#understand would have gone a long way' when you have negative self esteem and abandonment issues.. idk man. i'd have trouble articulating

[mieczyhale]

[angelhummel]

why do you think Blaine cheating wasn't that bad? i know Kurt wasn't great and basically ignored him but how is cheating the answer? especially when he visited Kurt soon after and could've had a conversation? (just to clarify I love Blaine and Klaine, i just thought Blaine was totally wrong to cheat)

oof okay i’m going to try and like bullet point things bc if i expanded on every single argument then we’d be here for hours lol

Blaine was already insecure about Kurt leaving him behind, saying Kurt would have new friends, a new life, etc. Already feeling like Kurt was moving on without him

He thought those fears were coming true after Kurt had been in NY for weeks (if not months - weird timeline) and was starting to ignore him

People minimize it and say it was one missed phone call but it wasn’t

People also credit it to Kurt being busy at his job, which was hardly ever the case

We see Blaine looking sad when he’s trying to ask Kurt’s advice on what to wear - we know how much Kurt loves picking out Blaine’s clothes - and Kurt basically ignores the question and keeps talking about his video

Kurt cuts a call with Blaine short basically just to gossip with someone

And the missed phone call is late at night when he’s just hanging around schmoozing, not working

People also make it seem like Blaine was practically already on the way to see Kurt and couldn’t resist cheating like, minutes before he got to the airport lol

He had a scheduled visit in two weeks, which probably felt like an eternity when he’d already gone so long without seeing Kurt

We see Blaine struggle throughout the show with all sorts of problems. Depression, low self esteem, body dysmorphia, abandonment issues, feeling like he always has to be in control. He’s not a bad person for feeling these things. And this is when they all sort of collide and lead to something he will, and obviously does regret

We even hear it straight from his mouth. He felt like Kurt was moving on without him. Long distance is hard. In his eyes, going for one visit after weeks and weeks apart was probably like putting a bandaid over a bullet wound

He thought there was no point in talking because he thought his relationship was as good as over

He jumped to the worst conclusions, like he also has a tendency to do. And he fucked up. And he knew he fucked up

Literally immediately after this fuck up he rushes to NY to talk to Kurt. To come clean about everything and confess what he did and hopefully start to make things right again

I know that comparing a bad thing to a worse thing doesn’t make the bad thing good but. He didn’t cheat bc he was bored, he didn’t cheat bc he needed the ego boost, he didn’t cheat to get revenge. He didn’t make a habit of it. He didn’t manipulate anyone. He didn’t lie about what he did, or go as long as he could without telling Kurt the truth

99% of the characters on this show cheated, usually for the most petty and asinine reasons. Blaine is one of the few that actually makes sense story and characterwise. It goes beyond some stupid “serial cheater”, “constantly juggling two girls” or “break up with your boyfriend, I’m bored” motive that every other cheater seemed to have

And I’m sorry, I really didn’t want to vague anyone in this post. But I saw someone say “if Blaine loved Kurt as much as he did, he should’ve felt comfortable enough to be vocal about his insecurities”. Love is not a cure all for any negative feelings brought on by a person’s mental illness. Blaine’s love for Kurt, and his inability to always eloquently express what’s wrong with him, actually have very little to do with each other. And these insecurities get brought up again in s5 and we see Blaine continuing his struggle in working through them. It’s a hugely significant part of his character arc

And I won’t hear any “it’s not that deep” excuse bc in s6 Blaine outright says he’s seeing a therapist and working on his mental health issues. We can’t pretend like his depression is just a fan theory with no in-show evidence to back it up

And just to clarify for myself, the above bullet points aren’t me trying to shit on Kurt or blame him for all of this. Same with all Klaine fights, I understand some of both sides but don’t think either one is necessarily right or wrong. It’s never all black and white with them. So while I honestly don’t like how Kurt was treating Blaine around this time, I don’t blame him for this, either. I don’t blame either of them

They’re just two teenage boys in over their heads and they take a few trials and errors to finally get things right and that’s okay. They learned from their mistakes and managed to grow closer and stronger from them in the end. And that’s all that matters, and that’s why I love them so much ♡♡

[border-spam]

Leech Lord - Whispers in the dark

The Leech takes everything and gives nothing.

It hates the twins in a way we can’t fathom, humans aren’t what it is. It doesn’t think or speak, it only feels, and the loathing that it pulses with towards these pathetic, broken insects that imprisoned and ripped it from the great song is incomprehensible.

No escape, no end, no way to be whole - just its warped voice split between two ignorant, useless parasites. It wants to hurt them, it wants them to suffer, so it gnaws at any flash of joy they experience. Tears apart what gives them comfort. 

...Eats them alive.

Tyreen’s great drive to find Pandora was fuelled by it, whispering promises of belonging, of family, of love into the ear of a teen who hadn’t felt any of those since Leda crumbled to ash by her feet. 

It insisted Typhon was wrong, the Bandit’s weren’t mad, they were lost. 

Everyone knows Pandorans are crazy. Everyone knows the "natives" that scour across the desert in warpaint and masks are a family of lost souls looking for belonging. The Leech whispers to Tyreen DeLeon that she could be their redemption, their mother, and she sets her plans to leave her prison planet in motion. They are her people, the abandoned and lonely it says. She can be their God.

It turned it’s teeth to the parts of Tyreen that were able to experience happiness the moment her feet touched Pandora’s dust and the Eridium it had been seeking to feed on didn’t respond. She was a dud. She was a broken, useless joke of a Siren host, and it raged.

Troy never stood a chance.

Without its presence he’d be naturally quiet, his low self esteem is part of his nature, though it would be manageable. The Leech hurts him through his flaws - the cracks in his ego. His own doubts creep into his worries, but once he reaches the end of that train of thought? It continues. He survives every day with something whispering horrific shit into his ear even as he struggles to find ways of dealing with his own negative feelings, his paranoia and insecurities. It twists the knife a little deeper with every hissed mockery, and it’s done it his whole life.

So it's.. sad. It's just sad. Troy covets so much that his companions have. Love, friendship, care, but he can’t accept what he wants so desperately. The Siren power takes that from him.

If someone like JK who he admires so much, who he has on a mental pedestal and wishes he could be more like, offhandedly mentioned something about him they admired? It’s robbed from him. He’d have the moment of disbelief, the embarrassed shyness, the excitement then embarrassment over the excitement, the stuttering and confusion and that kind of flushed cheek slightly teary eyed response from someone who’s terrible at accepting positive comments about themselves... but then it's the filth from The Leech just after.

The moment he had a flash of happiness and maybe the first blossom of something that could be considered pride, it would be there:

"̶ They're w̵r̴o̵n̵g̴,̴ ̸ or they are l̷y̶i̶n̶g̸.̵"̸  

̴"̸T̸h̸e̸y̵ ̴a̶r̶e  making fun of̵ ̵y̸o̴u̴. Y̵o̷u̵'̷r̵e not so stup̸i̶d̸ ̵t̸h̴a̷t you'd believe th̸i̶s̷,̶ ̶ you're smarter than that. Yo̴u̷'̴r̸e̸ ̷c̸l̵e̵ver.  ̴O̵f̴ ̷c̸o̴u̶r̷s̸e that's a lie, w̷h̷y̷ ̷w̴o̵u̷l̵d anyone actually look up to you? Brok̷e̵n̵ ̵b̴o̸d̷y̶,̴ ̶r̶otting soul, w̶e̵a̵k̴ ̸b̸o̴nes and failing lungs? They ei̶t̶h̸e̷r̴ ̶d̴o̷ n't know what they are saying or they are spitting in your fac̴e̸.̴ ̴Which is it?̵ ̸W̸h̴i̴c̷h do ̴y̵o̴u̴ ̵t̶h̵i̸n̴k̸ ̶i̶t̷ ̵i̵s̵?̸"̸

̷"̷O̸h̷,̴ ̴t̵h̴ey are your friend? Are they, Tr̸o̴y̵?̵ ̶W̴e̵ll, then they don't know. Tell the̶m̸ ̷exactly h̴o̸w̵ ̷ wrong they are so they won't ever make that mistake again. Te̷l̶l̶ ̶t̴h̶e̶m̸ ̸w̸h̶y̵ ̷n̷o̵ one s̸h̸o̵u̵l̸d̸ ̵want you. ̷I̵t̷'̸s̷ ̷o̸k̵ ̴t̸o̸ ̷b̶e̶ ̵a̴n̵g̸r̴y, they should have known better. It's their fault."

̷"̵I̴t̶'̶s̸ ̷t̷h̶e̵i̶r̷ ̸f̷a̵u̶l̶t̶.̷"̷

That’s what he's dealing with, always. With everything his entire life, and it's not even in real words he can argue back with it's just feeling. Ty echos the exact same shit to him audibly and he tries to stand against it, always has, but it’s so much harder internally. He still fights it though, he always tries. He's exhausted by how much he has to work to keep it under control without even understanding what he's constantly fighting, and it's so very hard.

Seifa can't explain it even when she’s seen it so for so long - the struggle. Can't put it into a sentence she can express to the others, but she gets it.. an inkling of it, seen it behind his eyes so many times. She’s seen.. eyes. Or maybe she’s just going mad, that’s a pretty likely option too.

Understanding the war raging inside Troy is why she asks what she does in an encrypted E-Com message the night she leaves. Begs Ven not to hate him even after everything.

She knows that if he wasn't constantly fighting as hard as he is, there would just be nothing of him left. Every single interaction would be a nightmare - constant aggression, jealousy, envy, hatred lashing out at everything.

For people looking from the outside he seems like a pathetic excuse for a man child, throwing tantrums and destroying rooms, but in reality these episodes of giving in are so rare compared to how often he fights it back.

He's surprisingly good at hiding it which is why he can come across "normal" sometimes and also means he's desperately empathetic, but he's just not experienced with people enough to place that empathy the right way very often, or respond to it in a way that helps and doesn't actually make things worse.

That’s one of the reason his companions do actually like him still, why he’s magnetic in such a bizarre way. There is a clear awareness this man genuinely adores the few people who are kind enough to tolerate him and is trying, but there's a balance to consider. It doesn't matter if he's painfully aware he's driving people away if he doesn't correct the behavior doing it.

On top of everything really, there's Tyreen.

Ty's defacto way of dealing with feeling any competition for Troy's attention is to just remove the competitor. It’s always been that way from the day she first felt the pang of unease when he started talking to Seifa after a month of them recovering on her ship.

Troy.. . Troy talks to her, not other people, Troy is her brother, Troy is PART of her, why is it fair that he not be there when she needs him? When she’s lonely, when she needs his stupid smile and his terrible jokes and that pathetic stutter...

But she can't make the people he slowly befriends leave, they are all in positions of power where she isn't able to make them vanish without it being noticed, so she defaults to her second method.

Turn him on them.

For all his bullshittery, Troy tolerates about 6 years of having Tyreen lying to him in private about how the others see him, how much they care. Subtle, knife sharp, and building in viciousness over time till by late COV when he begins to fall apart, it's abusive mental warfare - and he never turns on them.

He breaks, he fucks up, he thinks Seifa is gone forever, he hurts JK, he works Ven to dust, but he never once turns on them in the way Tyreen has been seeding for years. He doesn't let her win even though he refuses to even admit he's aware what she's doing and how many times it’s happened in the past one way or another.

So shit piling up in those 2 years without Sei, the strain from Ty, the weird shift from media to murder to chasing a fucking VAULT, the no sleep, the fear for his friends even when he's also losing the fight against the thing that makes him spit venom at them?

He just can't do it forever.

The Leech takes everything and gives nothing.

Asks are open!

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket SE02 (ep,9). part 1

You know it’s real when kyo is given monologue right from the beginning! It rarely happens that he’s allowed any!, but when he does, it hits like a wild wave changing everything. The story is never the same after each time he’s given inner-talk. Forever changing the dynamics, the secrets & the relationships. e.g. true form ep.

Kyo’s love confession:

The sweetest, most tender love confession from the character that started the show fighting & screaming! The one that hated himself the most! now loves his name, only cuz she said it! “a special ring to it”. the guy who couldn’t look at her face, will repeat stupid things over “if it made you smile”. “Since when did I started” falling in love with you? the show goes on to show us various moment from as early as ep,4 & throughout seasons & scenes! he doesn’t know! We, the viewers, also don’t know when he started loving her!! we kinda gradually~ normally~ unknowingly~ fell in love with them together. The show opened this heavy ep filled with first-hand experience & steps on how Akito destroyed his victim... ouch! well-played, furuba! well-played.

The location: An empty room, no furniture, small, suffocating. The abuser sits far, then slowly walks towards the prey until there’s no space. But not before causing  physical pain to reassure dominance over the victim.

STEP 1: (The BET).

Kyo in his attempts to fight his destiny has met up with Akito prior to the beginning of the story, to defy him. Akito cleverly traps kyo into a bet manipulating his desire to break away from his fate. you said, YOU can fight your destiny? ok. I’ll let you. If you win against yuki, I’ll let you be free. easy, right? kyo this is your chance to prove yourself to yourself! just practice & win a stupid match. EASY! except it isn’t. The rat is superior to the cat. Your trials are in vain. you’ll NEVER rise up to anything except a failure. Try for three years! so generous of Akito! 36 months! you only need to win once! But you WON’T EVER! planting a toxic seed that eats away the victim’s self-esteem, hope & desire. Give him the chance to believe in himself then CRUSH IT. Once kyo fails, he’ll never believe in himself again. The bet is now cancelled before the third year even begins! one year & a half of failure is enough. You LOST. The Directing was phenomenal! The scene is shot in shades of sickening green, with underwater feel, like kyo is drowning deep in Akito’s abuse. Akito was shown from kyo’s perspective. Distorted, scary & demonic. like a monster..

STEP 2: (the past)

Taunting kyo with selective words that hit exactly were it hurts the most, using affirmative sentences in calm authoritative tone, alluding to facts.“cuz you’re a monster, ur mom is dead” “it was ur fault” “u killed ur mom”. Akito painted kyo’s mom in martyr light. giving birth to a monster, admirably protecting & raising him. Her reward? DEATH due to immense pressure from being WITH him. Extra step: painting kyo as the unforgivable & unappreciative son “ her son didn’t even mourn her” cuz kyo didn’t cry in front of others in her funeral. all these words carved his psyche like daggers extracting buried memories of his dad doing like Akito. YOU caused ur mom grief. the memory is now crystal clear. His mom walking slowly with open arms towards death. Giving kyo her back knowing he’s there. choosing to abandon & leave him. cuz it is HIM that is too much to bear. it is HIM that she’s escaping from.

STEP 3: (the present)

“you should’ve died”, “if you didn’t exist EVERYONE would be happy” This everyone in particular destroyed kyo way more than Akito ever planned for. Everyone includes the present. Everyone includes ppl who aren’t sohma-related. Everyone includes a happy mother & daughter. Everyone includes kyoko & tohru. It is NOW that kyo crashes, falls, loses & bends. Kyoko is the nail in his coffin. Akito lets go of kyo’s hand. Mission accomplished.

-Miscalculation in Akito’s plan: (tohru)

Akito unwittingly ruins her plan by mentioning tohru. her triumphant smile disappears & her authoritative powerful voice turns into childish screams to silence kyo, pathetically covering her ears. This drastic shift in power resulted only by mentioning tohru. Realizing that tohru was used as tool for whatever reason gave kyo strength to stand up & defend her. how dare you call her a monster? how dare you call her an angel? NO. she is but a human. A kind soul. That stayed WITH me regardless of all my ugliness inside & outside. WHY? who does that? Who gives & never takes? the foolish traveler.

The foolish traveler’s role in liberating & confiding kyo:

In momiji’s story, the foolish traveler gives the monster her life & dies. Tohru gave kyo her presence. She did NOT heal him or fade the ugliness away. NO. She didn’t treat his trauma. NO. she doesn’t even know abt his mom’s suicide!! she ONLY gave him her presence. She stayed with the monster. WHY? cuz she is a foolish person filled with kindness not wanting anything in return. But what happened to the the foolish traveler at the end of momiji’s story? she died. again DEATH surrounds kyo. If this foolish traveler stays with him death awaits her. History has proven kyo’s company lethal. the cat has cursed his most beloved ppl into death & harm. his dad, mom, kyoko. This story made kyo realize his romantic love to tohru & tragically made him understand the possible sad ending.

Akito’s Rebound:

Akito sizes the chance, strikes back & regains power. Like a hungry monster smelling fear! “ do u think u have the right to fall in love with someone?” “do u think you’re allowed?” Kyoko, reinforcing Akito’s words.”I won’t forgive you”. you, the monster knows love?? “who’s the real villain” you, the killer! “who’s the one who involved her the most” You, the most cursed! “it’s best if you are gone”.” I KNOW!” ,kyo said.

The fighter gives up:

“it was me”. every negative thought kyo has is reinforced by a past experience from someone in his life. Akito blackmails kyo into accepting his confinement in exchange of NOT harming tohru. It is becuz kyo finally loved someone enough to want to EXIST in this word that he finally stops fighting. He fought for years for himself. Now, he’ll give up for another person. Tohru’s love liberated him from hating himself enough to die or take his hatred on someone else, but, her love also imprisoned him into thinking he’ll never be worthy for her. His first thought upon seeing her is “ I want to be with u forever” but once again “ kyoko shows up reminding him” i wont forgive you” How can kyo wish to be with her? his entire trauma is against it. does he has the guts to rip tohru’s smile once he confess abt the past? What does he expect tohru to say once she knows? How would tohru react? he’ll scar her forever more than she’s already scarred. Those scars that she hides oh so well from others will become tragically apparent once he confess. So, No, kyo. Spare her the pain. who are you anyway? a mere monster that everyone will be happy if you disappeared” “why didn’t my mom kill me?” “she should’ve killed me” If she did.. then tohru would’ve been happy with her mom. “Why am I still alive?”

Kyo’s precious flower:

love is against logic. Logic says stay away from tohru & spare her ur unworthy existence. Love says look for her! love makes you run to her! love makes you want to see her first thing after getting out of the that room. love says cherish her, be around, stay with her. Love says she needs you! yes, the unworthy monster has been loved before! way before tohru!. Kazuma flashes in his mind & brings hope, Kyoko, flashes with a kind smile, teasing him, I see different hair styles, maybe repeatedly meeting kyo, love reminded kyo of the friend-kyoko! who recognized his loneliness, patted his head, reached out to him, she told him abt the tiny flower, showed him her most precious treasure. These ppl treated him as a human! NOT a monster, kazuma, kyoko & tohru, love opened his eyes to see the light amidst the darkness, the warmth of the sunset after the depth of suffocation. He won’t give up on life. NO, he wants to LIVE, to LOVE & to give back! he now knows that his existence isn’t completely worthless! he was there for tohru. he has already given her back time after time since they’ve met, he knows that! he made her smile, he saw her! the real her! tiny, foolish & oh so precious!  By the time he reached her he was able to genuinely smile from his heart! yes, he can smile cuz she’s with him now. He doesn’t care anymore abt the disgusting sohma & their curse. He only cares abt her. he won’t trample his precious flower, “ i once hoped to be always together, far away” to “ make you my own” But NO. he can’t hurt her with the painful memories, he’ll treat her with utmost respect, care & love until its time to say goodbye. quietly exiting from her life. As long as she’s not harmed. As long as her smile stays, so, he’ll stay with her together,” until we’re separated far apart”

[soncfseed]

REPOSTED FROM MY OLD BLOG: Probably my most important headcanon, so please take the time to read this!!

spoilers ahead, but im gonna look at ethans cutscenes and talk about how his bpd (borderline personality disorder) affects his actions and his perceptions throughout the story of new dawn. this is all just headcanon and my interpretation of ethan and how bpd would affect him. none of this is meant to excuse his more nefarious actions, but explain why my interpretation of ethan doesnt pin him as a selfish, horrible, awful monster, but rather a young man with a lot of unresolved trauma and a serious mental health condition who ended up making some terrible choices that resulted in a lot of pain for a lot of people.

0:05 - ethan’s introduction

in this scene ethan experiences some pretty quick and dramatic mood shifts, and has a pretty significant emotional outburst. these are characteristic of the mood swings and emotional dis-regulation experienced by many people with bpd. he starts off catching the captain off guard, sneaking up behind them. ethan has been taught to distrust outsiders, and a symptom of bpd he experiences is suspicion of others and sometimes brief bouts of paranoia. this kind of behaviour makes sense when this is taken into context.

he says that he might not be what the captain expects. this is part of his low self esteem and struggles with his self image and how others perceive him. he constantly feels as though he can never truly be his own person, outside of joseph seed, and that his existence is a disappointment to those who know him.

once he sees the book, he is triggered into a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. acknowledging that the deputy is the one who found the book, and according to joseph’s prophecy will be the true ruler of new eden, is what sets him off. once ethan goes into his rant about it should’ve been him, he’s experiencing a mood swing and sudden spike in his anger and irritability. due to his issues w emotional regulation and control over his expressions of emotion, ethan lashes out by screaming and knocking over the podium in the church. mood swings for bpd sufferers can be only minutes long. what pulls ethan back down to earth a bit is a sudden rush when he realizes he can work with the captain to enlighten new eden to the truth: that joseph is a man, not a messiah, and kind of a shitty one at that who abandoned them all.

3:50 - ethan’s first speech in new eden

ethan’s posturing here is just that; posturing. he’s putting on a bit of a show with the “non believer” bit. he does, however, not entirely trust outsiders nor would he trust that the people of new eden wouldn’t turn on him if he suggested that the captain go north. no, instead he plays off of what he expects the people will do to avoid potential rejection or rebellion. this plays off of his mistrust and suspicion of others, as well as serves to protect his secret interests (getting proof that joseph is dead to get new eden to move on from him) and his ego (tied to the bpd symptom of self image issues and unstable self realization).

ethan can’t help but be a bit sarcastic with “we are all his children”. sarcasm and unwarranted aloofness can tie into bpd, and here it definitely does due to his poor relationship with his father, and with the rumours surrounding his paternity in new eden.

while bpd does not inherently make people manipulative, manipulation of others is often something those with bpd adopt as a coping mechanism to manage their unstable relationships or unstable self image. ethan has adopted this trait in some ways and this is definitely one of them. he does not trust the people of new eden, and knows they wont listen to him fully. this is his main motivator for keeping his plan secret.

the fact that ethan feels he has to act a certain way when he’s the leader of new eden further contributes to his unstable self realization. he puts on different fronts to different people to try and both please them and protect himself.

when he says “they will at last understand that i am their prophet…”, this is in part because he feels he’s worked hard to be the inheritor of new eden. he’s not only joseph’s son (and even if he doesn’t like joseph he wants to be recognized as his biological son, making the rumours about his paternity even more hurtful) but he’s been a successful leader as far as we can tell. to think he will lose it all over a book is damn near panic inducing for ethan. well this is in part a kind of arrogance, it’s fueled by his extreme emotions/mood swings as well as how closely he ties his identity to his position within his community. because his self image is so unstable, threats to that cause him to act in ways that may seem irrational or extreme in order to try and protect his self image. also, ethan will only help the captain in exchange for something in part bc of his suspicion of others. he doesn’t want to offer new eden’s archers and resources without knowing that he will benefit in return. after all, if something goes wrong in new eden bc of this outsider and he allowed it, it’s his responsibility to take the blame and fix it.

5:20 - into the bliss

theres not much in this scene to tie to his bpd. one line i think is important though: “bring me proof of my fathers death and i will make sure you are remembered as a friend of the prophet”. well this can be interpreted as ethan saying to kill joseph, i dont think he is. ethan believes joseph is long gone, that he could never survive all alone for this long. ethan isn’t evil, he’s not asking someone to commit murder, he’s asking them to confirm that someone is already dead. sure, he’s self serving and he wants something in return for his allyship, but to him this is how he can ensure a fair trade, and that an outsider won’t take advantage of him or new eden as easily.

14:18 - ethan, interrupted

ethan’s big speech where joseph fuckin crashes it. at first, he literally does not even see joseph in the crowd. he truly believes he’s dead and that the captain will bring back proof of this. to him, adherence to his rule makes sense; he’s the leader, and things need to change. it is arrogant, because ethan has partially internalized a sense of superiority and entitlement because of his position as joseph’s son, and now heir to the rulership of new eden (he thinks). this combined with an unstable self esteem and self image makes him want total compliance to his rule. criticism, disobedience, they threaten his self worth and that can send him into an emotional spiral or severe mood swing. so, to try and avoid the negative consequences he experiences from perceived slights and rejections, he wants a clean slate and total adherence to his new rules.

when he actually sees joseph, he stops, stammers, and says “father?”. not the father. just father. in this moment, his father who abandoned him (who went out for smokes and never came back) has suddenly shown up in the middle of his speech about him being dead. his arm drops and he stands there, stunned and speechless. his first question is “where have you been?”. he wants to know why and he asks why. why did his father abandon them? abandon him? the answer is completely meaningless to him. it’s basic, it has no detail, and isn’t sufficient. he’s speechless again for a bit, breathing heavier and hyperventilating. he steps away from joseph. when joseph calls the captain god’s sword, ethan damn near does a double take. he’s literally standing in his father’s shadow while he exalts an outsider in front of his own son, after interrupting his speech and embarrassing him in front of everyone.

one of ethan’s symptoms is his overvaluing and undervaluing people in his life. this is when he switches from overvaluing the captain, putting too much faith and hope into them, to undervaluing and practically hating them. his relationship with his father is tenuous, and rocky. it is characterized by ethan’s intense desire to be josephs successor and publicly recognized as his son. ethan even calls out to joseph, upset about the fact that hes now suddenly and publicly being dethroned; joseph doesnt even look back at him. ethan rejects josephs words in anger. he has a sudden outburst in front of the crowd; yet another sudden spike in his emotions from a stressful situation causes him to say what he’s really thinking. “you abandoned me. you abandoned us.” ethan says joseph didn’t leave instructions or a message, just left ethan to lead with no idea how. he does the best job he can under these extreme circumstances, and now all of his hard work is for nothing. that would make even the most level headed neurotypical person upset. whenn ethan starts to lose the support of new eden, he breaks down a bit. the anchor of his self image has been completely ripped away from him in a moment. he storms off partially and his body language is pretty dire; head down, shoulders moving sharply like he’s breathing harshly, and then he turns to watch the crowd walk away from him. imo, part of why ethan doesn’t completely lose it in this scene is that he might be partially dissociating or beginning to dissociate or experience some de-realization from the sudden, acute emotional distress this moment causes for him.

17:45 - ethan’s response

this is when ethan says that the captain betrayed him. they had a deal. he completely put his trust into the captain, idealizing them as the person who could solve his problems, only for them to bring joseph back and make everything in ethans life worse. now, the pendulum swings to the other side where ethan begins to loathe the captain. saying that the captain should have killed joseph themselves is an expression of 1) the intense reactions people with bpd can have to certain situations and 2) his skewed logic because of it. what seems totally irrational to someone else might seem like the only logical solution to a problem for someone with bpd. the stress of such a painful, emotionally charged situation like this one. he never wants to see the captain again; on a dime he flips, from putting all of his trust and hope into one person to saying he never wants to see them again and that they betrayed him. this quick switch of very intense perceptions of others is a cycle of idealization and undervaluing that people with bpd may experience.

18:07 - ethan’s prayer letter

in this letter, ethan discusses how he feels he hates his father for the abandonment; how joseph “expected everything and gave nothing”, how ethan never got to really have joseph as a father for himself because he was too busy being THE father. he says wrath and envy grip him tight to the point he feels he can’t breathe. this is definitely indicative of ethans mood swings and intense emotions, especially the irrational anger and aggression many people with bpd can have. then, he says nobody but himself, his mother, and god can know about how he feels, and that he must put on a front for new eden and be a leader to them “no matter what”. this is absolutely something i can see being tied to his bpd. he is aware that expressing his thoughts, feelings, and reactions to others would probably get a negative reaction. he seeks to avoid that, as well as to avoid the judgment from others he thinks he would get. his unstable self image is complicated by the fact that he feels obligated to hide the symptoms of his illness, and pretend to be someone he isn’t. this only makes it worse, as he ties his social and therefore individual identity to “ruler of new eden”. he relies very much on the responses and reactions of others to gauge whether or not he seems “normal” or capable of doing his job.

18:27 - npc dialogue

ethan says that josephs followers see the prophecy coming to light, but ethan sees it as a chance for new eden to make its own path. this is also when ethan says that he is josephs biological son, and that his mother raised him outside of hope county and brought him there when he was young to be raised by joseph. she died from an illness on their journey. this is some pretty significant baggage for ethan. he wants new eden, and himself, to become independent. the only reason he stays in new eden is because of his mother. he loves her, and idealizes her in a way that never flips to undervaluing because the relationship is one sided since her passing.

19:23 - megan’s letter to joseph

this is important just bc it states megan raised ethan as a non believer but after the collapse taught him about joseph’s word. this is important for ethan because it means he had to relearn some pretty significant things after the apocalypse, including a whole new religion and worldview. this can be very confusing for a child, and in part explains why ethan isn’t totally on board with josephs word, or the all of new eden’s beliefs surrounding him; his earliest formative years had nothing to do with joseph seed or prophets or collapses. he had to convert, and did so as a child who couldn’t really understand or make that choice for himself. he is tied to new eden solely because of megan, and without her wish to have him be josephs heir, he would’ve left long ago.

20:08 - intermission/flashback

this is when we see a young babby ethan get nasty with joseph. this is an early sign of his bpd developing. he has an intense reaction and says something very hurtful to his father over not getting what he wants, which isn’t just the apple but his father’s approval. to him, this is another rejection by joseph, or it is perceived that way by a young ethan. constantly being told something wasn’t gods plan, or it isn’t part of a prophecy without further explanation was confusing and frustrating for ethan growing up. he wanted the apple to be like his father; he wanted the apple to feel integrated into his community like the others who were given the gift. this denial, one that is permanent and leaves no room for ethan to change or grow and become capable of handling its strength leaves him feeling defeated and angry. his reaction of “you are an old man, and when you die i will take one” shows a very quick emotional shift and a shift from idolizing his father and wanting to be like him to practically hating him, becoming cold and distant in mere moments.

21:16 - joseph’s worry

“ethan’s sin is pride. there is something deep inside him that no word of mine can touch. i worry that now as an outsider appears to take his place that beast will feed on resentment and grow stronger. ” YEAH ITS BPD YA DINGUS fdpgpfd but more seriously, ethans pride is a coping mechanism to deal with his ever changing self image and self worth. its a rigid barrier to keep others from knowing how weak he really feels, and how uncertain he is of himself.

23:25 - ethan’s betrayal

this is where ethan betrays new eden and sets them up so the highwaymen can destroy the settlement. he tolerates the highwaymen laughing at him only so he can get what he wants: revenge. this extreme response is from his bpd. his impulsive anger, and the extremes his mind goes to won out and he acted on his violent thoughts.

26:26 - ethan and the fruit

when joseph asks ethan what hes done (referring to betraying new eden), ethan says: “i did what i had to do. i freed myself, i freed us all from you, from your rules.”. to ethan this was logical. this was something he had to do. he didn’t take pleasure in it, he didn’t go into new eden and kill everyone himself. no, he handed them over to the highwaymen in a desperate, out of touch moment. the spark was there and his disorder was gasoline that helped the flames to spread. he reacted intensely, out of irrationally extreme anger, towards an entire group of people he had shifted to undervaluing. he felt betrayed so he returned in kind, but no matter how wrong that was ethan couldnt see it.

“i will have what you denied me. you gave it to an outsider but you wouldn’t give it to me. i am your flesh and blood” and explosively tells joseph he doesnt know gods will. he lashes out against his father, arguing with him and rebelling directly by taking the one thing joseph kept him from that he truly wanted. to ethan, in my hc, the apple is more than just power and more than just something he covets. its a symbol of joseph’s fatherhood, of his love; he gave it to everyone but ethan, his own son, and now he would take what he wanted from life with or without josephs input.

31:08 - the death of ethan seed

the first thing ethan says after he sees joseph is “father… i’m sorry”. he’s scared. he knows he’s going to die. he asks if joseph can forgive him. he knows he’s fucked up, obviously, not just by eating the apple but by betraying new eden. his last word is “father”. no matter how torn his relationship was with joseph, he wanted his father’s love. he wanted connection with his father. he wanted to feel validated, have his identity confirmed, even in his last moments.

[cannotgiveafuck]

Billy Batson & Captain Marvel identity analysis (long post ahead)

Alrighty then! So I contemplated posting this bc it's so closely tied to the wip fic, buuuut here it is. Ive never been really satisfied with how some media portray this character bc they either lean too far towards childish or angry, or divide the identities too much. And whilst writing the fic I thought about how I wanted to portray him and what that entailed. A long semi comprehensive ramble of headcanons and character analysis based on the individual and combined identities of Billy and Marvel!

First, we have Billy. This kid who's parents died on a work trip, was left in the care of a greedy/selfish old man that did not care for him at all, has bounced through foster homes for a plethora of reasons (some of which are behavioral or abusive), and ultimately decided trying to make it on the streets was his best option (before being picked up by Dudley).

Now, backstory wise, it's all very obvious that Billy would have trust issues, especially towards adults (and double towards adults who try to control him). His learned attitude towards those that set their eyes on him (both before and especially after becoming Marvel) is guarded and aggressively defensive, he's snarky and sarcastic, ready to flee at a moments notice, and scared of being once again used, abused, and tossed aside if he were to trust someone. But at his soft core he desperately wants to be cared for, he wants affection and love and family, he wants a safe and secure home, he wants to believe in good.

All of this bleeds into his attitude towards his peers, too. Before becoming Marvel, he's a bit jaded and lost - his wrecked home life creating the chasm that keeps him from opening up and relating to others, from making real friends (the few exceptions being friends he considers family, and whom he is very loyal and protective of). After Marvel, Billy doesn't even try to associate with kids his own age. He stops going to school and is so focused on trying to be a good hero, he has distanced himself even more. But also, all the situations that he is exposed to really matures him. He still enjoys video games and sports, but he's also worrying about keeping Fawcett City and the world safe and working with JL - he doesn't have time nor patience for naive and clueless kids. But since he still is a kid and wants to have fun, those he let's in he holds onto and divulges everything to.

However, despite his hard outer shell, I do believe Billy is good and tries to be good and wants to see the good in those around him. A prominent and reoccurring memory of his parents is them telling him to be a good kid. That very much shapes Billy's views and ideologies. He wants to be a good person, which means he needs to help others (however he sees fit, from stopping bullies to carrying an old ladys groceries), but also realize that there is good all around him in everyone else, too. He has kind neighbors, and a community that helps each other, he knows everyone has their own struggles and they may direct negative emotions outward but may just need a helping hand in return. Billy knows suffering and cruelty and does not want to cause that, he wants to end it. So, theres this conflict inside him that he views as being smart vs being good. His true sunshine and trusting demeanor is boosted when he is chosen by Shazam, because now he has this divine and worldly responsibility to do and be good. And while he does not hold value in himself (abandoned and abused orphan does not hold a high confidence or self esteem level), he also wants to prove that he is worthy of inheriting this power, that there is good in this world and in him.

Now, second we have Captain Marvel. This is where identities become...complicated. The way I see it, Marvel is a mesh of 'Billy Batson', 'The Potential Adult Billy Could Be', and 'The Vessel of The Greek Gods Powers'. Since I've gone over Billy's identity, it transfers onto Marvel pretty seamlessly. So as The Adult Billy, he is still Billy Batson, but the grown up version, comfortable in his skin and in social standings with others, he is without the limiting physiological responses and capabilities of being a child. Despite all his experiences, Billy is still a kid - a bit awkward in his growing body, he's impulsive with his emotional responses, he jumps to conclusions and is very one track minded, has a hard time putting words to thoughts or instincts and understanding certain things and intentions (situations being very black and white). But as Adult Billy who is Marvel, he still sees through the same eyes, but he can filter distractions and pause to think through reflexive emotions, and he has a better understanding on just how morally grey the world can be, a gained clarity on other intentions and livelihoods, and he can empathize and read other's emotions in more detail than just the basic happy/mad/sad. Basically, Billy's brain has physically grown to that of an adult.

On the other hand, there is also what I like to believe is a...sort of third will in what makes Captain Marvel. He is, for all intents and purposes, a vessel or an avatar of sorts. He is a Chosen Champion by the Wizard Shazam to wield the powers of the Greek Gods (specifically the Greek gods, bc...well, that's a whole other post to ramble on), hes the mortal connection between them and the human world, their gift to the humans as a protector, as the guiding light of good. He is a symbol and title beyond one person. It is much like the mantle of Batman being passed on, except instead of all the gadgets and tech and databases...it's experiences and memories and wisdom gained by the previous Marvels, and available when properly called upon. Captain Marvel is like a reincarnation every time there is a new chosen champion. Billy is himself, but there were also others before him, other Marvels that existed and lived that can be remembered.

There is, however, a weird side effect to this being that the more in touch and immersed with these previous Marvel's he becomes, the more he slips away from himself - less Billy and human, more ancient and disconnected. He loses Billy's mannerisms and speech pattern and warm empathy, he still follows the ideology of good, but the charisma is gone, he's distant and cold.

All of this makes for a very interesting and fun way of writing Marvel and Billy - in how they each think through situations, how they each interact with the same people, how they each react to everything. And that's including how the same people react and treat each of them differently. Someone may see and treat Billy as a kid, but with Marvel they interact with and see an adult, a peer. When someone knows who Marvel really is, they need to consciously remind themselves that Marvel is Billy is a kid, because literally everything about Marvel screams at their senses that he's an adult (sunshine naivety aside). He still walks and talks and looks and is capable of thinking like an adult. It's not a situation of a couple of kids standing on top of each other in a trenchcoat or a kid dressing and doing their makeup like an adult. Magic has made him an adult, sort of.

At the core of it, the one experiencing and remembering and feeling everything is a child. There is no separating that, he is a different face of the same coin. So while Marvel can handle the emotional and mental exhaustion and stress of the situations he is put in, Billy Batson is going to suffer through the replays when everything is done. Because superheroing is not all saving lives and being praised, it's seeing people be hurt and bleed, interacting with the worst of humanity and others, witnessing tragedies and death in small intimate encounters and in large numbers. He is the one that will have nightmares and trouble sleeping, he is the one that will bear the brunt of the trauma and remorse, navigating detailed memories of violence and how it felt to hurt, wondering why there are phantom pains and aches when his body is not damaged, all with no trusted support system to turn to (because if he does, will the JL just see him as a child who cannot handle being a hero? will they turn him away?). Billy is the one having his childhood and innocence ripped away from him for the sake of the world. There are consequences of being the chosen champion, and while Billy is willing to accept them, will continue to fight and uphold his divine duties, will put others before himself every time, it wont make be easy.

The potential of how complicated Billy and Marvel can be, and how other heroes cannot fully comprehend it without a trusted in depth discussion (only Black Adam can understand and lemme tell you, that's a hot mess) - that's what makes him and his situation so interesting and fun to write.

[asterythm]

A is for Amour || Human Error (2)

Pairings: Eventual Logicality, eventual Prinxiety Word Count: 2.5k Chapter Summary: Though rigid schedules may have worked in his favour when it came to essays and science fairs, Logan's plans are ill-equipped to handle a living, breathing human. He finds this out the hard way. Chapter Warnings: “Implied gore mention” is all I can think of for this one. Let me know if I’ve forgotten anything, though! General Warnings: Toxic romantic relationship, abusive Deceit, low self-esteem/self-deprecation, negative thinking

<< First Chapter || Read this chapter on AO3

Logan Berry was just about ready to eat his tie.

Not in the literal sense, of course; Logan was very well aware that cloths and fabrics did not have much nutritional value to them. They’d be difficult to digest, for one, and he didn’t imagine the taste could be too appetizing either. The young man had merely been using figurative language to express irritation.

A little clarity never hurt anybody.

Perhaps it would be simpler to forget about the textile consumption and just put it this way: suffice it to say, anyone looking at Logan now would never be able to guess how excited the boy had been only thirty minutes ago.

Which was a shame, really, considering how rare it was for Logan to get excited about anything nowadays.

It was true, though — Logan had been walking on sunshine for weeks in anticipation of this moment. How could he not? Today was the day of his first-ever session in his new tutoring job; a day he’d spent long days and longer nights preparing for. Logan had even gone so far as to create and rehearse a script that contained everything he intended to say, word-for-word. Every detail he could think of, he had planned, all the way down to the exact outfit he’d wear — a freshly-ironed black polo paired with his best blue necktie was the perfect way to passively say, this young man means business. Knowing how crucial a good first impression would be to their overall success, Logan had done everything in his power to ensure that today’s session would run perfectly. It had taken every second that he could spare (and quite a few that he couldn’t), but he didn’t mind. After all, Logan had been completely convinced that all his efforts were bound to pay off in the end.

Oh, what a fool he’d been.

You see, it was only once Logan was watching this unsettlingly energetic thing come careening around the corner did he realise that in all of his careful planning, he’d forgotten to factor in one major variable: the student himself. And a single glance was all it took for Logan to realise that his mistake would cost him dearly.

Not only is he late, he’s completely out of breath. And he’s not even bothering to hide it… just look at that gaping mouth, Logan’s narrowed eyes had immediately observed. Smudged glasses, uncombed hair, grass-stained sneakers — one of which is untied, mind you — oh, and now he’s gone and sent books flying everywhere.

So much for first impressions, I suppose.

With the introduction of this new limiting factor, the future wasn’t looking too bright, to say the least. But if there was one thing that Logan’s extensive collection of award-winning science fair projects had taught him, it was to never waste time trying to control the uncontrollable. So, notebook clutched in one hand and tenaciously holding back doubts with the other, Logan had launched with great determination into the script that he’d practiced so many times before.

It took all of five minutes to grind that determination into the dust. Every single time he paused for breath, the freckled boy seated crookedly in front of him would take it as an invitation to start chattering away at a speed that would give even the most accomplished of auctioneers a run for their money. Poor Logan could hardly keep up with his student, let alone settle him down long enough to get through even the first paragraph.

Finally, he had been forced to abandon his perfectly-crafted script in favour of a much less elegant approach: a simple and to-the-point list of questions. Though it physically pained Logan to abandon the result of so many tears shed and sleepless nights passed, he’d rather finish things the “alkali way” (or, as the cool kids preferred, the “basic way”) than never finish them at all. And if he’s going to talk anyway, Logan reasoned, I might as well give him something productive to talk about. Surely then we’ll be able to stay on-topic.

No such luck. Logan’s first question got no more than a noncommittal shrug before Parker — or was it Patrick? No, he was quite certain that the boy’s name was Parker — was off again, running his mouth a mile a minute, dropping awful puns and grammatically incorrect sentences all over the previously pristine carpet. The poor librarians would have some cleaning up to do later.

Okay, so plan B didn’t work either. Nothing to worry about, though, Logan pretended to believe. I’ve still got twenty-four letters to get through.

To be fair, Plan C was really more of a coping mechanism than an actual step-by-step plan. A surprisingly effective way of releasing pent-up stress and frustration, this longtime favourite involved imagining, in vivid detail, the source of that frustration being slowly and painfully fed into a running wood chipper.

What?

Some might think this cruel. Logan preferred to call it merciful; after all, at least he was limiting his vengeance to the hypothetical realm. An added bonus was that, in the interest of ensuring the utmost accuracy, it had compelled him to familiarize himself with the inner workings of wood chippers. So really, Plan C was a win-win for all parties involved.

As you might have guessed by now, dealing with annoying people never really had been Logan’s strong suit.

Actually, make that dealing with people in general. In hindsight, signing up to work with Sandford Secondary’s peer-to-peer tutoring program had definitely not been the best idea he’d ever had, in that case. Not because he wasn’t qualified — complex formulas and sentence structure he could handle in his sleep. But teaching those same concepts to a student who apparently had no intention of listening, he most certainly could not.

Really, Logan should have known better than to believe that he could ever be successful in any job that depended so much on one’s ability to work with others. Why couldn’t he have chosen something with more facts and numbers?

Facts and numbers were predictable. They always fit neatly into categories of right or wrong, true or false, black or white. Social interaction was so much messier. With no structure, no set of rules, and no procedure to follow, the whole thing was really nothing more than haphazard guesswork, a real-life game of hangman where every wrong word brings you one pen-stroke closer to game over. Bearing all that in mind, Logan had never understood how some people could so easily waltz up to strangers and just begin “bonding” like it was nothing.

And frankly, he didn’t particularly want to understand. Why would anyone choose to while away their life building those fragile houses of cards; vocabulary cards filled with only empty words? Did no one realise that a single misplaced breath is all would take to knock everything down in an instant? Why waste time trying desperately to convince your peers that you’re worth their love, when you could instead be hard at work earning their respect? In Logan’s experience, relationships of any kind — romantic, platonic, even familial — were always sloppy at best when built on love. Respect, on the other hand… respect was real.

This attitude, by the way, was an entirely objective worldview that had nothing to do with the fact that Logan didn’t exactly have many romantic or platonic relationships to choose from. Correlation, not causation.

Besides. Not that he cared.

Taking a deep breath, Logan forced himself to focus back on the session. (That makes one of us, he couldn’t help thinking.) Speaking of empty words… Parker, or Patrick, or whatever-his-name-was, had somehow been ceaselessly talking about corn for —  Logan checked his watch — over seven minutes now. They were getting nowhere, fast.

If Logan allowed the boy to keep this up, the two of them would end up leaving the library having accomplished absolutely nothing at all. That simply would not do. His student’s attitude may not be ideal, but he’d be damned if he let his own standards slip because of it.

After taking a brief pause to collect himself and his thoughts, Logan stood abruptly, causing the freckled boy to cut himself off mid-sentence.

Slowly, deliberately, he moved to stare out the large windows framing the section of the library where the two of them were seated, so that his back was turned and his face was hidden from the other boy.

Then, voice dripping with contempt, he spoke.

“Let me make one thing clear. I am not here to make friends, and neither should you be. I am here to teach, and as of yesterday, I was under the impression that you are here to learn. However, your behaviour so far has led me to believe that perhaps I was mistaken. For once in my life, I find myself praying that I will be proven wrong.

“Now, I don’t know what kind of merry tomfoolery you were expecting from our session today, but I do know exactly what I was expecting, and exactly what I have prepared for you. And since you clearly do not seem interested in steering this session anywhere productive, I suggest that you hand the reins to me and do exactly as I instruct from here on out. I have prepared a rigid agenda for how we will be spending this time together, and I intend to follow it. I expect you to do the same. Be aware that this agenda includes absolutely no icebreakers; we can’t afford to waste any more of our valuable lesson time, especially not on childish games.

“Starting right now, you will answer my questions so I can develop a plan for what we need to accomplish, and you will answer them without distraction. When you are not answering questions, you will hold your tongue like your entire future depends on it. Because it very well might. Is that understood —” just in time, he suddenly remembered the boy’s name — “is that understood, Patton?”

The following moment of quiet, the first one since Patton had stepped foot in the library, was answer enough for Logan.

“Good. I trust this will not be a discussion that we will need to have again, then.”

With that, Logan returned to his seat, carefully scrutinizing Patton once more to see if he could spot any differences. He didn’t need to try too hard. Patton’s transformation was so drastic, it was almost…  

Unnerving. The vigor from earlier had all but disappeared — thank goodness — but with its departure came a distinct dullness to the eyes framed in those round-rimmed glasses. And where Patton had previously been nearly falling out of his seat with barely contained energy, he now slumped inwards as if the words that Logan had spoken were actually physically crushing him.

At the sight, Logan couldn’t help but feel the tiniest glimmer of guilt. Perhaps he hadn’t needed to lay the scolding on quite so heavily. What if I overdid it?

A second later, Logan remembered he didn’t care.

Excellent. This shall be ideal. The brief moment of weakness over, Logan settled back down into the library’s comfortable couch. “What are your academic strengths?” he read off his notebook.

“Uhh, I’m… nice, sometimes. I guess.”  

Logan let out a deep sigh. A wood-chipper-shaped silhouette flickered in the back of his mind.

Most likely seeing his teacher’s disapproval of the vague answer, Patton hurried to add, “I mean, I can be pretty patient when it comes to worksheets. It always takes a really long time for me to finish my homework, so I… kind of have to be, you know?”

“Hm. Is that it?”

“That’s all I can come up with right now. Um, sorry.”

“I see.” Pencil scratched across paper as Logan scribbled down (a paraphrased version of) Patton’s response. In the otherwise unbroken silence, the sound grated loudly against Logan’s ears. He hurried to finish so he could move on to the next question. “Academic weaknesses?”

This time, Patton’s answered without even a moment’s hesitation. “Focus. Organization. Time management. Anything related to math or numbers, really. I’m not good at taking risks. My work is always sloppy and hard to read. It takes me a long time to wrap my head around new concepts.” He rattled off one item after another, a strange mix of confidence and detachment, almost as if reading off an invisible script that he’d already recited — or heard recited to him — many times before.

Logan wasn’t sure what to say to that. Here was another reason he hated socialising; people always had this odd tendency to hyper-fixate on what needed to be fixed rather than what they already had going for them, a tendency that Logan couldn’t imagine was healthy or even at all helpful. There’s so much beauty mixed in with the bad, and yet you choose to ignore it all? Worst of all, these senseless “social blinkers” meant that Logan had no chance of getting an accurate idea of Patton’s actual strengths and weaknesses. There was no way that every item on that list of shortcomings that Patton had just blazed through could actually apply, right?

Logan decided not to push the question, though; experience had taught him that calling others out on their poor logic didn’t often end well. I’ll just have to figure that part out myself, I suppose. Instead, he adjusted his thick glasses, wrote down one or two items from Patton’s list of weaknesses, and read aloud the next question.

And the next, and the next. They were really tearing through the conversation now; Patton’s answers seemed to get shorter and more succinct with every second that passed. Not that Logan was complaining. In fact, he was nothing but grateful for Patton’s newfound intense focus. It seemed his brief speech had done the trick.

Sooner than expected, a quiet trill interrupted the two of them. He checked his phone to see that his alarm had gone off. The session was over.

Had it really been two hours already? It had felt like so much less than that.

Shutting off the alarm, Logan turned to face his student. “Well, that marks the end of our session. I… appreciated your cooperation, Patton. We may have gotten off to a bit of a rocky start, but your focus in the second half of the session was sufficient to convince me that we won’t have too many problems from here on out.”

This time, Patton said nothing at all, settling instead for a wordless nod.

“Next week, I will have worksheets prepared for you. In the meantime, your homework is to write me a page, single-spaced, telling me a little bit more about short-and long-term educational goals. Full sentences only, please.” Logan flipped his notebook shut. “I look forward to reading your writing for the first time,” he lied.

In response, Patton picked up his backpack and started to walk away. He only made it about three steps, though, before turning back and opening his mouth. Logan waited.

The words never came. After the briefest of pauses, Patton’s mouth closed, lips pressed firmly together, perhaps to suppress whatever he’d been wanting to say.

As watched the child disappear around the corner, a thought arose unbidden:

For some reason, Patton seemed so much smaller leaving the library than he had looked when he was entering.

***

[next chapter]

A/N: Okay. Even though it's only chapter two, I have a LOT to say. Most of this is about the fic in general rather than the chapter, so... it's LONG. I'm sorry. In the interest of not putting you to sleep, let's speed-round this.

The first chapter of AAmour was the very first thing I ever wrote for the Sanders Sides fandom. I based that chapter almost ENTIRELY on a oneshot comic by @the-pastel-peach.

Two months later, I was planning for NaNoWriMo 2018 (a challenge where authors write 50k in 30 days). Long story short, I decided that I'd like to try finishing AAmour.

I didn't.

I did hit 50k, but I only made it to chapter ten. I still want to finish this thing though, so I've decided to edit and post what I already wrote, one chapter a month, and then write the second half of AAmour during NaNoWriMo 2019.

I'm already late with this first chapter because my dumb brain decided I needed to do a complete rewrite a week before posting, but in the future I'd like to post a chapter on the first day of every month.

Almost everything after chapter one is my own work. I say "almost" because I picked @residentanchor's brain a lot during the planning phase.

So yes, I may still be writing a high school AU, but this is no longer @the-pastel-peach​'s high school AU. Besides Logan's last name (I couldn’t resist -- the pun game was too strong) and the first chapter, any similarities to their version of the AU are completely coincidental; in fact, I've barely looked at theirs because I didn't want to risk any subconscious copying.

Also heeeeyyyyyy this is my 200th post that’s pretty nifty--

I think that about covers it. Thank you so, so much for reading -- both the chapter and my ridiculously long author’s note!! See you soon, lovelies. Take care <3

General tag list: @surleytemple @starryfirefliesbloggo @icecoldparadise @lyditist @fandom-random2405 @beach-fan @ihateitwhenyourejustvague @starryeyedhomicide

AAmour tag list: @romanticsanders @thatrandomautist @thelowlysatsuma @mirror2thespirit @pokii-jonas

Let me know if you’d like to be added to or removed from either tag list!

[doomedandstoned]

Tripping Through the Void with SUNNATA

It's been four years since Doomed & Stoned visited SUNNATA and my how they've grown in the interim! Three successful independent releases, legendary live performances, an exponentially growing fanbase, and broad critical acclaim have shifted the spotlight on the Warsaw doomers. Long before they became the juggernaut of the heavy underground, we knew them as an exciting upstart called Satellite Beaver. This week, we give Sunnata’s latest collections of songs a thorough going over and speak with Szymon Ewertowski (guitar, vox), Adrian Gadomski (guitar), Michał Dobrzański (bass), and Robert Ruszczyk (drums) about what fuels their fire.

Heart of Storm

By Simon Howard

Polish loners Sunnata offer the melodic pilgrim a ritualistic, dark, heavy journey into the atmospheric Outlands, hypnotizing us with an eternal 48 minutes of tripping. Pineal glands will decalcify, doors of perception will be cleansed, and the listener will be enlightened.

Sunnata have been creating a musical Zenith in a blend of genres since 'Climbing the Colossus' (2014) and 'Zorya' (2016). This well-crafted album is hard to believe, in the fact that this band have only been around since 2014. Incorrect. Jump in the TARDIS of Tunes, and rewind ourselves back to 2008. Under the moniker of Satellite Beaver, they released two demos and one final EP in 2012, aptly named, The Last Bow. If the reader is not familiar with Satellite Beaver, then you have an amazing musical journey ahead of you.

Outlands by SUNNATA

'Outlands' (2018) was recorded at Monochrom Studio, mixed and mastered by Haldor Grunberg of Satanic Audio, and brilliantly saturated in the artwork by Maciej Kamuda.

I really cannot attest to what was in the Kool-Aid at Monochrom Studio, but the results are spiritually absorbed into the listener's soul. Mind expanding mantras like "Lucid Dream," "The Ascender," and the epically entrancing closing track "Hollow Kingdom" appeal to me on planes we can only experience ourselves. Outlands transitions from mellow meditational hymns to heavenly heavy riffs, blending this album into something transcendental for avid or new fans of Sunnata. This journey will be taken upon by many, and many times. Musical Mecca has been found. The void has been filled.

Soon It Will All Be Gone

A Conversation with Sunnata

Interview by Billy Goate | Photos by Justyna Kamińska

How would you characterize the evolution of sunnata from ‘Climbing the Colossus’ to ‘Zorya’ to your latest record, ‘Outlands’?

It’s been a long way. I would describe it as emotional trip from anger on our debut Climbing the Colossus, through spatial epicness and a need for air on Zorya to introverted melancholia you can dive into on Outlands. In general, we have always been the "sad guys" who were into kind of a gloomy, dark state of mind and soul and our approach towards the music evolved along with our skills of using instruments to express what we feel inside. That’s why I’d characterize our evolution as a path to greater complexity of emotions, where our debut was the simplest and our latest album the most complicated, emotion-wise.

Are there thematic motifs that the band finds attractive when writing songs? Which themes were most influential on 'Outlands’?

We definitely have become more lyrically confident since our previous album and even though we still consider the role of our lyrics as backing for the rest, I think we can finally admit that Sunnata actually has something to say! (laughs) It might not be your most positive answer ever, but our motifs on Outlands consist of loneliness, despair, the negative influence of religious fanaticism, helplessness, and development of the self and whatever conflict you have inside of you. We dig deep, reopen wounds, and push to get to the core. We prefer fighting yourself to fighting others, until you turn into none.

Are the songs on the new album connected in any way? Is this all a “Lucid Dream” that culminates in a journey into the “Outlands,” with “The Ascender” climbing some forbidden mountain of the gods? And what is the “Gordian Knot” -- an internal fight-or-flight struggle? At the end of the journey, is the prize the conquest of a “Hollow Kingdom”? So many questions!

Sure! Song order always comes last, so we have no intention in putting a story together in any way. However, this sort of lyrical consistency allows us to arrange one after another in a way that triggers certain emotions and impressions. Let’s get through the album piece by piece:

"Lucid Dream" encourages you to give, not to receive; to understand that if you separate your self-esteem from the external world and build value of self and the will to explore, you will grow as a human.

"Scars" is a story of being misled, lied to, cheated on, and abandoned on the one hand, but also a story of growing strength and power to end whatever harms you.

"Outlands" was actually inspired by some politically related events. It's all about sacrifice as a way to bring attention to an idea or social problem ignored before. Too deep to dig into it in a single interview.

"The Ascender" track is focused around any sort of radicalism giving an illusion of being permitted to force your point of view on others. We disagree with anyone’s feeling to be justified for actions that do harm. It’s an illusion that keeps you away from self.

"Gordian Knot" is exactly what you have interpreted: inner struggle -- one that can make you fall apart or disintegrate, in any way.

"Hollow Kingdom" has been chosen as climax, the ending song in praise of emptiness. Its structure, repetitive feeling, and overwhelming melancholia are the best ending of an album we could choose from this track list.

Tell us about the artwork, the artist you chose, and the layers of meaning behind this many-faced wraith?

The only constant is change to us. That’s why this time, instead of going with the magnificent Jeffrey Smith of Ascending Storm once again, we decided to go with another talented artist, Maciej Kamuda, who is also author of Weedpecker and Major Kong artwork. We felt a strong urge to do something different. Deity presented on the front cover is a variation on deep symbolism of Goddess Kali. We didn’t want her to look in a way she’s known from Hinduism. We were inspired more by deep, complex symbolism behind her various forms. If you read about her, you will instantly get it.

One consistent word that comes up in all the descriptions of your music -- live performances especially -- is “ritualistic.” Whether it is the careful setting of the stage, the lighting of the incense, or the hypnotic, trance-like rhythms of the music. What is the importance of ritual for the band and what does this bring to your compositions and performances.

Ritualism in our music comes from trance-inducing forms we create. Immersed in void and drugged with noise, we jam a lot in search of the desired emotion trigger -- we can’t name it, we just get the feeling. If we do, we proceed further. Our work routine and who we are as people actually doesn’t have much to do with dark shamanism, but everything changes once we take instruments and start playing together. It’s similar to being possessed with something. All other details you mentioned -- stage setting, light, clothes, and merch -- are secondary to this and their role is to create certain atmosphere to take people on the journey with us.

I've heard rumors of a music video in the works?

Videos are our curse. We’ve been working on them for every album, but for various reasons all these projects were abandoned. Right now, we are at the beginning of production process for video of "The Ascender" song and we really do hope that it will work out this time. I can’t tell much yet, but we would like the outcome to be something similar to our music -- '90s aesthetics in a psychedelic, doomy setting. We’ll see what time will tell.

Let’s close by giving our readers a peek at your touring plans for 2018 and beyond. What “Outlands” are you off to in the days and months ahead?

We can’t reveal many dates since they are not officially announced yet, but after the our spring tour of Scandinavia with the crazy lads of Boss Keloid, we have various festivals in the summertime confirmed and good perspectives on touring Europe with Dopethrone in October, plus an appearance at Gizzardfest in Rotherham, UK. I believe that best is yet about to come. We just need to follow our own path.

Ruling Land of Emptiness

By Shawn Gibson & Billy Goate

To understand the significance of Sunnata's musical achievements, we need at least a cursory understanding of the soil in which the band is planted. Poland's heavy music scene has been experiencing a surge of activity over the past decade or two, but its music roots are deep-seated and stretch back generations to the darkly complex oeuvre of composers like Frederic Chopin, Leopold Godowsky, Karol Szymanowski, Henryk Górecki, and so many others.

Sunnata's home base of Warsaw encompasses an impressive if turbulent history, evolving from a smattering of villages more than 1400 years ago to become one of the ten largest capital cities in Europe. Warsaw has had more than its share of doom to contend with, too, from disease and famine to regional and global wars -- including the devastating Nazi occupation, which spurred the great underground resistance movement known as the Warsaw Uprising.

Given this context, it's significant that Sunnata has adopted a name representing one of the fundamental principles of Buddhism. Śūnyatā is a transliteration of the Sanskrit word शून्यता (pronounced as "shoonyataa"), which signifies voidness. Think of it as a meditative state of "emptiness" in which the mind is devoid of desire, specifically the stubborn presence of that word we all learn by age two: mine. Śūnyatā involves the diminishing of one's ego, and the band that wears this name has dedicated the better part of a decade to exploring this philosophy through the medium of ritual heavy music.

Photo by Aleksandra Burska

"Hollow Kingdom," the closing track on Outlands, is one example of Sunnata's approach to voidness, with its droning ups and downs and subtle twists. Sunnata let this song be the pedals of a cherry blossom drifting in the breeze. Another highlight is "The Ascender" (my favorite of the record). It's the kind of vessel one imagines boarding to cross over to निर्वाण (nirvana). The backing vocals near the beginning of the song calls to mind prayers and mantras of Tibetan monks. Guitars buzz like propellers, shuttling you along to another plane of existence. The heavy psychedelic vibe and stirring chorus makes for an uplifting experience that is, one imagines, not unlike astral projection. Sunnata are your gurus fixed atop the mountain, lulling you ever closer on an ascendant journey skyward. Along the way, there's an avalanche of emotions.

One imagines the many plagues, fires, wars, and uprisings that might have influenced "Scars." The song strikes a thrash-like tempo, with jazzy cymbals and a psyched-out tambourine. Then, at the five-minute mark, all hell breaks loose with a thundering bassline, fuzzed-out guitars, and a pummeling drumbeat. Doom has come to claim its reign! Similarly, "Gordian Knot" attacks like a nest of pissed-off hornets. Still rocking hard by the two-minute mark, things lighten up for a spell as fuzzy desert riffs and reassuring chants (with those wonderful backing vocals) lull you to sanctuary. The aggressive pace returns, leading to a crescendo of screaming vox to chase every worry from your mind. Only the journey consumes you now.

Taken in sum, Outlands is an exhilarating magic carpet ride, albeit with some turbulence. Sunnata hone the powerful elements of rock and metal like master alchemists, dispensing measured doses of doom, sludge, psychedelic, and stoner, melding them seamlessly, and transcending boundaries only few conceived possible. The heavy doom passages are somehow made even heavier by this psychedelic blend, which brings one closer to a state of voidness.

High spiritual concept meets the earthy might of doom in Outlands. It is the enlightenment of the yogis, the ascension of gurus, a musical Kathmandu. I've visited the temple now multiple times over the course of weeks and months and it continues to be a cathartic experience for me. Outlands will make your heart flutter and embolden your spirit with its mesmerizing riffs and hypnotic rhythms. It will usher you down a river of feeling and bury you in a cascade of sonic desolation. The chants and mantras sent my spirit soaring heavenward. Returning to earth, I felt as if I have been everyplace in existence and at the same time perfectly still, third eye open -- mind, body, and spirit aligned. Awareness is the gift I received from this Outlands. Who knows? In listening, perhaps you will find your own Śūnyatā, as well.

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[luci-is-a-devil-]

Beast!AU Jeongcheol

Notes: Finished! This was supposed to be a beauty and the beast au but this happened??? Whoops~ thanks to @andytheraven who gave me motivation to finish this!

•as a kid you were always teased, since you didn’t fit into the stereotype that everyone wished to be •it got worse as you got older, as your parents fought and then your father would go to the bar, to relive his memories •and your mother would leave you at your grandmothers house for weeks before even calling to see how you were doing •by the age of eight, you were being bullied more than ever, and it seemed to be getting worse as days passed •it didn’t matter if you wore nice clothes, the girls would say that it was like a hobo pretending to be royalty •it didn’t matter if you tried your best at sports, the boy made fun of you and tripped you anyway •so what was the point in trying? •every day after school you would trudge home, after taking thumb tacks out of your shoes most days •or your gym clothes would go missing, maybe your notebook would be filled with harsh threats •shoved into lockers, forced to do others chores, giving up your lunch •after a particularly long, dreadful day, you walked home without a coat or boots in the snow •you made it through the front door, and crumpled onto the floor, sobbing •your loud heaving sounds mad your grandmother rush over, seeing her only grandchild on the floor, tears streaming out of eyes •you asked your grandma why everyone hated you? •why did they make fun of you? were you really a mistake? •did anyone except for her truly love you? •the words that she spoke next would change your life, believe it or not •"Would you like to forget everything? Not feel the poison from the words they whisper behind your back?“ •you nodded, tired of it •just waking up made you tired nowadays •the nightmares that plagued you at night, repeating the torture that went on In the day •why have emotions if the only ones you feel are negative ones? • •when you went into school the next day, the kids did the usual •the girls would avoid you and then wait for you to cry just so they could act innocent •but not today, never again •you walked right to your desk and sat down, looking forward at the board •not even bothering to glance at the girls •when it was gym time, the boys lined up for dodgeball •they told the teacher that you wanted to play with them, and she let you join the group •the plan was that everyone on the other team would get to pelt you •and no one would be any wiser •or so they thought •when the teacher blew the whistle, you reached the balls first and threw them as hard as you could at the other members •one by one, they got out, you dodged the balls like they were their words filled with poison •one touch from them and you’d be back where you started •eventually it was only you left, everyone else was out •throwing the last ball to the other side, you looked at the teacher and with a deadpan voice •"yay. I won.” • •you didn’t actually forget everything, maybe your grandma wasn’t that powerful of a wizard •or maybe that was the only way she thought you would understand what kind of magic she put on you •what she did do was give you the tools to build a wall •her magic worked the moment you stepped out of the house •you couldn’t feel any emotion from anyone except yourself, no anger or sadness would come from the students who tried to tear down your self esteem •you were blank, you were average, you were so emotionless that it scared your peers •if someone would crash into you, you’d look blankly at them and continue walking •if a teacher called on you, you’d give a blunt answer, uncaring if it was correct •but when you got home… •YOU WERE A HOT MESS •spending twelve hours a day, five days a week, being emotionless took a toll funnily enough •it would come crashing back to you once you stepped through the door, •hundreds of emotions all at once •happiness from getting the correct answer, sadness from hearing that you class pet had died, anger from a teacher blaming you for not passing handouts •all the emotions that you hadn’t felt that day, came within five minutes •sometimes it was too extreme, to many at once and you had to lie down •but not today, today was alright, it was a balance of emotion •"Grandma, I’m home!“ •dropping your bag on the floor, you went to walk into the living room, where she was most likely sitting •stopping for a second to read the photo that had been hanging since your emotions were sealed up •Emotions are fragile, when they flood into you like a river, the spell will break and so will you •the words used to scare you, would make you want to stay home •since home was a safe haven, wasn’t it? •"y/n?” •that wasn’t a voice you remembered, nor was it one that your heart wanted you to remember •slowly stepping into the living room, you saw you grandma, she was staring at a stack of papers on the coffee table •across from her was a lady, the lady you’d wait by the door for her to come home •to receive her calls, just something so you could pretend that she cared about you •"what are you doing here?“ •your tone was cold, and you could tell that she was hurt by how she flinched at your voice •your grandmother asked for you to sit down, so she could explain what was happening •why was this happening? •you sat stiffly down on the couch down next to your grandma, your eyes never leaving the intruder •"honey, i never wanted to leave. I wasn’t in the right place to take of you, I could only think about hurting myself.” •she started off, but honestly you couldn’t bring yourself to give any fucks •"you and that man abandoned me! You left a child alone! You never called! I’d spend hours by the door, Waiting for someone who’d never come!“ •you yelled, anger taking you over, you could feel your face turn red with anger •your grandma seemed proud that you were finally speaking up for yourself •both of your hands were shaking, you could taste the metallic consistency of blood as you but your lip •"I know. And I apologize. I’m sure your dad would too.” •"why isn’t he here?“ •you didn’t want him here, or her for that matter, but if one was barging in, the other one followed •"h-he passed away. A few years ago. I’m so sorry” •there was a flash of sadness on her face but the she went back to a pity look •you stood up from your spot and looked at your grandma, and she just knew you were going to explode •"So what? Both of you left me! I spent years wondering if it was my fault! Now I’m supposed to care that a stranger died? Why are you here???“ •at this point, you were tired, so tired •this felt worse then when you got home, you felt anger and sadness •"Y/N! I am your mother and you are coming with me!” •and you were gone, without even realizing you ran outside of your house, shoes off at four in the afternoon •kids and their parents gawked at you as you continued running, running from memories that you wanted to keep buried •your feet hurt, but you kept running, pushing yourself to run faster, just to feel nothing again •when your felt grass in between your toes, you started sobbing •you were outside of your walls •and you could feel •you could feel the emotions that you wanted to keep locked up •dropping to the floor, you cried •you let yourself be angry at your father, for leaving and dying without a goodbye •at your grandma for not explaining better, at your mother for returning where she wasn’t welcomed •but mostly you were tired, running and emotions took a lot out of you •so curling into your sweater, you went to sleep, imaging a fairy tale like the one your dad read before this • •when you woke up, there was a blanket over you •quickly sitting up, you looked around, expecting to be in someone’s home •but nope, you were lying on your bed of grass •instead a male was next to you, lying down on his back as if he was watching the clouds with his eyes closed •he was beautiful, but with a glance inspecting his face, you noticed that his lip had little teeth dents •his hair was messy, in a way that you could tell that it was an accident •he looked like a cute mess, a very cute mess actually •folding the blanket, you stood up and removed your sweater, leaving you in your undershirt •and then you attempted to take out the foliage from your hair, whilst you pulling out sticks and leaves from your bird nest, the boy started to wake up •he rubbed his eyes, slowly sitting up and looked at you with a lazy smile drawn on his face •"hey" •raising a hand so you could return his greeting, albeit a lazy one •giving up on the mess in your head, you offered a hand to the male who was looking at the buttercups that littered the floor •"I’m y/n" •he grabbed your hand, and you helped pull him to a standing position •"jeonghan, yoon jeonghan.“ •he introduced himself while dusting the grass off of his jeans •and the both of you started the walk down the hill, neither of you asking the obvious •why were the two of you there? •you brought up school and asked if he went to yours •and he full out laughed, cackled even •"we’ve been in the same class since sixth grade.” •yeah, after elementary you didn’t bother to learn anyone’s name •somehow the conversation moved to elementary school, and both of you found out that you were both tormented •which made you laugh, because kids are cruel no matter how you look •when you arrived at school, you were late obviously •it was third period by the time you showed up, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care •jeonghan invited you sit with him during lunch and you agreed, happy to have someone to take what was going on off your mind •during classes everyone avoided you, as per usual •it made the day more bearable, as you doodled in your notebook •soon a sketch of the sleeping jeonghan was doodled in the center, with a butterfly drawn on the tip of his nose •soon it was lunch! •so you walked down to the cafeteria, nervous to see jeonhan again •nervous to have emotions, that you had to deal with at the same time as things happened •but sitting at the table was jeonghan (his hair looked combed now) and three other boys •all of them looked normal functional humans, but since they hung out with jeonghan you assumed they weren’t •sliding across from jeonghan, you waved again and he lazily greeted you as he continued to steal grapes off of the boy with full lips tray •the boys looked at jeonghan as they waited for an introduction, which only came as he started taking the strawberries off your tray •"this is y/n. I met her in the forest, we slept next to each other.“ •he said biting into a strawberry, the juice trailed down his lip •he was quickly passed a napkin from grape boy, which he smiled at but didn’t take •laughing at the display of affection, all of the males at the table except jeonghan looked shocked •making you raise an eyebrow in their direction as you stole a blueberry from jeonghan •popping it into your mouth, you heard a gasp from the whole cafeteria •looking behind you, you watched as hundreds of eyes were drawn on you •"why?” •you asked, looking at jeonghan •"they think cheollie and I are dating. You look like a home wrecker right now.“ •he replied licking his finger that had juice on it •so you did the only thing that you could do •you turned and took a grape from grape boy, put it in your mouth and offered him a strawberry •with a smirk from him, he bit it out of your hand, leaving only the green part left •another collective gasp from the cafeteria as the three of you continued to trade fruits •when lunch was over, you waved goodbye and started to walk to class •"hey y/n, see you after class?” •that was grape boy, you spun around and nodded, waving in his direction, you continued to walk to class • •after class, you waited to see if the males would actually come •and they did •along with people following them that would shoot you dirty looks, making you giggle and point them out to jeonghan •"I highly doubt your name is cheollie or grape boy, mind introducing yourself?“ •you asked the full lipped male, as he ran his hand through his hair •"really? I’m Choi Seungcheol, same class since seventh grade.” •you shrugged and reintroduced yourself and then asked what was up with the group of girls following you •both of them looked at each other, and started laughing •"oh seungcheol! You’re perfect! You’re body is like a sculpture, you’re thighs were crafted from god!“ •jeonghan said in a high pitched tone, as if reading from a script he clasped his hands and pretended to swoon •this made all three of you cackle, as this impersonation was very much like some of the kids you had heard today •"did you see jeonghan? His face is like an angel! He’s so innocent! I hear he comes from a rich family! And he wants to be a doctor!” •seungcheol screeched, doing the same motion as jeonghan earlier, only his muscles bulged out of his clothes •you were laughing on the floor, your face red as you tried to breathe through your laughter •being with these two was amazing, even though you’ve only known them for a day, this was the best you’ve felt •but good things have to come to an end, as the intruder walked inside of the store where you and seungcheol were currently teasing jeonghan for getting a bowl of fruit •"y/n! Where were you? I was worried sick!“ •yeah, and alcohol and strange men worked better than Tylenol •looking like a deer in headlights, you tried to slip through an aisle and avoid her •but to no avail, she grabbed your wrist, her red fake nails dug into your skin •looking at the two boys, you could only mouthed help before she dragged you out of the store •before throwing you into the car, and flipping the child lock so you couldn’t escape •you saw jeonghan and seungcheol outside on the sidewalk, being very confused •you started banging on the window and screaming, hoping that they could hear you •you mom started the car and drove away, just as you saw seungcheol tap the brunette male on the shoulder •he pointed to the car as it zoomed away, your hands on the window • •the days had passed on, the woman had taken you to the house that you lived in early on •there she kept you in the same room that they would lock you up in when you were younger •the walls were painted the same dark green it was years ago, toys were all over the floor, webs were in the corners of the walls, but no spiders were to be found •you were entirely alone, except for when she would force you out of the room to clean •and then you’d be shoved back in the same small room •the carpet was coming up, you could see the planks under the rug •she wouldn’t bring you food, only throwing half empty bottles of water •the plastic on the top always had red lipstick on it, as if she wanted to remind you that she was always there •the only window was to high off the ground, if you were Spider-Man you’d have no problem •but as a weird rapunzel/beast hybrid, no such luck •some days you could convince yourself that your grandma was looking for you, or jeonghan and seungcheol missed you •but no one came except for strange men that would pay your mom, and then they both would disappear •leaving you alone in the house •and today was the day •the day where you left, you had been taking pillows and clothes for days •and finally you had a big enough pile, so you threw them out of the window and waited for them to fall •once they collected a circle-ish area, you climbed out onto the thin ledge of the window •you’d only have one chance, and you jumped with all your might •for a moment it felt like you were flying, like you had no worries, everything was okay •and then you hit the ground •pain wasn’t an emotion, but you had never felt it like this before •screaming in agony, you watched as people crowded around you •they would yell for someone to call the police as they watched, instead of doing it themselves •your screams kept getting louder but only when you saw one face did you stop •it was one of the boys you sat at the table with, when you ate with jeonghan the first day •"call Han, and cheol, and gran. Please.” •you begged, knowing that you might be done, that you might not get the fairy tale ending •and you saw an ambulance pull up, and everything became quiet •their mouths still moved, but no sound was coming out •and your eyes keep closing, just a little nap couldn’t hurt • •when you woke there were two bodies next to you •"beauty, and gaston, what a wonderful surprise.“ •you croaked out, your voice was scratchy •but they heard you •their heads both shot toward you, two pairs of eyes watching your every move •the first emotion that you felt wasn’t anger at being kidnapped, it wasn’t sadness from leaving these two •you felt loved, warm, you could finally tell eight year old you that someone loved you •you looked sleepily at jeonghan who had his hand holding yours, while his other one was holding seungcheol’s calloused one •"what a nice surprise to see you as well, beast.” •you weren’t a Disney princess, you were you •and they were them •no magic was needed anymore •and they lived happily ever after • •got you! •nah you had to go to court, to get you mom to go to jail and in case she got patrol •you had to get an order of protection against her too •then you visited your dads grave, only to find out that you had step siblings, older and younger •your grandma was given full custody, and you got to stay at your school •kids treated you differently, seeing you as a victim instead of one of their peers •no longer wanting to be average, you became the valedictorian •your speech said that you were a victim, so were all the other teens who graduated along side you •you were all victims of society’s rules, but you, you made it out alive •head held high, hands intertwined with Seungcheol’s hand, agile his other one held his diploma •your left hand holding jeonghan’s who was holding his diploma and had been given bowls of fruits by other students •life was hard, there were things you’d have to go through •but you never had to question whether anyone loved you

[eyesaremosaics]

How do you deal with regret, feel as though you've made so many mistakes and wasted your youth? How do you come to terms with karmic experiences occurring in this life that cause inexplicable pain and suffering?

Well to be quite honest with you–I’m still in the process of figuring that out. I can only speak from personal experience, but I firmly believe that I created some dark karma’s in the formative lifetimes of my soul’s progression. I burned a lot of bridges, hurt a lot of people, there is no other explanation for why I got dealt such a bad hand this time around. I am paying off my karmic debts with other souls this lifetime. That much is clear to me.

There are times where I feel completely lost in my pain. To feel constantly abandoned and betrayed is so exhausting if you take that perspective on it. What has helped me through these troubling situations is first of all: acceptance. You have to accept a situation for what it is, and the reality of how it is presently. Doesn’t mean it can’t change later, but for now, this is the reality. Accepting things as they are, instead of dwelling on how they should have gone… Takes you out of the present moment.

You can’t create in the past, it’s already over. If you are pulling on past energy, nothing will go forward. In fact you will be in resistance, which is like walking up on a down escalator. Accepting what happened, how you feel, how the other person feels, and trying to honor all perspectives in a situation, is the first step to letting go. Once you have accepted things as they are, now you can do something about it.

The second thing to do is alter your perception of what happened. To do this, you may need to peel apart your emotions from logical reasoning. Objectivity is helpful in achieving understanding. Note that this part of the process, can be very painful–and easier said than done. Often much time and reflection needs to happen before we can take this step. Our emotions are complicated things. As much as we would like to turn themOff, that is not always a possibility.

If you look for the wisdom in the wound, then there is healing.

There is no time limit on how long it takes the heart to heal, know that, and be gentle with yourself as you mend. It is painful to get stitches physically, it is the same emotionally.

Regret is a dirty word to me. I don’t really regret anything, except maybe not finishing college. That I regret, however, I can still go back. It’s not something that can’t be remedied. Situations that have transpired… Were all for a reason. No matter how painful, there was a larger lesson, and truly, I would not have the depth and scope of character that I have without all my experiences (both good and bad).

That sounds cliche, but I mean it. If I regret anything…. It was not having healthier boundaries. I think I would have had an easier time if I had established those. It is important to realize that we all do the best we can with what we have. We operate from a place of the sum of our experiences up until that point.

There was a situation earlier this year, where I wished I had been the bigger person, however, I was too fragile at that time, and could only handle it that way. I don’t regret how I handled it, I was sad and had a hard time processing the loss, but ultimately it was what I needed to do for self preservation. It would not have been in my best interest at that time to continue on in a situation that was hurting me, and reinforcing my feelings of worthlessness.

The hardest thing for me to learn was that sometimes things are broken between you and a person you love, and you just can’t fix them.

The regrets I have involve letting people mistreat me. I tolerated a lot of bullshit (mainly in romantic relationships). I don’t often share this story, but I will to illustrate a point: I had a boyfriend when I was 19, he was physically abusive to me. Not a slap or a shove, but this person would literally choke me until I passed out. Drag me by my hair….Punch me in the stomach to knock the wind out of me… Rub my forehead into the carpet until I had rug burn on my face… It was ugly.

Looking back on this situation, the first sign of trouble I should have ran. If you have never been in an abusive relationship though, you will not understand how you get sucked into the cycle. It starts slowly. First, abusers find people who are kind, gentle, and wounded. They capitalize on your low self esteem, isolate you from any outside perspectives (so theirs is the only one you ever hear), start by hitting the wall, breaking a lamp… This sort of thing. One day they snap and hit you. Then they cry, express extreme remorse. Say they are a monster, they don’t deserve you. You feel sorry for them, and things seem to be hearts and flowers for a while. Then… Weeks later… It happens again. Pretty soon the weekly gaps turn into once a week, then twice a week, to every day.

If you give people an inch, they will take a mile. Looking back–sure, I regret not leaving him earlier. He nearly killed me once. Choked me until I blacked out. Woke up to him slapping me awake, afraid he had killed me. Even that wasn’t enough for me to leave him. It took me catching him cheating on me, for me to finally throw him out and be done with his sorry ass.

If there is one thing that is the nail in the coffin for me: it is break my trust. Infidelity is the worst breach of trust. If I can no longer trust you, you are dead to me. The person becomes something of a slug in my eyes, there is no going back.

I wish I had opened my eyes to my shitty relationships sooner. It would have saved me a lot of heartache. Most people fear separation, because it is drastic change, and there will be withdrawal. However, look at it this way: it would hurt either way. If you stay, or leave, it would hurt either way. I regret not valuing myself enough to leave situations where the person was mistreating me.

However, as I stated before, I was operating from what I knew at that time. Now I know better, but then I did not. Unfortunately, most people have to learn things the hard way. As a fiercely loyal person, I hold on to hope. I will cling forever, and ever. The only thing that will finally force me to let go and move on, is if something really ugly happens. It takes getting my head smashed into a wall for me to realize a thing is over.

What I found most difficult to overcome, was the shattering of illusions. As an idealist, I see the world as it should be, not often how it really is. Facing the facts of life was the most challenging.

When my situation with my narcissistic/sociopathic ex came to a close, I realized he was truly a bad person, and he never really cared about me. Since my spirituality, sense of purpose/destiny/hopes and dreams for the future were all wrapped up in him… A sort of death happened to me. I lost all meaning to my life. For three years I stopped dreaming. That’s how deeply this effected me.

My spirituality was thrown into question, my sense of judgement. My whole identity up until that point… Was suddenly not real. I felt like I fell into someone else’s life, and I self medicated with drugs and alcohol. This later over into my next relationship, which was riddled with addiction, emotional abuse, and ended horribly also.

I am a firm believer that it takes time to heal, it takes time to process. You can’t jump from stage one to stage 5 overnight. It comes in layers. You chip away slowly, making discoveries and realizations about yourself and those around you. Be gentle with yourself, it starts with self forgiveness.

Often I have felt that I wasted my life. I feel angry sometimes that my need to be loved superseded my ambition to move forward in my career. If ihad not wasted so much time chasing after men who did not love me, I would be so much farther along in life. However, I truly believe that my spirit came here to dive deep. My spirit chose to bear the wounds of my childhood, to come from the lowest place of self worth, and to discover my power again. How could I succeed in my chosen career path without a strong sense of self? This industry is brutal on the self esteem.

As my therapist said, in many of my past lives, I was a powerful person, who’s power was forcibly taken from me. People wanted to mute and destroy my voice, my strength because it frightened them. I still feel that today, that people run from me, or are intimidated by my intensity. They don’t understand, so they have to condemn. It will take an equally powerful person to match my energy, and no one has been up for the job thus far.

Right now I am working on accepting my misfortunes, looking for the lesson. Uncovering what I learned, instead of reliving how I was hurt and what I lost.

Some people live their lives making the same mistakes forever. That will NOT be me. My last relationship… Was an important mirror for how I talk to myself inside. He knew all my deepest fears, and used them against me constantly. It’s like the words that came out of his mouth were my own inner voice. It took being with someone who was as mean to me as I was to myself, to realize I can’t do this anymore.

Never again will I let someone make me feel small, undesirable, or crazy–including myself. I just can’t anymore. Never again will I listen to someone telling me I am unloveable, belittle me, embarrass me, step on my dreams, or put me down. I will not make myself meek and small to be loved ever again.

We have to have negative experiences to provide contrast for expansion. If you are not challenged, you will never grow. The sad thing is, often people stagnate, and the same issues keep skipping on and on like a broken record. If an issue keeps cropping up, guess what? You haven’t learned the lesson yet.

Whatever you resist persists. Give in, fully experience, and let it pass through you like smoke. Let it deepen your heart, and make you wiser. Get really clear with your fears, your needs, your shadows. Understand why they are there, and then identify what you are going to do about it. It is never too late, your life is not wasted. You can start over and be a different person any moment you choose. You just have to commit to the decision. You have to do the work.

Overcoming trauma is not easy, it is conscious, caring work. Yet it can be done. If you shift your perspective, you will find alternative ways to cope with karma. Karma translates to: “work to be done”. The cure for the pain, is in the pain. Do not fear the dark. Hush, and realize… You should not be hurt. For all will pass with time.

[myjackiejackie01]

‘Thwarted’ Chapter 54 Review

@perrydowning cuz work sucks and tries to stop me BUT I SHALL NEVER BE STOPPED FROM COMMENTING

MONDAY IS SO BUSY DAMMIT but I will always comment ALWAYS |:

Oh, my poor space babies… They’ve suffered quite a bit this chapter, haven’t they? I’ll focus on Kylo first and then delve into Rey.

Right, Galactic Idiot.

I’m so proud he finally told Kes what happened and gave her back the memories that were rightfully hers. It was a long time coming, and he should’ve done it earlier, but I guess I can’t be too picky. This IS Galactic Idiot, after all. He pushes everything down and waits until he gets caught, basically. I’m not at all surprised by Kes’ sudden cold attitude towards Kylo. She did just get her memories back, after all, and to know she’d not only had her memories altered but has been breaching Rey’s trust repeatedly, I can understand that she feels betrayed and hurt. She needs time to come to terms with this knowledge as well as time for herself to see if she can forgive Kylo for what he did. I think she will, but she just needs time, like Vitok. Wounds heal over time, not a span of seconds, afterall!

Oooh, and that punch. *wince* Kylo’s getting all sorts of just desserts for his actions.

I’ll keep my thoughts on his and Rey’s scenes solely to Rey later in this comment, but I will comment on his side, since this story is from his POV.

I applaud Kylo for being there for Rey when she was at, in my opinion, her most vulnerable. She’s had a lot going on and her meeting with her mother proved it was just too much to handle. He managed to calm her down and comfort her, and I give him kudos for that. I also give him major applause for being there for her and standing his ground when she tried to push him away. He knows what she’s doing now, having seen before and now realizes it  now. He knows Rey claiming that she’s a ‘kept woman’ isn’t really what she means, that their relationship is nothing but physical and means nothing else. She’s hurting right now and has been through a lot, but he still stuck through it and reaffirmed his love for her and that he would never leave her or get tired of her. She’s it for him, and even when she feels those low-self esteem issues creeping back, he’ll always be there to reaffirm that love he has for her.

I also think it’s a good thing that he stopped any “fun times” Rey was trying to have with him. She’s not herself, and she just wants to “feel” and not think. But that’s not what she really wants, not really. Otherwise, I think she would just hate herself because she’s not really confronting what she’s feeling and just using sex to forget, basically “cheapening” what they have. And Kylo doesn’t want that. He wants every intimate moment with her to mean something, not to be so base. It also probably brings up memories of when he fucked for “base needs”.

I’m sure Kylo’s “blindness” to Rey’s almost resignation will be explored later in the story, since I think that “It” moment hasn’t happened yet, so I won’t make too much comment on that except for Rey’s section.

And now onto my poor Galactic Girlfriend.

REY ;-; *hugs and never lets go* Though the story is not told from Rey’s POV, you can see what’s on her mind through her mannerisms and how she acts and piece together what’s going on in her mind (at least for me, I over-analyze xD) 

Poor girl is having to deal with so much at the moment. Eshara, Kes, Vitok, her mother and so many other things. I applaud her for how she’s been dealing with it so far. She’s definitely stronger mentally and emotionally between her and Kylo, but it’s still too much to have to deal with and I knew she’d have a breakdown eventually. You can’t hold it all in; it’ll just blow up in the end.

First, her mother. Of course her reunion with her mother went absolutely awful, but we all knew that, given that we, the readers, know what she’s like. But knowing and then seeing it happen are two different things. You know Rey’s hopes are about to get destroyed and you don’t want her to suffer but you can’t do anything but wait for it to happen. I pitied Lann for a bit, because of the life she has, but that’s all gone.

 “She whirls around and her eyes have a mad light to them. “She congratulated me on having done so well for myself, said that I was even better at whoring than her!”” 

It just sucks that Rey kind of knew what she was getting into but still had that ever burning hope that maybe, just maybe, her mother would want something of a relationship with the daughter she abandoned all those years ago. But of course it didn’t happen that way; Rey had that hope crushed once more, destroyed really, and I think that was the last straw. Eshara, Vitok, Kes, her eye-opening realization that she can’t ever leave Kylo and being essentially trapped but at the same time wanting him and loving him and needing him just as much as he does her was too much for her to comprehend and it resulted in a Kylo Ren-esque explosion of emotions. I don’t really find her letting her Force abilities get out of hand a “tantrum” per say, more of lack of proper Force control and just being overwhelmed with it all.

Even Rey, as emotionally and mentally strong as I believe she is, wasn’t immune to just being overwhelmed with all these negative emotions, but at least she had Kylo there to give her comfort! Speaking of, I’ve noticed that since realizing Kylo can’t live without her and that he really hasn’t changed, she’s had a sort of “Jekyll and Hyde” kind of switch with him. I’m also finding her signature Light “dimming” in a way, and I think it’s both intriguing and depressing, because I think we all know why that is. Let me explain.

Since chapter 52, Rey’s “fantasy bubble” has popped, and she’s now realized Kylo’s hasn’t really changed, is pretty much not all there and literally cannot live without her, so she’s resigned herself to her situation. At the same time, she also realizes that she’s going to keep being with him and loving him because she can’t live without him either, and I think she loathes herself for it, just a bit. She knew Kylo has done terrible things, but seeing and realizing just how much he loves her was too hard to resist, especially with the Bond and all. She could feel his true emotions and after being with him and seeing all he’s willing to do just to be with her, she gave into her budding ones. She essentially “blinded” herself to his true self and told herself that “Ben Organa” was doing all these wonderful things for her (dresses, dinners, changing some of the F.O.’s protocols with the stormtroopers, etc.). She told herself he was changing and left it at that. But then her coma happened and she woke up to a disaster. Kylo went around killing people that weren’t directly involved with her condition and planned to kill himself because he refused to live in a world where she wasn’t in it. And that made her realize that she truly was a prisoner. Kylo loves her, more than anything in the galaxy. She’s his universe, and if she were to leave, the galaxy would end up in ashes. He’s given her some freedoms, but the truth is, he wouldn’t ever let her go, willingly. He freaks out when she even hints at wanting to do something like flying off or going somewhere. He worries and panics she’ll try and escape and tugs that “invisible leash” he has on her. Because at the end of the day, he’s her jailer. She can’t leave and he wouldn’t let her.  But now Rey’s realized that she can’t leave even if she wanted to and she wouldn’t because she loves a man whose trying to rule the galaxy with a firm hand and an iron fist on those that don’t comply.

But to see Rey resigned to her fate is just incredibly sad. It’s almost like seeing a beautiful bird being caged. The cage has grown some, it has more room and “more freedoms” but it’s still a cage. And what’s sad and awful to see is that Rey has resigned herself to that role. She’s a caged bird and Kylo is her jailer, refusing to let her go.

*sigh* So much suffering. I can’t wait to see all the stuff I discussed come up, because I’m sure they will!

Right, now side-comments:

Good on Hux for that blow to Kylo’s face! Not like he didn’t deserve it… *side-eyes Kylo*

I’m wondering about that General. Jehan, was it? She seems like one that doesn’t follow orders, even when she says that she ‘understands’. *narrows eyes*

Hey, Preslan!! *waves at cat*

I loved this chapter SO much. It had just the right amount of angst, comfort and fluff. We can always have smut later, but I think well-written angst and comfort come first to build a well-thought out story! Now I must be off because my lunch break is nearly done and I need to finish my lunch (which I’ve yet to touch) or risk starving for the next few hours xD

Happy writing!!

xx

[emmatrustsno-one]

Red Dwarf re-watch slashwatch

As I have been on a re-run of Red Dwarf in the last few weeks (it had been an entire six months since I last watched it!! Nightmare!) I though I’d take a break from spirk and post some episode analyses from a rimsy x listy POV. Feel free to add anything you think I’ve missed. I’ll post series 1 for now, but others to follow in the next month, not necessarily in order. To be clear, I am not saying they are simply gay, or even that they are in a relationship; just that they are more than friends and they develop complex feelings for each other. If you can’t handle it, don’t read it!

Series 2, Better than Life

Well here we go with a slashtastic and psychologically deep, complex story. This one’s a long one, with a lot about Rimmer’s psyche in general.

To start, Rimmer has been trying to cook. Food is dispensed for them by machines, and Rimmer doesn’t even eat, so it seems strange that he has been trying to cook. He says he is trying to do the things living people take for granted, but even the living on this ship don’t really cook. I think the real reason is that he wants them to have a normal domestic life, despite the weirdness of all the other aspects of their life.

In the scene where Lister is giving the most scathing yelp review ever, Rimmer is wearing a bandana/handkerchief around his neck, which is a gay symbol. You see bandanas around necks at gay parades, and fictional characters sometimes have it as part of their costume to accentuate their homosexuality, e.g. Big Gay Al in South Park. In the so-called ‘hanky code’, predominantly used in the US, wearing a bandana/hanky informs other gay men of your sexual preferences. Wearing it in your back pockets indicates whether you like being on top or underneath, and wearing it around your middle or neck indicates that you are versatile and like either way. Rimmer wears a bandana around his neck at least 3 times in this episode. There is some meaning to the colours, though they are not widely known or used in practice, so I don’t think they are relevant here.

When Holly is trying to get them to guess the mail pod is here, and again when Gordon is speaking in his video message, Rimmer and Lister make eye contact and give each other the knowing look that bonds them and shows they are thinking on the same wavelength.

Whilst they are going through the mail, Lister opens Rimmer’s letter from the outland revenue a) without asking, and b) in panic for Rimmer. Then, Rimmer lets Lister read a personal letter from his mum and clearly has no issues with it. This testifies to the intimacy and comfort that is growing between them.

Then we have one of the best slashy scenes in the series: the observation deck. The background is romantic stars and there is no-one in the universe but them, together. Lister seeks Rimmer out. He hasn’t been able to sleep for thinking about Rimmer’s pain, and he knows where to look for him. As he spots and approaches him, we are treated to some romantic background music. They then proceed to share some very intimate stories about their lives. This conversation is a game-changer for them. They get to know things about each other that help them understand and empathise with one another in new ways. It also makes them confront the fact they are all they have. There is no-one else to confide in, to lend an ear, to give advice. They have to let this closeness grow, because without it they will be truly alone. Lister talks first, and then when it’s Rimmer’s turn Lister moves up close to him, taking position just behind him to emphasise his submissive role. He then gazes up at Rimmer’s face, looking at both his eyes and lips. Once it gets to the part in Rimmer’s story where he has to share very personal events and feelings, he moves away to the side a bit, but once he has shared his thoughts and Lister has legitimised his hatred of his childhood, he moves back in close again. This happens again when Lister questions why Rimmer is grieving so much, but then assures him his family weren’t normal. It’s as if Rimmer had to put a barrier between them to protect himself whilst he revealed how vulnerable he was, but was able to pull it back down again once he felt sure Lister was on his side. The whole thing is crazily intimate.

Once they start playing Better than Life it gets seriously complex, psychologically. I’m not going to be able to do it full justice here. Before I go into detail, it’s necessary to note how odd the scene is where the guys are mean to Rimmer on the beach – it’s weird and hard to interpret. Why did Lister go from being kind and supportive and inviting him along, to picking on him and abandoning him on a beach when he is grieving? My husband hates that scene and I don’t like it much either. I guess it was probably just for laughs and they didn’t take into account the longer story, which is fine by the way.

At least once Lister and Cat get to the restaurant they do wonder where Rimmer has got to, and when Rimmer does turn up Lister is visibly pleased. It is here, by the way, that Rimmer confirms he has only slept with a woman once before.

Regarding what happens in the rest of the episode: firstly, I don’t think any of the nice stuff that happened to Rimmer was actually his fantasy. It was Lister’s. When we hear someone calling ‘Admiral’ in the restaurant, Lister realises they are talking to Rimmer before Rimmer does. Rimmer then proceeds to find himself in the exact position he told Lister in the observation deck that he wanted to be in: for his father to be able to tell him he was proud of him. I think that intimate conversation from earlier was still playing on Lister’s mind, and it was him who fantasised that Rimmer would get that moment. The moment was spoiled by Cat’s lack of tact, just like the actual conversation about the moment was, a parallel which adds weight to my theory. I wonder if the nice car with McGruder in it wasn’t Lister as well. Maybe that’s why he left Rimmer behind, and lessened their closeness a bit before he left: so that Rimmer could be alone with her and wouldn’t not sleep with her out of loyalty to Lister.

The brief pleasure Rimmer gets out of the game turns sour quickly. Once Lister isn’t with him fantasising nice things for him anymore, his own psyche turns it into a nightmare. His psyche traps him in a loveless marriage with a battle-axe wife and seven kids, where he owes money and turns to alcohol, and there is no escape. What causes Rimmer’s mind to cause him to have such a bad time?

Was it punishing him for buying into the heterosexual lie with McGruder? There’s a good chance that is part of it, since the main problem for him is his family life. Moreover, the ‘paradise lost’ motif hints at sin between man and woman (Adam and Eve and the expulsion from Eden).

Was another element of it Cat ruining the moment with his father? Was it too much to bear, having that possibility and then having it ripped away? Surely the grieving process as a whole was a big factor.

Was another reason the fact that he desires punishment? We know he has complex feelings of guilt over the crew being wiped out, and, of course, guilt at having failed his father is raw for him right now. Undoubtedly there is also guilt over his sexuality: both guilt that he isn’t straight, like his family probably wanted him to be, and guilt that he is living a lie, and not being who he wants him to be. Moreover, does he really desire punishment, as in feel better for it, or does he believe he deserves it? Because those are different things. We know he has low self-esteem. If he believes he deserves to be punished, he was fated to have a bad time in a fantasy game like Better than Life.

Is another factor a sexual desire for suffering? The handkerchief around his neck alluded to versatility, and their dom/sub relationship is playful, so there’s no reason it couldn’t be flipped once Rimmer is mentally healthy enough to cope with it. Repressed masochism could certainly cause him to fantasise bad things like these, particularly when you consider what a big role humiliation plays in his suffering, for example being reduced to a sniveling wretch in front of friends, and having jam smeared on your face.

Once Lister shows up again, there are yet more interesting things to note. There is, of course, the lovely moment when Rimmer grabs Lister, pulls him in close so that their noses are touching and pleads for his help ♥, after which Lister tries to pay his debts. I also find it interesting that Rimmer wishes a tarantula to make its way towards his penis. He is terrified of them, therefore it is a serious punishment to wish on himself. Could it be that he is punishing himself for his sexual preferences (men, BDSM...), and perhaps also simultaneously for not accepting them and being true to himself? He also might realise that this constant battle between trying to deny his sexuality and embracing it is partly responsible for the mess his psyche has created in the game, and he feels he should punish his sexuality for that as well. A man attacking his own penis has got complex sex issues.

When the boys think they have left the game Rimmer has calmed down considerably, to the extent that the audience believes it too. Why has he calmed down? Was it the certainty of death when they were in the desert? Was it Lister’s reproaching because he ruined it? Was it because McGruder was gone? Or a mixture of all these things?

Finally, continuing with my theory that the nice things which happen to Rimmer are Lister’s fantasy, not his, we see that as soon as Lister sees Rimmer apologising and struggling to cope with the negativity of his mind, a letter appears saying that Rimmer has passed the astronavigation exam and has been promoted. He seems happy on the surface but, in fact, the minute something nice happens to him, he wishes for the debt-collector to appear again. I don’t think Rimmer’s mind would be fantasising such wildly opposing things. All the negative stuff comes from him, and all the positive stuff comes from Lister. It is almost unbearably romantic that most of Lister’s desires revolved around happiness for Rimmer.

[chickorita305]

I did a color swatch for my D&D character Rodjain, a Lv 5 hill dwarf paladin, on my concept drawing of her because one of our party members in an amazing artist irl and needed to know how I imagined the coloring so she could make a pixel token of her. Unfortunately she’s pictured here without Honeydew, her Giant Goat steed (fey), but I’ll leave that up to your imagination (^_-) This is a really basic coloring done on an online Photoshop-esque app Pixlr, but I’m so pleased with how it turned out that I wanted to post it somewhere because HEY LOOK I DID A THING!!

I also have been struggling to enjoy this campaign, so I thought I’d leave my feelings somewhere where no one in the party would find it, because while it’s been a really good time for them (and I hope it continues to be a really good time for them), for me it has been one hell of a roller-coaster ride over the first two sessions. There’s some heavy stuff under the cut, so check the tags first!

This campaign is run by one of my very near and dear friends, someone I never thought I’d be close with who has nonetheless touched me in a way few people have. I am so glad that it’s someone I’m close with, as I wouldn’t have opened up to someone any less caring for me or understanding of where I’m coming from. I will state this before I go any further: the world itself is immensely fascinating. Very rarely do I sit down and try to draw out aspects of a fantasy world or write the mythos of a pantheon of their gods; this world that my friend has created has brought me inspiration to create, a feeling I have not experienced for as long a stretch of time as I have now. Amidst all the heartrending news that has reached me through this screen over the past month, putting my energy into forming parts of this campaign has allowed me some catharsis. It doesn’t matter if these things I’ve created are never seen in-game. Perhaps this is what drives people sometimes to further adapting established media? It’s wholly unknown to me, and yet I had hoped that this catharsis would extend into the time spent interacting with the world, the thrill of having an avatar through which to explore more facets.

But far from this hope, the sessions have only served to dampen my desire to play any further. 

Our first instruction for our characters was that their villages had been razed and everyone there killed by marauders. In imagining what this might do to my character, I saw her taking on trauma, reoccuring nightmares and perhaps even difficulty fighting if the battle became too much like her memories of her village being reduced to smoke. I though my own, similar responses when I think back to my family dynamics would lend some realism when I tried to play her. Essentially she was meant to have PTSD and yet still work through it for her chosen cause: in aid of the Old Gods that had given her comfort as she watched her village slowly crumble even before the marauders appeared.

Through my interactions through her in the game, however, I’ve found that PTSD is only a minor problems to her, if at all. I’m the one with that problem. Every time I have to play with my friend who has created a character whose personality very closely resembles my brother, the realization that comes with it makes it difficult to stay in the game. Unexpectedly, the difficulty of communicating in a group made me feel inadequate again, after I’d built my self-esteem up living on my own in Japan. The initial surprise and the anger that came in the first session left me crying and my brain in physical pain from suppressing the response to my anger and continuing on like nothing had happened for the remaining of our 4 hour session. It lingered for days, never disappearing and always threatening to spill over as it did when I consulted my mother and my thoughtful DM about what I had experienced.

In those days following the pain and guilt and the subsequent negative emotions that sprouted around the thought of playing again, I discovered something had changed for my character, too. Trauma was not the thing that haunted her. It was a penchant towards suicide.

I could see how clearly she would do it: to slip out in the middle of the night and never be seen again by her party members, to purchase a dagger on the off-chance that she might actually use it. But Rodjain is a fighter (well...a paladin, actually, but you get the expression); she’s not easily succumbed to it in the year following her entire life changing, and she wouldn’t do it yet.

No, Rodjain is suicidal in the way that someone with reckless abandon is. Everything is gone, and yet she remains, charged by the end of the first session by her beloved Old Gods with a task of some importance to them. She would not go out now. Not by her own hand. Not unless it was in service to them. She is brave in the face of danger, but only as it provides a chance on diverging paths: a way forward for her gods, and a way out of her realm to the gods. This I discovered in the second session, as she faced a wyvern in conversation only inches from her face and argued in favor of killing a green dragon. She did this for her honor, her word, and without care if death should take her. The trauma I have seeks to keep me alive when I feel danger about; hers serves to remove that fear and push her closer to it.

Regret hangs heavy in my heart, that I am this cruel god to her who in my own suffering would have her die so that I might leave the campaign without needing her to refuse this task set on her, a mission from her actual gods. There is regret that I cared too much on the first session, and that I distanced myself too much in the second. Regret in the boredom I feel from detaching, the tears when it is still not far enough. More often have I thought of myself closer to Fierne, the Goddess of Light in her pantheon but known for her tears and withdrawal, than Jaral, the Goddess of Justice who Rodjain follows.

In the end, I know not what happens. Maybe Rodjain will survive, and maybe each session will become more bearable. But first we have to fight that dragon, both the huge green one in its cave and the smaller one that gnaws in our linked hearts.

[inb4areyouhot]

Rant #8

You know when you were a kid and there was the superstition that you can’t step on cracks because bad things will happen? My anxiety is like that. Except it doesn’t matter where I step because my own footsteps create the cracks. So it’s unavoidable. And we all know that in order to get anywhere you need to walk. The cracks start small, and I see them underneath me and I get worried about them, so I look down and I don’t look at anything else around me, because by that point everything else doesn’t matter. And the more I worry, the bigger the cracks get until I eventually fall through and crash, and once I crash I go through a ritual of mental destruction, because again I let myself fall. I get mad at myself for falling, again. Eventually I pull myself up, and start walking again and eventually the small cracks start again. It’s a vicious circle.

It feeds off each other, my anxiety and my fear of my anxiety. I hate it. I want to walk, run, achieve my dreams and do everything that most people my age can do. Without worrying. Without creating cracks. I manifest these cracks, and I know this. Sometimes I’m right, and the cracks that I create are suppose to be there. Everyone’s path has a few cracks. No one’s path is perfect. On the occasional/rare instance where I end up being right, not only is it usually a painful truth, but it gives me justification to continue this behavior. “See Ashley? You we’re right about this. See? You can only trust what you think. You can’t trust anyone else. Everyone lies.”

What I fail to do, and what I fail to see is that even though whatever person or situation ended up being bad and sour, things like that are normal. Not everything is happy, and not everything is out to get you either. The anxiety in the back of my mind just wants to see everything that I could have, and everything that makes me happy turn bad. So it fills me with thoughts and makes me over analyze everything. 

“Is this job taking advantage of me? It totally is.”

 Not,

 “Ashley, you’re such a hard worker! You care so much and do a good job.”

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“When I go to the doctor, my blood pressure is going to be high, and you are going to have to get shots. 100 shots. Don’t tell them about that thing that’s semi worrying you, because they’re going to check it out and have to do extensive testing and the worst results are going to come back. You’re dying. You have 5 months left to live. They are going to tell you this.” 

Not 

“Ashley, this is just a physical exam. You’re such a responsible adult to schedule this and do it every year, you’re keeping up with your health. It will last maybe 30 minutes, and if there are problems they are there to help you. Everything will be fine just as it was last year.” 

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“Have me and my best friend not hung out in a month because she hates me and likes this other girl she’s been talking to more? Has she replaced me?”

 Not, 

“Hey Ashley, work is back in full swing and you’re a lot busier than you were.”

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“Who is this girl that keeps liking my boyfriend’s shit? Who is she? Do they have a history? I wonder if they message each other. He’s talking to her, they have conversations only between them for sure. He’s playing me. Why would he like me? She’s so pretty. It’s not going to last after 6 months. He’s going to get bored of you and move onto something more interesting, convenient and pretty.” 

Not 

“Ashley, your boyfriend loves you and you’re so lucky because he’s loyal and you can trust him and he’s here to support you and you both lift each other up to achieve great things and he chose you because you ARE beautiful, he tells you all the time. You’re with him. No one else can even touch you two.” 

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“Do you see the way your mom isn’t looking at you? She’s ashamed of you. You’re not doing enough as a 27 year old to be independent. She’s upset that you have yet to start college. She’s upset that you don’t have your own apartment. She’s tired of you living here. You’re not doing shit.”

Not

“Take your time Ashley, it’s ok. Things take time and you’re apprehensive to start school because you’re unsure if you can do school and your work hours at the same time. That’s ok. The economy and the cost of living is doubled, if not tripled as it was in the 90′s when your parents were your age. They know that. They understand. They’re here for you, to support you. They love you, you’re their child. You’re afraid that if you enroll, there will be hidden fees you’ll have to pay, you’re afraid of being in any sort of debit. Take your time. An apartment will happen when it’s time.”

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I don’t think these negative things all the time. Most of the time I do see the actual reality of my situations and relationships. But the negative, anxiety filled thoughts come across every now and then. Sometimes I feel like they happen to keep me in check. It’s just scary and I do everything in my power to ignore it. 

Of course my best friend will always be my best friend. We’ve gone through times of not talking or being able to hang out, just simply because we’ve been busy. Of course my boyfriend is loyal and I can completely trust him. Whenever I’m with him or talking to him nothing else matters. He makes it all melt. I know he loves only me.

I’ve suffered from a lot of abandonment. I’ve suffered from a lot of lying. I’ve suffered from a lot people leaving, and never really having a helping hand to help me reach my goals. I always have and currently suffer from a very serious self esteem problem. I look at myself in the mirror everyday and I hate what I see. There are days when it’s different. I’ll look at myself and seem pretty alright. Putting on makeup takes 45 minutes. It has to be perfect. Clothes shopping is a struggle. Recently eating has been on my mind. No more fried foods. Less sugar. No soda. Eat less meat. Eat less in general. I’ve been sort of beating myself up because I was on a pescitarian diet for almost 5 years and one day just gave up. 

‘If I don’t lose 20 pounds people will start leaving me. If I don’t start losing weight, I’m just going to gain and it’s going to take more than the 15 tries you already stress through to get a selfie you’re semi happy with. You’re going to end up like your biological father. Don’t end up like him. You can’t. You’d rather die. Look at yourself why would anyone bother with you? You can’t even control simple things in your life, why would anyone want to waste their time with you?’

These are thoughts that go on in my mind. It’s so taxing. Why can’t I just love myself? It’s like my mind believes that I shouldn’t have anything positive, everything has to be ugly and deceitful.

I don’t talk about this often, with this much detail. Actually, I’ve never talked about it ever, with this much detail. Everyone who is close to me knows I have anxiety and self esteem problems. I don’t go around and talk about the specific things that manifest though. For instance, I don’t message my best friend when I think she’s replaced me and call her out for not making plans or not talking to me and talking to this other girl more than she’s been talking to me so therefore I’m less than her. I don’t do that, because I don’t like drama and I don’t create it for other people. It’s unnecessary to bring it up because I know that these thoughts are a manifest of my anxiety. I’ve lived with this for so long that I know when a thought is a symptom of my anxiety, and I know when to let it silently pass without causing a disturbance. I fight this alone mostly. I refuse to let it become a burden on anyone else. If I become a burden, people will leave. And it only happens when I’m left by myself with my thoughts.

The good news is, at least when it comes to relationships with other people, I’ve been getting better with my anxiety. I really don’t let a lot of people get to know me. I’m a very perceptive person, and I’ve become very careful as to who I let in. The people that I hold close to my heart, they have my full trust, hands down. They are people who are aware of just how much it takes for me to trust someone, so they take my trust and they respect it. These people I can tell anything to. These people I wake up in the morning and feel blessed to have in my life. These people, if they end up leaving in any sense of the word, will also take a part of me with them. If they don’t know this, I hope they do. They have my highest respect and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. These people are really helping me heal. My boyfriend Pierre. My best friend Kayleigh. My mother, my sister and my father.

After reading this, if you read this, I know it seems bad. And it IS a struggle that I deal with. And I am telling the truth when I say this isn’t a constant thing. It comes in waves. It’s usually a small thing I notice about something or someone and then I let it build up until it becomes this huge thing that over exaggerated and completely off the wall. But I can say that I am blessed over other people who struggle with things like this, because I am aware of it. I have become attuned to it, and I can control it. I have methods to combat it (healthy ways of course) and I’m really working on it. It’s going in the right direction. I really feel like I put my trust into the right people, and even though my anxiety fights against them sometimes and everything else in my life, I’m not going to let it win. It won’t. I’ll love my boyfriend and my family and my friends without a thought. Fully and completely, everyday. I’ll wake up every morning and live my life as humble and graceful as I can. I will do nothing but be a positive person in people’s lives because I’ve had my fair share of negative people and situations in my life and I refuse to be a negative in anyone’s life. I’ll keep working towards my goals everyday and eventually I’ll get there, I know. Every time I talk to my sister, mom or dad any sort of anxiety disappears. Every time I’m having an issue that I need a second opinion on, I go to my best friend Kayleigh or my boyfriend and they give their full support and advice. Every time I talk to my boyfriend, or see him, or anything with him. It can be anything with him. Any sort of anxiety is just gone. Not many people have that effect on me.

Even as I’m writing this, which has taken DAYS I’m thinking “No one is going to read this whole fucking thing about this girl they don’t know and this is a mess and just a jumble of thoughts.” Well, yeah that’s why it’s a rant. I felt like I needed to get it all out, and it feels weird but also pretty good. I honestly wanted to write this, so the people who I do care about can read it and fully understand what goes on when I say “My anxiety”. I also wanted to write this for anyone who is suffering in any form of anything that I’ve written about and just say that once you realize and pinpoint it, and you start working on it, it will get better, but you need to want to get better. I know I do. I have things to achieve that require me to be happy. I have people who love me who work hard to love me and deserve to see me completely happy. Especially myself. Everyday I’m finding myself happier and happier and it’s shaping to be great.