY V7 Ep12 rant.....When I say this is long..... Legit was fucking 37 pages double spaced at one point. Sorry....

Before this gets started I want to warn you, this is long (even longer than I thought it’d be going in). It’s probably too long ... actually it is definitely too long but if I agonize over editing it down again and again I won’t get it up before the finale. It’s probably repetitive at times, and most certainly not anything I’ll be showing off as an example of my top essay writing. And I want to be able to say that the length pays off because I have some grand hopeful insight at the end. I want to say I know things will be okay. But the fact that I can’t is exactly why I’m writing this, and why it’s so long. So if you need this to have a hopeful ending, I’m sorry, I don’t have one for you currently. I want to, so badly. But to me false hope would be even worse.  So if you can’t handle another long post that doesn’t end with a way to fix things, it’s okay, take care of yourself. But maybe the most hopeful thing I can tell you, and tell you up front, is that you aren’t alone in your pain. 

I want to preface this all with one more thing: I don’t hate CRWBY. I respect them, support them. I’ve wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt as much as I could.  That doesn’t mean I can’t criticize them or expect more from them or just be plain angry with them. I can be vocal about all of that without harassing them, without hating them. I don’t think they’re just plain evil or homophobic. I still want to believe that they can do things that will allow me to trust them again. Maybe it’s naive, but I want to, at the very least, still have hope that this wasn’t malicious, just very poorly conceived and executed. 

And I know that other people who are hurting like me are lashing out towards CRWBY. And while I don’t at all condone that kind of reaction, I can understand it to an extent. Because I’m very, very hurt and angry and it would be so easy to let loose and say all the awful stuff I want to in my anger. To yell and call people out and not care how I come across. It would definitely be a lot easier than spending all week writing this long thing and agonizing over making it perfect. There is nothing wrong with venting and being raw and open and angry, but just as we want CRWBY to be aware that their actions can truly hurt people, we need to be conscious of the fact that so can ours.  Many people are very hurt right now. And whether or not you think it was queerbaiting/BYG or not, or even whether or not you just think it was bad writing, no one has the right to invalidate the people who are hurting right now, many of whom are queer people dealing with personal traumas and mental illness. 

The few people who are attacking CRWBY and other fans (and there is a difference between being angry and vocal about that anger and just attacking them) do not invalidate the hurt people are feeling. If you are hurt or angry you have every right to be. You have every right to stop watching the show or leave the fandom, or communicate your hurt to CRWBY. But communicate means just that; communicate. Talk. You can be as angry as you are, you don’t have to temper your pain to be more tolerable to the people who caused that pain. But there is a difference between being harsh and honest about how hurt you are, and harassing real people. And I won’t say “harassing real people over a fictional character/show” because I know it’s more complicated than that. My hurt this past week isn’t over a fictional character or a ship. It’s about me and what I’ve been through and the fact that the very thing that gave me strength in hard times was turned into something that confirmed my biggest fears and hurt me immensely. 

The world always gets so sentimental when we see things about fictional stories giving people some comfort, and we celebrate that. But as soon as people say they can be hurt just as much by media, we lash out, say they’re overreacting, that they’re just getting upset over fictional characters. But you can’t have it both ways. We can’t want fiction to be important and inspiring to people and then belittle people who are negatively impacted by the same material, especially when often that vulnerability comes from a history of trauma and/or being neurodivergent. I am extremely hurt. I feel betrayed and abandoned and angry. And it will take time for me to process all of that and move past it. But I can be all of those things without attacking CRWBY or the people who might disagree with me. 

To me, this isn’t about disagreeing. We can argue forever about whether or not this was queerbaiting or bury your gays or poor writing (and I honestly at this moment don’t even know what I think about all of that because I’m not in that headspace currently) but the fact is that there are many, many people who feel it was, and who are hurting because of that, and whether you believe it was or not does not give you the right to invalidate the real pain that they are feeling.  Who is right is less important than the fact that people, people who were already vulnerable, have been hurt. So, please. Respect each other. Respect those who are hurting. Respect those who aren’t and don’t understand, and respect CRWBY. You can still be angry and speak out without attacking others. 

With that said, to fully understand why this has affected me so much, and why it’s going to take a long time for me to get back to where I was, regardless of how the volume ends, there are things you need to know about my history. It’s a lot of background and this is already going to be a longer post than I’d really like, but it’s important to understanding why RWBY is so important to me, and thus able to have such a negative effect on me. So please, bear with me. Also, fair warning, though at this point it’s probably obvious, but my story isn’t happy. I still haven’t found my own positive ending to it. If it’s too much for you to read right now, please, like I said before, take care of yourself. 

I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Farley. I’m 24, nonbinary (they/them), biromantic, demisexual. I have MDD, GAD, ADHD, Panic Disorder, OCD, Comorbid PTSD, and am trying to get an official autism diagnosis. I’m a full on alphabet soup. I struggle with imposter syndrome, intrusive thoughts, self-isolation, dermatillomania, and multiple trauma related phobias. My queer and neurodivergent identities are huge parts of my life and I try to be as open as possible about them, in the hopes of helping end the stigma around them. One of the main ways I cope with my mental health issues on a day to day basis is through hyperfixations. While it might not technically be the healthiest method, it’s what I’ve found to work for me when I’m in a really bad place and unable to practice more active coping skills. Through stories and characters that I relate to, I can separate my problems from myself a little and both escape from them for a while when needed, and view them a little more clearly from a new perspective.  

That’s some important info about me, but what really matters here is the past five years of my life and the trauma within them. 

In October of 2015, a few months into my sophomore year of college, I went into a deep depression, mostly brought on by multiple family deaths and stresses over the past summer that I had not properly had time to process and recover from. I quit my job as an RA and withdrew from school and moved back home with my parents.  While this was the right decision at the time, it wasn’t easy. I left a very close group of friends at school, and didn’t really have a strong support system at home aside from my parents. My friends from high school had all gone off to college themselves, and the few that still lived in town were often busy with work or school. And because I have an intense fear of driving and needed time to get myself in a better place before starting a job, I ended up spending most of my time home alone. I became more and more isolated, to the point of verging on agoraphobic, and my parents and I started thinking about ways I could basically get my life started again. 

 But isolation messes with your head, and makes you want to just isolate more and more. In mid February of 2016 I started to really work on being social again. Mostly because I started talking to my best friend from high school, Emma, regularly again. She knew I was struggling, and while I’ve always had a hard time keeping in touch with people, Emma has always been the person I never felt self conscious about going to. We talked everyday. After high school, Emma’s mom and younger brother had moved to Ohio (I live in NC) and Emma had gone to school in Oregon. Her father lives in Germany. So between visiting her family in Ohio and Germany she didn’t have a lot of time during breaks to come back to NC to visit friends. Since we graduated I’d only seen her once for about 12 hours during that awful summer. But now we were skyping and chatting everyday. And slowly I started to be less and less scared of being more social. I wanted to hang out with friends. I was excited about going back to school in the fall. 

Something important to understand about me and Emma is how close we’ve always been. We’d been best friends since 8th grade. We told each other we were soulmates, soulfriends, when we were 15. Nearly everyone in our small high school thought we were dating at one time or another. I always knew I loved her. I was fine with our relationship being “only” platonic. Because platonic wasn’t “only”. It was absolutely perfect. It was having her as one of the most important people in my life, and me in hers, and that’s all I wanted. But I also knew that if she ever wanted to try a romantic relationship, I’d be open. 

Around the time I left school Emma had been going through a lot herself. She was finally getting help for her own mental health issues and she was, for the first time, really thinking about her identity and sexuality. On May 4th 2016 she texted me like always, but this time she was nervous. She wanted to tell me something. She said she was still confused about her sexuality and didn’t know where she fell. But when she tried to think of being with someone, the only person she pictured was me. And I told her basically what I just told you. So we started talking about testing out us being a couple. She had already been planning to come to NC to visit after she went to Ohio later that month for her brother’s high school graduation. And my parents were going on a two week vacation around that time as well. So we decided that she would come and stay with me for two weeks. We would keep this to ourselves until then, so that we could see if this was really the best thing for us. And if so, then we’d tell people. We’d always talked about living together after school, but now we wanted to see exactly what we wanted our relationship to be. She bought a bus ticket for May 26th and would stay through June 10th or so, which would mean she’d be there for her 20th birthday on June 5th. We talked everyday about our plans for her visit. How excited we were, how we could cook dinner together and dance around the house in our underwear, and just get to be Us again. We talked to friends, planning to visit friends from high school and maybe even my friends from college.

On May 18th I texted Emma around 11 pm. I hadn’t heard from her all day which was unusual but she was in Ohio celebrating her mom’s birthday and getting ready for her brother’s graduation that weekend, so she was probably just busy. We’d told each other goodnight every night for months at that point. So I told her I loved her and was so excited to see her in just over a week.

The next morning it was a bit odd that she still hadn’t texted me back but again, I just assumed she was busy with family. And then the mail came, and the last part of a birthday present I was making for her arrived. So I got to work, giddy. 

Around 2 pm my other best friend from high school, Juli, called me. For some reason I decided I’d just call her back later, I was too engrossed in making Emma’s present. About 20 minutes later I heard a knock on my door and turned to see my parents standing in the doorway to my room. I vividly remember spinning around happily and saying “Hey! Everything okay?” even as I noticed the tears on my dad’s face and how pale my mom was. My stomach knotted and I stood as my mom said “N-no. Honey…..” and walked towards me. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for her to say that a grandparent or aunt or uncle had died. But as she got closer and put a shaking hand on my shoulder, I got a little more confused, a different kind of scared. One of my cousins? One of my baby cousins?  

Nothing could have prepared me for her telling me that there’d been an accident in Ohio. That Emma, and her mom, and her brother, and her aunt had been in a crash…. And that all four of them had been killed on impact. The only thing I remember about the rest of the night is the pain of continuously screaming, punching the wall until my dad stopped me, and calling my friends from college, trying to have someone to talk to, someone who I could call who wouldn’t also be mourning. I couldn’t handle my own grief, let alone anyone else’s at that moment. 

There’s a lot more to that story. There’s the memorial service in Ohio and meeting her dad and stepmom for the first time. There’s the service we put together at our high school and seeing our friend group all together again, except not. There’s the panic attacks every time I saw a garbage truck, or my parents drove off to work. 

But most importantly for what you need to know right now, is my sliding back into isolation. I barely ever saw my friends from home and every time I did for the next two years it had something to do with mourning Emma. I saw my college friends a few times; them coming to visit or me taking a bus to stay the weekend. But eventually they went back to school and I stayed at home. I drifted away from high school friends because I didn’t know how to handle being with them when everything we did together reminded me of what I’d lost. I didn’t know how to talk to them because I needed their support but knew I didn’t have it in me to be supportive of them, and that wasn’t fair. I drifted away from my college friends for the same reasons, and even more so as the group dynamic that I had left slowly changed and faded until I didn’t know who was talking to who anymore and I again felt bad for dumping my shit on them when I couldn’t do the same. I began to think that all I brought to any social interaction was my pain and hopelessness. I would just bring everyone else down. They shouldn’t have to deal with my pain. So a year after I left school I was even more alone. I’d lost or pushed away all the people in my life that I’d expected to be lifelong friends, family. And I didn’t know how to begin to fix that. I didn’t know if I wanted to. I didn’t know if I deserved to. 

The only reason I was even still alive was because anytime I even got close to thinking about hurting myself, I could just sense Emma glaring at me, yelling at me, telling me that I couldn’t let this stop me from living out all those dreams we’d talked about. And I knew that my life wasn’t just mine anymore, that all those dreams, that bond, the parts of my favorite person that only I knew, would be lost if I died. 

But I didn't have my friends to vent to, and as supportive as my parents were (I’d told them and a few close friends about me and Emma that first terrible week) I needed friends. But I didn’t know how to reconnect and I was too scared to go out and meet new people, especially knowing that at some point I’d have to drop the “dead girlfriend” bomb on them, and who’d want to stick around after that?  So I tried to use media and hyperfixations to pull myself out of spirals, like I always had. But it was hard. Because most of the things that had been comforting before were all things I’d shared with Emma, and so now they were just more reminders of her absence. And even new things I found soon turned rotten because I couldn’t help but think about how I wish I could show it to Emma. Everything that made me happy for even a moment would pretty soon make me sad. 

Eventually I found things that comforted me and helped me be creative again and that led me to starting school again, nearly three years after I’d left, at SCAD.  I loved the classes. I wanted to be there. I’ve always been a fiction writer but now there was so much in my head that I needed to get out, to process, and to share with people, especially people like me dealing with an unimaginable grief. Those past few years had been made even more difficult by the lack of representation I found in grief material. Everything was either about grieving the elderly, not someone who’d barely even gotten to live. Or if it was about someone young it was due to suicide or disease or violence; in other words things that at the very least, left the grieving with some cause to care about, or something to be angry at, some real world outlet. I didn’t have that. I didn’t relate to that. And even harder was finding anything I could relate to that included the complexities that my queer identity put on my grief; there were people I could and couldn’t tell about our relationship. Did I say I lost my best friend or my girlfriend? What if her family didn’t approve and wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t let me have any of her things, wouldn’t want me around? And one of the biggest things I kept thinking those first few months; why had my life become a ‘bury your gays’ soap opera plot line. Was Emma supposed to just be my tragic backstory now? Was I just supposed to use this as angsty fodder for the rest of my life? What about her? What about her dreams, her potential? What about her progress? She’d just gotten to a place where she was accepting herself. Where she was overcoming her mental health issues, where she was proud of who she was. Why was I allowed to keep going and she wasn’t?  I couldn’t find any support for these feelings. Not books or groups or forums. So I decided to make them myself. I started writing and drawing, putting together what I called my Grief Scrapbook. I was working towards the thing that mattered to me more than anything; telling our story. I was getting the chance to create the content I’d so desperately needed. 

But I was still alone, even at school. I was 23 living with mostly 18/19 year olds. And while there wasn’t anything wrong with them, I was struggling with a strong sense of dissociation. Everywhere I looked I saw Emma, forever 19. And there I was, continuing to age and getting further and further away from her. 

My first year at SCAD I made two friends, and while I love them, they didn’t fulfill the hole left by the large close knit groups of friends I’d lost. I tried to get back in touch with my best friend from college, only to find that she was no longer talking to me. And I don’t blame her really. Yes I’d been going through things, but so had she, and I hadn’t been able to be a good friend for her. So if she needed to move on for her own good, no matter how sad that made me, she had every right to do what was best for her, just as I had been trying to do. 

I’m now in my second year at SCAD and recently started hanging out with a new group. And they’re great and I’m slowly feeling more confident and secure around them, but I still struggle. I still miss the relationships I held so dear, the relationships I let dissolve. I still worry I’ll never have that kind of connection with people again, and that if I do somehow manage to find it, I’ll mess it up again.  Some days are particularly rough, when I sit with my thoughts too long, or see something that reminds me of any one of the many people I miss, and I ache for the happiness I had. And it’s those moments when I turn to hyperfixations (I do promise this is getting to RWBY). 

This past February the final How To Train Your Dragon movie came out. The HTTYD franchise holds a very dear place in my heart, as it was my main hyperfixation during high school, and something I shared with Emma and other friends. The second film came out the day of my graduation. It was the last movie Emma and I saw together before she moved to Ohio and then went to school in Oregon. It was the last movie we saw together at all. I knew it was going to be very emotional for me to see the final movie, alone now. But I had to see it opening night. And (spoilers for The Hidden World I guess) the movie ended up being about the reality of having to let go of the important people from your childhood as you grow up. About dealing with the fact that sometimes the people you expected to always be a part of your life, aren’t. I loved the movie, but it destroyed me. A few months later I had to get through May, the 3rd anniversary, away from home for the first time. And it was extremely difficult. I’d had to take a break from HTTYD and process things. 

So my main hyperfixations weren’t helping me get through a really difficult time. But around the time HTTYD 3 came out I happened to get back into RWBY. I’d watched the first season or so when it first came out, but then had just kind of forgotten about it. And so, in the absence of HTTYD, I got caught up. And I can’t say there weren’t things that hurt, that made me have to take a moment and collect myself.  Watching the end of volume three, watching Pyrrha and Jaune finally kiss, and then watch their relationship die with her before they even had a chance to be together, hit way too close to home. Logically I should have projected on Jaune more than I did but I think I couldn’t, because it wasn’t just similar, it felt like I was literally watching the worst moment of my life play out. He was too much like me to handle. But there was Qrow. And at first I just kind of latched onto him because I liked him. I like his characterization, his design, and I was a fan of V*c ( I hate to even mention him here for fear of causing a totally different discourse, but Emma and I were big fans of his and high school and met him and when everything happened with him it was just another thing that felt like a good memory of Emma had been tainted.)  

And so I was watching while the last half of volume six was airing. And I was watching Qrow slip further and further into his depression. I watched as he felt betrayed by Oz after grieving him and then getting him back. I thought more about how he’d basically lost his sister, about how he’d grieved for Summer (regardless of whether it was platonic or romantic), how he lost hope in having strong relationships ever again. How he felt cursed and how he pushed people away to protect them and himself from more pain. I saw how the Apathy affected him and how close he was to giving in before Ruby and Weiss snapped him out of it. I saw him struggle to get himself back together for Ruby and the rest of the kids, but not know how. I saw every single fear I’d struggled with those past few years in him. I related to Qrow more than I’d ever expected to. And so my hyperfixation on RWBY grew. His addiction was my isolation. His insecurities of hurting others and thus pushing them away was my fear that for the rest of my life, I would be alone because I was always going to be too broken to be worthy of friends and love. 

And then everything happened with V*c and for a bit everything hurt again and I had to get away from RWBY and the toxicity within parts of the fandom. And when I was able to come back I was excited but worried. I hoped that Qrow would continue to develop, continue to progress alongside me, that I would like his new actor enough to finish healing the sting I’d felt over V*c.  I just wanted Qrow back, I wanted this character to be there to help me again.

Because Qrow Branwen gave me hope. He gave me hope that I could get better. He gave me hope that even with my insecurities and trauma, something I’ll never be fully free from, I can deserve people who care about me, and that there are actually people who will care about me. He gave me hope that good things can still happen to broken people. And not just people who were once broken and have healed, but people who are still figuring out how to heal, who know they will never fully heal, but also know they still are worthy of support and care. And then volume 7 started and I got more than I’d ever dreamed. 

There was the hug with Ironwood. And even though I shipped Ironqrow, the idea of there being a romantic aspect to that hug wasn’t what made it important. It was the fact that we got Qrow connecting with an old ally (and an adult), finding that he even still had an old ally. That despite everything that had happened with Oz and Lionheart, despite all the trust he’d had broken, maybe he wasn’t actually alone yet. And then we got Clover. I’ll admit I was wary of him at first. I was worried about the traitor theories, the death theories, and then the theories that he’d negatively affect Qrow, making him feel worse about his semblance. But then he grew on me so quickly. Because he smiled at Qrow. He got him to talk about himself, called him out when he was putting himself down, told him how well he was doing. And while it’s wasn’t because of Clover, he was sober, and Clover had to at the very least help him stay that way. Qrow was hunching less when he walked, opening up, being more vulnerable and social. He was smiling, laughing, making jokes. He had a steady partner that he trusted and worked well with, likely for the first time since team STRQ. And yes, I shipped them, but honestly while I would have still been disappointed if it was never canon, given how blatant it really seemed like it could be, it would ultimately have been okay. Because again, it was less about Qrow finding love and more about him finding support.   And then I saw Qrow and Clover and Robyn team up, and whether it was canon or just fandom I felt represented. Not just in the way I had with Qrow about my mental health, but as a queer person struggling with complicated grief; the exact thing I had never been able to find and had taken upon myself to create for others. I saw Qrow being loved (again, whether platonic or romantic isn’t as important) and healing. Even if Fairgame never actually happened, I could still see them as queer characters helping each other process trauma. And maybe I set myself up in a bubble part of the fandom that fully convinced me that Fairgame was possible, but at the very least I truly, undoubtedly thought that Clover would side with Qrow. 

And as I watched episode 12, I could feel my stomach sinking. Okay Clover didn’t side with Qrow at first, but maybe he’ll come around. Okay maybe he won’t come around, but maybe he’ll take Qrow in and they’ll have time to talk, maybe even with Ironwood. But then Clover abandons the ship, abandons Qrow and I was scrambling even more for hope that things would be okay.  Maybe he’s trying to get away to diffuse things. But then “Never pegged you for the manipulative type” the first sign of Qrow doubting their entire relationship, of feeling betrayed again. And then Clover calls Qrow cynical? Maybe I’m forgetting something, cause I haven’t gone back and analyzed every scene with them, but I can’t remember Qrow ever being cynical around Clover this volume that we’ve seen. Self-deprecating yes, but this is legitimately the happiest and most secure we’ve ever seen Qrow. But okay maybe they’ll reason and Clover will come around. But then “We don’t have to fight, friend.” and it’s friend not Qrow. And then “You don’t know my friends. That’s how it always goes.” and I broke. I almost stopped there, a part of me wishes I had. Because it was already so broken, this thing that had even in the past few weeks, been a main pillar of hope for me. But maybe they’ll come together to fight Tyrian. And then Qrow goes after Tyrian and Clover keeps attacking Qrow. Well maybe he’s really trying to protect him, or has some plan. But then they continue to fight each other. And they don’t have even a moment of “who’s the bigger threat here? Us or the serial killer?” And then Qrow works with Tyrian?! Tyrian the serial killer? Tyrian the unstable maniac? Tyrian who tried to take Ruby? Tyrian who nearly killed Qrow? Tyrian who fucking worships Salem, who Qrow has spent most of his life fighting, has lost Summer to, and countless other traumas? (and I get the possible reasons, realizing that Clover won’t lay off of him so Tyrian is his best bet and then he can take care of Tyrian, but I still don’t like it. But this isn’t even about whether or not I think it’s good writing or characterization and it’s too long already to get into that.) And then Tyrian and Qrow fight so well together and I honestly felt sick. We haven’t seen Qrow work that well with anyone. Not RWBY, not Ironwood, not Clover.  And now we see it with fucking Tyrian? And maybe it’s a stretch but it honestly felt like another nail in the “Qrow attracts bad” coffin that is his insecurities. Qrow and Tyrian fight nearly perfectly together and it felt so damn wrong. Clover’s wrong here, Qrow’s wrong here, and it all feels so very very wrong based on the entire progression of their relationship throughout the volume. And then Qrow takes down Clover’s aura and I’m just empty.  There’s no hint of him trying to just beat Clover and not kill him. He has no reason to think that Tyrian won’t actually go for the kill during this fight. But they continue to have these snippets of “We don’t have to fight” or “I want to trust you” while showing no signs of holding back and still caring about the other’s well being. And then Qrow’s voice breaking during “Why couldn’t you just do the right thing…”. We’ve literally never seen Qrow this emotionally compromised, let alone during a fight. He’s crumbling because he finally had someone who made him think he could get better, that he could have close relationships, that he could be good for the people around him. And now he’s losing it. 

I was broken here, I was already spiraling. I knew Clover would get hit. I knew I would be struggling to deal with this episode because I had so fully expected a different course. But I thought there could still be hope. There had to still be hope. CRWBY wouldn’t give us all that development, wouldn’t show Qrow finally happy without leaving some hope for things turning around in the finale. He’d get hit by Tyrian’s stinger and Qrow would have to work to save him and they’d work things out. But then “I trust James with my life… and I wanted to trust you.” And I’m sobbing. Because I get it, Clover’s loyal, but when Qrow’s face hardens I know what he’s thinking. What he’s trying not to think but it’s so hard to fight: “Maybe it is me. Maybe I can’t be trusted. Maybe I’ve ruined things again”. Even though he knows what James is doing is wrong. But he trusted James, he trusted Clover. And he thought they trusted, cared for him. And now they’ve both turned against him and no matter how much he knows he’s doing the right thing, he can’t help but worry that he’s still the thing broken here, that he still messed up somewhere and ruined the relationships he needed so much. I was breaking more and more as I watched this source of my own hope lose all hope. 

And then Harbinger. The weapon Qrow built himself. That he modeled after his hero. The literal extension of his soul. And only moments before, Qrow destroyed the one thing that might have protected Clover. Clover’s emblem falls. Tyrian with “Like you killed Clover”. And yeah yeah Qrow being framed is heartbreaking. But it’s more that he’ll believe it. He did. He fucked everything up again. He tried so hard to do the right thing and still managed to hurt the person he cared about. And if Clover, the foil to his bad luck, could be destroyed by his semblance, how does anyone else stand a chance? And then blaming James. Swearing to make him pay (I honestly don’t remember if he says make him pay or kill him but I physically can’t rewatch that scene to see which it was). And yes he blames James. He hates James. It was the last straw breaking on someone he wanted to trust so much, wanted to have as a friend. But he still blames himself. He still knows he’s cursed and all the progress he’d made with Clover’s help is ripped away. 

And then “Good luck”. I’ve seen people saying it’s sweet, that it’s a moment of reconciliation, of Clover showing he still cares. And I don’t necessarily disagree. But I hate it. Because Qrow won’t take it that way. It’s just another reminder that good luck is out of his reach. And then the goddamn sky and the bi flag colors. And then we see Qrow cry for the first time. And then…. The scream…. I literally nearly vomited and that was the thing that sent me over the edge into full blown panic attack. Because I know that fucking scream. I know how it feels. I hear it ringing in my ears, I feel my throat getting raw. I could hear and see and feel myself in the same position. The nightmare I’d fought off for years; kneeling over Emma’s body and there being nothing I can do but scream and scream as the last of the hope I was clutching to faded with her… with Clover’s eyes.

It wasn’t that Clover died. It wasn’t that my ship won’t happen. It was how traumatizing it was. It was that Harbinger was now defiled. It was that Qrow set it up to happen. It was the sky. It was seeing the light go out of Clover’s eyes. It was Qrow’s scream. We’ve never seen a death like this on RWBY before. Yes we watched Pyrrha’s death. But there was no blood. We didn’t see her bleed out. We didn’t see the exact moment the light left her eyes. We saw Adam stabbed and some bleeding and then hitting the rocks, but we weren’t right there, seeing the exact moment of his death close up. If Clover had been stung by Tyrian and died I’d be upset still, and many of the issues I have would still be relevant. But using Harbinger like that, playing directly into Qrow’s own insecurities like that, after having him do things that felt extremely out of character in order to set things up for Tyrian to kill Clover like that and blame Qrow? It felt vile. 

It didn’t just feel like bad writing or different narrative choices. Hell, it didn’t even just feel OOC. It felt malicious. It felt like twisting established plot and characterisation completely in order to make it fit some tragic climax that was only chosen because it would have the biggest emotional impact, not because it was the best way to continue the plot. And they can’t say that they didn’t expect people to be so attached to Clover. Because if they didn’t expect that to be so emotional for viewers, then why do it like that in the first place? Why put in the climatic cinematic shot that mirrors when Yang lost her arm? Why have Qrow screaming over Clover’s body be the final shot?  If Clover was never meant to have significance to both Qrow and fans, why make his death so painful? They can’t say that they didn’t know fans would get so invested at the same time that they say that it was necessary to make it that traumatic. It’s not that you can’t kill off beloved characters, no matter how long they’ve been in the show. But if you do, it’s got to feel important, it’s got to feel necessary, and it’s got to make sense for those characters, or else it just feels like you’re playing with peoples’ emotions for no reason other than shock factor. 

I’ve seen a bunch of theories and discourse. Arguments over whether or not it’s queerbaiting or bury your gays. Over whether or not it’s bad writing or out of character. And I’m sure I’ll eventually have a stronger, more thought out opinion on that, but right now I can’t even get there. 

I’ve seen theories as to why CRWBY did this, why it’s important to the plot. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’ll be just as surprised in a good way next week as I was in a traumatic way this week. But it will take a lot, and I will still need time to recover and dig myself back out of my own intrusive thoughts that saw this episode and rejoiced because “See!? See, good things can’t happen! You’ll always lose whatever good you find. You’ll always ruin whatever good you find.” And none of the theories I’ve seen make that better. Maybe they’ll bring Clover back with the Staff of Creation or some other method: doesn’t matter, the damage is still done. Qrow still is betrayed and traumatized. And even if Clover came back and Ironwood realized he was wrong and stopped, even if everything went back to exactly what it was, Qrow still would have lost all the progress he made this season. Because even if everything was fixed, Qrow would still have to fight down the newly boosted fear that everything will fall apart again. And similarly even if I come back to RWBY and things are good, I will still have a hard time trusting the show, and will still have to climb my way out of a hole I had just gotten out of, except this time I won’t have the comfort of RWBY to help me. 

Or maybe Clover won’t come back and Qrow will relapse and try to kill Ironwood and lose his mind like the scarecrow he is. And what will that do but reinforce the fear and idea that “broken” people can’t escape their vices? That they’ll always come back to pain. Yes, it’s important to show that people can relapse and still get better, that relapse doesn’t mean all hope is lost. But there’s a difference between a relapse and new trauma that directly undercuts all the progress you’ve made. That’s not inspirational, it’s exhausting. Yes, you can come back again, but what about the next time and the next and the next? When will you just get to be secure in your happiness without worrying that at any moment you’ll thrown back to square one?

If it turns out there’s some great plot point this creates, some big revelation that fixes things, I still think it wasn’t done properly. Fine, have that, have that pain. But don’t end on that and leave people for a week. It’s not about it being a cliffhanger. It’s about people who are traumatized being abandoned. (Again, I’m not even getting into how, if this did happen, how episode 12 would still feel off from a characterization standpoint and whether or not it was poor writing. It’s an analysis I can’t currently do.)

And maybe my least favorite theory and the one that I might see as most likely; that Qrow won’t relapse. That he won’t completely lose it and instead Clover’s death and influence will be what keeps him going. Because yeah, that sounds great, that sounds heroic and strong and like the progress that came from knowing Clover did make a difference. But it feels wrong in this instance. Qrow’s had that. He’s had loss that hurt him but he kept going to finish something or honor them. He kept going after Summer died. He kept going for Ruby and Yang and Tai. If he didn’t have that, why would he have kept going when things were so bad? But Qrow doesn’t need that again. He doesn’t need another pain to spur him on. He needs support. He needs proof that his hard work, his struggle, has been worth it and that he still has allies. And not just the kids. Because as much as he respects them, as much as he believes in them and their abilities as hunters, he’s still protective of them, they still aren’t on an equal level. He still feels responsible for them. And that’s good for him, but he needs adults too. He needs people who aren’t his responsibility. He needs adults who can call him out on his shit. He needs adults he can lean on, who can take care of him. And now who does he have? Summer is gone. Raven is gone. Tai is back at home. Oz is gone. Lionheart betrayed him. James has now betrayed him. Winter has sided with James and might not be alive much longer? Robyn is there, but also hurt, and we haven’t seen anything to suggest that they are particularly close. And now Clover is dead. Clover, the only person we have ever seen Qrow let his guard down around like we did this season.

And it’s not that the “Staying alive for the person you’ve lost” is a bad plot line, and if I’d trust any show to do it I would’ve thought it’d be RWBY. But I can tell you from fucking experience, forcing yourself to keep going in honor of someone? Yeah, it might keep you alive. It might give you meaning and even lead you to do great things. But when it’s just you and your head? When you’re alone because you’ve lost everyone who kept you going and now you have to keep going without them, for them? It fucking sucks. It’s not poetic. It’s not this heroic strength that lifts you up. It’s a crushing weight of fear that you will fail again, that you’re the only one who can carry this burden, but this time you’ll let down the person most important to you.  And then not only will you have fucked up your life but you’d have made their suffering and loss meaningless. 

And I can see why CRWBY might take this route, what their message might be, and maybe for them and for some people it’s good, but personally it’s crushing. Because it can be a good thing to have the desire to honor someone spur you on, that’s literally why we still have RWBY. But if that’s the only thing you have? It’s toxic. You have to have other support and motivations of your own to keep you going without becoming hollow inside. And right now, Qrow doesn’t have that. Right now, if Qrow uses this to push him forward, it’s not recovery, it’s not avoiding a relapse; it’s falling into a new, much harder to spot, addiction.

Yes, shitty things happen regardless of whether or not you’ve recovered from previous shitty things. Yes, life isn’t fair and sometimes it feels like you just get hit down over and over. And yes, people die in war and it’s ruthless and unfair. But RWBY is still a show. It’s still a show about hope. It’s still fiction, an escape from the cruelty of reality. And to me there were multiple other options for the plot to create conflict and sacrifice without doing it in a way that seems so needlessly cruel.  

This is complicated and layered and I think there have been mistakes made on multiple sides, and in the end, we still don’t know what CRWBY has planned and how things will go from here and why they chose this. Because everything has a meaning in RWBY. At least I want to believe that. But right now it’s very hard to think that all the meaning that was what made this my favorite volume, was anything more than a trap to make the end that much more painful. And that hurts. I want to believe that’s not the case. But it’s very, very hard. And like I said before, even if they pull it off amazingly and everything makes sense after next week, damage has still been done. No matter what happens, there were ways things could have been handled either throughout the volume or in this episode that, while still having emotional significance and sacrifice, could have been less traumatizing to a large portion of the fandom who supports CRWBY specifically because they trust them not to do something like that to them. 

In the end I’m hurt because right now it feels like the entirety of this volume was just a build up for the shock value of tearing Qrow down again. And I’m just tired of it. I’m biased I know, and maybe for some people it’s an important narrative. But to me it just feels like angst just for the sake of being cruel to a character who can’t catch a break. Since Emma’s death I understandably haven’t been a big fan of really angsty fanfiction. At first seeing fics where a character lost their partner made me irrationally angry. Because why can’t good things happen in fictional worlds? Why do characters I care about have to suffer like I do just for the sake of being angsty? Why would someone do that to a character they love? Why inflict that absolute agony onto a character when you could just, let them be happy? Yes conflict and sacrifice are crucial to good storytelling, but you still have to leave a character some hope, or else what’s the point of just watching them linger in misery? This kind of pain isn’t just a plot point that gets addressed for one or two episodes and then is fully dealt with. It’s a part of who you are now and will be for the rest of your life. 

I’ve been sad over shows before. I’ve thought plot lines were bad and like I’d lost a character that deserved better. But I’ve never had something take me from a (relatively) stable mindset to a truly frightening spiral like I’ve been in this week. If this had happened when I was younger (granted if it had happened before Emma’s death it wouldn’t have had the same meaning), if it had been during that first year? It really might have been a breaking point for me. The final straw. The only reason I’m able to know that as truly devastating as this has been for me this week, I’m not in actual danger of getting to a critically low space, is because I’ve learned how to deal with those low places these past four years. I’m still in a dangerous headspace but I know how to handle it.  I know to reach out, to vent, to ask friends to keep an eye on me, to keep an eye out for critical signs that I’m getting worse and I need more professional help. But if I’d had this trauma as a teen and saw this, or if I’d seen it before I’d built up this method of keeping myself safe even when in the worst headspaces?  I don’t know that I would have been able to deal with it. 

There’s a loud part of my head that is berating me for letting this affect me so much. For letting a show and fictional characters be the catalyst for me having to actively ask my friends to keep sharp instruments away from me for the first time in years. I’ll have a moment of clarity of “It’s not that bad, you’ll get past it” before being swallowed back up by the hopelessness. I have moments of “How could you let a fictional character’s death put you in this place, but not Emma? How is he more important?” 

But it’s not about RWBY or Clover or Qrow. It’s about my brain, and how I as a neurodivergent person deal with things. It’s about this how thing that I use to filter parts of my life through so that I can handle them in more reasonable chunks, is now a trigger itself. I currently don’t have any other hyperfixations, which means every time I have a moment of silence, or start to get feeling down again, my brain goes to RWBY, because usually that’s how I pull myself out. But that just reminds me of the loss RWBY currently represents. Not just the trauma this has brought up, but the fact that I’ve lost this source of comfort. And then I’m left scrambling for anything as I spiral further and further. I’m at the point where unless I am having constant outside stimulus to keep my brain occupied I go right back into a nosedive. And there’s nothing I can do on my own to stop it. So I just have to ride it out, fight back dozens of overwhelming intrusive thoughts, and try to think that I won’t always be this miserable, even though the current thing that was helping me believe that has just shown me the opposite is true. 

And no, creators can’t be held responsible for the mental states of fans of their work. But when things are done that directly hurt so many people, that even if not intended to, feel so calculated and malicious, they have to acknowledge the part they played in that trauma. 

The point of whether there was queer baiting/byg, and mlm representation and how its handled, is very important, but it is also something I just can’t even begin to look at right now from an analytical viewpoint. I can’t begin to come at this from an activist place right now. And I know there are plenty of other people who can speak on it better than I could currently.  My queer identity is largely wrapped up in my grief and how it affects me, but that also means that when I’m spiraling, it is very hard to focus and make good points about things that are not issues I’ve directly experienced. The only reason I can write this at all is because these are really just emotions I’ve dealt with for years that were dragged back up.

RWBY has always been about finding hope when it feels impossible. But this feels like it’s becoming “keep finding new hope but know you’ll lose it too and have to start over”.

RWBY has been what gave me hope that even when bad thing after bad thing happened, there was a reason to keep going, that eventually something good would come your way and you don’t have to live in fear of losing it. That you can still be broken and be worthy of good things. But this episode ripped that all away and told me that sometimes a person is never meant to be happy no matter how hard they try. 

A big reason I have clung to RWBY so much, and admired CRWBY so much, and in turn been so forgiving of plotlines or details that I maybe wasn’t the biggest fan of, was because I see myself in them. They lost Monty so suddenly and tragically and I understand that as much as anyone who isn’t them can. I understand the drive of keeping the show going. When I’m working on my own writing and art about my story and my loss, they are a huge inspiration to me to keep going even when it feels impossible. I can barely listen to Indomitable because, much like Jaune losing Pyrrha, it is uncanny how close to home it hits. They have been through more than we as fans can or should ever expect to know. Because even as someone very open about their grief, who wants to get rid of the stigma of expressing grief, I know that everyone deserves to keep as much of their grief and pain private as they need. And I can't even begin to imagine how hard it is to work on a show that is literally a feat of love and honor to a person you’ve lost, and then have people attack it and you, and make huge accusations, even try to use your loved one’s memory against you. It’s my biggest fear in creating something so incredibly personal but so important. 

And I know that everyone handles grief differently, and no matter how many people you have to support you it can be an extremely isolating thing. I know that no one has the right to tell someone else they are grieving wrong, and I would never dare do that to them. Because I know that the ways I grieve and the things that piss me off about grief and people’s reactions to it, will not line up with everyone else’s, and that’s okay. So the exact things that hurt me so much may be the things that CRWBY find cathartic. 

But I still think it’s important to talk about something that hurts you. To help people understand a facet of grief that might not be what they’ve experienced. Because even people who want to help, who want to provide representation to those hurting, can never please everyone, and even can even hurt people. I want to trust CRWBY. I want to believe they care about the queer community (even if they don’t always succeed in providing good representation), I want to believe they wouldn’t purposefully try to hurt queer fans with queerbaiting or byg. I want to believe they don’t actually hate mlm. 

Narrative is complicated and sometimes things are done that will unknowingly cause harm, or that were topics that the writers didn’t understand enough to properly execute. Things that may seem so obvious to the people who were hurt could truly be things that hadn’t occurred to the writers. And that’s not to excuse those writers from acknowledging their mistake, but to give them a chance to learn and improve. I think a great example is The Adventure Zone (slight spoilers ahead), and how Griffin McElroy handled the fans’ reaction after Sloane and Hurley died in Petals to the Metal. He hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone but he made a decision that was very upsetting for many people and that wasn’t okay. But he listened and apologized and from there on not only tried to provide better representation, but asked about how he could do so, consulted the people he was trying to represent in order to do everything he could to not cause that kind of pain again. Creators are human and deserve second chances, as long as they show they are actively trying to improve.

Things will be learning experiences, but the people who are hurt in those learning experiences, and who are often the ones hurt in such things over and over, are still allowed to be hurt and upset. Intent is not effect. And for creators who want to be inclusive and supportive, it is their responsibility to accept criticism and work to avoid making the same mistakes. Like I said at the start of this, criticism is not harassment and harassment helps no one. Be as angry as you are, be as open as you need, but cruelty to people who are honestly trying to do good but will still make human mistakes just creates more pain and conflict. You don’t have to like it or forgive it but you can’t invalidate the people who are hurt, who do. 

I love RWBY. I want to love CRWBY. I want to keep watching. I want to keep supporting and trusting them. And maybe I’m letting a show have too much influence over me. Maybe it’s unhealthy to project so much on a character. Maybe things will prove to be necessary to tell the story they want to tell. But speaking as a neurodivergent, traumatized, grieving, queer person, I still feel betrayed and hurt by something that I trusted enough to be vulnerable about and I don’t want to sugarcoat or hide that. 

I can’t say I hate CRWBY or I’ve lost all hope in or respect for them, because I’ve related to them so much and know how complicated things like this can be. And because I don’t think I personally can write someone off while still in such an emotionally raw space. I’ll have to take some time to see if I’m able to watch the finale this weekend, but I will most likely watch it, if not just a bit later than I usually would. And RWBY has thrown big surprises at us before, and I can’t know what will happen in the finale and how it will feed into or try to heal some of the pain we’re feeling. But regardless of what the narrative intent is in Clover’s death, it needs to be acknowledged that episode 12 alone, ending on such an intense scene that wouldn’t be resolved for at least a week, hurt people. And CRWBY needs to acknowledge and take responsibility for it. I can’t say that I’m the most up to date on social media and what each person involved with volume 7 has said in the past few months. But I know that numerous official twitter accounts posted things that led people to put more credibility in Fairgame, myself included. And that even after seeing how big the ship had gotten, and knowing what the outcome was, some of CRWBY continued to seemingly feed into the excitement, even teasing about how hard episode 12 would hit us. 

That’s honestly one of the reasons I think this feels not just like bad writing or something, but betrayal. Of course RT can’t control everything everyone involved with RWBY posts, but for a company that has tried to seem so supportive of lgbt and mentally ill fans, they should have, at the very least, not have fed the flame and given people hope and supposed credibility that they knew would crumble after this episode. It feels like, even if they hadn’t intended this entire plot point to come across the way it has, they saw us going down this path and egged us on for added shock factor. 

And even if somehow the finale fixes everything, it doesn’t undo that hurt. It makes me think of the trailers for Insatiable when it first came out. How toxic and fat shaming they seemed and how people reacted poorly to it, but then all the people involved responded with how positive the show was, and that people shouldn’t judge it before they saw it. Or those “joke” videos or posts of kids coming out and the parents getting angry but then it’s about some stupid other thing. It’s meant to trigger a very sensitive issue, that people who have gone through traumas related to those issues are all too familiar with seeing over and over. So why would they have faith that this wasn’t just another one of those times when everything they see points to the opposite? Why trigger people who have already been hurt, for the sake of shock factor? It’s poor and callous writing. 

And that’s what this feels like. It feels like we were exploited in order to make this hurt more. And maybe that was a very unfortunate accident. But CRWBY still needs to acknowledge that they made mistakes, and do what they can to prove to the fans that they still deserve our trust. And that’s not going to be an easy one and done thing. For some it may never be enough, and that is completely valid. 

Of course everyone has different histories and issues that can lead them to be drawn to a certain show or character. And creators can’t ever know for sure that they won’t bring up painful things for any of their fans, and often trying to do so can make the content and message suffer. But even though everyone might not have a story that is as “obviously” traumatic as mine, might not have things they so directly relate to in Qrow and in Clover’s death,  they’re all still valid in the pain they’re feeling. One of my least favorite things about living with grief is people thinking that their traumas and struggles aren’t as big or important as my own. 

This week I’ve told people how hard a time I’m having, and why. And the people who know my backstory understood. The people who didn’t know though, brushed it off as crazy fangirl, tumblr discourse drivel. Even to my face after I told them how much I was hurting, they would groan about people getting so obsessed with fictional characters. You shouldn’t have to know why something negatively affects someone the way it does in order to respect the fact that it does. And I’m not more valid in my pain than people with “smaller” reasons. The fact is that a lot of people are hurting. A lot of queer and mentally ill people are reliving trauma. And like me, many of these people trusted CRWBY to be supportive, to be a comfort in a world where it’s hard to find sometimes. And that makes it hurt all the more.

I wasn’t in the fandom when Monty died, so I don’t know a lot about how CRWBY handled it, what they said publicly, what inevitable fandom discourse there was about how to navigate things. The only reason I bring him up at all, (because I’ve seen people mention him in discourse posts before and it’s usually hurtful and out of line and I truly hate it) is because he, and how CRWBY continues to honor him by keeping his creation going, is a huge part of why I feel so attached to it. My creative focus is on talking about Emma, about honoring her, telling her story, about sharing my grief with people. And while it’s extremely important to me, it’s also terrifying to think about people one day saying I let her down, or that because I made certain decisions I ruined the work or anything like that. And whether or not I am currently happy with every member of CRWBY doesn’t affect the fact that I will always keep in mind that RWBY is something directly tied to someone they’ve lost and it can be extremely difficult to have that kind of work criticized and not get defensive or angry (that’s not to say we can’t criticize things that are made in honor of someone, but that we need to remember there are still people dealing with grief on the other end of what we say). They’ll react poorly to certain things, they’ll say the wrong things, they’ll but heads with opinionated fans. And that’s not to excuse them for that, or to say we shouldn’t hold them accountable and communicate our problems with them and expect them to learn from past mistakes. But they aren’t faceless monsters in some big corporation who just make this for the money. They have real emotional investment in their work and I honestly believe they are well intentioned and want to support lgbt and mentally ill fans. But good intentions don’t ensure there won’t be negative impact, and if they truly want to keep, or regain fans’ trust and support they need to show they understand that. 

It may be naive and there may be things I don’t know that might have changed my view but until now, even with some writing choices I didn’t love, I've really liked CRWBY and trusted them. I personally can’t say I hate them and write them off right now. I understand if you can, if this was the last straw or just proving your view, and that’s all valid. But I want to, as much as possible, believe that they’re well intentioned. RWBY is far from perfect. CRWBY is far from perfect. But that’s ok. As long as there’s effort to improve and acknowledge mistakes and try to make amends

It’s possible that things I’ve said here may anger some people, and unfortunately, as much as I tried to avoid it, may hurt CRWBY. Because as hurt and angry with them as I might be right now, I don’t want to hate them or hurt them.  I’m human as well, and I’m very passionate about this and have a very personal attachment to it. So I acknowledge that it is totally possible that I have said something here that I could have handled better. If so, please, let me know. Constructively. If you need to, privately. Don’t attack me for it. I know when a conversation is toxic to me and I will not put myself in that position and will block people. But I want to be open to criticism, just as I want CRWBY to be. I want to know what I did wrong and how I can work to do better in the future. There are also certain things that I firmly believe that I know not everyone will like. And that’s okay. I have my own ways of dealing with grief and pain that will inevitably conflict with others. In those cases, while I won’t apologize for being honest about how I feel, I will understand and listen to how I may have hurt you. Different opinions and ways of coping will always be a part of grief conversations and it is less about making others agree with you and more about giving people a place to express their pain. 

This is ridiculously, stupidly, long and honestly I’m not sure there’s a clear point and if you read through it all the way, you’re a saint. But I just needed to get this out, and I hope that maybe, somehow, through the ranting, it might help someone feel less alone in their pain, or feel validated. I started writing this on Sunday and wanted to post it before the finale. It’s now Friday and who knows if there’s really any point to posting it now, but still. 

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I don’t know how I will handle it. I’ve seen discourse that made me anxious all over again all week. I’ve seen jokes or edits or trolls that made me sick. But there are people out here for you. There are people to talk to who will just listen. You aren’t alone. And while I can’t promise you that everything will be okay, I can promise you that there will be people here to help you get through it. There are ways to get through it. They’re not always fun or ideal, but they’re there. And eventually you’ll be able to feel okay again. The pain might not be gone for good, but you’ll have good moments again. You’ll learn how to create good moments. I still want to believe that “broken” people can be happy again, even though the world may try to show me otherwise over and over. It’s not easy, and sometimes I honestly just don’t see how it can possibly be true. But I keep trying to get back to those good places and appreciate them, for as long as I can.