#i really can't wait for efnisien to talk about ALL of it

[not-poignant]

Hello Pia! I was wondering about the pheromone flooding and it's scope? We know Efs reaction, but would you give some other examples if something like that would happen to another omega/beta/alpha/peak alpha? If this should be explained more later in UtB then of course please ignore the ask. <3

Hi hi anon!

The only thing that really gets mentioned in Underline the Black about it is that there's pretty much no research on it, and it's not well documented.

Here's the thing: peak alphas are incredibly under-studied and under-researched. They can do things not documented in science properly, because we have two problems. The first is there's only about 1 in a million. That's not too bad, there's billions of people. The second is they can brainwash anyone into leaving them alone. Peak alphas who don't want to be studied don't get studied, and most don't want to be studied.

This isn't great for characters like Gary, who might pheromone flood someone like Efnisien, and then desperately want to find out more about what happened so he can make sure it never happens again, only to find out there's almost no research or science about it, and he's shit out of luck.

And that's where I'm leaving that, because just like Gary, we all get to exist in the realm of 'but what was that.'

As someone who has experiences (particularly with extremely rare chronic illness) sometimes the answer is: There's not enough of a cohort to research exactly what that is yet, so we'll just have to wait and see.

And the reason I like that, is that it highlights how unsupported and adrift peak alphas can be within their own bodies and minds, and I like the discomfort of that in characters who are kind of intensely needing to have control, when actually they probably have the least at times!

Er so yeah it's a roundabout way of saying I can't talk more about pheromone flooding, it's deliberately left as a blank space, even within the worldbuilding. Sometimes we don't get to know because the cohort isn't large enough to study and/or understand and/or is resistant for varying reasons. And sometimes that gets to be a nice metaphor about control and lack of control and knowledge and self-knowledge. :D

[not-poignant]

I honestly can't wait to read Constellations. Those excerpts have me vibrating with impatience lmao. You truly have a gift of leaving readers wanting more

Ahhh thank you so much!!

That will start going up on Patreon in September. It'll only be a chapter a month at first until I have a better idea of what my writing capacity is like, but we do at least have a start date for Patreon.

I'm not quite sure about AO3 yet, it might be around November or December. But it will - like all my stories - go to AO3 eventually. :)

It's been so much fun to work on and think about. And I've been rereading Falling Falling Stars and it's been just...really cool to see how far they've both come (Gwyn and Efnisien), and just be writing this epilogue.

I couldn't think about this kind of stage in their lives while writing FFS which was why I didn't really talk about it much or commit to it, but now that FFS is over, this is something I can think about it and it's been like...fun and indulgent to explore this side of Gwyn and Efnisien as they reconcile. :D

[not-poignant]

Man I'm so angry about everything that Lija did and said but like, casually just being like "oh yea I kind of wondered if you were being abused but it was whatever" to Eff who was SO traumatized and conditioned that it's taken years to even somewhat accept that what he experienced was abuse. I'm just. I'm FUMING.

I genuinely can't wait, honestly, for Dr Gary to find out what happened, because he would also be fuming over the whole experience. And I think quite a few people are going to feel solidarity with his response! (Even though, as always, he's going to remain pretty calm and level around Efnisien, I think his outrage will be apparent).

Also I get that Lija might be feeling some guilt now, at what she witnessed while Efnisien was a young child, but that guilt in no way helps or assists Efnisien, and it glaringly didn't assist him back then either? It just makes him aware that there was potentially a group of influential people who had suspicions about his home life and none of them did a single thing?

Like...

That's such a horrible thing to both disclose to someone who is already vulnerable, and is also sadly just...one of those things that can be so damning. That was not a stand up moment for Lija. :/

[not-poignant]

do you think gwin talks to his therapist an efnisien like efnisien talks to doctor gary?

I love this ask.

Okay, so the short answer is no. For anyone wanting a short answer, that's it, you can scroll past now, save yourself from the essaaaayyyyy.

The long answer is: oh my god Gwyn just straight up lies to his therapist all the time.

So, Efnisien being as transparent in front of Dr Gary (re: showing all the ugly sides of himself from the outset) isn't actually super common. Many people conceal or protect certain parts of themselves, even in therapy. They might not know they're abusive to ever bring it up. They might always tell stories in a way that reflects on them well, or makes them seem like they're always the victim. They may constantly omit small details like 'I threatened him with violence' or 'I used to hit him too sometimes' or 'actually I fantasise about killing him' - which are the very details that Efnisien's been expected to disclose from the beginning.

Everyone does it to a point in therapy. Sometimes out of habit. Sometimes out of shame. Sometimes because they literally have no idea what their internal landscape looks like. People who aren't in a habit of self-reflection, aren't necessarily always going to be very 'therapy suitable' people.

And Gwyn is not in a habit of self-reflection.

He specifically started seeing a therapist for his eating disorder, and not for any other reason. So from the start, he wasn't dealing with his anger management issues, he wasn't dealing with the fact that he too can be an aggressor or can be manipulative, and I think he believes he's well and truly healed or close to it, because he can eat again.

Gwyn would have absolutely lied to his therapist about many encounters he's had with Efnisien, and I doubt he brings all of them up. He'd never say something like 'Efnisien didn't like that I called him after he asked me to text' to give the therapist a chance to ask 'why didn't you feel like respecting his boundaries?' Gwyn would just say: 'Efnisien and I had a talk and I learned this.'

Gwyn's therapist has no idea what Gwyn is actually really like and how he really behaves around Efnisien, and tbh, doesn't know a great deal about how Gwyn's and Augus' relationship started either. I doubt she knows that it started as blackmail, and I'm sure Gwyn has tried to conceal - at least for as long as possible - that Augus put him in the hospital.

Gwyn wouldn't consider it any of her business. He's there for the eating disorder, and he gets to decide what matters and what doesn't matter re: the treatment of that.

So Gwyn's therapist has an extremely biased view of Gwyn's life in a way that Dr Gary doesn't have in quite the same way. Basically therapists get what you give them, because they're only human, and while she might have suspicions that Gwyn has some anger management issues, she's not a Gestalt therapist, she'll wait until he's ready to address that.

Efnisien is actually pretty uncommon in how transparent he can be, and how upfront he is with his 'ugly / shadow nature.' It's partly that this was how it all started - he went to Hillview, and he disclosed a history of animal cruelty and abuse, and so this was where they started. But it's also a little bit down to the fact that Efnisien is actually just a desperately honest person, even though he tries to protect Arden from some of his history. Efnisien will tell Dr Gary things that he immediately regrets, or is deeply ashamed of, or even hurt by, on the regular.

Even Efnisien has concealed certain things from Dr Gary though, mainly the nature of his suicidal ideation, and its frequency. But in terms of the parts of himself that Dr Gary can judge him for negatively (in Efnisien's mind), Efnisien will be very honest.

Gwyn lies. It benefits him to be seen as a 'good victim' and I can't see him doing anything to jeopardise that, possibly ever.

[not-poignant]

I know that you hate when we asked about some details that already mentioned in the fic, but it's been months since reading ffs and tmid, so I am sorry if it's already mentioned. So, have you actually ever described what Dr. Gary look like? Also, I know that ef was nonverbal when he started seeing him, but for how long? And how he started talking eventually? Thank you!

Hallo anon!

I don't hate it at all! If I hated it, I wouldn't respond to the asks :D I can find it frustrating sometimes (and usually just if I'm already not in a good place? Most of the time I recognise that I know where a lot of the details are and my stories are long and people can't be expected to remember everything!)

As for Dr Gary, I've actually never described him! That's been an intentional writing technique, where I want people to imagine him however they see him (which is really interesting, some people imagine him quite old, others see him as 40~, some see him with black hair, others with white etc.) The only things I've ever described are the state of his shoes (often shiny) and that he wore a tie once, I'm pretty sure.

Mostly I want people to kind of project onto Dr Gary however they like, because I want him to feel 'safe' for people, and if I locked him down into a very fixed image of a therapist they found traumatising, or someone they don't like, he wouldn't feel safe at all. As a result, every now and then I get a double take of 'wait have you ever described him?' as above. And I get to grin and say no! Not in over half a million words! And I never will. :D Some people have really clear images, and other people don't. But most people still have a sense of him whether it's the sound of his voice, or the way he looks, or what he wears, or even just how he 'feels' as a character.

As for Efnisien being non-verbal, that was intermittent (it wasn't like he decided not to talk for a period and then suddenly started talking again - he went back and forth). I've left the time he spent nonverbal with Dr Gary specifically pretty nonspecific on purpose (i.e. it's in line with Efnisien's own foggy memory, and it wouldn't really be accurate to the story for Efnisien to be recalling that part of his past in precise numbers - since he was so badly traumatised and dissociated during that time), but we can tell from FFS that it does span a fair amount of time. As for how he started talking eventually:

‘I guess…’ Efnisien thought back to those inpatient appointments in Hillview. The ones where he was so often mute, and Dr Gary would drink a cup of coffee, and sometimes talk a little bit about his day – though never very meaningful shit, always just…what the weather was like, or if he had a bit more paperwork than normal – and never seem bothered by it. And he always thanked Efnisien for his time at the end in those early days.

‘Thank you for your patience with me, Efnisien. If there’s anything you can ever imagine helping you, I’d be happy to hear it. In the meantime I’m happy to continue as we are.’

And then one day Efnisien started talking, started yelling, started threatening, started holding pens to Dr Gary’s neck and walking out on him multiple times a week and slamming doors. Sometimes he’d stand in the doorway or a corridor and yell at Dr Gary like he was dying for Dr Gary to get uncomfortable enough to walk past him, thinking he’d try and kill him if he so much as stood.

So as you can see, he kind of started with a huge amount of open hostility, lol.