#w generational trauma

[obsidianstrawberrymilk]

Jesus fuck why does no one talk about how Donna got married to a guy who knew her since she was seventeen/at most freshly eighteen when he was almost thirty and then he didn’t het her see their kid (who he was then responsible for the death of) like What The Actual Fuck.

[fandomsnrambles]

Huh, found an older art piece of the FSM as a child

My anatomy is meh here but oh well. The eyes around him are basically the onis and the dragons. Its the pressure he felt when they were making him chose sides in a war… yikes.

Rambling below cut (and sketch!)

I hc he ran away when he was 14-15. This is him as a kid, basically 14. Also, i thought it’d be fun if he looked like both his sons hence the two toned hair (personally think he made his kids asexually btw cause its hilarious)

I also like to think hes a lot like BOTH his sons personality wise.

ANYWAY that moment when trauma hits you like a truck. As a child soldier, you are robbed of your childhood (lloyd parallel fr) and then you run away making 16 realms, 2 kids and possibly humans as well. You ingrain it into your everyday life and never realise your coping methods are unhealthy until you suddenly realise you’ve hurt your sons, but its too late by then.

My angst material is focusing on the generational trauma here btw

I mean FSM runs from the pressure from everyone around him -> Wu and Garmadon feel pressure to uphold their fathers expectations and everyone elses -> Lloyd trying to uphold expectations from everyone around him…

(Also, so fun cause my lloyd design looks like his grandfather, OOF think of the parallels is what i’m saying)

This family makes me crazy…

Bonus,, sketch

[fruitgumy]

one thing i don't like about how hori wrote afo's backstory is that the narration makes it seem like afo was just born evil by saying that he was just born greedy and selfish. a major theme of the series is how otherwise good or even just neutral people become evil because of societal failures, but it's like all of that goes out the window when it comes to afo.

i'm in no way excusing afo, but he was a "meta" born in a time where people hunted his kind for sport. if you're a toddler with a deadly power that both makes you physically different from others and is so powerful that it scares people (spearlike bones) of course you're going to be ostracized. and with that ostracization comes the people who want to kill you. so what do you do? what is the only thing you can do? it becomes kill or be killed. then you become desensitized to killing, you may not even fully understand the weight of a life — you're only, like, 4 years old. you learn that problems can be solved with violence. need something for you and your brother? kill to get it. you realize that what you want can just be taken, not to mention your power incentivizes you to take what you want anyways.

many people point out that yoichi grew up just as poor and abandoned as afo, but there's an important distinction to make. yoichi was thought to be quirkless. he would not have been hunted like afo was. he would not have had the pressure of keeping a weaker, sicker sibling alive. although yoichi's life was no walk in the park, he and yoichi would've had an entirely different worldview. afo craves power because power is what has allowed him to survive his childhood. yoichi's lack of power and victimization because of his weakness leads him to understand the importance of wielding power responsibly. so with that in mind, it must've been hard for him to understand yoichi's talks about justice when they likely only survived because of afo's ruthlessness.

i realize this post makes me sound like afo's #1 dick rider which i kind of am, but i'm not delusional. the man is evil, he chose to stay that way, and he was well past any form of redemption, but i just hate the idea of an inherently evil newborn baby so fucking much. i think that he's like tomura in the sense that with the right guidance, he could have been a somewhat normal person. (that's a whole other post in itself, how he literally gave tomura his own trauma because he knew from experience how it would break him) yes of course it's possible for him to have grown up without becoming evil, but honestly i think anyone, if handed those specific set of circumstances, would more than likely go down a very very bad path.

[nebulouscoffee]

The thing about Kai Winn's storyline ultimately being a tragedy is, it's not only a tragedy because her fate (in the eyes of the non-linear Prophets) was already known and nothing she did or said was ever going to make them acknowledge her- not only because she wanted so badly to have a big role to play in the grand, historic story of the newly independent Bajor and just couldn't handle the fact that she was never meant to- not only because the Prophets spoke to Sisko and Bareil and Kira and literally even Quark but not her- not only because she was deceived and raped and killed in the end- but most of all because, it was partly her love of Bajor that killed her.

Think about it- her whole regression during that final arc with Dukat is so tragic precisely because she was THIS close to redemption! Throughout the show, we see that her brain processes information in very rigid, binary ways: if you are not my ally, then you are my enemy. If you disagree with even one of my opinions, you are my enemy. If you refuse to endorse and support me in this mission, you are my enemy. That's part of why she's so easily swayed by fascist rhetoric, I think- she's just unable to cope with nuance. (This is foreshadowed in 'Shakaar', where she puts the whole of Bajor under martial law just because Shakaar disagreed with her over how she was handling soil reclamators.) Her personal narrative is I am the one who will save Bajor -> anyone who gets in my way is my enemy and therefore an enemy of Bajor -> I must stop them using any force necessary for the good of Bajor because I am after all the one who will save Bajor.

But when Sisko discovers the city of B'hala in 'Rapture', she is for the first time forced to accept the truth that he really hasn't been faking this whole "talks to the Prophets" thing- he's the real deal. We learn later on (when she tells "Anjohl" about how she honestly felt nothing the first time she saw the wormhole open) that a small, small part of her actually always doubted the existence of the Prophets. Now, she is faced with definitive proof that they are not only very real, but they also really do have a bond with Sisko. And for a while, she even comes to terms with this! In fact, at the end of the episode, she and Kira have possibly their first completely honest exchange:

KIRA: Maybe we're the ones who need to trust the Prophets. For all we know, this is part of their plan. Maybe they've told Captain Sisko everything they want him to know.  WINN: Perhaps. I suppose you heard that Bajor will not join the Federation today. The Council of Ministers has voted to delay acceptance of Federation membership.  KIRA: You must be very pleased.  WINN: I wish I were. But things are not that simple. Not anymore. Before Captain Sisko found B'hala, my path was clear. I knew who my enemies were. But now? Now nothing is certain.  KIRA: Makes life interesting, doesn't it?

Like, YASS babygirl- you too can learn to handle nuance!! I believe in you!!💪💪

And later on, at the onset of the Dominion War, she comes to Sisko for advice herself. She doesn't want to see her planet colonised again, and she's even willing to put aside her desire to be the main character to ensure it doesn't happen. Driven by pride and the need for power as she is, she is also driven by the desire save Bajor (and preferably be the one saving Bajor, which is the subsection of this desire that ultimately ends up being her downfall) - and she does briefly decide that cooperating with the Emissary is the best way to do this! I think about this scene from 'In The Cards' so much:

WINN: ... I have asked the Prophets to guide me, but they have not answered my prayers. I even consulted the Orb of Wisdom before coming here and it has told me nothing. So I come to you, Emissary. You have heard the voice of the Prophets. You were sent here to guide us through troubled times. Tell me what to do and I will do it. How can I save Bajor?  SISKO: You want my advice? Then this is it. Stall. Tell Weyoun you have to consult with the Council of Ministers, or that you have to meditate on your response. Anything you want, but you have to stall for time.  WINN: Time for what?  SISKO: I don't know. But I do know the moment of crisis isn't here yet, and until that moment arrives we have to keep Bajor's options open. I'm aware that this is difficult for you, given our past, but this time you have to trust me.  (Winn holds Sisko's left ear.)  WINN: Very well, Emissary. We put ourselves in your hands. May we all walk with the Prophets.

In the earlier seasons, Winn would often casually make claims that the Prophets had "told her" something, or that she was just "doing what the Prophets asked"- and her political position as Kai always allowed her to just lie about being in contact with them all the time. Now, you can see the sheer humility- the embarrassment, even- on her face as she (for the first time) openly admits to Sisko that she has never actually heard them speak before; and that they clearly "prefer" him. Yes, there's some (understandable imo) bitterness here- but not at him, at THEM. And when she tries to read his pagh at the end- something she probably does to dozens of people every day, most of whom would unquestioningly believe anything she declares afterwards- she doesn't even try to pretend she felt anything there. It's one of her most genuine moments in the whole show, you can just SEE the redemption arc in reach and it's so heartbreaking!!

I think 'The Reckoning' is a huge episode for her too, for many reasons- but let's talk about how it sets up this fascinating parallel between her and Kira (who Odo describes in this episode as having "both faith and humility"). The Prophets choose Kira as their "vessel" because she was "willing"- meanwhile, Winn was right there just begging to be a part of this! Here she is, with a Prophet right in front of her face- and she prays and postures and begs and prays some more, all just to get ignored. Kira's brand of faith is very, "I am ultimately insignificant and I surrender my power and my body and pagh to the Prophets"- Winn's is more, "if I do all the right things, then I will be able to prove to the Prophets that I am worthy of their attention, worthier than everyone else, and maybe then they'll appoint me the saviour of Bajor! It's My Destiny, You See!! (Why Isn't This Happening For Me??)" And the events of this episode are kind of a big slap in the face to her honestly, because they sort of prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Prophets have no interest in her. Maybe stopping the battle was also an attempt at regaining some kind of agency with them- I DID THIS, I pulled a switch and it had a direct effect on the Prophets, so there!! (Whatever that effect entails). She does care about Bajor. Of course she does. But her ideal configuration of Bajor involves her being a major player in its salvation, which she was just never meant to be. And this is why she's so tragically susceptible to Dukat's manipulation- he was the first person ever to tell her everything she always wanted to hear.

And the intriguing thing about Dukat's deception is, it doesn't all fall apart at one go. It falls apart in layers. And this makes for some excellent, excellent Winn characterisation imo.

First, she thinks the pah wraiths are the Prophets- and they tell her, hey, The Sisko has faltered, Bajor needs you, and only you can fix this. Good lord, imagine finally getting to hear those words after a lifetime of silence! And it's very telling that her first reaction isn't to gloat like she would've in the earlier seasons, but instead to humbly- even anxiously- pray. Bajor needs her, the "Prophets" have asked her to do something, this is her moment! Then, this random lovely Bajoran farmer comes in and tells her even more things she has always wanted to hear- that her activism during the Occupation (ignored by Kira and Sisko alike) saved lives, that he always wondered why the Prophets would choose an alien as their Emissary, that surely Sisko and his followers were mistaken- and finally, "our world will be reborn- with YOU as its leader". Sounds good, right? But THEN she finds out she's been speaking to the pah wraiths and the lovely farmer is a devil worshipper actually. And she tries the "wash away my sins" approach- she wants some kind of quick fix ritual that will "purify" her, so she can continue to be Kai the right way. She even admits to Kira that she's always been power hungry and she wants to change- and I believe her! Unfortunately, Kira then tells her something she doesn't want to hear- that she has to step down as Kai. And surely that can't be, right? She's the saviour of Bajor! She's so complex... it's not simply her love of power that this scene reveals imo, but more significantly, her inability to see herself as not a vital part of Bajor's history; of this whole larger narrative. Like-

WINN: I'm a patient woman. But I have run out of patience. I will no longer serve gods who give me nothing in return. "GIVE ME"!! ADAMI MY BESTIE MY GIRL MY BUDDY THEREIN LIES THE PROBLEM!!!

So, okay, fine, now she's swayed over to the side that maybe the Prophets aren't that great, and maybe the pah wraiths are the true gods of Bajor (because they were willing to talk to her), and maybe she's okay working with the devil worshipper. But then it turns out he's DUKAT- and at this point, she's literally murdered someone, she's ready to stop this, to go back to Sisko and set things right- but then the book of the Kosst Amojan lights up because of the blood she spilled. She did that. It happened as a direct result of her actions. She's just so desperate to be acknowledged... to have a role to play in all this, no matter who offers it to her. So the pah wraiths actually giving her a reaction isn't something she can resist. And here's where things get even more tragic.

WINN: But the prophecies! They warn that the release of the Pah wraiths will mean the end of Bajor.  DUKAT: The old Bajor, perhaps. But from its ashes a new Bajor will arise and the Restoration will begin.  WINN: Who will be left to see it?  DUKAT: Those the gods find worthy. It will be the dawn of paradise. And you, Adami, are destined to rule it.  WINN: You're sure of that?  DUKAT: It is meant to be.

Again with the ease at which she's swayed by fascist rhetoric! Let's be clear, she was (and is) absolutely against the Cardassian Occupation. But her worldview is built on the pursuit of being "worthier" than everyone else, of being "closer to god" than everyone else- her expectation of faith is that it's some sort of determiner of who's doing it The Most Effectively, rather than it being a practice- and she just completely misses that any sort of plan that executes masses and spares whoever is deemed "worthy" is... literally exactly what people like Dukat did to her planet. Something something faith as competition, faith as determiner of inherent superiority, faith as a way to gain power via proximity to god… never faith as submission. And the worst part is she’s self-aware. It’s heartbreaking.

And it's about to get even more heartbreaking, because she truly believes she has arrived at her girlboss moment in the finale (I think the tragedy of her being a rape victim and knowing this and having to hide the body of the one (1) person who was looking out for her while being stuck with her rapist speaks for itself.) After kicking Dukat out on the street (lol), she studies the eeevil texts and realises that to set the pah wraiths free, you need to make a sacrifice. So now she gets to deceive him in return. And she does! The look of shock on his face when he discovers she poisoned him is priceless imo, and her triumph as she taunts his dead body, the sheer joy on her face as she casts off her Kai robes, when she recites those incantations and something actually happens- and that too such a large pyrotechnic spectacle- is so sad knowing what's coming. Because ultimately, the pah wraiths want to destroy Bajor, right? And Winn just doesn't. Of course they don't choose her. Of course they choose Dukat over her! She really thought that by tricking and murdering him, she'd made him the unimportant piece of the puzzle, that she was stealing back his thunder- but tragically, it turns out even the pah wraiths see her as disposable. Of course they resurrect Dukat (a man who's proved time and time again that he wants to see Bajor & Bajorans destroyed) and turn her into the sacrifice. The way she screams "NO!" here breaks my heart- she's betrayed her planet, and it was all for nothing. (Dukat's "are you still here?" is particularly devastating.) I think it's very significant that her final words are "Emissary, the book!"- it shows that in her last moments, she's owning her mistakes- she's stepping away from power and putting Bajor first, and leaving her own fate in the hands of the Prophets. Who, of course, once again ignore her, and choose to save Sisko instead. God.

The utter tragedy that even in the pah wraiths' plan, she was just a pawn. That she died at the hands of the gods she thought chose her, but used her, all while the gods she'd coveted her whole life stood by and did nothing. The Prophets chose Sisko because they believed he would put Bajor's interests over even his own- and now they ensure he will be back one day to see the new Bajor. She never will.

Yes, it was her pride that got her here. Her mean streak. Her inability to cope with nuance. Her inability to see herself as ultimately insignificant. Her inability to surrender to a higher power in any way that didn't involve becoming more powerful herself; more relevant, more "close to god". But it was also her love of Bajor. Because if she'd cared about Bajor less, then maybe the pah wraiths might have chosen her- or at least spared her, or taken her to their realm after she burned, the way they did with Dukat. Now, she ends up being the one thing she never wanted to be: insignificant.

Honestly if I had to summarise the tragedy of her arc in one sentence, it would probably be Kai Winn: Too Evil For The Prophets, Not Evil Enough For The Pah Wraiths. She and Dukat are not the same! She is a perfectly pathetic, sad and wet blorbo and I am holding her gently in my hands while apologising for her crimes <3

[kazamajun]

Tekken's storytelling may have its flaws and T7 absolutely had its issues, but this is a perfect moment to me. You could NOT have a clearer depiction of PTSD than what happens here; we see the 5 year old child inside the man, while his mother's theme leitmotifs in the background signifying her metaphorically haunting the scene, and then on top of it we get flashbacks from the prior games including Kazuya's T2 death!!

The composition of the flashbacks is so nice too since it's dominated by visions of Heihachi, before we see Kazuya as a child again then a flickering moment of Kazumi (solidifying that he is her legacy and needs to carry out what she failed to do) culminating in the T4 "I'm going to get everything back!" line.

And then the scream. If that's not an amazingly performed vocalization to express 45 years of carried trauma and anger then I don't know what is. That last hit has every piece of rage and pain in him behind it. Then silence as Heihachi falls. The quietude that comes immediately after catharsis. All that violence and then the moments it takes to process before he can act again. I just love it a lot. Kazuya was really done justice here.

[bitchthefuck1]

you know what, I actually will talk about this because it's bothering me. The issue with focussing so heavily on syd and carmy's potential for a romantic relationship isn't that there's something inherently unintellectual about romance or whatever, it's that a lot of people seem incapable of doing that without immediately flattening the story and ignoring or intentionally misreading any and all nuance for the sake of that romance. Every scene suddenly becomes about how it impacts their relationship, every analysis is done through a romantic lens, every frame or line of dialogue becomes about finding some easter egg or hint that "proves" these people should start dating. Their dynamic is absolutely a fundamental part of this show, but if you can only see it as a will-they-won't-they, you miss so much of what the story is actually trying to say with these two.

There are good versions of this story where their relationship is romantic and there are good versions of this story where it isn't, but as soon as you decide them being together is "the point," you lose the ability to actually judge the story for what it is, not what you want it to be.

[thedroloisms]

breaking news: being a victim in the past does not give you a get out of jail free card as far as acting like an abusive cunt. literally cannot STAND the so-called victim advocates on twitter who will put their self-righteous right to soapbox over the safety of others to the point of endorsing abusive behavior just because they think that prior trauma makes them a good person. fuck off and go do some actual self reflection.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

I scrutinize each photo Each letter, each tape, each story Digging further and further back through history Hoping to pinpoint Where the weight on my shoulders originated

Who carried it first How many generations of suffering do I hold How many ghosts are tearing at my flesh How many generations of knowledge have I been denied How much has been lost How much will be lost As my fingers slowly erode paper As obsession wears through the tapes As each memory slowly becomes unrecognizable

The film strips undulate like intestines The dust and ink sticking to my hands like flecks of gore When you cut into my gut Is it blood that spills out Or history?

Salamatullah Eldritch (2022), Archival Violence, Mnemonic Gore [digital collage]

[Image attribution & sources for images used]

[coulsonlives]

Re-reading the comics and I totally forgot how dark they are

[mariemariemaria]

Does anybody else feel like mental health awareness has done very little to help them in material reality

[normalbrothers]

tommy loves horses of course, and there's a lot going on there (re trauma), but he has a pretty utilitarian view on them most of the time; it's not as much of an affectionate relationship to the animals as i think fandom seems to believe. there's also rather a greater symbolic meaning in general to him than bonding himself emotionally to a single horse, the way it tends to be with most horsey narratives

[karouvas]

People will be like ‘oh this couple is so toxic’ and the ‘toxic’ behavior is just loving each other very much, being passionately devoted and prioritizing your partner to a significant degree.

[crimealleythief]

✨YOUR LOCAL CRIME ALLEY THIEF✨

(A roleplay account)

Gotham shmatum. The streets suck ass and thievery’s real dangerous, not like that’s ever stopped me.

Name’s Cinth Crow. Call me Crow, or if we’re mutuals— Cinth is good. Born and raised in Gotham’s very own crime alley, I’m alive and— well, thriving is such a complicated word, I’d rather say.. getting by.

Despite common rumours, I am not related to or even slightly in cahoots with Red Hood. Nor Matches Malone, stop asking for the love of God—

I am an independent thief!! Sure, Hood’s tried to recruit me. Sure I begrudgingly go to him (or Malone, fuck off) when things are getting out of hand, that doesn’t mean shit!!!

[welcometoteyvat]

need xiao and kujou sara to meet asap btw. 

- golden winged peng vs winged tengu (whose wings, incidentally, were damaged when she received her vision...)

- both dedicate their lives to their archons

- separated from the society (mortals, Inazuman troops/Tengou Commission) they were brought up in because of certain factors (karma, status as adopted child and tengu)

perhaps they’d understand each other. maybe they’d know what it’s like—an existence as a god’s right hand, and everything it entails. their eyes meet, gold on gold; they know: this person might only understand half of me but that's half more than anyone else. what’s it like to serve a god so deeply—what do you sacrifice and how does it remake you? sara believes that her vision was granted by the raiden shogun, saving her, and thus dedicates herself to carrying out the will of thunder across the land. xiao receives his new name from morax, and in return, agrees to protect liyue for however long it will need. sara’s wings, injured, as she falls off the mountain—alatus, lacking his golden wings, the bloodhound of that unknown god.

[risetherivermoon]

making myself sad thinking about nick close/the close family in general again...

nick only wanted glenn to leave the other dads behind in the battle axe of hatred arc because he wanted to finally be able to spend quality time with his dad...even if that meant doing a drug scheme...(which is just like how bill would spend time with glenn...)

[skitskatdacat63]

Why does my mom look down on me so much for crying and freaking out :( I solved the issue, why does it matter if I freak out easily