#memory repression from trauma for me personally has had an effect of

[misophoria]

the threads in my tapestry have been weaved through poison and still carry residues

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: INFJ. I experienced childhood trauma (verbal, emotional, physical, sexual) and have a lot of difficulty with learning due to issues with concentration and memory. I also have issues with emotional dysregulation and poor sleep. I've received C-PTSD as a diagnosis, with BPD traits (I think something in the ballpark of BPD may run in my family).

During conversations I'm often only really attending to 10-50% of what is said but can usually interpolate due to redundancy. However, during technical lectures or other situations with much lower redundancy, I'm totally lost. I believe this is one factor preventing me from achieving my full potential. In my current state I'm still capable of making a good living and living a comfortable life, but I know there is far more I can achieve.

In the near term I plan to focus on Fe/Ti - emotional intelligence, social skills, and also developing Ti expertise in a specific topic aligned with my Ni vision via the right set of Fe commitments and collaborations - while sidestepping the poor concentration issue for now. I can see that sufficient prior expertise (Ti) on a conversation/lecture topic also helps to compensate for the concentration issues. You gave me similar advice (let Ti do the heavy lifting) a couple years ago.

However, in the long run, if I really want to achieve my full potential, I can see that I'll need to directly address my concentration difficulties and other ways in which I believe trauma has stalled Se development.

Do you have any thoughts on how to restore my ability to be present and learn more effectively? As of now, as part of my general healing process, I'm focusing on building healthy interpersonal relationships (likely just platonic in the near future, in part because I'm not sure if I'm currently capable of having sex), emotional regulation, learning how to drive (which I've avoided due to my poor concentration, but maybe I'll be forced to improve out of necessity), and martial arts.

I may also undergo physical therapy to be able to get a Pap smear done (as of now it's seemingly not possible due to anxiety). I also believe that the memories of the worst trauma are repressed, and am considering psychedelics and EMDR to uncover and process these memories, which perhaps could be necessary to fully heal and address my concentration and memory issues.

I've had very poor experiences with psychiatry and clinical psychology (misdiagnosis, gaslighting, fraud, and shocking levels of incompetence) so am not super eager to engage with that system again, though I'm reading the DBT manual currently and also deriving my own personal principles for emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness (the latter I find to be easier, likely due to my Se issues).

I know you're likely going to say that I should consult a mental health professional, but I respect your judgment way more than any of the ones I've worked with. Also, an implicit assumption I'm making here is essentially equating focus/concentration/memory with Se, which may be inaccurate. Finally, I can't thank you enough for this blog. It's been lifechanging, to say the least.

Also, another assumption here is that trauma is the cause of the concentration and memory issues - that's my current hypothesis but I could certainly be wrong. My mom (who I think also has BPD traits) frequently complains about her difficulty concentrating. It's possible she also experienced trauma, or maybe it's genetic. No one has been willing to diagnose me with ADHD due to no evidence of learning issues in childhood. BPD dissociation could ultimately be the best explanation.

---------------------

Poor concentration is a lot like a sore throat, in that it can be a symptom of a great many things. By itself, it doesn't tell you a lot. The underlying cause could be relatively simple like poor physical health, or it could be a psychological issue like C-PTSD, or it could be a very complicated combination of factors working together, each needing their own solution. Let's unpack:

1) Physical Health: Brain functioning is heavily dependent upon physical health. Without a healthy body to support the brain, you won't possess enough energy and will to perform the executive function tasks you need for self-management and self-improvement. You mentioned poor sleep. A well-rested mind is essential for good concentration and quality sleep is essential for efficient memory consolidation.

Your brain is a physical object that requires physical care and maintenance. Without a nutritious diet, quality sleep, adequate exercise and blood flow, and proper stress/illness management, brain operation suffers. Therefore, improving mental health should always begin with improving your physical habits, establishing healthy physical routines, and maintaining work-life balance. Improving physical health also goes a long way to improving emotional regulation.

2) Mental Health: Yes, trauma can interfere with focus and memory operations, but this doesn't mean it's the cause, so I wouldn't be so quick to jump to that conclusion. Focus and memory issues aside, it is generally important to your well-being to be mentally healthy, so you need to address your mental health issues in a timely manner.

You mention three issues: C-PTSD due to a history of abuse, BPD traits, and emotional dysregulation. It's often the case that these three things are interrelated, but it's important to know for sure by getting properly checked out by a mental health professional.

There is a good chance that DBT will be an effective treatment for these three issues because it teaches you how to manage emotions better. But I suggest that you work with a DBT specialist rather than go it alone. The presence of BPD traits makes it likely that you have difficulty being objective about yourself, so going it alone could inadvertently lead you straight into Ti loop if you're not careful (assuming you're not already there). Due to the necessity of Fe development, it is vital that you have an objective person to reflect important truths back to you.

Every profession has its fair share of duds and bad apples. Not everyone graduates with honors, after all. I understand that you've had negative experiences with professionals and I can only reiterate that it's important to keep shopping around until you find the right fit. Being much more specific about the problem/issue you want to address can help you narrow down the search.

3) Learning and Improvement: You are drawn to my blog and its ideas about type development. While lack of presence may be an indication of Se misuse, the solution isn't as simple as developing Se. You're not anywhere near ready to develop the inferior function, and fixating on it is likely to be harmful.

In INFJs, lack of presence isn't directly caused by Se. It's more likely to be related to maladaptive Fe. When INFJs aren't able to handle the intense feelings and emotions that Fe opens them up to, they tend to develop a habit of detaching from the world and retreating into their own self-created world through Ni-Ti loop. Detachment means you separate yourself from reality, and lack of presence is one common symptom of that.

You can't be fully present and learn well when you're not learning for the sake of learning but rather treat learning merely as a means to some other, more unconscious end. When there's a lot happening in the unconscious, especially if you have a long running habit of repressing feelings and emotions, you're being driven by dark forces. If this is true for you, your real potential isn't to be found in learning or "intelligence" but rather in honesty and becoming more self-aware, i.e., facing up to the things that haunt you, which goes back to point #2 about getting proper therapy to address your trauma.

You seem very motivated to improve yourself and your life, which is generally a good thing. However, this motivation should be closely examined in INFJs because they often suffer from perfectionism and use "self-improvement" to feed unhealthy control issues. In other words, their motives can be suspect. You say you're not living up to your "full" potential, e.g., you should be able to focus better, be more present, remember more, perform better, etc, but is this really true? Says who? Who is the one defining this notion of "potential"? What are you really aiming for and why? What does "full" mean, i.e., at what point does it end?

At some point, if you ever hope to be at peace, you have to accept the reality of your limitations and be content in who you are, as is. Are you happy with yourself and who you are? Is your quest for self-improvement motivated by love of yourself, love of life, and love of others? Or is it fueled by ego, illusion, insecurity, guilt, shame, or self-loathing? It is very important to answer these questions honestly. Attempting self-improvement with unconscious intentions can lead to undesirable consequences. It sounds like you're trying to do way too much at once, which is usually a warning sign. Biting off more than you can chew is a very good way to choke.

Your thinking is messy and confused. You've taken the above three points and mashed them together. Despite what you believe about them being related, they are distinct issues that each need proper attention. I've separated them out for you and numbered them in order of importance. Slow down, prioritize the issues in the right order, and take things one SMALL step at a time.

[breakingdawnpt2]

What are you editorial gripes with Long Legs?

spoilers obviously

God ok so like I’m stupid and not good with words but like like all the nun shit with her mother needed to be completely cut. I feel like the nun imagery was extremely forced and existed simply to suit the marketing strategy? Also I would cut anything that textually confirms the existence of the Devil and that he’s the one killing families and girls through evil dolls with evil orb brains? The dark cloud in Lee’s room sprouting devil horns was way too much I just don’t find the Devil scary sorry it would have been much scarier if it was never explained how some guy was entering these peoples houses and killing them without leaving any evidence he was ever there at all. Some fucked up guy acting in the name of Satan is 1000x more effective than showing me a lousy cartoon devil that requires heavy suspension of disbelief as a not spiritually or religiously inclined viewer. and IF it was absolutely necessary that the mom was threatened and had to agree to be his accomplice in order to save Lee’s life, a lottttt more emphasis should have been put on the looming threat of her letting that motherfucker live in their basement and be anywhere near her daughter. I needed like a repressed memory of Longlegs brushing little Lee’s hair like a doll or some shit to emphasize how close her mother allowed him to get to her child in order to save her life, how the work of the devil is something her mother has ALWAYS feared (have you been saying your prayers Lee?) and because of that fear she obeys a minion of a force she is too meek to overcome

From an editing standpoint the sequence where Lee wakes up in the basement and climbs upstairs to a ringing phone it’s like, genuinely confusing and not well executed. It took me until I left the theatre to realize he had been living under her house? Maybe I’m just stupid but it should have been more apparent and the stakes of that fact should have been more dire. I also don’t know why there’s a sequence of cuts to random rooms in the house when the phone is ringing right in front of her. If you want to do a bunch of cuts to random rooms in the house that’s fine!!!!! But give us a reason to be looking, put the phone across the house and design the soundscape around where the phone is in relation to each room shot. Don’t pull the audiences attention away to shit that doesn’t matter when suspense is your most powerful weapon. Speaking of suspense,

DON’T SHOW HIS FACE SO EARLY oh my god for a movie with like an actual Make You Forget Childhood Trauma Orb you would think they could resist showing the audience the guy whose face our perspective character has been repressing until she meets him herself?

Ummm and with all that shit cut we would have spent more time with our characters. I didn’t need to find out so early that Lee’s birthday is the 14th, nor Ruby’s for that matter. I wanted to know more about Lee’s beliefs and memories and motivations I wanted to know more about Longlegs and his workshop and his motivations and establish a connection between him and Lee which makes us fear for her life even after he’s been caught. Have Carter reckon with a person who commits unfathomably evil acts in service of a greater power he doesn’t even believe in, have him see the evil enter his home with his own two eyes and test his un-faith. He wasn’t really a character he was a plot device to give us a family to care about lol

Well anyway maybe I should have chosen screenwriter in that poll idk that’s like most of it. I think it’s a good two thirds of a movie! Up until her mother walks onscreen in a fucking nun costume but then that puts the whole thing under a microscope for me and I can’t not see all the ways it could have been done better if the focus hadn’t been entirely on creating provocative images but had also been on creating a meaningful (and scary!) context around those images. The opening scene with Longlegs and the part where Lee’s partner gets shot in the face point blank were pretty good tho. I liked the shit where he leaves the birthday card in her house but I also don’t feel she should have been given the answer so fast. The performances were great and Cage made me laugh whether or not that was the intent. Alright bye

[erigold13261]

i hope we get to eventually see raz reenter milla's mind to free her from her nightmares for good because i feel like that cage sasha built in there was still a tempoary solution at best

Didn't Milla say she had her nightmares under control? I'm pretty sure she made that cage, not Sasha.

Also, the death of a child, let along a whole orphanage of children, is not something that people ever really get over. The whole event is going to haunt Milla for the rest of her life, though over time she will get better with her nightmares.

We see that there are quite a few nightmares when Raz enters her mind, but they are docile and not actively attacking the cage. From this I believe that she already has them under control for the most part. Some times they will slip out and cause harm, but she can just push them back into the cage after dealing with any that escaped.

It's also the fact that the cage is see through that makes me think Milla is handling her nightmares pretty well. She isn't fully hiding them away, trying to push the memories down and repress them. She is actively giving them a space in her mind that she can visit and just deal with them when she needs. I feel like that is a healthy way to deal with the trauma of losing her kids.

Plus when Raz sees her memories and nightmares, she is still pretty composed and in control of herself. I feel like the subject matter of her nightmares, if she wasn't in control of them and hadn't learned to cope with her trauma, would have caused her to break down or spiral once Raz brought those memories to light out of nowhere while she is training a lot of kids around her.

So in short, there is no way to actually FREE Milla from her nightmares. The same way we can't just free Compton from his anxiety or Bob from his depression. These are things that can be worked on to reduce the effect they have on the person, but they're not something that will ever go away with just a few mental fights done by Raz or other Psychonauts.

Well I guess you could permanently alter your mind with the astralathe, but that kinda defeats the purpose of working on yourself. Especially since the astralathe was made to open someone's mind more. Using it to close someone's mind feels more like a temporary/reversible lobotomy that has more control on the outcome of the patient.

So sure, Milla could just use the astralathe to forcibly forget the children she lost and lose the nightmares, but she loses a core part of herself and would end up being a totally different person from what we know. That is the only way I can see her fully getting rid of her nightmares for good. Otherwise, it will just take time and therapy/coping mechanisms to work through her trauma to minimize the hold it has over her.

Which, again, I feel like she has a good hold over her emotions because she regularly deals with them in a healthy way, unlike Sasha who just suppresses his emotions until they explode. If anyone really needs help, it would be him with his own emotions.

[waheelawhisperer]

Watched V9E5, thoughts are below. This one sucked less than the others, I guess.

Based on the title, we’ll finally get WBY back to normal size. Please. Please. I’m so done with this plotline.

Weiss got to say “freaking”. Go off, queen. Let her curse for real now though

Okay so Ascending is the form of death in the Ever After. Once the process is complete, you don’t remember anything and take a new form.

The Cat acknowledges that the beings of Remnant die “for real” and beings of the Ever After do not. The show is drawing a pretty clear association between Ascension and what we understand as death in this scene.

Now we know what happened to the Red King. It seems Alyx did not have an overly positive effect on the Ever After, from what we’ve seen so far

So something remains after Ascension, some core of… essence? Something that informs your personality and actions going forward. Your memories and who you were previously disappear, but a part of you remains?

Fucking Rooster Teeth reference (specifically to the homophobic slur they named the company after). Jerk yourselves off harder. I would never in my life be proud of an association with that company.

“Exposition is boring” not if you’re good at it (you aren’t) and sometimes it’s necessary

Why is every ally fucking useless

God this cat is annoying

Little is sleeping again, but they’re actually less irritating when they’re quiet so I don’t mind it too much

Penny’s sword did come back after all. I thought the writers had forgotten Ruby was supposed to care about her.

Cool robot lady, nice

I don’t blame Ruby for not opening up to the stranger here. Like normally it would be an issue that she represses and denies all her trauma but she has zero reason to trust the strange metal chick

We’re really hitting the burden of leadership theme hard this Volume huh

Whose face was that in the dagger? Looks like Ruby is seeing the owner of the weapons when she grabs them

This must be Summer Rose and Summer’s weapon. Looks like we’ll finally get to learn some of the story behind her 10 years in

That was kinda creepy honestly

At least Ruby finally acknowledged that she’s missing Crescent Rose. Maybe now she’ll give a damn about finding it, or at least we’ll learn why she doesn’t

Oh, so that emblem is Summer’s and carries a mother’s promise? Would’ve been nice to know that sooner, but I guess at least it’s something that makes Summer feel like she actually matters as something other than a plot device.

I’ve seen people say Ruby parted with the emblem too readily compared to what it represents/should represent to her, and I get where they’re coming from, but I’m not sure I agree. This scene presents it as a desperation move where Ruby’s grasping at straws (and it’s a nice callback to the other symbolism trades we’ve seen so far), given how she's visibly panicking and we can hear her whimper as she tries to come up with a solution, so I think how well it works for me will ultimately depend on whether the show actually lets Ruby engage with the loss of her mother’s symbol.

Blurch why are you asking what a Jabberwalker is didn’t you literally mention it earlier in the Volume? If not, one of your teammates did

Okay so the Jabberwalker can permanently kill the denizens of the Ever After

Still can't hear shit this guy is saying. If only my torrents had subtitles...

Damn, that was a cold move by the Cat. I already didn't like them, but that was ruthless as hell. If they're willing to toss Harvey Birdman away like that, what happens when Team RWBY stops being interesting? I do not trust them in the slightest.

Ruby you have a fucking Semblance just gap close to the stupid parfait instead of running

Nice heroic introduction for what I assume is the Rusted Knight and his noble steed, which looks like something out of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Cool design tbh

Blurch’s reaction here is genuinely adorable

Once again Yang is the one keeping everyone on track and focusing on the objective. This has been a trait she’s displayed since at least Volume 7 and I feel like it really goes overlooked when discussing her characterization. She was the one who spotted the teapot lady earlier too.

At least the fucking Tiny WBY plotline is finally over it felt like an eternity despite lasting 2 episodes

Yang really does get the coolest finishers

Oh, so this was a Neo illusion? I was wondering how the Jabberwalker had escaped her.

Uh, hello? I can acknowledge the value of a tactical retreat, but did you guys not just justifiably call Ironwood out for running and leaving innocents behind only a few days ago and then insist that fighting back was a Huntress’s job? Hell, just last episode you talked about how Huntresses defend those who cannot defend themselves. Good look for the heroes, MKEK. Maybe they’ll go find another mansion to drink tea in while someone else fights and dies.

Then again I hate everything about the Ever After as a setting so I don’t care if all these clowns get eaten

Wow I wonder if there are any parallels here with the fall of Atlas

or if the narrative will engage with them

“I am so tired of leaving places in ashes” so stop doing that, nothing the show has done has sold the Jabberwalker as something that can duel even one of you, you could’ve at least tried to fight, the three combat-capable members of your team trashed the roided-up Jabberwalker with ease and Yang kicked the original's ass bad enough it ran from her in terror with one fucking arm, you could've at least made a fucking effort to fight the swarm of scrub ones

these writers are hilariously tone-deaf it’s like they think every inadequacy in their work is funny

Blurch is fangirling again this is one of the bits of humor that actually lands for me

lmao it’s fucking He-Man Jaune why is he this sad excuse for a DILF I already hate this choice

The music has been really uninspired this Volume

Best episode so far despite not being particularly good, mainly because it wasn’t outright offensive and never made me angry enough to pause and strangle the air in front of me while pretending it was one of the writers

Overall rating: Mediocre/10

[ritualslaughter]

so I mentioned seeing a terrible take saying shigaraki was beyond saving because he willingly murdered his father, and I was gonna leave it be but actually I'm still pissed off about it so here goes nothing:

Shigaraki Tomura, Unreliable Narrator or: Why Shimura Tenko Did Not Intentionally Kill His Father

tw for talks of child abuse - physical, emotional, and psychological - below the cut

okay, so - the aforementioned flaming bad take is obviously based on these caps:

these are taken from 236, when we learn about tomura's (or rather, tenko's, because I think there needs to be a distinction between the two in this case) childhood. from the outset, this seems cut and dry - if you don't read anything other than this, I would excuse you for thinking this is just another case of "crazy kid seeks bloodlust, kills family."

I'm here to tell you why that's a load of bullshit.

okay, let's cover some bases, and talk a little bit about child psychology:

During their development between the age of two to five, children do not understand that death is irreversible. [x]

as we learn in 235, tenko is five when his quirk begins to manifest - his skin starts to dry around his eyes, he develops an itch, and we can assume shortly afterwards is when the actual decay quirk forms.

as stated above, preschool aged children do not have the same concept of death as adults; they think of death as temporary, even fixable. this is how you get children saying things like "but how can grandma breathe all the way down there?" and "did it hurt when they burned daddy?"; to a preschool aged child, death is akin to taking a trip - it is something that can be returned from. [x]

to say that tenko - a child of five years old who has already gone through abuse (a common effect - even in cases where the abuse is not physical - of which being stunted emotional growth/development, and in particular difficulty understanding the consequences of their actions [x] [x] [x]) understands the finality of death enough to comprehend the consequences of a quirk that has only just developed, immediately after the trauma of physical abuse from his father and then unwillingly causing the death of the rest of his family, is absolutely absurd.

"but he said he knew what he was doing!" you say.

now we're really getting into the meat of this, let's talk about a couple reasons as to why shigaraki tomura is an unreliable narrator.

tomura - not tenko, because it's important to remember this is shigaraki that is recounting these events to us - does say that he believes that in some way he did this on purpose.

however, I am once again going to bring our friend context back into the equation.

shigaraki tomura has undergone serious indoctrination by all for one for the majority of his life, the majority of which being in his formative years, and especially regarding this particular event. the entirety of afo's introduction in regards to tomura's origin story literally revolves around the death of his family and his "itch to kill," so let's talk about some ways in which afo might have affected tomura's perception of that day:

1. forgotten memories

this is the most out there, and the most tinhat-ty of the theories, so I'm getting it out of the way first. I think it's worth it to put in here anyway, because it does still touch on afo's overwhelming influence, but this is pretty much all speculation.

in 237, tomura mentions the memories of "that day" being repressed up until his fight with re destro when they come back to him. the theory is that these memories - and by proxy, the feelings that came with them - were placed into his head by afo as a child, and are not reflective of his actual actions/feelings.

like I said, I think this is the weakest argument in this particular context, but it would explain some of the convenient events (i.e. the grandson of shimura nana, the one person afo wants on his side, just so happening to kill his family) that lead to tenko meeting afo. it's an interesting idea, and one I like, but it's not the one we're gonna focus on for this argument.

2. a helping hand

sit back and watch me girlboss and gatekeep this shit, cause this is where we really start to talk about gaslighting.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse where a person or group makes someone question their sanity, perception of reality, or memories. [x]

regardless of whether afo orchestrated the death of tenko's family as posed in the above theory or not, it's irrefutable that he is the first and only person to to offer tenko support following the incident. this puts afo in a position of power and worship over tenko, which is the perfect breeding ground for this type of psychological abuse.

afo praises tenko, tells him he's powerful, and that he's proud of him, gives him his name, and assures him that it's okay to want to hurt the people who have hurt him, and not only that, but that they deserve it when he does.

afo creates an environment where tenko/tomura worships the ground he walks on, then builds the narrative that the ones who hurt us deserve to be punished. so why would tomura, who blatantly in the text says he felt immense guilt for killing his family, not try to lessen that guilt by saying they deserved it?

3. scratching the itch

"but what about the itchiness? he said it went away when he killed his father, it's obviously tied to his need to decay, he can't be saved if his instinct is to destroy!"

I'm going to pose a little theory here: tomura's itchiness is not a symptom of his quirk. it's a psychosomatic disorder caused by the abuse from his father, and then later heightened by the abuse he received at the hands of afo.

Psychosomatic disorder [is a] condition in which psychological stresses adversely affect physiological (somatic) functioning to the point of distress. [x]

tenko's itching starts near enough to the development of his quirk that it's pretty easy to see why the two might be related, it's also shown to be in DIRECT correlation with any time his father verbally or physically abuses him. the first time we see him itching, it's after his father drags him across the house. he also says in the text that it (his face) "gets itchy when I'm at home," meaning it mainly manifests in environments his father is in.

afo abuses this knowledge, and turns it into a weapon used to create the "symbol of fear" he's always wanted - he tells tomura that holding back will only intensify the itch; he has to let go if he wants it to ever truly go away. the itching stopped when he killed his father (because finally, his abuser - the stressor for this reaction - was gone), so it must be natural! it must be natural for him to want to destroy, so he should follow his heart, and that will make afo proud.

and the only thing tomura has ever wanted to do was make afo proud.

let it be known, I'm not arguing any of this to take away tomura's agency or absolve him of his crimes - he absolutely has killed people knowingly, and with full consciousness. but the idea that tomura - or any child - was "born evil" or can never be saved because of actions done under extreme stress, and tainted by further psychological abuse, is fucked up, and it just straight up is not backed up by the text.

tomura's whole character is based on the fact that if someone had been there to save him, he would not have grown up to be the way he is today. to put the blame of his character on his quirk, or his personality, or just the fact he was born fucked up shows a blatant disregard for the themes of his character, and the themes of bnha as a whole.

no one is too far gone that they can't be saved. especially not a scared little kid looking for comfort when they never had any.

[ratcandy]

Subcon Forest Analysis

Hi everyone I'm here to spill my aggressive overflowing thoughts on Subcon Forest and what it represents because it's been driving me insane since I finished the Sleepy Subcon time rift. Okay let's go. Obvious spoilers for AHIT ahead so proceed with caution.

This is also very, very long.

Disclaimer/warning: I will be discussing abusive/unhealthy relationships in this analysis. I mean. Vanessa. Come on. Also, there is a section on the nooses, and that delves, of course, into mentions of suicide. It will be sectioned off and easily skipped, but if you'd rather be safe and skip the entire post, that's completely understandable! Please stay safe. <3

Alright. Main point to be had here:

Subcon Forest is a giant extended metaphor for Snatcher's mind and character.

You all get to now listen to me spout nonsense about metaphors and symbolism because I'm a sucker for analysis and I'm given an opportunity to go ham. So perish.

The Ice

Let's start with the most obvious and most glaring thing in Subcon. The ice. It's everywhere. Not just outside Vanessa's manor, either; no, it's throughout the village, too. Shows up in the well and in random locations sprinkled about. When it comes to literal plot, we know that ice is just what lingers after Vanessa's wintery curse on Subcon. But going deeper and analyzing the meaning behind it?

Well, let's look at this from the perspective I've suggested. Subcon Forest being an extended metaphor for Snatcher's mind and character. A symbol for Vanessa then litters his mind, enough where it's certainly noticeable at first but blends in more easily once more of Subcon is unlocked to Hat Kid. This is clearly meant to be his lingering trauma, whether or not he wants to acknowledge it. Which he doesn't, as he never mentions it directly in his forest (that I can recall). Her influence plagues him, as to be expected with the traumatic experiences he went through with her. Breaking the ice is something Hat Kid must do in order to fulfill the wishes of the Fire Spirits (another subject I'll get into shortly), which, if self-indulgently playing with the found family idea, could mean that Hat Kid is helping him heal; if indirectly. Even if fulfilling the Fire Spirits' wish to die is... counterproductive, in that measure, which I'm now getting ahead of myself so hold on a sec!!

Vanessa. Ice. Everywhere. Traces of it all over his forest. That's the effects of an abusive relationship! Especially in a worst-case scenario where... yknow! One party in the relationship dies! So of course ice would be everywhere.

In and of itself, ice is a common symbol in literature and other forms of media. In this case, it's presented as an antagonistic force; emphasis is placed upon freezing and the harm that comes with it. The cold is unwelcoming, threatening, merciless. Snow can act as an insulating force, at least, but ice cannot. It can only make things colder.

A slight stretch: Seeing as this game deals a lot with time shenaniganry, I'm not sure if it'd be too out of left field to connect "freezing" with the theme of time. Yknow. Frozen in time. Both parties here, Snatcher and Vanessa, would be in this frozen state. One largely repressing it and never fully moving on, and the other doomed to her isolation ever since the event in question. They never moved past that moment after the Prince and florist's interaction.

The Fire Spirits (& the Portraits)

I'll put a slight warning here for suicidal ideation, if only because... it's the Fire Spirits we're talking about. It's not as grossly in-detail as the noose discussion will be, though, so make of that what you will.

To me, the Fire Spirits are a very interesting case. After all, they're fire. They're a direct contrast to the ice, thus being the only thing we're shown that could potentially melt it. The Fire Spirits, in my opinion, represent hope or a strength to continue. A strength to move on after troubles of the past.

...And that hope wants to die.

The Fire Spirits wish to burn out, to leave this mortal coil and abandon the forest to the cold. They make no effort to melt the ice, they simply dance, blissfully ignorant towards their surroundings. This being a metaphor for Snatcher's own hope for moving on is made all the more obvious by the fact he wants them gone. The first contract is to kill the Fire Spirits, to kill the hope. Perhaps he believes that sort of thing to be fruitless or naïve, so it only clutters his mind or has him foolishly optimistic at points. So, get rid of it. And the hope is happy to oblige.

(That, or their willingness to leave the forest to its own suffering and not aid in the ice's thaw angers him. Besides the whole "bark bark growl I can't get to parts of my forest because of them!!" which... also could represent a naïve hope clouding his judgement, not allowing him to see a bigger picture. But hope can't all be lost if one wants to move forward...)

A little side-tangent now on the portraits! And it's another slight stretch but the idea is in my head and I can't let it go. Portraits are another common symbol, usually being a physical representation of a memory or idea. For our purposes, let's say they're memories. I know in canon they appear to just hold souls captive or something but for now we're just Ignoring That(tm). The Fire Spirits have to burn the portraits to disappear. See where I'm going with this, maybe?

Instead of handling bad memories (or perhaps memories of the past in general) in any healthy manner, Snatcher chooses to forget/repress them, which just allows his hope to progressively die out.

I'm really hoping this is making sense because it makes a lot of sense to me but I might be insane rn

The Fact that this is a Forest

Forest symbolism breakdown! What's a forest usually mean in literature? "Traditionally, the forest has come to represent being lost, exploration and potential danger as well as mystery and 'other worldliness'." Okay. Yeah. Fair enough. That certainly works with the whole aesthetic we've got going on. Wood usually is life, growth and strength. But the trees of subcon are all dead. So what about that? It stands for death, big whoop, very spooky, we know Snatcher's dead and so are the children, yadda yadda wowie wowie. But. :) The trees in Subcon look a lot like trees that were scorched in a forest fire. Don't believe me?

(You could also argue they're just regular marsh/swamp trees bUT SSHHSUUHSH HANG ON HEAR ME OUT LOOK LOOK,)

What I believe to have happened was a controlled fire to rid the forest of the majority of its ice and snow. Likely done by Snatcher. It leaves behind a very desolate, depressing, barren scene... but. What else do dead/burnt trees symbolize? Rebirth. After all, controlled fires happen to make way for new trees to take the place of old ones. Some trees only drop seeds in fires/hot temperatures, so new ones take root and begin anew. Weird. It's almost like... I dunno. Snatcher was given some sorta second chance, given he's not just a corpse in Vanessa's cellar. So were the subconites. Another life given then by Snatcher. All connected I tell ya!!

Generally, aside from that, forests have many connotations. Mystery, isolation, claustrophobia; a place to dwell on regrets, or the past; to worry over one's future; to seek escape from or escape inside of... hmgmrnmm!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- T / W -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The Nooses

The t/w is given at the top and another cut-off point will follow the bottom of this, for those that would like to skip. This will delve into talk of suicide and abusive tactics used by abusers. Please don't read if it will upset you or make you feel unsafe!!!

Personally, I cannot stand the nooses, but that's just due to my own triggers. Were there a way to hide those from the game or replace the damned talking ones with anything else. I would take it. In a heartbeat. But I can still appreciate the potential analysis to be had with them. So now i'm gonna talk about it despite how uncomfortable it will make me to do so. yEa

So, what about 'em? There are three types of nooses seen in Subcon. At least that I remember but I didn't really go looking for them. Empty ones, ones containing empty subconites, and the talking ones.

Nooses in general obviously can hint towards suicidal thoughts or behaviors of the characters that interact with them. If saying Subcon is Snatcher's mind, it could suggest that he suffered from some sort of suicidal thoughts in life (or currently, if second death is possible... or if he never truly died... or maybe he's trying to figure that out...which has given me... a separate idea...uh oh). But. And hear me out. Different perspective.

A talking noose. I hate them with a fiery passion that is unmatched. But think of the packed symbolism of a noose that talks. And think more about what it says. "I wouldn't mind being strapped around a cute neck like yours." "Be careful now, I don't want to see you meet a miserable end anywhere, but with me." Oddly, a lot of what the noose says seems almost... endearing? One could argue it's a way of luring someone to put it around their necks, which in and of itself is a whole lot to unpack when it comes to suicidal thoughts beckoning one forward; painting itself as something romantic, almost. But. Here's a wild idea, now. What if the nooses, at least the talking ones, are another symbol for Vanessa?

They're tinted blue, after all. While Vanessa's scheme is more red, one could argue two things: One, ice. Blue. Ice. yeah. Or two, the fact that Snatcher's scheme is more purple. Blue and red... make... purple. So, for all we know, Snatcher's current state was a compound effort between suicidal thoughts and Vanessa's treatment of him. Perhaps he even found a way to put himself out of his misery before freezing/starving to death. (I know he has dialogue that argues against that, but... are we certain Snatcher would be the kind to admit suicide over freezing to death?... I don't think so.)

At any rate, a common threat by those in "control" of an abusive relationship is that of killing themselves should the other person not do as they desire. It's a cruel form of emotional manipulation to get their way, worse off if the other party is an empathetic individual. As a person who has been the empathetic individual in relationships like this... I would know. I've been here, unfortunately So, it's not completely out of the question to say Vanessa could've used some tactic like that, even before the whole... cellar ordeal. Did she? I dunno. I'm tossing ideas around. But if she did, the threats of such would sit around in the Prince's mind easily. Even if she has a reputation of not going through with it. It doesn't matter. That shit sticks with you forever, that scare, the potential of it ever being true, is horrifying and it ruins you. I'm projecting, Squirtle.

Still. A noose cannot hang itself. It has to have a victim.

...yea.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- T / W PASSED -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Misc. Ideas

- The spiders: Aside from the usual things spiders can be chalked up to symbolizing - toxicity, alluring danger, just... general pain - I like the potential wordplay that can happen here. Yknow. A black widow. Say the Prince and Vanessa were married when one died. What would that leave Vanessa? A widow. ...She's red and black, too. Yknow. Like a black widow. HA wordplay is fun isn't it?

- Snatcher's tree: Love this place, love sitting in here. But not the point! The inside of Snatcher's tree is such a harsh juxtaposition to the rest of Subcon that it kinda throws ya off guard. After all, the dark, purples and blues then contrasted with the bright warm colors of the inside. Even the music switches over. The thorns outside aren't present indoors. Ohh yeah this is gonna be on the nose as hell but the Tree(tm) is 100% representing Snatcher's appearance/put-on personality vs. his truer nature. Spooky outside with thorns, foreboding, unwelcoming. Then the more comfortable interior. VULnerable. Have I even mentioned that the tree is HOLLOW I mean COME ON. The sturdiness of that tree? Nonexistent. He's not a sturdy guy at all no matter how he fronts

- Intrusions are unwelcome: Snatcher does not like the fact that Hat Kid sticks around in his forest. His personal space. His mind. In fact he tries desperately to get rid of her after their fight, not wanting her presence in his forest at all. He has no problem providing more contracts later on with the Death Wish thing, and he finds great entertainment in messing around with Hat Kid, so it's not just a weird sudden hatred he has for her; it's the fact that. After she's finished being useful, he no longer wants her around, lest she find some things she shouldn't find. Now he's just uncomfortable with her in his personal boundaries. Could just be a denial that she's helped him heal (breaking ice, stealing from Vanessa, being something interesting for his kids to interact with) or just not really wanting a child to get wrapped up in. All that. Most likely the former. Considering the amount of joke-hints he drops regarding his background during his Death Wish dialogue. I see you funny man, making jokes out of your trauma as a coping mechanism. Punts him

Annnd I think that's all I got, for now! I'll make an update post if I get any more sporadic ideas. If you read this whole thing, thank you!! and also!! Wow that was a lot!! Hell world. Please feel free to elaborate on any of my points or debate with me on em!! I'm always open to other ideas, just be aware that if I disagree I am not shy when it comes to debate hehehe, tho I won't be aggressive to any extent I prommy!!

Alrighty. goes to sleep goodnight

[themotherlobehq]

Summarizing the coping mechanisms of the Psychic Seven. I’m warning for canon mental trauma and self-harm behavior.

Ford - If we take away the metaphor of the Astralathe, I think this means he repressed his trauma both of the Deluge and of what he did to Lucy and Augustus not only to hide this secret, but also because he couldn’t deal with the guilt. I would also suggest it was a form of self-harm.

Bob - Alcohol abuse to numb the pain, self-isolation, and self-loathing directed at Bob as a person to push himself further into isolation.

Cassie - Compartmentalizing her feelings as to avoid dealing with them, self-isolation as well as other avoidance behavior. Feels the obsessive need to keep up a strict schedule in one specific behavior that she hopes will lead to Ford returning and fixing things for her, but which mostly serves as an orderly, controlled place for her to exist, but which her anxieties won’t let her leave.

Compton - Self-isolation, both as a side-effect to his stress making his telepathy go out of control and to escape his environment’s supposed judgement of him. He projects his self-blame and self-loathing outwards. Compared to Bob, Compton directs his feeling at his skills, which he equals to his worth or lack thereof.

Helmut - I take the ‘quiet place’ as a form of self-isolation (notice the trend) as well as representing emotionally shutting down, because the ‘void’ is implied to represent Helmut’s loss of identity and memories over time.

Lucrecia - Lashing out, then repressing memories. Her mental world makes me believe that a big part of Lucy’s mind wanted to forget what she had done, especially because of Marona. Not that she was in the right mental headspace to consent to Ford’s idea - and his idea was a horrible solution - but I think she was more active in the decision than the game portrays. Also, with the Astralathe, I got the feeling that the person has to want those changes for them to work. (And even then, they’re temporary.)

Otto - I speculate about Otto because his is the only mind of the Psychic Seven Razputin doesn’t enter. I like the headcanon that he grieves differently from how most people expect it, so they don’t notice. He seems fine to them. Rather, he processes internally as some of his inventions seem to suggest.

I think he also ignores his trauma - not repress, because he remembers the Deluge - and rather focuses on the Psychonauts. His behavior, expressions, and tone when he eagerly suggests to sell mini-Astralathes at the game’s ending are remarkably similar to Hollis at the game’s beginning when her mind was changed on the idea ‘money - risk’. Both get stuck on an obviously bad idea to gain money for the organization they’ve dedicated themselves to help.

(A short note on Hollis: The game implies that she had a past gambling addiction. That and her behavior in the casino suggest that she saw gambling for the jackpot as the solution to all of her problems in the past - was she struggling financially?-, which is why she’s so susceptible to the idea in the present. It’s an old maladaptive coping mechanism plus an addiction.)

What is going on with Otto, who knows the damage the Astralathe can cause and which could spell trouble for the Psychonaut if used by civilians, yet is convinced of his idea? Is he bottling up his stress, in a different form, like Hollis did? So Otto might now be susceptible to a Bad Idea because he’s so desperate to save the Psychonauts?

[johannestevans]

Weekly Update 17/04/2021

Good afternoon!

Firstly, let me start by saying that the new prompts for this year's Monstrous May are out! You can check out the announcement post on Twitter here or on Tumblr, and they're open to absolutely any creator who feels like participating. Simply take as many prompts as you like, and create work for them - art, fiction, TikToks, sketches, edits, meta, headcanons, etc. Fanworks are welcome, as is adut work and erotica. Just post for each day in the #MonstrousMay hashtag on Twitter, or tag as Monstrous May on Tumblr!

Here's the prompts from last year, and if you peruse the #MonstrousMay and #MonstrousMayChallenge tags, you'll find people's prompt fills from last year.

Media Recommendations:

I recommended Severance a few weeks ago, but the finale has come out since then and it ripped my little brain into shreds, so I'm recommending it again:

Severance - Created by Ben Stiller (of Night At The Museum fame) and Aoife McArdle, Severance is a sci-fi thriller based around a dystopian/modern-day horror premise. It's centred around workers on what is known as a Severed floor - workers undergo a surgical procedure to formally "sever" the mental and emotional connection between their working selves and their at-leisure selves. The people they are on the job have no memory or awareness of their lives outside of working hours, and on days off, they have no memory of their time at work. It's a really, really interesting show that's digging into a lot of ideas around cybernetic advancements and also workers' rights, and what I'm loving most about it is that it's effectively a TV show where almost the entirety of the main cast are exhibiting symptoms of moderate-to-severe brain damage both in and outside of work. Moreover, it also has an unbelievably tender love story between two of the older working guys, played John Turturro and Christopher Walken, and as you guys know, I'm a sucker for old dudes in love.

Anyway, otherwise I would like to recommend:

Cucumber (2015, cr. Russell T. Davies) - Surprising nobody with a knowledge of my usual proclivities, the unapologetically and joyfully queer pirate show has imparted on me an insatiable lust for Con O'Neill, so I've been digging back thrugh a lot of the work he's in - I watched Cucumber/Banana/Tofu when it came out in bits and pieces, but I was a teenager at the time and found the whole thing pretty boring, so imagine my surprise watching it now and finding it disgustingly, painfully relatable in so many ways. This is a drama about literally the worst man you could imagine and all of his long-suffering friends - it's ultimately a series about repression and repressed desire and the trauma of just... being queer in a world that insists it isn't. It's about sex and it's about desire and it's about navigating the world when you feel fundamentally unlovable - every character is so fleshed out and so real, and the agony watching this is just palpable. There's one character in particular that made me feel like Russell T. Davies had personally reached out of my laptop screen and smacked me gently across the face and called me a stupid traumatised little twink, but that kind of personal call-out is always a good sign, I think. I really do recommend Cucumber, and while it doesn't have quite the same impact, the two companion shows - Banana and Tofu - are also worth checking out, Banana for a more light-hearted messy vibe, and Tofu as documentary for just a real insight into sex and relationships.

Bedrooms and Hallways (1998, dir. Rose Troche) - I've wanted to watch this for ages because Tom Hollander portrays some top-shelf fruit in this but couldn't find it anywhere, but someone mentioned Con O'Neill's in it too so I did another search and I got it. It's very nineties and that's constant, but it's also so messy and so joyful in how messy it is - like, have you ever wanted to get fucked on the floor of a stranger's house by Hugo Weaving? Of course you have, and now you can watch Tom Hollander do exactly that. Everyone in this is just the right kind of unbearable and ridiculous, and it's really fun seeing cis men navigate the pecularities of masculinity and sexuality when they're so bad at it, but trying so hard.

Boiling Point (2021, dir. Philip Barantini) - This is billed as a thriller and I wouldn't describe it as that, but I also wouldn't know how else to describe it. If you've ever worked in FnB, you'll feel this movie pretty viscerally - it's a window into one bustling, up-and-coming high class restaurant, and it's unbelievably compelling for being just that. It's just an everyday piece of people's lives, and it had me by the throat throughout - I've met every character in this personally, probably a dozen times apiece, and I loved that aspect of it, loved seeing the difference between customer-facing personality and that with other people, the relationships behind the counters and in the backrooms, and it's brimming with tension throughout.

The Kitchen (2019, dir. Andrea Berloff) - This one has received middling reviews, and frankly I'm gonna put that down to racism and the fact that a lot of people don't know how to digest flawed, complex characters, especially not when those characters have the audacity to be women or Black. This is 70s period piece following three women who are all the wives of Irish mobsters - when their husbands are jailed, they take over the local protection and intimidation rackets, struggling to learn the trade while also grappling with misogyny and anti-Blackness from within their own communities. It just does a lot of riffs on this sort of story that are a real relief, and Ruby particularly, played by Tiffany Haddish, really steals the whole film, she's got so much depth to her and for once she actually gets credit and respect as a character rather than just being killed off or thrown aside.

Apart from these, I'd also recommend Turning Red (2022, dir. Domee Shi) which is such a fun and adorable film, I really enjoyed it; The Hunt For Red October (1990, dir. John McTiernan), the first half of which is kind of dull but then really ramps up in its second half, and had me rooting for poor Sam Neill to get his round American woman and his RV vacation, and Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017, dir. Angela Robinson), which is a bisexual BDSM period piece that actually surprised me with how good it was. Oliver Platt doesn't have much in this but he's very hot in it if he's your thing the way he is mine.

I also had cause to rewatch Treasure Planet and Atlantis: The Lost World this week, and they're not new to me, but if they are to you, they're always worth a watch (or a rewatch!). Those two movies alongside Lilo and Stitch and the Road to El Dorado really show off that golden age for animated films, and these ones drive me wild every time.

New Works Published

Erotic Short: Caught

A thief is caught in the treasury and his punishment is delivered by the guards on duty.

Rated E, cis M/trans M/cis M, 3.2k. Unadulterated porn without plot — dubious consent, anal, vaginal, and oral sex, spitroasting, size difference, rough sex, fingering, messy sex with a bit of squirting and also messy oral, double penetration (vaginal/oral and vaginal/anal), crying, mindbreak, pussy spanking, spanking, some nipple play. Unsafe sex, no prophylactics or contraceptives are used or mentioned.

On Medium / / On Patreon

Our Flag Means Death Fanfiction: What's Hot

Rated E, 1.3k, Izzy Hands/sex worker OC, implied Lucius Spriggs/Izzy Hands. Izzy blows off steam, which does not go unobserved.

On Ao3

Fantasy Short: Agreements and Curses

A young man is dispatched to a fae land and joins the princes’ retinue.

20k, rated M, M/M. As part of an exchange program between the magical city from which he hails and the fae island state of Einsamal, a young man is sent as a child to explore fable and adventure, and in the process falls in love with one of the princes. The prince, a child of Loki, faces his own trials.

Some slow fantasy, a bit of romance and Norse trouble and emotions and angst. Introducing Princes Loptr and Fenris, Boniface Nottingham, aaaand with some more of Loki at his usual mischief.

On Medium / / On Patreon

Erotic Short: Archival Management

An archivist with a messy life finds himself intensively managed by his sexy, older boss.

Erotic short, 10k, cis M/M. Magical archivists in Camelot with the most mundane of delicious emotional and sexual issues. Featuring age difference, orgasm denial, oral, desperation, crying, a bit of mild humour and nastiness, delicious emotional manipulation, and a heavy dose of mind-reading.

On Medium / / On Patreon

Erotic Short: Sleeping Beauty

A sailor takes something that doesn’t belong to him, and the captain punishes him.

9.2k, cis M/trans M and cis M/M. A carpenter’s apprentice can’t resist the captain’s cabin boy while he’s meant to be performing maintenance, and afterwards, the captain and the cabin boy punish him between them — if the apprentice wants another chance at sex with the cabin boy, he has to let the captain bugger him first.

On Medium / / On Patreon

[moiraineswife]

Jasnah - The Facade Meta

Today we’re going to discuss the stormlight of my life, your life, your cat’s life: Jasnah Kholin. Topics of discussion include (but will likely not be limited to): the face she wears, the effect her childhood and what we know if it has had on her, madness, her mother, her perceived invincibility, and whatever else strikes me as relevant in the midst of this chaotic clusterfuck of yelling tarted up as character analysis. 

Now. To business:

Let us begin at the beginning (of what we know) and talk about Jasnah’s childhood illness, and what this has done to her in terms of her relationship with her mother, her outlook on life, and her perception of, well, perception…

“It’s your daughter,” Dalinar guessed. “Her lunacy.”

“Jasnah is fine, and recovering. It’s not that.”  (OB, 49, Born Unto Light)

Peppered through Dalinar’s flashbacks in Oathbringer are small hints at the dark side of Jasnah’s childhood. We’ve had hints before that Jasnah’s life has not always been...entirely typical for a princess.

Her existence as a radiant was a hint itself, as it's implied most of them are ‘broken’ in some way.

The others are more obvious: Kaladin’s depression, Shallan’s PTSD, anxiety, and DID, Dalinar’s repressed memories, and alcoholism etc,etc.

With Jasnah, you know it has to be there, but it’s harder to see. To use Shallan’s metaphor, she’s like a cracked vase, but the cracked side has been turned to the wall, so the outside world sees only smooth perfection.

This flashback comment is the most obvious indication at what caused Jasnah to break. A fairly shocking one for a reader as 'Jasnah' and 'lunacy' seem to match as well as chasmfiends and tea parties.

It also provides some rather awful context for this segment a few chapters earlier:

“Something stirred deep within her. Glimmers of memory from a dark room, screaming her voice ragged. A childhood illness nobody else seemed to remember, for all it had done to her.

“It had taught her that people she loved could still hurt her.”   (O, 47, So Much Is Lost)

We know, given Shallan’s research into Taln at the behest of the Ghostbloods, that the current treatment for madness involves confining the person in darkness.

It seems like far too much of a coincidence that Jasnah, diagnosed with lunacy, would have memories of screaming herself hoarse in a dark room that could somehow be unconnected to this.

Based on my shoddy maths, she was around 11 or 12 at this point, which is marked by many, especially Navani, as a turning point in her life. There was a profound change in how she acted with those around her following this.

“She wouldn’t let me be a mother to her, Dalinar,” Navani said, staring into the distance. “Do you know that? It was almost like . . . like once Jasnah climbed into adolescence, she no longer needed a mother. I would try to get close to her, and there was this coldness, like even being near me reminded her that she had once been a child. What happened to my little girl, so full of questions?” (WoR, 67, Spit and Bile)

It seems like too much of a coincidence, again, to assume that Jasnah’s childhood illness and her confinement had nothing to do with her reluctance to allow Navani to mother her any more.

Jasnah herself reflects that her imprisonment, for lack of a better word, taught her that people she loved could still hurt her. It seems very likely that this refers to Navani and Gavilar, as they would have allowed this treatment to continue. It’s also likely the reason for the change in their relationship afterwards.

Navani's presence didn't remind her she had been a child; it reminded her of what had been done to her.

Navani’s little girl was branded insane and locked away in a dark room with her parents' consent. This removed her ability to trust in Navani to mother and protect her. She kept her distance, she kept herself aloof and removed from everyone, and that’s something that hasn’t changed over twenty years later.

She takes no wards, an expected thing for a woman of her rank. She's unmarried, well past the age she should be. She has no friends, the closest she has are both "pen pals" she communicates with via spanreed.

Jasnah, of all the characters in Stormlight, is the one least emotionally connected. She clearly loves her family, and is devoted to them...But again it's from a distance.

She works in the shadows with assassins to protect them. She studies the end of the world a world away from everyone she loves.

When we see her in Kharbranth for the first time with Shallan, she’s alone.

The servants she uses seem to belong to the Palaneum. She travels alone, she researches and works and bears her burdens alone.

The sole exception is Ivory and she doesn't really have a choice with him BUT to have him with her.

I am NOT suggesting that Jasnah doesn’t actually care about her family/Shallan - we see repeatedly that she absolutely does.

Poignantly, the first thing Renarin’s visions predict that turns out to be false is the lack of love that Jasnah has - they claim she will choose logic and kill her cousin, but she chooses to save him instead.

It’s clear that Jasnah cares very deeply...but she also deliberately distances herself, both physically and emotionally, from other people.

(continued below)

Jasnah is so independent that it’s almost a flaw. She’s an interesting opposite to Kaladin, in this regard.

Kaladin defines himself so much by those around him, his family, his men, those under his care and protection, that that almost becomes a flaw in him. He destroys himself to protect them, and every failure wrecks him.

Jasnah keeps everyone away. She operates alone, in secret, and she clearly struggles to let people get close to her.

The reasons for this are twofold, I feel.

The first one is assassins: Jasnah has been ‘killed’ by one such assassination attempt, has survived another, who made multiple attempts on her life in the form of Kabsal, and has almost certainly experienced more beyond that.

Her casual expectation that Kabsal is trying to use Shallan to get close to her, likely, though she doesn’t say it, to kill her - which turns out to be true.

She knows firsthand how easy it is for someone with enough money and influence to place spies and assassins into a setting- she does it herself all the time. And it resulted in the death of her father.

In a lot of ways, she’s as paranoid about assassination as Elhokar is - she just expresses it in a far more subtle/rational way. Where Elhokar rants and panics, Jasnah blocks up air vents and rejects rooms in the 90000 foot, lost for centuries, tower with balconies because they're a security flaw.

The second reason for her emotional isolation, I believe, is what caused her initial withdrawal from Navani.

Being believed mad, locked in a dark room, screaming for help and being ignored, and knowing that your parents, the people whom you went to with questions and looked to for safety and protection are at least partially responsible, all at the age of eleven is...fairly damaging.

Jasnah hides the effects of her trauma far better than Kaladin or Shallan. This is probably partially because she’s older and has been dealing with it for longer.

By this point, her trauma reactions (which went, by her own admission, unaddressed by her family after what happened, which is traumatising in itself), have melded in with her personality/are brushed off as simply Jasnah being Jasnah.  

“I know what people say of me. I should hope that I am not as harsh as some say, though a woman could have far worse than a reputation for sternness. It can serve one well.”  (TWoK, 8, Nearer the Flame).

As a matter of fact, we know full well that Jasnah ISN’T as harsh or stern as she’s claimed to be. Shallan repeatedly affirms to Kabsal, and to a reader, that Jasnah is not what she expected - a stern, harsh mistress. She also notes that Jasnah believes herself to be one - likely due to everyone else perceiving her that way.

I think the perception of Jasnah is one that she’s cultivated deliberately - a stern, aloof, even harsh person. Not one anyone would want to be close to. Also not someone anyone would associate with weakness, or needing to be cared for or protected.

More than assassins, I think Jasnah fears people who love her with good intentions, and the ability to assert those good intentions upon her, because it's "for her own good".

When she was a child it led to her imprisonment, something which still triggers traumatic flashbacks over ten years later. She fears having people she loves hurt her. And so she keeps them away, and cultivates for herself a presence that doesn’t need to be cared for, that almost doesn’t need or want to be loved, so that can never happen again.

She rejects, most notably and strongly, her mother, and any implication of a husband. This has led to speculation about her sexuality - maybe she’s gay - though it seems fairly acceptable in Alethkar for a person to be gay (they don’t even have to fill out social reassignment forms!). I

It might be more frowned upon in noble society, due to the expectation of forming political marriages, and while I don’t necessarily doubt it (give me queer Jasnah, Brandon, I beg of you, I’m a starving lesbian and I need this) the only commentary we have from Jasnah on the subject sems to suggest a different, sadder, motive:

Jasnah relaxed visibly. “Yes, well, it did seem a workable solution. I had wondered, however, if you’d be offended.”

“Why on the winds would I be offended?”

“Because of the restriction of freedom implicit in a marriage,” Jasnah said. “And if not that, because the offer was made without consulting you.

[...]

“It doesn’t bother you at all?” Jasnah said. “The idea of being beholden to another, particularly a man?”

“It’s not like I’m being sold into slavery,” Shallan said with a laugh.

“No. I suppose not.” Jasnah shook herself, her poise returning.

(WoR, 1, Santhid).

This is the only time, after an entire book of content in which Jasnah, amongst other things: Soulcasts three men into oblivion, is almost assassinated repeatedly, is betrayed by the first person she’s taken in and trusted in a long time, and is researching the literal end of the world, that Shallan notes Jasnah looking nervous/uncomfortable in discussing anything.

And it’s about marriage.

Jasnah views marriage as being a ‘restriction of freedom’ and finds it distasteful because it encompasses the idea ‘of being beholden to another’.

Anything that even implicitly binds her to another or puts them in her power is something she wants nothing to do with. And, legally, if she were ever to be accused of lunacy again, the two people most likely to have the authority to make a decision on her treatment/send her back to the ardents would be either a parent, or a husband.

The first she’s distanced herself from in pretty much every way since the first event, and the second she’s refused to entertain for years, to the point that high society whispers that she must be gay.

I also think she's uncomfortable because she sees what she did here - setting up a betrothal, which she views as a restriction of freedom - for Shallan, without consulting her, as the same thing that was done to her as a child.

A restriction of freedom for Shallan’s own good. The same justification that was used to imprison her. It's obviously not the same, but Jasnah views marriage as a kind of imprisonment. So in her mind it is.

Jasnah also has huge trust issues. She just covers them with what appears to be personality traits - of being independent, and aloof - but that’s largely just a cover for her own insecurities, and her fear of ever having her freedoms restricted again.

This idea also gives a little bit more of a twist (or dramatic gut punch, thanks Brandon), to her advice to Shallan about perception and power:

“Power is an illusion of perception.”

Shallan frowned.

“Don’t mistake me,” Jasnah continued. “Some kinds of power are real—power to command armies, power to Soulcast. These come into play far less often than you would think. On an individual basis, in most interactions, this thing we call power—authority—exists only as it is perceived.

“You say I have wealth. This is true, but you have also seen that I do not often use it. You say I have authority as the sister of a king. I do. And yet, the men of this ship would treat me exactly the same way if I were a beggar who had convinced them I was the sister to a king. In that case, my authority is not a real thing. It is mere vapors—an illusion. I can create that illusion for them, as can you.”  (WoR, 1, Santhid)

Jasnah is talking here with Shallan about being more confident, assertive, and being able to have people do what you want (Something Navani later notes Jasnah is very good at doing).

But I think Jasnah uses this same idea - the power of perception, as a defence mechanism against her trauma, a way to protect herself.

We dismiss her isolation as aloofness. We dismiss her lack of emotional reaction as a cornerstone of the "strong female character" trope. But I think it's deeper than that. Because Jasnah isn't ACTUALLY like that deep down. It's a perception she works very hard to achieve.

Jasnah uses logic in a similar way to how Shallan uses art and drawing, or how Kaladin uses training with the spear. It’s a distraction, a grounding technique, something she can calm herself with. It’s an anchor and a crutch all at the same time.

Jasnah is logical to a fault, to the point that it makes others see her as a monster lacking empathy. I don’t think, at any point in the last few books, we’ve seen Jasnah genuinely distressed/angry/displaying emotion to the point she’d be considered out of control.

Almost all the other POV characters have had moments of weakness/breakdowns/extremely poignant emotional displays. But not Jasnah. All we ever see from Jasnah is the controlled, cultivated perception that she wants us to see. Something which I think is rooted in her trauma.

Logic is the antithesis of lunacy. Rational thought is the direct counter to madness. If the whole world sees Jasnah as logical, utterly in control of herself, if that is the perception she has everyone believe at all times then she can’t be accused of madness again.

Madness, at least in Jasnah’s mind, is an outburst of excessive, uncontrolled emotion. It is the opposite of logic. It’s acting impulsively, without thought, based purely on emotions. Ivory supports this idea:

“Ivory, you think all humans are unstable.”

“Not you,” he said, lifting his chin. “You are like a spren. You think by facts. You change not on simple whims. You are as you are.”

She gave him a flat stare.

“Mostly,” he added. “Mostly. But it is, Jasnah. Compared to other humans, you are practically a stone!” (O, 39, Notes)

Even Ivory, who has been closer to Jasnah in recent years than anyone we know of in the series so far, characterises her this way.

She rejects this idea, telling Ivory that:

 “You call me logical,” Jasnah whispered. “It’s untrue, as I let my passions rule me as much as many.”  (O, 39, Notes)  I think this is true, she does let her passions rule her, but she doesn’t let anyone, even Ivory, see that from her.

That's deliberate. She deliberately makes herself out to be this logic-driven robot, with no feeling or passion.

To the world, Jasnah Kholin is the consummate scholar, the eternally logical thinker, untouched by empathy or feeling. This is how she wants them to think of her.

We know that it’s not true. We know that Jasnah is driven by emotions - her guilt at feeling like she failed Gavilar, her fear for what’s coming for the world, her love for her family, her true passion for scholarship and knowledge.

This is particularly notable when set against a character who exemplifies the opposite in so many ways: Kaladin.

“Yes. The answer is obvious. We need to find the Heralds.”

Kaladin nodded in agreement.

“Then,” Jasnah added, “we need to kill them.”

“What?” Kaladin demanded. “Woman, are you insane?”

“The Stormfather laid it out,” Jasnah said, unperturbed. “The Heralds made a pact. When they died, their souls traveled to Damnation and trapped the spirits of the Voidbringers, preventing them from returning.”

“Yeah. Then the Heralds were tortured until they broke.”

“The Stormfather said their pact was weakened, but did not say it was destroyed,” Jasnah said. “I suggest that we at least see if one of them is willing to return to Damnation. Perhaps they can still prevent the spirits of the enemy from being reborn. It’s either that, or we completely exterminate the parshmen so that the enemy has no hosts.” She met Kaladin’s eyes. “In the face of such an atrocity, I would consider the sacrifice of one or more Heralds to be a small price.”

“Storms!” Kaladin said, standing up straight. “Have you no sympathy?”

“I have plenty, bridgeman. Fortunately, I temper it with logic.”  (O, 39, Notes)

Ah, the old ‘punt the Heralds back to Damnation to buy us time’ argument. Lovely.

Jasnah and Kaladin are at two different ends of the sympathy-logic spectrum and it was kind of inevitable they’d clash. But I think it makes Jasnah’s assertions more...Stark and shocking, when she pitches them to Kaladin.

What she suggests IS logical. And it’s actually the same sort of logic that led the Heralds themselves to abandon Taln to Damnation in the first place: “better that one man should suffer than ten.”

It’s a cold, harsh, brutal logic, and it’s very typical of how Jasnah likes to present herself when she’s speaking to others.

The killing of the footpads in Kharbranth is another prime example - it’s all cold, dissected logic when she reasons through it with Shallan afterwards. (Though I imagine if we saw Jasnah’s POV of it in the moment, it would be very different than what she presents).

Because what I find most interesting about the Heralds argument is that we get Jasnah, just Jasnah, away from anyone who has to view her performance of perception, reflecting on the situation. And her internal thoughts/her private reactions are very different from those she displays in public.

“These words trouble you,” he said, stepping up to her again and resting his jet-black fingers on the paper. “Why? You have read many troubling things.”

[...]

Something stirred deep within her. Glimmers of memory from a dark room, screaming her voice ragged. A childhood illness nobody else seemed to remember, for all it had done to her.

It had taught her that people she loved could still hurt her.

“Have you ever wondered how it would feel to lose your sanity, Ivory?”

Ivory nodded. “I have wondered this. How could I not? Considering what the ancient fathers are.”

“You call me logical,” Jasnah whispered. “It’s untrue, as I let my passions rule me as much as many. In my times of peace, however, my mind has always been the one thing I could rely upon.”

Except once.

She shook her head, picking up the paper again. “I fear losing that, Ivory. It terrifies me. How would it have felt, to be these Heralds? To suffer your mind slowly becoming untrustworthy? Are they too far gone to know? Or are there lucid moments, where they strain and sort through memories … trying frantically to decide which are reliable and which are fabrications…”

She shivered.  (O, 39, Notes).

In an ironic (fuck you Brandon) twist: I think Jasnah knows EXACTLY what she’s suggesting they do to the Heralds. She’s also probably the person in that room who has the most experience with/has contemplated most what they would be condemning them to, and who therefore empathises with them the most.

It’s STRONGLY implied in this passage that Jasnah has experienced some sort of hallucinations in the past. Possibly this is connected to some kind of neurodivergence. I think this more likely than the alternative - that she was seeing into Shadesmar, because I believe that her imprisonment was what caused her to ‘break’ and enabled her to form her spren bond in the first place. But it’s possible. 

Regardless of what’s happened in the past, now, Jasnah’s mind is her sanctuary. If she only ever knows one thing it’s her own mind. She’s a rationalist. She puts her faith in things that she can know intuitively, via logic, like maths - things that exist independently of god, that cannot be doubted. Their truth is tied to their very existence. All that's required to know it is to know her own mind and reason. Losing that is quite literally the worst thing she can think of.

And honestly? Taln’s story probably really fucks with her. Because what he went through is what she went through, too, as a child.

Taln was dismissed as a madman, because no one believed what he said, even though it was true. Truth doesn’t matter; not when it comes to being perceived mad. Nor does being right. Taln was telling the truth. Taln was right. Taln was a goddamn Herald. And they still decided he was mad and locked him away in a dark room, alone, the same way they did to her.

Jasnah knows what that feels like. Jasnah empathises with Taln and the other Heralds more than probably anyone else. But she speaks of condemning these people to that fate, to the greatest hell she can think of, calmly, and rationally. But that’s absolutely not what she really feels/thinks. There is...Such a stark difference, when you really sit and think about it, in the Jasnah that she lets everyone see, and the Jasnah that exists only behind closed doors.

She could see Jasnah’s face, hand against her temple, staring at the pages spread before her. Jasnah’s eyes were haunted, her expression haggard.

This was not the Jasnah that Shallan was accustomed to seeing. The confidence had been overwhelmed by exhaustion, the poise replaced by worry. Jasnah started to write something, but stopped after just a few words. She set down the pen, closing her eyes and massaging her temples. A few dizzy-looking spren, like jets of dust rising into the air, appeared around Jasnah’s head. Exhaustionspren.

Shallan pulled back, suddenly feeling as if she’d intruded upon an intimate moment. Jasnah with her defenses down. (WoR, 6, Terrible Destruction).

The text itself characterises Jasnah’s mask as a defence. A defence against being known, a defence against being seen as anything other than perfectly logical. Having this mask so firmly and so constantly in place is a lot of work. It’s almost a compulsion for her at this point - the refusal to let anyone else in, the strict adherence to logic, regardless of her own feelings or how it makes others see her. Better to be emotionless and in control, utterly, unquestionably sane and rational, than to ever go back to being considered mad.

This, ironically, isn't rational behaviour. It's a trauma response. I'm stating this, the idea that being emotionless/always rational prevents anyone viewing her as insane again (though, again ironically, this is exactly what Kaladin accuses her of being (OUCH)). But I think these are facts in Jasnah's mind? It's her coping mechanism. It's a really bad one. But that's what it is.

As an interesting side note - I think the only time we ever see Jasnah draw emotion spren is when she’s on her own (or assumes she’s on her own, as in this passage, or too exhausted to keep them away entirely - like the single fearspren she draws later in this chapter).

This feels notable because every other character who features in the books, even minor side characters, draws emotion spren of one sort or another at some point in the text.

Jasnah, for all that she’s on screen, draws very little. This may be a function of her ability to tap into Shadesmar, to keep them away, remove any trace of emotion spren from spawning around her. That or she just has such a tight hold on her emotions that she doesn’t draw them.

Either way, I think it’s (another) sign that her behaviour isn’t entirely natural. Spren are everywhere on Roshar, you draw them when you feel a powerful emotion - that’s a natural day-to-day occurrence there.

Unless you’re Jasnah.

Maybe that’s straying a little too far into the realms of what’s reasonable, but I do still think that Jasnah’s output, especially when it contrasts, often very strongly, with her internal feelings, is a coping mechanism/a response to the trauma she endured as a child.

Madness is a fairly strong theme in Stormlight, a few of the characters discuss it/experience it. Syl asks Kaladin fairly directly what it is:

“What is madness?” she asked, sitting with one leg up against her chest, vaporous skirt flickering around her calves and vanishing into mist.

“It’s when men don’t think right,” Kaladin said, glad for the conversation to distract him.

“Men never seem to think right.”

“Madness is worse than normal,” Kaladin said with a smile. “It really just depends on the people around you. How different are you from them? The person that stands out is mad, I guess.” *(TWOK) 

Dalinar’s TWOK arc deals very strongly with madness and the ability to trust your own mind. Taln is, as has been noted, locked away for being mad. Several of the Heralds and the Fused are described as mad after what they've been put through. It's something I expect to be explored further as the series progresses.

Jasnah, I think, is the character who tries so hard never to seem that way. Never to be unhinged, or unbalanced, or affected by what's happened to her. But of course we know that she is.

I think, though, that it’s easy to write off Jasnah's trauma. The other characters all have flaws that are very obvious/things that make them obviously ‘broken’ in terms of their spren bond and the oaths they need to speak.

Kaladin suffers from depression, and from crippling guilt, and taking on too much responsibility. But also with his anger, and his hatred towards those who have wronged him, and how that can push him to blame them/avoid responsibility for what’s happened to him. Basically, his inability to let go or move forwards.

Shallan has the opposite problem, and an inability to look back/face the past. She repressed memories of trauma, and wove lies over them to protect herself, which she had to overcome to progress.

Dalinar had his alcoholism, and prior to that, his ‘addiction’ (which I think is absolutely how it’s written/the parallels are pretty obvious) to The Thrill. He had to accept responsibility, and guilt, and grief, and pain. He had to acknowledge that he had been a bad person, who was not worthy of Evi, but also that he’s capable of change, and improving himself, and becoming a better man.

Their trauma responses are loud, and obvious, and messy. They're aware of them, a reader is aware of them, the other characters are aware of them. "They stand out" if you like.

Jasnah does everything she can to ensure the effects of her trauma never stand out. To the point that other characters fairly consistently characterise Jasnah as perfect/an ideal woman.

I’m NOT saying that the text ACTUALLY presents Jasnah as being perfect/without any flaws (that’s...that’s kinda the point of this entire meta) but the characters gloss over these things/her flaws are perceived as good things?

She’s seen as so aloof, so unflappable, so commanding, and in control. She’s highly intelligent, she’s beautiful, she’s a cunning tactician and politician. Shallan claims that she’s almost always right, which Renarin backs up. Dalinar trusts and respects her, and wants her back at the war camps to aid them. She’s a highly revered scholar, respected, and brilliant. She is, in a way, almost beyond human, let alone being flawed or broken like the rest of them.

Jasnah grimaced at the thought. Shallan was always surprised to see visible emotion from her. Emotion was something relatable, something human—and Shallan’s mental image of Jasnah Kholin was of someone almost divine. (WoR, 1, Santhid).

Shallan reflects that seeing her as divine is a weird way to consider a heretic, and we’re kind of led along into that thread. But it’s also very...Othering?

It’s a “positive” kind of othering: she’s divine/superhuman, that’s great! Only it’s...It’s not? It’s so easy to see Jasnah as beyond human, and that makes us forget what she’s endured, and ignore the walls she’s put up and the profound effect that it’s had on her. And the fact that this is not healthy at all.

It's so unhealthy to be put on a pedestal this way. And it's unhealthy to cultivate a persona that makes the only response to you one that sees you as beyond human/without typical human reactions and emotions?

Shallan can be a bit whimsical and can romanticise/idealise people, but even Navani, another deeply scholarly, rational, and logical thinker, categorises Jasnah in a similar way.

She’s dismissive of the idea that Jasnah can have died. Even when others (like Adolin) start getting worried about the ship’s delay, Navani is sure that Jasnah is fine.

Part of this is, I assume, due to the fact that Jasnah is a radiant and, as the Diagram predicts, they survive when they should have been killed - so Navani has had this idea reinforced with empirical evidence over the years, which is noted in the text.

However, when Shallan first brings her the news of Jasnah’s death she refuses to believe it. Even after Shallan tells Navani she watched Jasnah stabbed through the heart, Navani still refers to her as being ‘unconscious’ (which...is actually correct, in this instance) but that is besides my point: regardless of reason or logic, people presume that Jasnah is beyond such mortal, trivial, human things like death:

‘Though Jasnah had been away for some time, her loss was unexpected. I, like many, assumed her to be immortal.’

If she’s beyond death, she’s certainly beyond something like trauma, or being broken, or damaged.

“You’re still human,” Shallan said, reaching across, putting her hand on Navani’s knee. “We can’t all be emotionless chunks of rock like Jasnah.”

Navani smiled. “She sometimes had the empathy of a corpse, didn’t she?”

“Comes from being too brilliant,” Shallan said. “You grow accustomed to everyone else being something of an idiot, trying to keep up with you.”

[...]

How surreal it was to imagine Jasnah as a child being held by a mother. (Wor, 77, Trust).

More ‘othering’, less positive than the divine, but it clearly categorises Jasnah as something other than human, and in this case, it fixates on her lack of (perceived) emotion.

Jasnah has so defined herself by her lack of emotional response to things that even those closest to her -her ward and her mother - view her as emotionless, like a rock, a corpse, dead. Ivory also says this in a previous quote “you are like spren” / “you are practically a stone.” Jasnah is categorised as strong, invulnerable to emotion, beyond human, something other. 

Though Jasnah, as she herself admits, makes decisions based on emotion.

For all that she says about pursuing the footpads in Kharbranth as purely an act of logic/civic duty, I think you can sense the emotion in that moment.

“Besides, men like those…” There was something in her voice, an edge Shallan had never heard before.

What was done to you? Shallan wondered with horror. And who did it? (TWOK, 36, The Lesson)

Shallan can sense it. This is the point where Jasnah’s mask is at its most strong. She defends, calmly and rationally, what she had done. But I think at this point Shallan, and the reader, gets the sense that when Jasnah is her MOST logical and composed, she’s also her most vulnerable and emotional.

She does the same thing in the scene with Kaldin discussing the fates of the Heralds - yet we actually see later, not just through Shallan, the emotions, and the turmoil, and the direct, traumatic flashbacks Jasnah is experiencing in that moment. All covered up with logic and reason.

I think what Brandon is doing with Jasnah is really clever. Because I think media has conditioned us to accept these cold, aloof characters.

Characters who have become hardened to the world, and numbed by their experiences with violence and trauma. So we accept these things more readily as personality traits/a symptom of modern media.

I think especially with female characters. The "strong female character" who isn't allowed to cry lest she be called hysterical, who can't react to trauma or she's weak, who can't have an outburst of emotion or she's mad.

With Jasnah, I think Brandon is continuing to show how trauma expresses itself differently in different people. And I think, once explored more directly, Jasnah will become a condemnation of the easy acceptance/idealisation of these kinds of traits. What she’s doing is not okay. It’s not healthy. It’s as self-destructive as what Shallan, or Kaladin, or Dalinar was doing, we've just been conditioned to accept and even praise it.

Jasnah has so much pressure piled upon her to be perfect. She’s made an illusion so believable even those closest to her can’t see through it. She comes across as divine, as something other than human, as emotionless, and absolute. She’s become a constant in the world of those around her. She’s a law of nature more than a person - like a spren.

Except she’s not.

She’s human.

And she’s broken.

And she’s suffering a trauma that makes her afraid to be even a little bit human - because then they might think her mad again, and she’ll lose everything, and she can’t handle that.

I’m FASCINATED to see Jasnah’s interactions (if we get any on-screen) with Taln and Ash. It will probably give a big insight into her character, her relation to madness/her past illness, and I think it will bring out an interesting side of her, which I’m curious to see.

But I'm also really interested to see how Brandon explores the idea of the "ideal traumatised woman' and how that's absolutely bullshit and completely unhealthy.

Jasnah is, on the surface, everything men demand from a "strong female character". She's been exposed to trauma but she doesn't "let it define her" (ie she doesn't seemingly react to it at all). She's beautiful, and she's intelligent, she's a (literal) Queen, she's a fighter/skilled warrior, she's never "overly-emotional" - she reacts to trauma exactly as she's "supposed" to - as defined by men, she's the epitome of a stereotypical "strong female character".

Except there are obvious flaws in that ideal. The first one being: she does not exist for men. Fairly obviously. She point blank refuses a husband.

Also: it's been implied, as per this meta, that this is NOT an ideal anyone should aim for. It's actually very unhealthy and self-destructive and I really, REALLY hope that when Brandon finally digs into Jasnah that this is something he explores.

Jasnah is not perfect. She is not unbreakable, and invincible, and beyond emotion. And she shouldn't be. She shouldn't be idealised.

She's a person. A human being. And she should be able to express herself and process her trauma in a healthy way that allows her to heal and grow. She shouldn't be forced into anyone's ideal of who or what she should be.

I'm just...Really really excited for Jasnah's arc and what Brandon can say through her and the harmful tropes regarding women's trauma he can explore and god...can I just have the next six stormlight books now please?

[doberbutts]

If you don’t mind me asking (feel free to ignore), how did you get out of that pit of despair? (RE: your men body positivity post)

So it turns out I was super depressed and Dealing With Some Things including:

Rejection sensitive dysphoria and the associated trauma of growing up as a neurodivergent kid fully integrated in an ableist and discriminatory insular community.

Dysphoria! So much dysphoria!

Living with a super homophobic and transphobic family while being super gay and trans, also living with a family member who has been so physically abusive to me that I've been rushed to the ER more than once due to their actions

A lot of repressed feelings and internalized bullshit!

Stress from college, cancer scares, and financial troubles because why not.

A serious injury which to this day still pains me

AND to top it all off, a shitton of grief. My boyfriend dumped me because he was cool with me being a man but not with me not wanting to be pregnant, my dog fucking attacked me and then I had to put him down, my few internet friends turned on me because I did a behavioral euth on my rescue dog THAT LITERALLY ALMOST BROKE MY HAND during an unprovoked attack, I had TWO grandparents die from cancer within a 6 month period, my irl friend group had to be completely cut off for my own sanity, and I had a roommate situation that was effectively me being forced to witness one rape the other every day several times a day.

As it turns out, once all these environmental stressors became a memory rather than an active problem in my life, I stopped being super depressed to the point of being suicidal and I found worth in myself again. Weird how that works.

I now have wonderful irl friends and online friends and I'm starting things with a potential partner that actually cares about me (and have had a few very validating relationships inbetween), I'm able to transition without my family being... my family, I'm paid way better to do a job I actually like, my sister seems to have recognized that she's historically been a shitty person and wants to have a redemption arc and understands that I don't trust or forgive her, and I'm free of that toxic af roommate situation.

Yes, every once in a while I look in the mirror and go :/ but that is... much less common nowadays, and usually triggered by dysphoria or by some internalized feelings regarding my own weight and body type. But gone are the days where a compliment will send me into a self-hating imposter-syndrome suicidal spiral. To those who knew me back then, thanks for sticking around to see the good I've found come into my life.

Creed helped me fix my life. He's what drug me the rest of the way out of the pit I was desperate to claw my way out of. I fixed my shit *for him*. He got me to where I am now.

[jackiebrackettt]

hello hi hi hi *slides in on socks* i thought your shapeshifter tubbo analysis was really interesting! was curious about the semantics of it though. is the shapeshifting a conscious thing or does it subconsciously kick in to reflect c!tubbo's mental state? could the og l'manburg members influence his hair colors too? does his trauma have any effect on his shapeshifting?

AAAHH TY!!! hello hello hi ^_^!! for anyone who doesn't know what this is about this: link is the context. also i'm putting this under a cut just so i can ramble without feeling bad about taking up people's dashes:

in my eyes it’s a subconscious thing! it’s not like… affected by small/quick moods though it’s gotta be something pretty big. i think maybe when he was younger it was a bit all over the place - as in, actually affected by small/quick moods. but then it steadied out and then it was… all over the place again bc of all the trauma from dsmp narrative. sidenote: i use the word "mood" the entire time here and idk why but i can't think of a more fitting word bc memory bad. so uuhh.. bear with me on that pls

og l’manburgians prob would’ve influenced his hair colour ! imo since it’s like.. super easy to change without shapeshifting (hair dye) it’s also sort of the easiest to change depending on mood so uuhh whoever he’s closest too he’ll have a chance of getting like a streak - or more - of their hair colour to match ^_^! some times though (like with spying for pogtopia) the survival instincts kick in. so for eg his hair didn’t reflect the Pogtopians (aka no blonde for tommy since tubbo is already brunette like wilbur)

not sure what u mean exactly by the last one sorry !! but uuhh to answer what I think you mean: in some way? it’s subconscious so it’s not really like.. something he can control anyway. but! if u see the snowchester part of the timeline he’s a bee hybrid in a very different way from what he was originally and that change is partially bc of the trauma (turned him into a person who will defend himself with threat of nukes). he’s got stingers instead of wings. i think maybe he could have wings again in snowchester just to sort of uuh cement the fact he’s a bee hybrid but there is also something a “loss of innocence” narrative in him not having them that I kinda like. he’d prob get them back eventually after some kinda healing arc though! i don't know if he'd ever lose the stingers though it'd depend on like… what happens in the future plot lines and whether there's a hybrid he'd fit better

but to expand on the “small/quick moods” bit in terms of this question: for eg if he has moments in snowchester where he feels like schlatt - he prob isn’t going to get the horns back unless it lasts a significant amount of time bc overall the vibe of “I’m ready to lose my life to defend something/someone I care about but also I’m trying to get back what I had in the past” with the nukes/missing l’manburg bee hybrid parallels - that all fits a bit stronger. and in my eyes he’s not really a quick shapeshifter bc that would telegraph his moods too strongly and kinda go against the whole defence aspect of it. like.. he has an off-day and shows up with horns and immediately everyone knows he's Feeling Like Schlatt. not really the kinda guy tubbo is, he's a lot more secretive and repressed than that and the shapeshifting would reflect that by not telegraphing his moods - it's gotta be a longer term thing.

like there’s sort of two angles here: reflecting his mood(/friendships in terms of hair colour) and defending himself. and sometimes they battle a bit but overall defending himself has a little bit more priority so yeah! he’s not shapeshifting A Lot. in my hc the quickest he’s shapeshifted is right after he exiled tommy. usually it takes a bit longer for the mood to cement but with the exile thing the horns were gone pretty much the next day.

for more timeline comparisons: he got the horns prob a week or so into Manberg? and then he got the other set of horns a week or so after the techno execution: either during the phil house arrest thing or a lil bit after it (I can’t remember how long he was on house arrest) then he got the bee hybrid stuff probably just before the disc war finale: aka after the nukes had been worked on a bit

anyway that's everything i can think of atm! if you or anyone else has any other questions or want to share ur own thoughts and opinions about this pls do!! i love to talk about this kinda stuff ^_^!

[everything-laito]

damn the brain be out here going BRRRRRR here’s the Laito and Cordelia Analysis (with a little bit of Karl sprinkled in) Part III

wow my fingers are freezing but my brain sure isn't! 

aaaanyways, iiiiiit’s trauma time!!! Am I a productive member of society by writing these analyses? No. Do I gain anything by writing them? Kinda, my brain gets exercised and they’re fun to research for. But if you haven’t read the first part or the second part for some reason (I recommend reading them in order), there they are. 

Once again, trigger warnings still apply; mainly about trauma, isolation, etc 

I’m gonna talk about the trauma and effects it had on Laito and to attempt to extrapolate why he is the way he is. I have a lot of examples I want to go over and stuff to talk about, so I think the trauma part is going to be split between two (or maybe three) parts. I also have a little bit to say about Karlheinz.

As always, big ass rant under the cut! 

Section 6: Neuroplasticity and Trauma

Oh???? More science vernacular??? You BET! Ok, neuroplasticity. I know I’ve talked about it on this blog. But, I seriously doubt that there is a madlad who has read all of my analyses (speaking of which, I should update the master list lmao) and I don’t expect anyone to do that LOL! Anyways, this neurological concept is the ability of neurons to adapt to certain circumstances or stimuli by creating new neurological pathways (through synapses). This basically relates to memory and learning. It’s why we don’t stay the same person as we grow and develop. It’s responsible from mindset changes to response to traumatic events. It plays a huge part in trauma, which is why “repressed memories” occur as well. 

Trauma, taken from Psychology Today, is defined as: 

...the experience of severe psychological distress following any terrible or life-threatening event. Sufferers may develop emotional disturbances such as extreme anxiety, anger, sadness, survivor’s guilt, or PTSD.

It’s a basic definition. And although I’d assume people would know what trauma is already, but knowing the lexical definition of something can be good to know before going into it. 

Obviously, Laito has trauma, there’s literally no refuting that. But, the point I’m getting at, is the reason why he is the way he is today is because of neuroplasticity. As previously stated, we are going to assume the DL vampire brain works similarly or the same as a human brain. So, because of the stress put upon the brain (Cordelia’s actions and Laito’s general upbringing in a stress filled household), Laito’s brain was rewired (neuroplasticity). This section doesn’t really have much new information, but I wanted to give a baseline since there’s many people who don’t know what neuroplasticity is.

Laito’s definitely different than what he was as a kid. He still kind of had his smarts, and might have been  but as we’ve deducted from the first part of this series, he might have been groomed. On top of that, the brain is easily moldable when you’re a child (which is why grooming makes sense for Laito’s case), and continues to snip brain cells off and form new connections. 

Section 7: Little intermission about Karlheinz 

I know I haven’t really talked about Karlheinz yet. So this will be the section that I do it in. I know this part is about Laito’s trauma, but it’s so hard to not just weave other characters into it. Nothing is stand-alone, which is why it was so hard for me to plan this out. I was debating about saving this for another analysis, but I feel like it fits. 

I referenced this in Part II, Section 5 of this analysis series. Basically, Karlheinz throws Laito into the dungeon and locks him up. Not Karlheinz personally, but he ordered someone to do it. We don’t explicitly know why, but there’s several implications. A huge one is that it was part of Karlheinz’ experiment. Before Dark Fate, I was like “wait, so did Karl find out about Laito/Cordelia? And got like jealous or was like ‘nah this shit fucked up no thanks’?” I was really scratching my head on that. But in Dark Fate, you find that Karlheinz knew about Cordelia and Laito, and even really wanted it to happen. Which is all sorts of fucked up. This really put Laito in for a loop. Here’s a scene from Dark Fate: 

Laito: That woman always, always believed in Karlheinz. Laito: She believed he married her because he loved her, wanted her. That’s why she was sure that one day... he will give his love only to her.  Laito: But she was tricked. She wasn’t loved from the start... Laito: -And I’m a victim of this unbelievable mistake... That’s how it is. Laito: I was treated as a vent for her feelings. Yui: ...Laito-kun... Laito: I’m sure he knew that something like this will happen... He is a god after all... Laito: I was hoping that... He just overlooked it up until now... Laito: But... I was naive.  Laito: I was only planned a scapegoat. 

God, when I played this, that just freaking struck me to my core. That’s so awful. Ironically... Karlheinz probably has some high level of emotional intelligence. I don’t believe he could be labeled as a sociopath, considering he has this high level understanding of pathos. He’s not god in a sense that he controls everyone individually himself. He’s so good at manipulation that he basically creates fate itself (whether you believe in it or not). He’s generally intelligent and cunning, and it also just helps with the fact that he’s immortal and can time travel. He knows cause and effect by now, and I believe Lost Eden said something about how he’s done so many different “timelines.” 

The definition of a god in a philosophical sense can be broken down into three words: omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. More wicked cool jargon! Yay! Here’s what they mean for extra clarification:

Omniscient: All knowing Omnipresent: All seeing Omnipotent: All doing

Sure Karlheinz doesn’t absolutely know everything, nor can see everything, and he definitely has limits to his power, but he has gained knowledge through living for so many years and time traveling; he has familiars which add to the whole “all seeing” part; and he has a lot of power. So basically, in the most semi-”realistic” sense, it would definitely be the closest being to any kind of god.

Karlheinz is probably the reason why Laito himself has such contempt towards religion, and the existence of a god in general. Sure, the boys are like “that shit’s made up by humans” in general, but it would make sense for Laito himself to have that specific hatred. It makes sense that these vampires would be like “oh that’s made up by humans” when they’ve been around forever and have seen multiple religions come and go. (I’m mainly talking about in DL’s lore case, not starting a religious argument; please don’t take it as such––just to clarify)

Section 8: Isolation

Originally, the previous part was going to be about Laito’s isolation being locked up. However, I went off the rails and it turned into that little intermission. This is going to be a shorter section, but I still wanted to talk about, and it will weave into the next section. 

There is no implications about how long Laito was locked up (and tortured) in the dungeon. There’s also no implications about why he was tortured. But torture and isolation puts such stress on the brain that there’s definitely going to be some kind of outcome if persisting for a good period of time. So let’s take a look at what that does to a person. 

Once again, taking this with a grain of salt. I imagine vampires don’t need to rely on social interaction as much as humans do, considering they live forever. But we don’t know. However, throwing Laito into a state of isolation implies that it would be some type of torture or harsh punishment for a vampire, which therefore implies that social interaction is a necessity for emotional function. It’s just sound, inductive logic. 

So now, as for isolation, I’m using this article as reference. It’s a pretty interesting one to read. Here’s another extensive article as well. Basically isolation can cause:

Depression/anxiety

Immune system deficiencies (basically more likely to get physically ill)

Sleep cycle changes (if put underground or with limited natural light)

Hallucinations

Paranoia

Issues with processing information and more susceptible to persuasion/manipulation

We have no clue if Laito’s experience fits all of these. Also, the second one can be crossed out because vampires in DL can’t get physically sick in the way we can. Also, unsure about the sleep cycle stuff considering they are used to being in the dark. Hallucinations and paranoia can’t be crossed off nor proven. 

Being isolated physically and mentally exhausts the mind, which is why it’s also a way of torture. Laito implies that he was tortured with physical devices, but regardless, it’s still stress on the mind. This type of stress definitely goes along with what was mentioned with neuroplasticity and trauma, which also supports the last bullet point: issues processing information and being more susceptible to persuasion/manipulation. Take this flashback from Maniac Prologue in HDB that I used in Part II section 5 (but here’s even more context):

Laito: ーー Let me go!! Let me out of here! Butler: I can’t, young lord. We’ve received strict orders from your father. I am deeply sorry, but please stay put for a while. Laito: What’s the point in having me chained up in here!? Butler: ーーI am very sorry. Laito: Hahahaha…You stupid old man! Do you think that this will make repent!? How foolish! That demon! Has his brain finally rotten from spending too much time with humans!? ー Cordelia appears Cordelia: ー Oh? Laito: …!? Have you come to save me? Cordelia: Oh dear. Ufufu…I’m sorry Laito, that isn’t it. Laito: Eh? Richter: ー Why are you here? Laito: …That’s my line. Cordelia: Okay, okay. No fighting! More importantly, Richter…Come here. Laito: …!? Cordelia: Nnn…Hey, Laito. You are a good boy. Laito: …!! Cordelia: Right, Laito? Laito: Yeah, that’s right. I’m…I’m a good boy after all.  ーー Besides, I’m the type of person who only get more aroused from this kind of thing.

Although I also use this to support the whole Stockholm syndrome point, this could also be supported with the trauma isolation also holds. His mind is being re-molded into the facade he holds. Also, note the whole “do you think this will make me repent?!” part. Just a very interesting thing. The word “repent” implies that there’s something to feel guilty about or the person knows that what they’ve done is bad. It just goes to show that Laito has some part of guilt or moral compass still in tact. 

You can also argue that this scene was when Laito just got locked up, or he’s been here for a while. Either way, he could have also been socially isolated before this too, just hanging around Cordelia like it’s implied when he was a child. Remember the whole not being in bed 9/10 times when he was a child? Yeah, controlled social isolation. We also rarely see Laito with other characters in his flashbacks. I don’t believe we see him with his brothers in any of his flashbacks from what I can recall; he’s usually with Cordelia. Just implies (to me) that he’s around her a lot. And being locked up is also a more extreme case of that, which would mold the brain even more. 

I know that was a LOT to process and read. I sure hope this still is cohesive for you all. I’m pretty bad at organizing this kind of stuff; it’s a bit difficult since it all just goes together. Which, kudos on the writers of DL, because that’s just good writing. I was going to put something about gaslighting in this part, but that might be too long, so I’m going to make that a separate part or include it in the next part. 

If you have any questions, feel free to just put it in the inbox. I’m planning on making the last part of this series answering all the Laito/Cordelia questions I’ve received, or just general questions pertaining to this analysis in general, whether it be tangential questions or clarifying questions. 

Hope you all are still enjoying this ride as much as I am!  -Corn

[wielderofmysteries]

Jace Beleren, Masculinity, and the Trans Experience

(This post is a Twitter thread I wrote in response to a Goblin Lore podcast episode called “Jace Beleren and Toxic Masculinity”.)

I feel I have a unique perspective on this topic as a trans man. Trans man Jace isn't my headcanon, but it's an interpretation I love. He's my favorite character of all time, and as a trans man, I feel like reading Jace's flaws as toxic masculinity isn't quite right.

There are several "pillars" of toxic masculinity that Jace doesn't have. He doesn't have the self-destructive emotional repression, worship of sex and violence, or desire to subjugate women and his peers that men who experience toxic masculinity have.

Even BEFORE Ixalan, Jace was an example of many positive masculine traits. He was curious and emotionally open. He wrongly believed he could make decisions for others, but he cared for people, wanted to protect them, and couldn't sit idly by when he knew people were in danger.

In Agents of Artifice, he financially provided for Kallist and Liliana, and in Magic Story invited the Gatewatch to live in his home. Jace wanted to heal Garruk, tried to stop his rampage and had a Hedron implanted in Garruk's shoulder to relieve the effects of the curse.

"I don't want to hurt you, Garruk."

"Lucky for me, I don't feel the same way."

"Garruk, this is not a fair fight. You've suffered enough. Please. Come with me."

[...]

Jace stood in thought. Garruk held him by the throat, could end his life in an eye blink, had already proven he was immune to Jace's illusions. Garruk laughed again. If Garruk was open to having friends, then Jace might have been a good one.

"You win," said Jace. "We will leave you alone. I will not seek you out. But please, if you change your mind, come find us on Ravnica. Something is still not right here. We can help you."

In "Revelation at the Eye" Jace tells Ugin that Zendikar isn't a puzzle to be solved, and that it didn't matter if killing the Eldrazi has consequences, there are real people on Zendikar fighting for their lives and he needs to help them.

"Zendikar isn't a puzzle to be solved," said Jace. "It's a place. It's somebody's home. And those people are out there, right now, fighting for their world and wondering if anybody's going to help them kill what's killing them."

He showed scenes of suffering, then—of families mourning the lost, of landscapes ravaged by Ulamog, of even the skies and seas teeming with the Eldrazi menace.

Ugin cocked his head. The hedron architecture of the chamber seemed to melt and flow, became a pattern of tessellating dragons mocking him from the walls.

"So certain," said Ugin, "and so young."

Ral Zarek tried to kill Jace and ruined his relationship with his close friend Emmara, but in "Project Lightning Bug", Jace forgives him. Jace is honest about his feelings with Ral even after Ral was openly rude to him.

"I don't remember home," Beleren said quietly, unbidden.

"What?"

"You talked about growing up in Ravnica. A lot of my memories from my childhood are gone. Chopped up in my head into a few impressions. Most of what I remember begins here, on Ravnica. I'll never have roots here the way you do, and I admit I'm off to other planes a lot. But I think of myself as Ravnican to the core, too."

In Kaladesh block he wanted Chandra to be able to confide in him, and didn't want to stay home when he heard she could be in trouble. He used his mind magic to help Nissa sleep when she had a sensory overload in the busy city.

Nissa looked up. Jace and Gideon were exchanging a look. Both glanced at her.

They stood as one.

Jace turned toward the coat room. "I'll head to Kaladesh. It should be easy for me to—"

Lavinia appeared in his path, one hand resting on the pommel her sword. "Again?" she said, in a weary, disappointed tone.

He frowned up at her. "You can't expect me to sit here and do paperwork!"

Across the streets, beyond the barricades, the Consulate's panharmonicons are still blaring "The Gremlin's Wedding March" at us on infinite repeat at double speed. They left them on all night, and after the moon set Nissa started crying, hands clamped over her ears.

[...]

Jace sat down with her. They talked a minute and his eyes flashed. She curled up in a big potted plant and didn't wake up until the sun fell on her.

But what does being a man mean to Jace Beleren? Well, take a look at his feelings towards Gideon. Jace saw Gideon as the male ideal. I think Jace admires (and is envious of) the way Gideon is a representation of positive masculinity.

Eyes widened, jaws set. They understood their task, he was certain of that. But were they actually prepared to perform it?

What would Gideon say?

Jace smiled. Of course.

"For Zendikar," he said, raising one fist in the air. It felt thin to him, lacking Gideon's armored fist, his baritone war cry, his iron conviction.

None of that mattered. The soldiers shouted as one voice, holding their weapons aloft.

"For Zendikar!"

Gideon is not violent or hypersexual. He's kind, not afraid to ask for help, a defender rather than an aggressor. The pillars of toxic masculinity are absent in both Jace and Gideon. So why does Gideon's mere presence make Jace insecure? I think that insecurity is dysphoria.

I'm only 5 feet tall. People treat me like a kid, think I need help, and certainly don't see me as a man because I'm very small. It feels bad knowing my looks don't inspire others or make them feel safe like big tall guys can.

Gideon is super tall, muscular, conventionally attractive. He's charismatic and a natural leader. Gideon's like a human lighthouse. Jace is average height, out-of-shape, often pale and sickly, and his telepathy makes people automatically distrust him.

It's easy to see why people follow Gideon's lead so easily rather than Jace's. As a trans man, I personally related to Jace's insecurity. He feels inadequate compared to Gideon.

"I'd rather stand," said Gideon.

Jace stood up. It was an error. He still had to crane his neck to look Gideon in the eye, and now the size difference between them was glaringly obvious. He hated feeling small. Hated it.

Jace wanting to lead the Gatewatch didn't come from a desire to dominate others and be an ~alpha male~, but from a desire for people to believe in him. What Jace really wants is to prove to himself and others that he's competent and that he can be trusted.

This vision appeared whenever the man was struggling at a task.

[...]

"Listen, you aren't really suited to this task. Let me handle it." The vision's voice was gruff but friendly.

It came off as condescending.

The man was annoyed.

"I can do it myself."

The hallucination sighed. "You and I both know you're not suited to this. Let me handle it, you go philosophize on the other end of the beach."

"I said I can do it myself." The man let his irritation reach his voice.

"No, you can't. I call the shots and execute, you stand to the side. That's how this works."

The man responded by throwing his hook at the hallucination. It went straight through the figure's eye and landed behind him on the sand.

The time he spends with Vraska is so good for him! I loved that [the podcasts hosts] talked about how he was finally happy to follow someone else's lead! He didn't need to be a leader, he needed someone to trust him. She respected and loved him and thought he was incredible for who he is.

Vraska looked him in the eye. "You're incredible. You know that, right?"

Jace returned her smile and felt his cheeks warming. "I do my best."

"Well, your best is incredible," Vraska said, turning toward the central tower and approaching a large gate on what appeared to be its back side.

Liliana never told Jace he was incredible.

Liliana would have scoffed. She would have made a dismissive joke, rolled her eyes, and called him a show-off. She would not bother to talk to him for days. She would consume the body of a demon with a crocodile's jaws and laugh over the sound of its flesh tearing off. She would do all sorts of things, but she would never call him incredible.

It was important for Jace to get that validation. Now he's not insecure about his appearance. It's not that he finally developed into someone who was caring. He was caring all along, but he was held back by insecurity about how others perceive him. He learned to love himself.

Despite all his good qualities and deeds he still felt insecure because it wasn't easy to visually see him as a "strong man". I think it's important to acknowledge positive masculinity even when the man in question isn't attractive or charismatic, and even if he makes mistakes.

As a trans person, Jace's experience reminded me of the struggle to "pass". It's frightening how easily insecurity can turn into toxic masculinity when you feel different from "real men". If you don't look the part, some people will just never acknowledge you.

Next to 'perfect' guys like Gideon, it's easy to see our own perceived weaknesses and shortcomings. Easy to feel resentment for it. But from this struggle comes the strive to be better men, to be confident in ourselves, and comfortable in our bodies.

There's SO much I wanted to talk about, like how Jace's trauma shaped his need for control, how the IRL gamer guys he was created to represent actually hate him, how he's a male victim of abuse by a female partner, etc but this thread is already terribly long.

TLDR; I think toxic masculinity as a reading of Jace is missing some perspective. The trans perspective. Not all insecurity men experience is toxic masculinity. Sorry I totally should have waited until part 2 was out, but I couldn't stop thinking about that episode.

There's a lack of trans men's voices in... basically everything, and this is something I think we should definitely be included in. I'm so grateful for the Vorthos community opening these kinds of discussions. Super excited for part 2 of the podcast!

[giant-sketches]

Hello everyone! I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve gotten any writing done, but I’m back with a brand new chapter for you all. I think I have a pretty good ending planned for this story so from this point on it won’t be open ended anymore. 

I have another story I’m working on as well to replace Guardian Naga that I hope to have the first chapter up of soon-ish. Quarantine has been tough and I’ve not been feeling the greatest. Still it’s nice to be back at it with my fanfics and I hope you all like the new chapter.

This leaves off two chapters ago when Virgil finally got to meet Thomas. You can find all my works here.  Please feel free to ask me questions or comment on how you liked it. :3 Disclaimer: Swearing/Cursing/Violence/Paranoia/Memory Loss

What was happening? Suddenly, Virgil’s mind was filled with memories of a past he had forgotten. A past of a full family living together in the Light Side of the mindscape. His head hurt as he slumped over in Thomas’s arms.

“Woah hey there. Take your time, I think we all are feeling rather confused right now.”

Thomas looked to the others who were holding their heads. It looked like they were all having a massive migraine.

“What is this? These memories...are they real?” Roman was in disbelief.

“No please stop!” Patton cried out. Whatever he was remembering seemed to be painful.

“How could we have forgotten? Is this another side-effect of destabilization? How cruel.” Logan mumbled.

Virgil stood up, gripping onto Thomas’s shoulder for support. “Guys, are you all okay?” It’s like they were all having a mind blast! It was going to take a second for the dizzy spell to disappear.

“I don’t know, this is all so confusing!” Roman shuffled over to grab Virgil’s hand. “Still to think we could ever forget you. I’m so sorry Virgil.”

Logan followed suit, except for the hand part. “Indeed, I am also sorry Virgil. This current situation is unprecedented! A complete wipe of someone's existence from the mindscape...it’s too much to fathom.”

Patton remained as the others looked to him. He was bawling as he continued to wipe away his tears in a losing battle. “I can’t! This is...this is too much. It’s all my fault Virgil! How could I ever apologize enough to you over what I’ve done?”

“Patton...it’s o-”

“IT’S NOT! It’s n-not okay Virgil. I-I-I caused you to destabilize!”

This was the shocking truth. Sides didn’t destabilize by nature and they didn’t do it to themselves. Destabilizing always required a catalyst and for Virgil, that had been Patton.

Many years ago in the mindscape Virgil was known as Curiosity. He was naive and full of questions. He had no sense of danger and this had led to a tragedy no one would remember. The aftermath is the story of his own destabilizing.

------- Many Years Ago in the Mindscape:

Months...it had been months since Janus was erased from the others minds. Yet, for some reason I remember him. How he was like a big brother to me and would always keep me safe. How did this happen? Was it my fault, or was it them who made him disappear? Virgil felt like he was losing his mind as his doubts grew day-by-day.

“Hey kiddo! How are you doing?” Suddenly, Patton snuck his way into the sulking sides room with a fresh batch of cookies.

“Fine I guess...I’d be a lot better if you told me where Janus went to though.” Virgil pleaded with his eyes as he stared at Patton. If he could trust anyone it should be Morality right?

“Oh no. Did you lose your imaginary frien-”

“HE’S NOT IMAGINARY!!!”

Virgil shoved Patton up against the wall with a loud thud. His strength was unreal, the innocent cookies fell to the ground in horror. “Woah! Woah! Virgil I’m sorry. I-I didn’t mean to upset you. Please you need to calm down.”

“NO! What I need is big brother Janus!!! Where is he? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM!?” Virgil came in fast for another go, but Patton dodged as he scrambled to the door. “I’m sorry.”

Patton let out a sorrowful apology as he fled from the room to find the others.

“Patton! What happened to you?” Virgil’s shouting and that large thud had alerted the entire household so some kind of trouble.

“Ah Roman...I-I don’t know what to do.” He began crying into his stock friend’s chest. “I want to help, but I have no idea who this Janus person Virgil keeps going on about is. What do I do?”

“Oh gosh Pat, it’s going to be okay. We can work together to figure this out.”

“Y-yeah you’re right let’s go find Logan and come up with a plan.”

Roman smiled as he held his friend's hand tightly. Hastily, they walked down the hallway until they reached Logan’s office. “Hey it’s Pat and I.” A quick knock and then they entered. “Bro!”

“Ah Remus? Why are you here?”

“I thought it best to have all of us here to discuss this current issue with Curiosity.”

Guess that made sense. Still it was hard for Roman to be near his impulsive brother. His thoughts were always too intense. Yet, he seemed quite calm for the moment; at least Roman could breathe easy for the time being. The group took their spots around the desk to begin formulating their plan. “So...what exactly is happening with Virgil?”

“Well, we have a theory.”

“We? You don’t mean you and Remus do you Lo?”

“I do actually.” Logan eyed the creative twin while adjusting his glasses. “The both of us believe Virgil is undergoing a mental change based on Thomas’s growth. Yet, it’s putting a strain on his mind...thus he is mixing up fantasy with reality.”

“Really? You think Curiosity is having some kind of meltdown?”

“Well brother, you and I both know first hand how intense mental changes can be on us sides.” Remus smirked, twirling his mustache.

True, the twins were definitely the prime example of how extreme these changes could be. However, this had been going on for months. When Roman and Remus split it only took a few seconds. Why was this situation so different? Because it was Virgil or because it was only one side being affected?

While Roman was lost in thought Patton spoke up, “If that’s true then we need to be there for him. He’s obviously confused and pained by thoughts he’s not able to control.”

“Agreed. I’d like to have you be led on Virgil’s treatment until this passes. If you need anything the rest of us will support you Patton.”

“Thanks Lo!”

With that their plan was set into motion...the only problem being that they had no idea what was really going on. Lurking inside the darkened room was a side falling into madness by his fragmented memories of a now forgotten family member. “Liars. They are all liars.”

Two weeks went by with Virgil sinking further and further into his paranoid thoughts. He spent most of his time in his room and avoided contact with the other sides at all cost. Annoyingly, Patton always came to his door in the morning, afternoon, and evening to talk with him from the hallway.

“He’s a deceiver. You can’t trust them or anyone. They lie, all they do is lie.” Virgil only let out hushed mumbling to Pat’s meaningless chatter. “Think you could come to dinner tonight? We miss you a whole bunch kiddo!”

Same kind words. “Will Janus be there?” Same old question.

“...no. Virgil please, this Janus person isn’t real. You’re just confused kiddo, but that’s okay. I’ll always be here for you, we’re family after-all.”

Liar! Deceiver! Fake! All of them were just a bunch of snakes trying to lure him out in order to suffocate his mind with false ideas. No more. No more. NO MORE!!!

*CRASH*

“What in the world?!” Suddenly a loud crashing sound came from behind the door. “What was that?”

“Roman! I-I don’t know. I was just in the hallway when this loud noise came from behind that locked door.”

“Stand back!”

Quickly moving aside Roman proceeded to slice the lock with his trusty katana and kick down the door. Yet, nothing could prepare the sides for what they saw next. A tall, looming shadow inching higher and higher into the air until two large purple hued eyes stared down at them.

“Oh my…”

“I-it’s a giant! We need to get the others, we’re under attack!”

Snatching Patton’s hand, the two booked it to the dinning hall and alerted the others to the current situation. Mysteriously though, once the group returned the giant was nowhere to be seen and another family member was erased from their memories’.

------- Back to Current Time:

Slowly, Virgil made his way to his crying friend and shifted to a size where he could easily pick him up.

“Hey there Pop-star. You don’t need to cry so much on my account.”

Patton chuckled a bit at the pun as he looked up to Virgil with a lingering expression of pain and sorrow. “I-I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you. That I wasn’t there for you like I should have been.”

The baby sized side raised a hand up to caress his long lost friend's face. “You couldn’t have known Pat and besides it’s in the past now. I’m just glad that you remember now...you do remember right?”

“Yeah, I think? Like I remember you, but Janus...he’s still kind of fuzzy. I remember him interacting with you, but still nothing on my own relationship with him. Sorry.”

“No, no it’s okay. What you’ve said is enough.”

“While that may be true I’d like to know more about this strange phenomenon. Why do we forget...why do you forget?” Logan came over. He needed answers, they all did. “I mean not even Thomas himself was aware of this!”

“Now that I’ve remembered everything I hope I can answer all your questions.” Virgil set Patton down and shifted downwards. “To start, when you destabilize your mind and the entire mindscape goes into shock.”

“Shock?”

“Y-yeah. In order to fight against the trauma the mind r-represses Thomas’s mind and our minds as well. That’s how it affects all of us. I forget about you all and you forget about me in order for the mindscape to stay balanced. It also works to stabilize my body as it expands.”

Everyone was gobsmacked at this information. “Wh-what do you mean by stabilizing your body?”

Virgil looked to his family with saddened eyes. “As you expand...cracks appear. The repression helps stop the already unstable core from....shattering.”

“Fuck. That’s so messed up.” Roman held himself, pained by what he was learning.

“So either you forget about who you are and about all your loved ones or you break?” This was all so heartbreaking as Patton made his way to Roman for comfort.

“Mhm…” Silence. Virgil didn’t really know what else to say at the moment. Honestly there was nothing more to say. This was the cold, hard truth and yet there were two blaring problems. “Remus...what about my brother? H-he remembers! How!?”

“Yeah what about Remus and Janus too? You were able to restabilize so can’t the two of them as well?” Was there any hope for the others who were afflicted? Virgil appeared uneasy at the notion, but tried to stay level headed.

“I-I’m not sure. The thing is that we shift in size to minimize the damage to our cracked bodies. Even though growing causes cracking, the cracks are smaller in comparison...so tha-”

“That means the bigger you are the more cracks you have.” Finally Thomas spoke up with a serious expression plastered on his face.

“Is that why Remus is different, because he’s the biggest?” Virgil nodded.

“The way we destabilize has an effect on it too. I destabilized because I felt betrayed and alone so forgetting definitely helped to lower my anxieties. Remus on the other hand destabilized because he wanted his brother back. I think because of those strong feelings he remembered at least you Roman. Yet, that discrepancy in his mind caused him to crack even more than I or Janus.”

“And because of that we remembered him as well.”

“Though, I forgot because the effect was only on you guys and not me overall.”

“So it’s my fault my brother ended up like that.”

Virgil winced and quickly embraced Roman in his arms. Princey’s eyes widened by the sudden show of affection by the usually shy side. Still he wrapped his arms around his friend's warm body and internally thanked him for the hug.

“Roman you can’t blame yourself. You didn’t know, none of you did!” Ro nodded, pulling Virgil back to look him in the face with a brand new resolve.

“Right! Then we have to make up for our ignorance and save them both!” His eye’s sparkling.

“That’s the spirit kiddo!” A rescue operation huh? Guess it was only fitting with this bunch of action heroes.

It was time for a plan, a real plan now that everyone had the necessary information. Finally the truth was revealed, the cruel reality of it all lay before them. Although, who were they going to go after first?

To be continued.

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[dutchdread]

Hello! I'm quite new in FFVII fandom and I have a doubt. Soldier Cloud doesn't remember he loved Tifa, right? Why? It's a confusing point and I'm finding contradictory opinions on the web. Thanks

Edit: I originally went into a lot of specifics for this post, but I just realized that since you're a newbie, your question might have been a bit more surface level than how I read it. I figured you were asking about how it's possible to forget a feeling, but you might have been asking about the mechanics behind his memory loss in general, so I'll give a quick answer concerning that first, then if you wanted a more in-depth answer, you can read on. Clouds memory loss is the result of three different parts: 1: Jenova cells. Cloud has been injected with Jenova cells, Jenova is able to read minds and adjust its host based on that. Jenova tricked the cetra by coming in the guise of their loved ones. She's a parasite, through Jenova Sephiroth is able to exert his will on those who share Jenova cells. Clouds persona was made up for a large part of memories that were read from Tifa. Had Cloud not received that specific input he would likely have become one of the black robed individuals, completely sub-subservient to Sephiroths will. 2: Mako poisoning. Cloud was drenched in Mako, Mako is made up out of condensed lifestream, which are the souls and memories of the dead. This basically jumbled up his own soul to where it became difficult for him to keep his own identity intact. This is similar to dying where your soul is mingled with the lifestream and you lose your individuality. Cloud had a weak sense of self and was therefore very susceptible to this effect. 3: Emotional trauma. Cloud is ashamed of his failures, he failed to protect Tifa as a kid, failed to join soldier, failed to save his mother, failed to save Nibleheim, failed to save Tifa AGAIN, and failed to save Zack. Cloud can't live with the past and set-up emotional barriers in order to protect himself from the truth of his past. Those are the three reasons in a nut-shell, for a more detailed explanation about how it's possible for Cloud to actually forget his feelings, read on. These are the kinds of things where a bit of interpretation and reading between the lines is unavoidable, there is not some kind of detailed guide on exactly what Soldier Cloud remembers and feels, but this is my informed opinion.

We run into a problem here where first we have to go through the tricky business of describing what love actually is. If you want my more detailed opinion on that, I recommend reading this post: "What is love, baby don't hurt me"

You said you're new to the fandom, so let me first warn you that I will go into spoilers about basically everything, so if you happen to only have played remake, I'd advise against continuing. What is important for this question is that one of the main things that distinguishes love from merely a physiological reaction is an intellectual understanding of who you are, who the other person is, what they mean to you, and why. Otherwise, love would be reduced just a chemical reaction in your body. If, for some reason, I were to totally forget about my brother, and were then to run into him would I still have an emotional reaction to him? Would I sub-consciously still know that this is someone who matters deeply to me? Or would he feel the same as a stranger? I can't confidently say one way or the other, nor do the real life working of love necessarily apply to a fictional setting, but I do know that my memories of him, and my conscious knowledge of what he means to me is at the very least an important part of the emotional experience. Lets break up your question into several parts to get some nuance, because you might be asking one of several things. 1: Why does soldier Cloud not remember that he used to have feelings for Tifa when he was a child. 2: Why does Cloud losing his memories also make him temporarily lose his current love for Tifa. Both of these questions have similar answers. The first thing to point out is that Clouds condition isn't "memory loss", memory loss is a part of it, but it's more like a symptom. The real problem is closer to repression. Cloud doesn't just "not remember" the past, he's repressing it. He's repressing who he was, and everything that might conflict with the fake persona he's built for himself. When he hears the word "Zack", it's not just a name he can't remember, no, his mind straight up refuses to even hear it. This is the first clue to why Cloud might not "remember his feelings", because if they don't fit the image he's trying to convey, he would repress them. But I think Cloud is, on some level, aware of his feelings. When he thinks Tifa gets injured, he panics, when someone flirts with Tifa, he gets jealous. He gives her the flower, he calls her beautiful. But if he were to act like a smitten village boy, that would definitely not fit the cool soldier façade he's putting on, so he's hiding those emotions from both the outside world, and himself. In my opinion we all put on some sort of mask when dealing with other people, although for the most of us it's not that intense, it's pretending to be happy when you're sad, keeping calm when really you're fuming, but for Cloud it's a bit different his façade is not just a mask he puts on for the world while he himself knows he's different in private, Cloud himself believes the lie. His mind will even lie to itself in order to protect himself from the truth. And the truth is very much entwined with his feelings concerning Tifa. All of his posturing, all of his failures, all of his inadequacies spring from those events in his childhood. So not only is Clouds mind repressing all the real memories of those times, causing Cloud to not realizing how important Tifa really is, but it's highly likely that it would even repress the memories of the feelings that caused all of it, along with the feelings themselves. I think most people can relate about having embarrassing childhood memories about stupid things we did to impress some girl or boy. And to recap the mechanics behind it, there are three main contributing factors. The first are the Jenova cells in his body, Jenova can read minds and shapeshift, and acts almost like a parasite taking over its host. This is the first and most important part of the actual mechanics of how Cloud lost his memories, and since this is a little more tangible than just normal human repression, it's not to be wondered at that the effects might be a bit more extreme and far-reaching than they would be if a person in our world was suffering from trauma induced memory repression. The second is the Mako

showers Cloud experienced. Mako is made from condensed lifestream, and contains the thoughts and feelings of the dead. When someone with a weak sense of self, like Cloud, is showered in Mako, it becomes easy to lose sight of who you really are in the maelstrom of thoughts and voices. This would very likely aid make your mind more malleable. The third is normal human psychology. Most stories have internal and external hurdles to overcome, when done correctly the external hurdles are in some way representative of the internal emotional struggles. The mechanics through which something happens represents some deeper, more human moral lesson or experience. In this case, while mechanically Clouds fake persona is created by the Jenova cells, narratively it is caused by his feelings of inadequacy, his fear of failure, and his desire to be someone he's not. That's the human story that is being told through swords and explosions. You have to look at these things together to really understand Clouds fake persona, the narrative purpose it serves, and as a result, why his relationship with Tifa would be one of the things that gets repressed. It's not the memories themselves that matter most, it's the emotions associated with them.

There is some irony here, Cloud originally wanted to be a soldier in order to get Tifa to notice him, but actually living out that "cool guy" persona requires him to not acknowledge those feelings, luckily for him, "soldier Cloud" isn't the version of Cloud that Tifa is interested in anyway.