#i'm normal about her why do you ask.

[lumaxramblings]

How does the relationship advice Max gave relate to childhood trauma?

I HOPED SOMEONE WOULD ASK LETS GO

so this is the advice she gives to el, right? what i'm going to go into here is max's trauma about her parents' divorce and her feelings on her stepfather.

this is quite long so i've divided it in parts for you: part 1 which has two sections ('the divorce' and 'emotional abuse') and part 2 which has one section ('conclusion'). the first two sections are basically explaining what happened within max's family, the conclusion is how it all affects max and a tl;dr of sorts.

ALSO THIS IS NOT BILLY HARGROVE FRIENDLY, GO AWAY BILLY STANS

TRIGGER WARNINGS: discussions of divorce and emotional child abuse (nothing graphic)

THE DIVORCE

so, the first question out of the way: can divorce cause trauma? the answer is a quick and easy yes, especially in max's case.

in the book runaway max, which is probably at least half-canon, max describes both her parents. her mother seems to be quite weak-willed, but still seems to just want the best for max. however, it is clear that max doesn't get nearly as support as she needs from her. max is an incredibly understanding and kind child, because she understands that her mom isn't really the supportive type, more like someone who takes care of her without the emotional support part. (NOTE: susan is NOT abusive. one of the reasons why she can't support her daughter is because they understand the world, themselves and each other in drastically different ways: susan cannot reach out to max because she doesn't understand her, and therefore cannot give her the emotional help or support she needs).

sam (max's father) on the other hand clearly understands max much better and doesn't question her boyish style or how she's Different than others (which could be autistic coding but thats for another day asjhshjs). in this case, he could be there, but he isn't, being too busy for her.

we can assume that max, as she was so young, was not given a talk about the divorce as a whole after the divorce had actually happened, given that her mother doesn't really seem the type for big, emotional conversations. she most likely got a simplified version of what was happening and why she'd be seeing her dad less because she was so young (around 8-9 based on max/billy's memories), which lead to misunderstanding and, as her father understood her more, she was naturally defensive of her dad (which is why we see her quick to defend him in the bus talk), and naturally a little resentful of her mom, especially considering she didn't truly grasp what had actually happened due to being so young.

this resentment would grow when susan starts dating again: in runaway max, it's mentioned that susan had flit from boyfriend to boyfriend, each of which eventually leaves because of personal issues (gambling, debts, etc). max sees this as a kind of betrayal to sam, and a complete change in what her family had been like - she would later know, around s2, that the cracks had always been there, and it was just a matter of time, but for now she's too young to think that her ex-family was anything but perfect, so she holds resentment towards her mom and starts to put her dad on a pedastal, as well as thinking that men are liars and cheaters.

EMOTIONAL ABUSE

then susan marries neil, and with him comes billy. max, at first, was hopeful that she'd have a family again after her last one broke, only to be let down very quickly. here's a heartbreaking excerpt from runaway max:

billy doesn't treat her like a sister: in fact, he insists she's not his sister constantly, and emotionally abuses her.

'yes, yes, anthony, but what is emotional abuse?' i hear you cry. here's a definition from google itself:

Emotional abuse involves controlling another person by using emotions to criticize, embarrass, shame, blame, or otherwise manipulate them. While most common in dating and married relationships, mental or emotional abuse can occur in any relationship—including among friends, family members, and co-workers.

the parts in bold are the parts that are relevant to max herself and billy's abuse of her. here's some symptoms and signs of emotional abuse, as well as some examples of said symptoms, taken from healthyplace.com:

you'll notice that billy has almost all the signs and shows off many of the examples given, particularly in episode two. there's this great post by @madcleradin (hey sierra, tell me if you want be untagged) with my reblogs to show the examples themselves and this is the root of max's self hatred and self blame, but the very short tl;dr version is that his abuse of her affects her perception of others and herself in a negative way.

neil also plays a role in this - max probably thought he was just another one in the list of shitty boyfriends, except when things started getting more serious, she started to get confused, though she was happy when told that she was going to have a family again, because at the time she was still in the mindset that 'family = comfort' because again, she was never told what caused the divorce, which lead to her thinking it was sudden and doesn't alter her view of what 'family' just yet.

she was excited to have a comfort, excited to have someone to talk to other than nate (her best friend), because she still associates family with comfort. but when billy abuses her, at first she's confused on why family would treat family like this. that's when her view of what family means does a 180º.

because they told her that neil and billy were family, she started associating the word 'family' with violence, fear and control. as she grew up, this just got planted more and more deeply within her, all while she still resents susan a little for a) leaving her dad and b) marrying neil and bringing him and his son into their life, a decision which has only lead to fear and pain on max's half.

CONCLUSION

you may be wondering what any of this has to do with max's advice to el. well, dear anon and readers, i am here to tell you.

in this, max isn't seeing mike as how she remembers him, and is thinking back to all those times those shitty boyfriends of her mom did the same thing, not realizing that it's not like that because mike genuinely does care about her and because they're fourteen (yk how when you're young you don't feel young until you look back when you're older? yeah that) it's not that deep yet. max has been thinking and calling the shitty boyfriends pieces of shit for years.

NOTE: max does NOT think mike is a bad person, nor does this mean she hates him. she just thinks what he did is shitty, but she clearly thinks he can make up for it (note how she says 'if he doesn't fix this, doesn't explain himself', which i doubt any of the boyfriends of her mom did). this is NOT a mike hate post, he's one of the characters of All Time, this is just about max's trauma !!!

now, this obviously isn't her talking about lucas (see here why honesty is a vital part of why lucas and max are friends), so max is almost definitely referring to her mom's boyfriends and can't see that mike isn't like those guys, as mentioned above.

this is straight up projection. really, all of max's lines regarding mileven this season are just projection, but this really shows. i cut out the part where she says that if he doesn't explain himself, then el should dump his ass because that, as mentioned above, is because mike is still her friend (if tentative because yk).

she doesn't understand why her mom can't just up and leave neil, and so when she sees el who she probably subconsciously parallels to her mother (in runaway max, her book, she describes her mom as "her personality changing into every guy she meets", so she's scared of that happening to el) and so she unintentionally projects her desire for susan to break up with neil onto el.

she wants susan to break up with neil, but as she can't have that and she has trauma from living in close quarters to an abuser she's dealing with her trauma this way.

NOTE: she is NOT using el only for her own gains. she genuinely thinks this is good advice, if only because of her warped perception of love and her mother's (failed) relationships.

this line is also evidence of max projecting onto el and mike, except this time she's not projecting her mom onto el, but instead herself. we know, via scenes in season two, that billy is extremely controlling of max. he gives her unspoken and spoken rules (unspoken would be don't speak back, don't blame him, etc etc; spoken would be the threat of what he'd do if she 'disobeyed' him). she has been controlled for a good near-half of her life via rules, especially considering we can presume neil also controlled her (although much less than billy did). she's been so roughly handled and controlled using rules, rules which she has to go by to survive in that household, that she literally can't see the tons of rules put on el being for her safety, because that's never how it's been for her.

a tl;dr of that paragraph: rules have been used on max with malicious intent for so long that max cannot recognize that the rules on el are for safety and come from a plce of love.

and a tl;dr for this whole essay: all of max's advice stems from her childhood trauma from her parents' divorce, her mom's boyfriends who were liars, and her abusive stepfamily

hope you liked this extremely long essay.... and aren't too upset when you asked for a page and i made you a book shshjshjhjss

yeah this was very long but i loved talking abt it, slr i've been busy but i've been excited to get this finished.

also... if im gonna be honest most of this was just me looking way too deep into what were actually just jokes abt female humor by the duffers and ik that but also like. its a trauma thing because max's experience of love and men is very different and shapes how she views them so ofc her relationship advice was off

anyways if youve read all that i'm platonically in love with you

[0x1000]

Any more fics coming soon? Love your work!

I'd like to say "yes", but I kinda don't have any... Aside from a few thousand words worth of a sequel to TAS that I ended up not liking or finishing. =| SIGH.

I have ideas for fics all the time, certainly—but I struggle writing these things without a unique concept to impart... I need, like, a thesis to defend. Which is a really funny thing to say when being asked about your robot porn. But it is true, at least for me. I require stimulation both sexual AND cerebral. Cranking it straight up sapiosexual style.

Written erotica is far stranger of a beast than visual erotica—it requires both lurid context and lurid detail. It's a lot less immediate, and that's sort of what I struggle with. That's why I inevitably pen thousands of words of preparatory preamble before nary a penis has the chance to appear, let alone penetrate.

Basically, my problem is that I think I've already gotten across most of what I'd like to convey...? Regarding ULTRAKILL, at least. And what I haven't would be much better expressed after some loose ends are tied up in canon itself, once the game is complete. I fear redundancy—and while I doubt one would describe any one rhythmic thrust in the sequence of sex as "repetitive" or "trite", I'd just prefer to wait until I have something I'm confident in the quality of.

... That being said, I was contemplating writing a new fic as recent as "literally yesterday". So I mean. Who knows!

But! As compensation for your kind words, here's a BUNCH of passages from the TAS sequel that I kinda scrapped:

[tardis--dreams]

Some of those doctors make hating oat milk their entire personality. I hate them. Cannot pretend to find them funny or like i give a shit. Fucking pretentious assholes

[maddy-ferguson]

"Quick test tho, replace girlfriend with boyfriend and see if ur still bothered by it." me when i'm 7 and have yet to realize that men and women have a very different place in the social hierarchy because we live in a society

[apollo-zero-one]

Man I can't believe I had the chance to go to a performing arts school up through middle school and I fuckin quit after 6 months just because I got bullied. BRO YOUR HOMEWORK WAS POETRY!! YOU HAD TO PRACTICE DANCING TO COTTON EYE JOE AS YOUR BIG UNIT TEST. GYM CLASS HAD A CIRCUS UNIT!! YOU HAD A WHOLE DAILY CLASS ON IMPROV!!! YOU FOOL!! YOU ABSOLUTE IMBICILE!! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN A YOUTUBER!!! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN ONE OF THOSE TWEENAGERS GETTING LOADED BY MAKING SHITTY YOUTUBE SHORTS IN 2008-14!! But noooOoooOOOoo little miss Noellie (who WANTED TO GO!! who worked SO HARD and sent in an application essay and did an INTERVIEW to get in!!) couldn't handle disruptive classmates or little scuffles and petty grudges and general Attitude of the other students and cried to mommy to put her back in public school. I am EATING MY HAIR over what Could Have Been. I COULD BE SOMEONE'S ANNOYING YOUTUBER!! I could be a DISGRACED DISNEY CHANNEL STAR!! I could be an America's Got Talent winner! A mild to moderately successful comedian! I could be making short films!! But no no no precious thin skinned baby me heard a few new cus words and watched a teacher get heckled and begged to give up The Dream in favor of?? Quiet math tests?? I am such a fucking quitter I quit everything the second it gets too hard I always take the out as soon as it's offered what's my fucking damage.....

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

The time thing is actually something I'm glad you mentioned in your response because I've been puzzling over it myself. I can see this happening one of three ways so far: 1) the RDA have been there for longer than in canon and Grace and them ended up arriving at a later time. 2) the meshing is less organic and more purposeful. After gaining their independence they still want to keep parts of their culture but want to sort of move away from the more traditional stories told by their creators/captors, so they mesh the stories and songs on purpose to make something uniquely theirs.

Or 3) since they are just experimental versions of the recoms, it makes sense that the RDA scientists might have needed time to perfect the memory transfer, especially since around two-thirds of their test subjects are from the people who volunteered their memories way back when the science of memory transfer was just becoming a thing as to not waste more valuable memories. Therefore a lot of their memories are often muddled, and those who can remember fully are few and far between. I imagine that if this was the reason I chose it would also give me a reason as to why Paz went up so high in the rankings: she's one of the last to be made, therefor all of her memories are intact. With the knowledge she knows, it's no wonder she became the Priestess of Songs. Plus, she knows far more about the RDA than the others because of how long she was with them, which could be another part of that.

Hmm, very interesting!! I think any version could be very cool. I think it seems like you have the most fleshed out about the last one. I kind of like the idea of them all being somewhat defective memory-wise.

My best friend suffered a brain injury while we were growing up, we were about sixteen, and sometimes talking to her is just having the same few conversations over and over with slight variations. She is the same person with the same personality, she just doesn't remember that she told me this story last week, you know? It really isn't that big a deal, because she lived and she is much better than she used to be. Often with fictional memory issues or brain injuries, I feel like a repeated story or a forgotten detail is treated as a sign of the character still being broken, not quite healed. Sometimes it's every day life. I like the idea of a whole clan of characters who are... I don't know, damaged mentally, for lack of a better word, but it's just their way of life. I've read a few stories where Spider has mental trauma from the RDA mind reading machine, and the memory thing being such a major deal always makes me vaguely sad. I'd love one where he'd adjust to his new normal.

When my best friend is tired she CANNOT balance, she will fall trying to walk over something even if it's the only thing on the floor. It's just her now so it's the funniest shit in the world, we just make fun of her. Idk. That idea makes me feel warm and happy. My apologies for going off topic, you made me think about something that's really only been a half formed thought.

[queerstudiesnatural]

ok well. just went to see a neuropsychologist and all she asked me were the standard questions you find in every internet autism test. which i KNOW don't apply to me ("do you find it difficult to infer people's intentions", "do you find it difficult to read between the lines" etc) and like she was literally reading off of her computer and asking me to pick one of the options between "strongly agree" and "strongly disagree" and it's like girl i could have done that at home. sure hope she's not stopping there and that she's not gonna just look at what i said but at the way i said it. idk it irked me that she just pulled up the old (as in outdated and reductive) standardised test on her computer and acted as if those questions would make me question myself like girl i've done this test fifteen times. not only is it not going to tell you anything about me but it's not going to tell you anything about most people. and most autistics. and she did suggest i come back for a more formal and global assessment, but she also kept using the words "cognitive deficit" to describe autism. which i realise is a commonly used term, but it feels reductive idk. so overall i'm not overjoyed with how this went lol.

[vvanessaives]

i think the Thing that makes vhanya's tragedy so..tragic to me is her youth. but not in a 'omg dying young, she had so much to live :(' which is. well rip to her. but more like every single mistake she does is in a way..normal. like mistakes you do when you're a teen and are sooo dumb but make you learn and they shouldn't weight too much or more like. they shouldn't have you pay a too expensive price. while vhanya's mistakes aren't looked at with kindness, there's no Understanding. she walks around with her rage and tears like she's screaming "i'm still learning!! don't i deserve some kindness?" and instead of a "it's okay that you fucked up, we can fix this" it's mistakes that shape forever her future without any way to rewind and idk it gets me </3

[what-if-i-dee-eye-do]

Ha Ha noah fence but I think the system Needs Help Even Worse after quitting our therapist bc it was really damaging to be like. pouring ur hearts out abt deep personal shit like sexual & emotional & financial abuse & animal abuse & hoarding & shit and that being met with 'well liek. that was awful but I think ur so strong and amazing for going thru all that :)' and 'wow things for you have been really bad lately. That's probably just because of astrology bullshit or something that happened to the body as a literal fetus that wouldn't have recorded those memories at all'*

we're just kinda floating and in more pain than usual and way more. stuck inside the 'none of the abuse was real so nothing in my brain is' zone yknow? But the dissociation phases in and out

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[isabelguerra]

Also, since you're taking requests for yule ball outfits, I have to do the obligatory thing and ask for PLEASEEEE if you have any ideas for Violet's yule ball outfit I would love to see them I love drawing Violet in fun outfits it is one of my main hobbies

Yes absolutely!!! I never talk about Violet or the supernormals and it's refreshing to get out of my comfort zone.

What attracts me to Violet is her sharp eyes, cool-and-stuff attitude, and casual goth motifs - like the skull with heart eyes on her gym shirt. So I'm dressing her in something laid back and effortless for an '80's Winona Rider meets menswear' look:

My top pick here is the Lindsey Wixson for Flair in fall 2012. Minus those heels. Yowch.

The patterns here plus the editorial makeup just do it for me, it's almost Bowieish. It combines 'OK how do I dress everyone with swag because they're wizards and it's wizard prom' with 'staying in character = would Violet be super flashy or well dressed in the first place'. Editorial shoots and couture usually work well here because they're outlandish more than stylish, which fits my vision for high wizard fashion. I went with purple because, aside from her name, it matches with how I dress Lisa in this scene and they go together.

The second screenshot selection gives me an idea of her costume if this event were just sliiiightly less fun and formal, aka slouchy ill-fitting suits. Ultimately I don't believe Violet would be too cool to not care how she looks, so I didn't pursue these options. I still like the black top left ensemble though!

[running-in-the-dark]

went to bed early and woke up before 8am today! pretty cool. except I woke up with a bad headache and eventually had a very long nap.

I'm just so damn tired! like, no matter how much or how well or when I sleep, I'm still tired all day. so it's just pointless trying to fix my sleep schedule (when I'll just be asleep most of the day anyway).

[edwardshundredyearoldspunk]

just waited all day for my mother to come home from work because I needed to take my cat to the vet for a checkup (her eye is still not healing but I still don't have anyone to take me to the eye specialist that is three hours away) just to make sure her eye is not getting worse or she's losing more sight in it. I specifically asked her last night to please come home straight from work so I could borrow the car because the vet closes at 6 and I can't drive at night. she usually gets out at 2:30, sometimes 3 if she has to do overtime. but it was 4:40 when she JUST got home. the sun is already starting to set and by the time I get to the vet it'll be too dark for me to drive back. I'm confident she just fucking forgot and went off to my aunt's to eat and have coffee or whatever while I've been here getting everything ready so my cat is comfortable in her carrier and trying to not pass on my own stress onto her (🐈) because I know that probably doesn't help her feel better. I know this was an accident on her part, I know this, but I'm just so done. she never takes me into account, I'm always having to move around her schedule and accommodate her! the one time I asked her to get home early (and not even because I was doing something fun or frivolous or whatever) and she makes extra sure to come back just as it gets too dark for me to drive. surprisingly, she noticed I was upset and asked me what was wrong but at this point I don't even bother to bring it up because she always just invalidates me and calls me hysterical or dramatic or like I'm playing the victim. (this is without even taking into account that the reason I'm so "hysterical" is because of my ocd/anxiety and because the vet literally told me my cat losing an eye is a possibility! like, I feel like I'm not pulling shit out of my ass when I say I have reason to be concerned about this! especially since I haven't been able to take her to the specialist even tho the vet told me to take her almost two weeks ago!) I'm just done. I'm lured into a false sense of security by her again and again and I fall for it every time! I'm done. once I'm out of here by march, I'm going low contact

[neverendingford]

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