#trauma discussion cw

[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

#cw rape mention #ds9 #just to be clear: I did write this post after seeing the take #'the prophets never spoke to winn because even they found her insufferable & knew she didn't even care about bajor' #which I happened to disagree with (as I do w/ every take that claims she didn't care about Bajor or that she and dukat were 'equally evil') #BUT! this is absolutely not meant to be a callout post or anything #there is a lot of general misogyny in discussions about her and I have my issues with the way people make light of her trauma #but if you just don't happen to love her as a character that's totally fine! honestly the very last thing I want #is to make anyone reading this post feel bad (or for it to be used to hate on people who just like other fictional characters more) #so I kindly request that people not reblog this post with that sort of energy thank you <3 #(also I might turn off reblogs if I suddenly get shy lol)

[gaywarcriminals]

Shen Jiu’s horrible response to trauma is incredibly relatable.

At least in western media, there’s this huge prevalence of the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” narrative, and that… is simply not how trauma works. There is some truth to that statement, in that when healed properly, you often come out reinforced along the seams where you shattered, but it was the careful repairing that created this newfound strength, not the thing that smashed you to the floor to begin with.

Without that repairing and reinforcement, you end up fragile, haphazardly cobbled back together without any glue preventing your pieces from just falling apart again. 

I read Shen Jiu as having cPTSD. This seems well supported by the text (though obviously this setting would not apply such language to his mental health). Shen Jiu is someone who has been broken over and over again, never getting properly repaired in between. 

He is not beautiful broken. He is a mess of sharp bits and missing pieces held together by sheer spite.  And the thing that I love so much about him is that it is simultaneously not his fault that he is so sharp and difficult to hold, and it is still his responsibility when those sharp edges cut someone. The narrative absolves him of nothing.

He is not at fault for the circumstances that have brought him to this point, but he is responsible for being better. But that is just so. Incredibly. Hard. It’s easier for him to just decide he’s inherently a terrible person, that he’s fated to be like this, that there is no possible path to being better.

Even without trauma as extreme and all consuming as Shen Jiu’s, it’s so easy to feel that way. There’s a reason the cycle of abuse exists: it is hard to heal, and it is hard to be better. But we are still morally bound to do it, if not for ourselves, then for the sake of those around us.

#When you've lost pieces of yourself what can you possibly fill them with but hatred #svsss #scum villain #shen jiu #shen qingqiu #meta #cw discussion of trauma #watch me write a dozen variations of the same ideas because I think about it constantly #fish meta

[thecruellestmonth]

Do you guys really believe that killing is the singular bad thing that cops do?

Or even that killing is the most frequent bad thing that cops do?

Are you saying that if cops didn't kill, then they'd be the same as Batman? Because then you're suggesting that effectively Batman already is a cop, with the exception that he hasn't killed (just like the majority of U.S. cops, who have never once shot or killed anybody).

I'm a bit worried to see opinions suggesting that only killing is wrong—and that violence, stalking, and humiliation are okay. In real-life, police commit countless acts of those "little" abuses, terrorizing entire communities, before they murder anybody.

Invading people's privacy is wrong. Hurting people to the point of hospitalization is wrong. Forcibly drugging people is wrong. Putting people in cages is wrong. Torture and "enhanced interrogation" are wrong. Ambushing people in their homes and safe places is wrong. Keeping inexhaustible wealth is wrong.

Superhero comics are power fantasies. Not all fantasies need to reflect our ideology in reality. But once you apply your real-life values to fiction, once you decide that fiction showcases exemplary real-life ideology—then your praise for Batman's ideology does become a worrying reflection of your real-life understanding of social issues.

#copaganda #Bruce Wayne critical #GCPD #fandom discourse #Batman copaganda #police brutality cw #Almost sorry to drag serious discussion of copaganda into ridiculous superhero comics but I swear the other guys started it first... #To be clear I'm completely disinterested in condemning or interrogating Bruce over his personal choice not to kill. #But I am so fascinated in how he justifies his own use of violence and privilege!!! So very very fascinated!! #Once again: LESLIE THOMPKINS IS RIGHT. #Actually I'm not gonna tag this post as @nti Bruce W@yne--because really I enjoy canon Bruce a hell of a lot more than his stans do lol. #Sorry but Batman isn't a darling anti-cop revolutionary. If he were then he'd get in line behind Green Arrow and like the Invisibles. #I mean maybe The Audio Adventures version is anti cop but still in a free-market libertarian power fantasy kind of way if you can dig that. #violence mention cw #murder mention cw #fandom drama #This is why Cheer doesn't work because Red Hood realizes 'Oh I don't want kids to lose their parents like I lost mine-- #--therefore I won't murder anymore. It's time to put my faith in the system. 👼👼👼' #Jason sweetie... you lost your father firstly to criminalization and incarceration for property crime. #You lost your mother to poverty and addiction. You are actually not like Batdaddy and your trauma is not a mere echo of his trauma. #Batman discourse

[imfinereallyy]

“You hurt me.”

“I know.”

Steve sighs, and he looks at Eddie in his doorway. So much has changed in five years. But Eddie seems the same. Just his hair is a bit longer, he’s got more tattoos, and he’s got scruff on his face that Steve knows when they saw each other last in 87’ would have driven him nuts.

Steve has always liked the idea of Eddie with a beard. It doesn’t matter now, though. “I think you should leave.”

“Steve, I—I just need a chance to explain.” Eddie moves side to side on his feet.

“Explain?” Steve scoffs, crossing his arms across his chest. “You had the chance to explain five years ago before you left. You had the chance to explain the weeks after with no phone calls to me to any of the kids. You had the chance to explain the year after when you talked to everyone but me, and I thought you just needed time. You had the chance a year ago before you cut everyone else off again.”

Eddie hangs his head in shame. “Stevie, please. I know I don’t deserve it. But I just want to talk.”

Steve’s resistance wavers slightly. He moves out of the doorway to let Eddie in. Eddie rushes inside, knowing Steve will change his mind at any moment. Steve shuts the door behind them. “I’m only letting you in because if Robin finds you in our doorway, she will kick your ass. And as much as you hurt me, I don’t actually want to see you in physical pain.”

Eddie smiles a bit, “Still the dynamic duo? You and Robbie? What’s stopping her from beating me up inside?”

“Our cat Sylvia might see. And she’s trying to shield her from as much violence as possible. Says one Sylvia has seen enough.”

“Oh please tell me she is out by now, because that is a giant gay flashing sign.” Eddie chuckles.

Steve can’t help but laugh a little, “Yes, she is. It would be hard if she weren’t, considering she’s dating Nancy. And Nancy is a lot of things, but subtle isn’t one of them. She shows her off any chance she gets.”

“Wow, Robs bagged Wheeler? Never saw that coming.” Eddie lets out a low whistle. “Must have been a blow to the ego for ya, Stevie. Your ex and your best friend.” He mock clutches his heart.

Steve lets out a big laugh this time, “Nah. I encouraged it. They’re my favorite people; they deserve to be happy.”

Eddie softens, “Yea, being a favorite person of Steve Harrington is a very special thing.”

Steve feels ice water in his veins, “What are you doing here Eddie?”

Eddie sighs, “What do you want to hear? Why I needed to come, or why I wanted to? Cause the truth is I needed to come to apologize to you. Give you the explanation you deserve. What I wanted, though, what I wanted is to tell you that I love—“

“Don’t.” Steve chokes.

“Right apologies first.”

“First? First?! Eddie. I don’t know what you could say to me right now that would make anything make sense. We had something good. It took us so long to get to that point. And it was great because we learned about each other and knew each other inside out. Our friendship blossomed into something more, and we were just getting started, and you left. I had thought I was done with love before I met you. But then you came along and made me feel seen and cared for, and then you got weird and distant so quickly, and you fucking left. And then I knew for sure I was done with love. Don’t think it was meant for me. Sure, that’s not on you, but you don’t get to—you don’t get to open old wounds because you feel the sudden desire to come around again.” Steve swallows tears.

Eddie’s face goes through hundreds of emotions. Anger. Shock. Grief. He doesn’t say anything for a minute. They stew in Steve’s words instead. Then finally, Eddie settles on. “I’m an addict.”

Steve, who has thought about a million ways this could go, has never thought of this. “What?” All the tension releases from his body. He just stares hopelessly at Eddie.

“I’m an addict. I'm sober now, I just reached a year, but yeah. I'm an addict. Never thought I would be. But after everything with Vecna and the painkillers they put me on…it got hard. Denied it for a while. Said to myself a little of everything here and there to forget wouldn’t hurt anyone. But then we were becoming something alongside, me spiraling deeper into addiction. And I—fuck this was easier to practice at the meetings.” Eddie runs his hands through his hair. “You didn’t do anything wrong. But I would have hurt you. More than me leaving did. And I couldn’t live with that. I could live with you hating me. It was selfish of me. I wasn’t ready to give up the drugs so I gave up you, and it’s not fair. Not fair that I did that to you, to anyone of you really, but especially you Steve. You just deserved someone who could love you all the time, love you fully. And I thought I did but I think I was using you a little to make myself feel better. That’s not to say I didn’t love you. I did, still do, always will. But we both deserved a better version than what we had.”

Steve feels tears on his cheeks, he isn’t sure what to say. “You didn’t get to make that decision for me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Steve chokes on a sob, “Dammit Eddie. It was my birthday.”

Something breaks inside them, and suddenly they are in each other's arms, weeping together. There is this fragile broken thing between them, a love that never went away. It is horrible and beautiful and needs so much work to be wonderful once more.

But it was nice to break together again.

“I know. I’m sorry. I can’t say it enough. I’ll make sure every day for the rest of my life that I make it up to you. In any way I can.”

“I don’t know how we can get back Eds. Don’t know if we should.”

“I’ll take you any way you’ll have me. Friend. Lover. A person you only call when you need a ride to the airport. Just let me try; it’s all I ask. I promised I wouldn’t go back to you until I knew I had put the work into myself first. You don’t owe me anything. I would understand if you kicked me out right now. But I need you to know that Steve, I love you anyway you’ll have me. And I have never stopped thinking about you.”

Steve lifted his head from Eddie’s chest. “I’d like to try to get to know you again. This you. See where it goes. But Eds, no matter what, no matter the version of you, I will always care. And I will always be your friend.”

Eddie kisses Steve’s forehead, “Thank you.”

It’s there where Steve and Eddie hug on the wooden apartment floor; they hear the door unlock. “Oh no, she’s home early.”

Eddie doesn’t get to respond because, suddenly, Robin is in the doorway. “Hey, dingus! I brought home an extra latte—“

She freezes at the sight of Eddie before rebooting with a dark look, “Steve, is your nail bat still under your bed?”

——

Wanted to try the whole break up thing, I have a lot of different break up/makeup ideas in my head. maybe pt. 2???? Kinda feels good to stop here. But if you think so I have more ideas for this.

#steddie #stranger things #cw: discussion of addiction #they have so much trauma and I just gave them more #they still both love each other and will eventually get together after lots of work #addiction is hard and it takes a lot of work to get sober #so be kind #hurt comfort #ficlet #steve harrington #my writing #eddie munson and robin buckley friendship #robin buckley #platonic soulmates stobin #addiction #steddie prompt #ao3 #angst with a happy ending #happyish? #it's open ended really #but like it will be happy at some point #angst

[the-rest-of-what-remains]

Eclispekit is just a baby, how could someone be so heartless and want to kill a BABY?!

Peridotpaw: "… Promenadestar was nicer, though. I hope she's alive."

#remnantask #clangen #warriors #warrior cats #wcs #Peridotpaw #Eclipsekit #cw crying #discussion of trauma #TROWR

[wastemanjohn]

You KNEW my prompt was gonna include pregnancy lmao but I’m gonna say samdean accidental pregnancy — your choice if Dean or Deanna, your choice which season but I wanna see Dean(na) confessing to Sam that s/he’s knocked up!

here you go mate <3 (sorry for sneaking my deanna and david bowie headcanon in here but i had reason to believe you wouldn't mind xD - and exploring this pushed me nicely out of my comfort zone so thank you for the prompt!)

The skies over the salvage yard are pink with shepherd's delight clouds.  The evening breeze has a little bite, and the air smells like rotting oil and dead leaves. The latter scent is one Sam associates with shoplifting school supplies, with the good coffee shops opening up on campus again. It's an awkward nostalgia, but it comes to him anyway as he buttons up his shirt for warmth and makes a start on staking out the boulevard of broken cars, armed with two bottles of El Sol and a mental note of all the phrases he's learned not to say. Deanna's gotta be out here somewhere.

The thing is, Sam thinks as he passes the nearly restored Impala, it had seemed like his sister was doing a little better. She's still sharp tongued and irritable, but she's not been spending 12 hours a day doing god knows what under that hood. She's been hanging out with Sam and Bobby more in the evenings, not really saying much, but sometimes she smiles with her whole face at something someone says, and Sam's always a little surprised at the force of his relief. She's even been talking a bit about getting out on the road again, even if she never directly mentions Dad; but Sam's caught her quietly leafing through his journal now and then lately. Not that he's said anything about it, because that's just asking for trouble; and anyway, regardless of any improvement, Sam still has no idea what's going on in Deanna's head, really. She feels very far away.

She went out this afternoon. For hours. Didn't say where she was going; but it's got to be the first time she's left Bobby's place in weeks. She left her phone behind on the nightstand, in this way that Sam couldn't help but suspect was intentional, because there had to be something about that; had to be something in the way Deanna caught Sam's eye through the window as she was coming back, coming all slow down the path with Dad's jacket over her shoulders and this tight expression on her face. Something in the way Deanna had sharply changed direction at the sight of him, veering off until she faded into the salvage yard and Sam couldn't see her anymore. And it's not that Sam meant to be hovering near the front of the house at the exact moment of her return like a worried parent, but shit happens.

Let her be, son, Bobby had said, without looking up from his scotch and that leatherbound demonology book he'd been annotating all day. Harder you push, the more she's gonna clam up.

It bothers Sam when Bobby talks like that, like he knows Deanna better than Sam does or something. As for letting her be - well, if Bobby knows Sam at all, he's got a strange way of showing it.

As Sam goes deeper into the yard, he can hear music. Tinny, faint; but Sam recognizes David Bowie. He spent enough time being subjected to every single tape the guy ever made, even the really out there ones, over and over again as a kid to know that voice anywhere. That had been one of Deanna's more intense phases. Sam thinks she finds him comforting now, maybe; familiar, well worn, like an old blanket. She'd deny that, of course, the way she always denies shit that she thinks sounds girly, or maybe just vulnerable - but it hadn't been lost on Sam over the past year, how Deanna would play those tapes during nearly every overnight drive they took. Her hands always a little too tight on the steering wheel, Dad's unknown whereabouts breathing down the backs of their neck like a spirit.

Sam follows that bustling piano, ch-ch-changes, until he finds his sister. She's sitting on the floor, leaning against the dented door of an eighties truck with a mangled hood. The windows are down. The music is coming from inside.

Dad's jacket is so big over Deanna's shoulders. It practically drowns her, looks kind of ridiculous, if Sam were to be mean about it; still smells like Dad's cigarettes. Deanna doesn't look up, when Sam approaches, but she doesn't hide her face or snipe at him to fuck off either. Which means this is already going well.

"Hey." Sam says it cautiously. "What are you doing out here?" 

Her eyes roll up at him. "Making bacon and eggs, jackass. What's it look like I'm doing?"

Sam doesn't know, actually. Still, he takes the sarcasm on the chin. He holds one of the beer bottles out to Deanna; she glances at it, then shakes her head.

It surprises Sam, but he doesn't push. "You look like crap," he offers.

Deanna snorts. "Well. Don't you know how to make a girl feel special."

There's no bite in it. That tells Sam they're okay. She does, though; look like crap, that is. Tired; washed out. She's been sleeping in the day a lot. Bobby says it's the grief, that she needs it. Sam could believe that. He wonders, though, if Bobby's heard Deanna throwing up in the night lately. Not just one of her tactical upchucks to stave off a hangover, because she's not been drinking all that much lately; but these real hacking puke sessions that jolt Sam out of sleep in the early hours of the morning. She never comes back to her bed afterwards. And Sam has his suspicions about that too, like with the left behind phone; it's Deanna's way of not giving him a chance to pry. She knows how thin the wall between the bathroom and the spare bedroom is.

"Can I sit?" Sam asks.

Deanna shrugs. It's as good as permission.

Sam lowers himself down beside her, gets comfy on the rough gravel. He puts down the beers; doesn't feel much like drinking by himself.

They sit in silence for a while. Puts Sam on edge; but it's hard to know what to say to Deanna most of the time these days, which isn't a position he's ever been in before. Then again, they've never been in the position of losing their father before, so there's that. It still doesn't feel real. It probably never will.

"Keys were still in the ignition," Deanna says, nodding up towards the truck. "Tapedeck works. Engine's salvageable. Bobby's way too quick to junk these babies. Upsets me."

Sam smiles. "Dare you to say that to his face."

"Hey, maybe I will. If he gave me half a day with this death trap I'd get her purring again. Turn her into a whole new woman."

She folds her arms, tilts her head back against that dented door. Her eyes are kinda pink and bleary.

"You should see the tapes in the glove compartment," she adds. "'S a fucking goldmine.

"Is this Hunky Dory?" Sam asks.

Deanna raises an eyebrow. "Wow. And there I was thinking you weren't paying attention all this time."

"You didn't exactly give me a choice. You only played this album every day for like ten years."

Deanna grins. "I'm proud of you, Sammy. I knew you'd learn to love it eventually."

"Love is a strong word," Sam replies.

Deanna snorts again. Something like affection passes over her face. Sam hasn't seen that in a while.

"I lost this album years ago," Deanna says. "Think it ended up with Dad, maybe. You know how our stuff used to always get mixed up." 

Sam's a little stunned. And maybe it shows, because Deanna narrows her eyes at him. "What?"

"Nothing." He swallows - "Just that you, uh, mentioned Dad."

"Yeah. So?"

It's quick, defensive enough for Sam to know to shut up. He's getting good at that kind of thing. 

Deanna's scowl fades; she grins, lightly punches his thigh. "You creep. Quit staring at me."

Sam didn't realize he was. But if they were a different kind of people, maybe Sam would tell Deanna how pretty she looks under the dying sunlight, under those pink, glowy clouds; but he wouldn't really know how to put something like that, and Deanna would never let him live it down if he said it aloud anyway. So he keeps it to himself. Instead, he watches Deanna pull at a spooling thread from her shirt sleeve peeking out from beneath Dad's jacket.

"You know," Deanna says, "being out here always reminds me of us being kids. Bobby letting us play in the yard until the sun went down. Bringing us lemonade. Do you remember?"

Sam smiles. "Yeah, Dee. Of course I remember."

Deanna carries on like she wasn't expecting an actual response. "We'd never had homemade lemonade. Remember how I used to try to make it for you when we got back on the road? Mine always kinda sucked, though."

Sam feels a little on edge, hyper aware of everything his body is doing, like he's trying not to spook a wild gazelle. This is the most Deanna has spoken in weeks. "You tried," he offers, because she did, Deanna always tried so hard with stuff like that. He hasn't thought about Deanna's crappy lemonade in years. With Bowie warbling about life on mars on the stereo, and the memory of Deanna's sticky too-bitter attempt alive on his tongue, it feels like it's 1992 again.

Deanna keeps pulling at that thread. "You know, back when I used to watch you - I was, I dunno, maybe ten or eleven. And you were so - you were so damn innocent, you know? Just really cute, I guess."

"Cute?" Sam echoes.

"Yeah." There's this tight, half-smile on her mouth that Sam can't quite read. "You were so curious about shit all the time. Always wanting me to tell you stories. Always getting yourself scraped and bruised because you couldn't stop fucking climbing stuff." 

Sam isn't sure what to say. There's something about remembering himself as a child that makes him uncomfortable. Maybe it's the idea of being so small and so helpless; or maybe it's the memory of that hard-to-place unease that lived inside of him like blood from the moment he was fully sentient, that gut-deep sense that something about his life - his family, his barely present Daddy - just wasn't right.

"You were a pain in the ass," Deanna continues, with this fond chuckle. "Asking me questions all the time. Wanting to know how every little thing in the world worked. If I didn't know the answers, I'd just make 'em up. You believed everything I said." She clicks her tongue. "Man, do I miss that."

Why are we talking about this? Sam nearly asks. But that runs the risk that Deanna will snap shut like an oyster, and Sam will never get the answer at all. So he keeps his mouth closed. He lets Deanna carry on.

"Sammy, I used to -" She trails off, looking weirdly sheepish. "This is so so fucking weird, but like - when I was watching you, I used to wish you were actually my kid. And you - you kinda were, you know? Felt like you were mine... mine just as much as you were Dad's."

Dad, again. Sounds so unfamiliar in Deanna's voice now that it takes Sam a moment to process the revelation that came before it. "You did? Seriously?" is all he manages.

"Yeah." She's looking at her lap. Still that tight half-smile. "Seriously."

And Sam struggles to know what to do with that, what it means. Because it's hard, lately, for Sam to be angry with his father about much; makes him feel almost empty, actually, after a lifetime of nursing this near-addictive resentment over things he never fully understood. And of those things, Deanna - getting her stuff mixed up with Dad's, being so intertwined with him, resembling her martyred mother so much Dad could never stop commenting on it - Deanna seeing Sam as her own, apparently - well, he doesn't know. Sometimes Deanna just says shit. He probably isn't meant to read into it.

And besides, Sam doesn't know anything for sure. Always felt like he never really wanted to. And as he's already made his choice to love his father, he needs to keep it that way.

Deanna shuts her eyes, then. They're puffy under her lashlines, kissed with gray. "I mean," she says, "Don't get me wrong. You annoyed the crap outta me sometimes." She shrugs, hard, like a defence to an attack Sam hasn't made. "I - I do know that, Sammy. I know there was times I coulda been nicer to you." She looks a little pained.

"We were just kids Dee," Sam offers. "Not like either of us were exactly saints." 

"I keep remembering," Deanna continues, in that way, like Sam hadn't spoken again, "There was this time Dad kind of - got caught up in something. Still don't know what. But he wasn't home when he said he'd be. We were running out of everything. Food, money. No one was answering the phone. And you - you were driving me insane, Sammy."

Deanna says the last part a little too quietly; her head bows, hair covering her face. And Sam thinks he knows where this is going. He's getting a little uneasy.

"You just - you kept on and on with your damn questions. 'Where's Dad? What does he do while he's away? When's he coming back?' Then you - you asked about Mom."

"Deanna-"

She shakes her head, cutting him off. Something bitter on her lips, not quite a smile. "Who punches a five year old in the face, Sammy? I can't believe I -"

"You were only nine, Dee." Sam reminds her, when she doesn't finish the sentence. "You didn't know any better."

And it's true; Dad made sure of that, with his shoot first, ask questions later manifesto. But Deanna would never see it that way. She just laughs, colorless, bitter. "Yeah. I did. I shoulda, at least. I just -" She huffs. "Sometimes it feels like I just - I couldn't stop screwing up."

"You were doing it all by yourself." As the words leave his mouth, Sam registers how they sound. Like something you'd say about a single mom, some divorced thirty something with three kids, working two jobs to keep everyone fed and clothed. Not a nine year old.

"I guess -" Deanna sucks in a breath. "I just think about that a lot. That's all."

There's this dread growing inside of Sam as he watches Deanna's mouth twist up; she blinks, angrily. "Are you - crying?"

"Shut up," she mumbles.

She turns her face away a little. Draws her knees up to her chest. And it's strange and unsettling for Sam to see, like a horse walking on its hind legs or something; because Deanna doesn't cry, crying is for girls, and anatomy aside, she doesn't much like being seen as one of those. Even before Dad's pyre she stood, solemn and silent, breathing slow, composed. A hell of a lot more composed than Sam was, anyway.

"What's going on, Dee?"

She shrugs. That's very different to I'm fine.

And if things had been in any way close to normal over the last couple of months, Sam might touch Deanna's hand right about now. Lace their fingers; cup her face. Kiss her, maybe, the way she hasn't let him kiss her in a long time. Not since - well - not since the night they let Dad go. Sam can still remember the heat from the fire on his face, the way Deanna's hair felt grainy with ash; how her lips had tasted earthy and swollen, how she felt so small and fragile in his arms, more than she ever had. Still his big sister. Still the person he wants when he's scared and spiralling and doesn't know what to do but grab onto her, and hold on and on and on.

Deanna sniffs, loudly. "I just - I had so much on my shoulders, you know? Dealin' with you... dealin' with Dad..."

Her voice cracks a little. Sam says, "It was - it was a lot. I know." 

A lot. So much summed up in those two words, but it's not like Sam's had a lot of practise in talking about this.

Deanna laughs down at her folded knees, all thick. "You don't know, Sammy. You don't know at all. And I'm - I'm really glad you don't."

Sam isn't sure what to say to that. Partly because he can't gauge Deanna's tone, and partly because that feels like one of the most honest things Deanna's ever said to him. And now he's really worried.

"I just - I always wished I had another chance, you know? A chance to do over all those screw ups I made."

Tentatively, Sam reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder. It tenses a little beneath his fingers; but she doesn't pull away. That's good.

"I don't know where all this is coming from, Dee," Sam admits.

There's a pause, and Deanna seems to blink for a little too long. "It's - Sammy, I just keep on thinking. Dad's - Dad's gone." 

It's the first time she's actually said it. Sam swallows; throat feels a little thick. "Yeah. I know."

"And I was just getting - you get used to things being one way, you know?" She runs a hand through her hair, shiny with grease like oil slicks. "It's always like that. You start getting used to things, and then - then some other shit happens. And suddenly things are a whole new way. Before you can even fucking -"

"What do you mean?"

"Sammy, I knew something was wrong. I - I think I knew all along. But - today..."

Sam does everything in his power to keep his growing anxiety out of his voice. "Where did you go today, Deanna?" 

Her lips press together. She's still looking at her lap.

That dread expands, curdles, in Sam's gut. "Tell me."

Her hands are shaking against her thighs. "I - I went to the doctor."

That's absolutely the last thing Sam expected. "Since when do you go to the doctor?"

"I kinda had to."

Sam watches the little quiver of her fingers; and with that, he thinks back to the puking, the tiredness, how not right his sister looks. He thinks about Jess, how they were talking about what color to paint the living room 24 hours before she went up in flames on the ceiling. He thinks about Dad calmly sending him off for coffee before he…

Things are one way. Then suddenly they're another. Before you can blink, before you even remember your own name.

"Are you - are you sick?" Sam tries to keep his voice even.

Deanna isn't looking at him. "Kinda."

Sam thinks about Deanna hooked up to wires and machines. The miracle; how miracles don't happen. He's been harboring a little fear that there has to still be something wrong. A lacerated organ. A foreign object. Something they must have missed. But he thought - hoped - it was just that - a fear.

Sam sucks in a breath. "Okay. So - so what..."

Deanna smiles grimly. "Turns out I've got a parasite."

He watches Deanna shift. Her hand move towards one of the pockets of Dad's jacket. She keeps her eyes on her lap as she passes a small slip of paper to Sam. Small, rectangular. He takes it.

It's a moment or so before he realizes what he's seeing. Kind of like a photograph; a fuzzy sepia. Odd shapes that slowly begin to make sense.

"Ten weeks," Deanna says, her voice a little hoarse with disbelief. "I'm - I'm ten fucking weeks pregnant, Sammy."

Sam stares numbly at that ultrasound still. At the shapes, like two beans stacked on top of each other. Faint, fuzzy lines. Tiny arms. Tiny legs. He stares at them until they blur.

Ten weeks. Ten weeks since -

"So it's - " Sam can't finish the sentence.

"Yeah, Sammy. It's yours."

Her voice sounds very far away. And Sam can smell ash and fumes, traces of hospital grade body wash on Deanna's skin, skin that was bruised all over from cannulae and wires; and Sam couldn't catch his breath because Dad was gone, the last of him was just yards away on that burnt out pyre, gone; and Deanna's hands were on his face, tangled up in his hair, forehead pressed against his, and she was straddling his lap in the Impala's backseat, her eyes shut, muttering ssh, ssh over and over, maybe to Sam, or maybe to herself, but she kept saying it, even through the long kisses she kept pressing to his mouth; and Sam remembers he could barely see, he felt like he was choking on that ashy air, but he had Deanna, and he needed Deanna, he'd never needed her so much in his entire life. And Deanna understood, the way she's always understood things like that; and Deanna had kept on with her kissing and ssh-ing as she moved on top of him, fast, desperate, and Sam had clung onto her waist and met each roll of her hips, fast, anguished, because he couldn't get close enough, deep enough; and Deanna had been making these pitchy, breathless sounds like she was in pain, but she didn't stop Sam, and the whole time her eyes were wide and fixed on his face; and Sam remembers tangling her hair around his fingers like rope, he remembers arching up against her as he came, his body going through the motions, his senses numb to it. That numbness hasn't really left him since.

"Sammy, say something."

Deanna's voice, strained, cuts through the memory. Hauls Sam back to the present; Bowie, rotten oil, dead leaves. That autumnal breeze. His sister's face, tight and worried. Sam recognizes that pallor a little more now: shock.

It's passing through Sam as well. Of all the things he expected - this was nowhere on the list. Nowhere close.

"Alright," he manages eventually. Amazed at how calm he sounds. "What do you wanna do?" Because that's the thing to ask, right?

Deanna's lips twist again. "I mean - like, right away, I thought about just - you know - going off and taking care of it. Not even telling you. Just - "

"You wouldn't have told me?"

"I said I thought about it, Sam." She clicks her tongue; another rough wipe of her eyes. "I'm telling you now, aren't I?"

Sam keeps staring. Staring, at that image. That tiny, tiny baby. 

"Is that what you want?" he manages, eventually. Hoarse as Deanna. "To - take care of it?"

Deanna's pause seems to roll around the length of the yard. Then, her eyes stray to her lap again. "You know, Dad used to lecture me about this shit. Made it very clear how disappointed he'd be if I ever accidentally got myself knocked up."

Sam says, "Really?"

"Yeah. All the time." There's something acidic in Deanna's voice. "And you know why he harped on about it so much?"

"Why?"

"Because he said it wouldn't be fair to bring a kid into all this. Into the life." Deanna laughs, this flat, one-note thing. Something sharp flashes through her eyes; something gone too quick for Sam to fully identify. "Can you believe he said that to me? After everything he..."

She stops. And Sam watches Deanna's face reset, as if she hadn't expressed something like anger towards Dad for the first time ever. Something like what Sam has been saying, feeling, thinking, ever since he was old enough to understand. Everything Deanna always denied.

"It wouldn't have to be the same." It comes out of Sam's mouth before he can catch up with it. "You know. The same as we had it."

Deanna keeps on looking at her lap.

"You -" Sam takes a breath. "You know that, right?"

Deanna sighs. More like the breath whipping out of her body. "I'm not gonna stop looking for the demon, Sammy."

She says it like she expected Sam to insist on it. He clarifies: "I'm not saying we do. I'm saying we make it work."

He has no idea how. No fucking idea. His brain hasn't quite absorbed what's in front of him yet, the news undigested; but he's certain, somehow, of that.

Deanna gives that odd laugh again. Sam isn't sure what it means, this time. "It's also..." She picks at that thread on her shirt again. "I mean, the doctor said it looked healthy. But what if it comes out and it's like, a cyclops or something?"

"Why would it be -"

Deanna's shoulders rise. "You've seen Deliverance, right?"

Oh.

Sam swallows. His eyes stray back to the picture. Not that he can see much; not that there's much to see. But there's enough there for Sam to think it looks absolutely perfect.

"There are risks," is all he can think to say. "But it's - you know. It's not completely inevitable."

Deanna narrows her eyes. "You've already looked this stuff up, haven't you?"

She says it in this accusatory way. Sam runs his thumb delicately across the grainy image. "There was always a chance this could happen, Dee."

Always a chance. They've never done much to mitigate it, really. There's not enough space in Sam's brain right now, to wonder why that is.

Deanna skips over it too. Runs a hand through that greasy hair. Her lips twist.

"I just think," she says, after a while, "even if it comes out with three heads, playing a fucking banjo... would I care? You know?"

She's still not quite meeting Sam's eyes. Sam prompts, "Would you?"

"I mean. It's not like it'd be the only freak in this family, right?" A smile spreads across her mouth. "Sammy, you know I wouldn't care. I'd -I'd love it no matter what."

"Me too." It comes out thick; Sam's never been more sure of anything in his life.

He hands Deanna back the picture; takes her hand, deceptively delicate and cold in his, as he watches her eyes fog up with tears again. She doesn't hide this time; leans in to press her forehead against Sam's, just like that night ten weeks ago, just like they've come full circle. And fuck, it feels like forever since Sam's been touched like this, touched by anyone; he's just wondering if leaning in for a kiss would be pushing it, when he feels Deanna's plump, dried out lips brushing his. They feel a little sticky, and there's this malodor to her breath, but Sam barely registers it. It's like coming home.

I missed you, he doesn't say; can't, when Deanna's mouth would smother it anyway. When Deanna would only screw her face up and call him a big girl, and he'd rattle with guilt about feeling a little humiliated by that, but he'd feel it anyway.

Deanna pulls away first. She's a little flushed, and Sam can faintly see the capillaries in her face, like pink lines on a map under her skin; she squeezes his hand, laces their fingers. Moves them together until Sam's palm is flat against her stomach, the warmth of her body underneath that worn flannel.

"I keep thinking I can feel it," she whispers. "Now I know it's there."

Sam watches their interlaced hands dumbly. Overwhelmed. He can too.

"I kinda hope it's a girl." Deanna's voice has that hoarse quality again. "So I can - so she can have a Mom. So she can have what I didn't have."

She says it at the exact moment Sam finds himself hoping it's a boy. His reasons are similar. But for someone who doesn't like to talk, Deanna's always been way better at articulating stuff like that.

"You'll be a great Mom, Dee," he says, firmly. You were to me.

"Alright. You don't need to kiss my ass." Deanna ruffles his hair, like she did when she kissed him goodnight as a kid.

It takes Sam a moment to find his voice again. "I mean it, Dee. We'll make it work." He says it with this conviction that rises up from somewhere deep. "And I'm gonna be here for you, alright? Every step of the way."

Deanna groans. "Jesus Christ. I knew you'd be like this."

But she's smiling. And Sam allows himself to as well.

"Sammy?"

"Yeah?"

“You know Dad would kill us, right? But man, do I wish he was here right now.”

She says it with a laugh in her voice, her face all twisted up; and Sam can't help but remember how he and Jess had talked about kids, vaguely, sometimes, kind of like a concept, a distant dream. How Sam had thought to himself about Dad a lot then, too, the way he never really stopped thinking about Dad and Deanna. He remembers wondering to himself whether Dad would be proud. Whether he'd even want a grandkid; if he'd want to know at all. Back then, Sam genuinely toyed with the idea that Dad wouldn't even care. Never come back, Sam.

It's not the same, now. Holy fuck, this is not the same, and it can probably only be a good thing that Dad's not here to know about this; so Sam pushes away the thought. He puts his arms around Deanna's waist and pulls her as close as he dares.

"It'll be okay," he says again, because he can't think of anything else. Because it has to be.

Deanna's looking at him kinda intently. "Sam, do you think this is Dad's way of like - you know - coming back?"

"Uh - what?"

Deanna shrugs. "Dunno. Just - hormones talking, I guess." She squeezes Sam's hand against her stomach. "Forget I said anything."

Sam's not sure he can. They don't say anything after that.

#asks #prompts #samdeanna #johndeanna if u squint #my writing #yes I know I literally always play in this part of the Canon sandbox #but whatever i invite you to sue me #cw discussions of abortion #cw childhood trauma #cw intergenerational trauma #cw incest #this came out very soft by my standards lol #well apart from all the incest and trauma #it's so heavy on the incest lol

[threewaysdivided]

The Shaper of Minds and its possible consequences for a certain character

I have finally joined the rest of the internet in losing my mind over a D&D Podcast - in my case, the wonderful Dan Jones & Dragons.  With Episode 26 due to stream on Dan’s Twitch this week, I really want to talk about some of the stuff that came up across the just-finished Gala sessions because the fallout from that has the potential to be incredibly fraught.

THE SHAPER OF MINDS

The relic the Flower Crowns were going after this mission – The Shaper of Minds – is a potentially fascinating narrative device that might as well have been lab-engineered to be my exact brand of personal nightmare fuel.   It’s a small, ornate brass key that can alter any part of the target’s mental faculties/thoughts/memories at will should the wielder touch it to any part of their victim’s skin.

Now, on one hand, there are a heap of interesting (and even benevolent) applications for a tool like that.  It could instantly grant access to skills, languages and knowledge that would otherwise take a person years of study to learn.  It could be used to sort through and resolve memories that had been faded by time, muddied by trauma or forcibly supressed by magical/medical means.  But on the other…

As described and used in campaign so far, the primary function of the Mindshaper is to alter memories (and the attendant personality) with the target having no awareness that their mind has been changed.  It’s basically gaslighting on steroids, except that where a gaslighting victim still retains their original recollection – and has to be manipulated by their abuser into doubting their own perceptions and instead accepting the alternate telling of events (a cognitive dissonance that can eventually lead the person to recognise the manipulation) – the Shaper of Minds entirely replaces the original recollection of events with the version the wielder wants their victim to perceive.  There is no internal conflict between accounts, no inconsistencies that could alert the victim that someone has broken into their head and rewritten their perceived reality.  The person they reshape you to be is the person you believe you always were.  And all it takes is a single touch.

That is a brand of existential horror that had me on edge all throughout Session 24 (basically from the moment it was implied the key was in play).   Reality may be objective, but each individual person’s internal reality is governed by their perception – their memories – of the events in their life, no matter how incomplete, biased or otherwise skewed that personal perspective may have been.  You have value just by being you because you are not replaceable, but the thing that makes you unique is, in large part, the sum total of those inimitably specific personal memories.  No-one else will perceive the world in exactly the same way you do, and even a few minor changes to just a few of those perceptions can flow on to massive differences in ideals, values, priorities and future choices.  In that regard, the use of the Mindshaper Key isn’t so much an alteration as an obliteration of the victim’s former self and replacement with someone new; even if that new stranger is largely indistinguishable from the original.  And, again, all it takes is a single touch.

[Sidenote:  This made Mister Wick an especially effective antagonist to wield the key, since his Galas functionally trap even targets who are aware of the threat within the rules of high-society behavioural expectations.  Otherwise-innocuous actions like a handshake or private conversation suddenly become incredibly dangerous, while being nigh-impossible for the Flower Crowns to extract themselves from without committing an atrocious faux pas and potentially tipping Wick off.  Perfectly designed stage for a psychological horror-thriller encounter.]

Which of course, brings us to a certain character who fell victim to the key in Episode 24…  [put under the cut for spoiler reasons]

MORENTHAL

This poor Drow, he can never catch a break…

Morenthal may not have been the most mechanically dangerous party member to fall victim to Mister Wick’s manipulations although, given that the key was revealed to let its wielder read existing memories during the alteration, and that all of the Flower Crowns were fully briefed on the locations and nature of the Eversteel artefacts, him getting a hand on any of them could have been very bad plot-wise but from a character point of view I think he’s the one who the key’s effects had the potential to be most personally devastating for.

The way things ended up playing out across Session 25 was precisely the nightmare scenario Gamb was fretting about out of game: Mister Wick forcibly implanted Morenthal’s mind with false memories of being his lifelong trusted confidant and supporter, then – before the Flower Crowns could reverse the key’s effect – Morenthal discovered that Mister Wick had been killed in combat with Coil and Preston, leading to the Party having to physically restrain him so they could use the key to undo the damage, thus confronting Morenthal with the realisation that not only was everything he thought he knew about Jonathan a lie, but in actuality Jonathan had committed possibly the most invasive violation he’d ever been subjected to in order to forcibly make Morenthal into one of his loyal tools.  That level of emotional and mental whiplash would be rough on any character, but for Morenthal it’s particularly brutal because…

Based on what’s been revealed in-game so far, the core of his character is that Morenthal is an abused child.  This most-clearly came up in his conversation with Gelnek in Session 14; he was a child who grew up with nothing, raised by the Bloodletter Mercenaries as a tool instead of a person, and taught to see faces only as targets – with him also mentioning to Hobson in that their “combat training” involved being relentlessly beaten down until he learned to fight back.  During his Session 21 visit with the Nightmother, he openly admits that “nowhere feels safe”.  From that it’s pretty clear to read that Morenthal has never felt unconditionally loved, safe or respected around other mortals.

(This also helps contextualise why he’s so devoted to the Nightmother.  From what little we have seen of his visits to her, Iris is a fond “adult” figure, who does not threaten, does not judge, asks nothing of him aside from his company, and cares equally for all the souls that pass through her domain.  For a child “growing up with nothing” but violence, that would have been everything.)

But then, enter Jonathan fucking Wick.  And now, just for a short while, Morenthal has all these “memories” of Jonathan being there to confide in, encourage him and support his escape from the Bloodletters.  Suddenly he believes someone was there for him and, while the memories might be fake, the feelings of unconditional safety they would have brought were very real.  Little wonder that he started acting like a Trilby-level naive goober around Mister Wick to the point of accidentally snitching on the rest of the group.  Only, then it turns out to be a lie and those memories are gone.

For me, I think one of the worst things Morenthal might end up dealing with in the aftermath of having his memory fixed isn’t the specific feeling of personal betrayal or the potential shame at having been caught: it’s the realisation that he was always alone.   That there was no mortal on the outside who cared or came for him when he needed them – just him and the distant fondness of a Divine.  That would be awful beyond words, and yet the Flower Crowns were forced to inadvertently inflict it upon him in order to restore his mind.  No wonder he wouldn’t look any of them in the eye before the session closed.

Worse still, the nature of the key makes it incredibly hard not only to trust others, but to trust your own mind.  The players and audience above-table know that Morenthal is back to experiencing and remembering reality as it happened, but the question could very well linger for him, bringing with it a hefty dose of paranoia.  Sure, Morenthal correctly remembers that Coil is a straightforward, loyal person who wouldn’t be tempted to tamper with his mind beyond undoing Jonathan’s manipulations… but he “remembered” that about Mister Wick too, and wouldn’t that be a beneficial thing for the Party to have him think?   To Morenthal, people were already Not Safe™, but now the one person he ever believed might be had actually violated him worse than anyone else in order to force and abuse that trust.  How is he supposed to trust anyone if he can’t trust the authenticity of his own recollections.  (I get the feeling that Morenthal probably isn't going to be capable of relaxing until the Shaper of Minds is confirmed to either be locked back safely in the Vaults of Eversteel or fully removed from the Mortal Plane by Six).

It makes it really tragic that all of this came directly on the back of Episode 23, where Gamb revealed during the above-table break chat that - even if Morenthal didn’t recognise why – he unconsciously trusted Trilby and Gelnek enough to jump off the airship without checking that his rope was secure, because deep-down he knew they would catch him.  To go from that high-point to the whiplash of him first thinking the Flower Crowns had killed the only person he was ever “safe” with, then them inadvertently subjecting him to the most painful realisation he could ever experience and potentially leaving him wondering whether he can even trust his feelings about them is absolutely gutting.

I think the thing that scares me most about how the aftermath could potentially play out is another trait that Gamb and Dan have established for Morenthal: he's a flight-risk.   He shies away from letting people get close and, if he feels unsafe enough, he runs.  It’s already been mentioned/implied that he’s considered fleeing the group at multiple different points across the sessions.  And with him likely not feeling safe even in inside his own mind right now, that risk is probably at an all-time high.  The poor lad is staring down the barrel of a potentially-impending multi-level emotional crisis, where a lifetime of instincts will probably be urging him to run hard and fast because People Are Not Safe™.

And the thing is, that instinct isn’t a good one for him either.  Morenthal might have gotten by on his own “just living to be” up until Filgrove, but that feels a lot more like surviving out of necessity than having an actual life.  It’s pretty obvious that he pushes people away as a defence mechanism:  if you don’t care about anyone then you can’t be hurt by them or have those people used against you.  But if you don’t let yourself care and feel things, you’re not really living.  The truly tragic part of his running being a potential foreseeable outcome is that the Flower Crowns are good for Morenthal.  (I doubt Morenthal realises it and can’t speak to Gamb’s above-table thought process but it’s interesting that one potential interpretation of Morenthal’s cynical, faux-apathetic, “stinky” behaviour is that of a former abused child quietly testing the boundaries of whether he’s allowed to exist in a way that’s inconvenient for others, to which the answer from the Party has largely been yes provided he isn’t actively encouraging Trilby to get himself killed, or killing people without explaining himself).  He survived alone before because that was all he knew, but I get the feeling he wouldn’t do so well if he tried to go it solo again after being with people (he’s already confessed that the idea of Feyli being gone makes him miss her).   That’s not a road to walk on his best day, let alone with his current headspace and tendency towards self-destructive choices. 

It reminds me a lot of this article:

“Still, it’s easier for us to keep blaming ourselves because it’s preferable to facing the unthinkable: the fact that our parents don’t love us. …  Most people would rather do anything than accept this as the truth. Not only is it painful; it’s humiliating.”

So yeah, suffice to say I am incredibly concerned about how Morenthal’s arc is going to play out over the next session(s).  Here’s hoping that Gelnek and/or Coil have enough emotional savvy to keep an eye out, and enough patience to stick to him even if he lashes out in attempt to drive them off.  Even if it all works out okay, I get the feeling that this one’s going to be ugly.

Can’t wait to see how everyone chooses to play it ❤️‍🩹

#The Shaper of Minds #An artefact that is absolutely fascinating and whose implications make me PHYSICALLY NAUSEOUS if I contemplate them too much #(So now I must share that nausea with you all) #Session 26 is going to be so rough for the poor guy I feel anxious just thinking about it #I am CONCERNED FOR THE LAD #there is a nonzero chance that he could walk away from the best thing that's ever happened to him and that terrifies me #Also just to say: this is NOT me trying to enforce a certain reading of events or backseat game how Gamb and the cast should play things #I'm just indulgently speculating because I have a personal interest in trauma recovery and character analysis is my great love #child abuse discussed cw #gaslighting discussed cw #existential horror #Dan Jones and Dragons #DJ&D #The Flower Crowns of E'lythia #A Party to Forget #DJ&D Meta #DJ&D Spoilers #Morenthal #Morenthal (Wolfsbane) #Character analysis #(Also for anyone unfamiliar with this campaign: Yes. The villain of this arc WAS named Jon Wick. DJ&D is great) #3WD

[starlitsunday]

[cw: discussion of rape]

i Am talking about a real person's oc when i'm like "why in the fuck did you write your character having sex with angela in the first week". and i'm talking about them for a really good reason.

angela is introduced as the glados of lobotomy corporation, your suspicious robot assistant. you as the player don't even know what sex Means to her, other than that she's just told you "yeah i was designed to be sexually available".

your player character turns out to be her maker, and her abusive father figure if you do not intentionally write him as his own entity. it's a valid alternate reading! but this player didn't know anything about that yet, not even enough to define his character AS a separate entity.

now to anyone who perceives this game for more than five minutes, angela is obviously not okay. okay people do not say shit like that on first meeting a complete stranger. and even if the player character is not ayin, not written to be related to her at all, there would have to be a slow slow burn for things to turn out okay.

so that's the fiction.

all of that would, on its own, be completely innocent. a hypersexual survivor with similar trauma to angela's might write that by accident, or with the intent of having the characters do a weird false start and then they work it out later on. hell, a survivor with similar trauma to angela's might deliberately write it as a kink scenario. none of these are inherently harmful, because they're not hurting anybody.

but then this person turned out to be an whole ass IRL Rapist whose entire predatory MO was based in using fiction to groom and exploit people who did not understand the intersection of trauma and sexuality.

and that is where you cross the boundary between fiction and reality, and that is why i am a ship discourse centrist lksdfghlgh

tl;dr:

#rape cw #discussion of trauma + fiction + consent #ventin' #r #sorry this person's reactions to project moon were REALLY FUNNY

[whattraintracks]

5. Video Games - Multi

What's this? More Raphael angst? Why are we surprised.

So I was listening to Stay Down by boygenius while some prompts simmered in my brain, and when this one started boiling somewhere around verse two, I knew what I had to do.  

Would Raph even like this song? Who knows, but I sure do, so I am going to close-read the heck out of it and draw so many connections.

Video Games >> I'm just steering my life in a video game >> It's a half-life, it's a fallout 

before any of you wonder what this has got to do with the prompt, here it is! it's in the song. prompt satisfied

apparently, those are also references to video games

. . .

moving on

Fighting and Learned Behavior >> lean into the punch >> push me down >> hold me under >> stay down 

a.k.a. physical altercations as an allegory for Raphael’s life 

obsessed with the metaphor of him leaning into a punch

if he can’t avoid life's blows, he'll do what he can to make them hurt less

suffer the hit just to get it over with, or take it for someone else

on a less angsty note, I simply associate Raph with boxing 

he's a skilled ninja, but sometimes he wants to sucker-punch someone

cuz this boy really loves fighting, and that ain’t a bad thing 

>> wasn't a fighter 'til somebody told me I had better learn >> would you teach me I'm the villain

I think a lot about Raph and learned behavior 

when I tell you Rise and '03 Splinter altered my brain chemistry 

hiding their connection to the Foot/Hamato Clan

trying to spare their sons from anger, grief, trauma, vengeance, and wars that don't belong to them is fascinating to me 

but in every version, he teaches Raph how to fight 

and I've talked about how '87 Raphael still inherited those things from Splinter's

even the ones who don’t are still altered by growing up with him, looking at you M&M Raph 

it's not a coincidence '12 Splinter sees so much of himself in his son

Defense Mechanism and Love for Enemies >> lean into the punch so it don't hurt as bad when they leave 

Raph's anger often screams defense mechanism to me

if humans are going to hate him anyway, again he'll lean into it

be snarky and rude and scary and mean and give them something to really hate

sometimes, his anger is preemptive, but it's not always unfounded

I don't think even ten fingers are enough to count how many times a recurring character turned on the '87 turtles

Raphael should have been allowed to beat up Vernon as consolation

>> there you were, turning your cheek 

but wait! there's more! the Christian references in this song are not subtle

Luke 6:27,29 "Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you . . . if anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also"

I'm thinking about '87 Raphael's "Yeah, I'm with ya, but I'm bitter" and helping the guys protect a city that doesn't appreciate all they do

I'm thinking about '03 Raph, who is resolute it's not their problem that the city's at war but gets involved because Leo does 

I'm thinking about '07 Raph taking up the Nightwatcher mantle after Leo leaves New York 

Disconnection in Personal Relationships >> I look at you and you look at a screen 

this second verse, I think, is pretty open to interpretation, which works well given how many variations there are of Raph

linking "screen" to "video game" in the next line, I picture Raph reaching out and being ignored

like '03 Raph figuring his anger out on his own v. Leo getting sent away for serious/professional help

like '07 Raph missing Leo and hearing no word from him for years 

or I read "screen" with the connotation of concealment

like Rise Raph keeping it together for his little brothers until he can't

like their shock when he finally breaks down

the loneliness of Raph looking at his brothers and knowing them so well but feeling like they never really see him  

>> similar acts and a different name 

I am always struck by how similar Raph and his brothers are 

the little things they do the same because they were raised together

the ways they deliberately emulate each other  

it has to sting seeing so much of them in himself and himself in them and still be reduced to "the angry one"

especially when it's them thinking this way

(side note, Google has this lyric miswritten as "similar accent," which is hilarious in this context) 

Loss and Lack of Control >> I'm in the back seat of my body 

canon takes great pleasure in depriving Raph of control over his body 

how intensely all Raphaels experience their emotions 

off-screen and childhood trauma like “Savage Raph” in Rise 

on-screen trauma that must lead to dissociation, flashbacks, nightmares, etc. 

the two, at least that I know of, mind control events with ‘12 and Rise Raph

even ‘87 Raphael getting de-aged

you could also interpret this as gender dysphoria and I've seen a lot of good trans Raph headcanons

>> I'm just steering my life in a video game 

beyond losing control of his body, Raph never really has control of his life 

“turtle luck” and all that 

this often shows up when their stories shift

like ‘87 Raphael, who goes from a wise guy to a sarcastic grouch as his story drags on and takes a darker turn

as opposed to Rise Raph, who throughout the series, gets talked down from heroism and over-vigilance

but guess which behaviors get rewarded and reinforced during the Shredder arcs and Krang invasion

so as not to ignore the prompt any more than I already have, I do enjoy those episodes where “life in a video game” for Raphael is a little more on the nose

Combat Land (1987), Across the Universe (2003), Mazes and Mutants (2012) 

Literally Neurodivergent and a Minor 

(Shoutout to this art from @/20s-turtle-posting that inspired the name of this section) ((and, no, I did not realise this is an ironic meme and will be taking it seriously))

>> aren't I the one constantly repenting for a difficult mind? >> push me down into the water like a sinner, hold me under >> villain >> sinner >> half-life >> fallout 

I warned you about the religious imagery, but it's a little off in this verse

because repentance is about change as growth

but Raph feels like he has to change his "difficult mind" this ingrained part of himself

so he's stuck in a cycle of remorse and regret, unable to gain control

I think about running fast and far and anguished cries of “what is wrong with me?” (2003)

pushed into and held under, the waters of baptism are no longer cleansing and renewing but suppressing

it's the people closest to him saying “you are seriously twisted” (2012) and “you’ve got a rage problem” (M&M)

and having to decide between hiding those parts of himself or hoping they'll love him anyway

it's Raph feeling bad and broken, feeling like he's a danger and a poison to everyone around him

>> lean into the punch so it don't hurt as bad when they leave >> it takes so long for me to settle down and when I finally do, there's no one else around 

and I wonder if Raph's temper is ever tied to feeling unlovable, and one feeling sparks another in a vicious feedback loop 

a teenager testing the boundaries of care and affection, more defense mechanisms

how does he get himself to believe in their steadfast love even when he feels unworthy of it

to trust he's safe enough to feel all of his ugliest emotions when his life is so out of control

he forgets, his story doesn’t let him remember, that he’s still a kid 

he's got a lot of growing to do, and even if it takes a long time, he’ll settle down one day, find his balance 

his family’s gonna stick it out, and they’ll still be around when he finally gets there

tl;dr I will never be able to listen to this song without crying about Raphael now, so thanks, brain. 

#march for raph #cw trauma #discussed not shown #it's still the fifth somewhere right? #why did i think a pseudo-essay would be less work/time-consuming than a fic? great question #raphael splinterson #raphael hamato #tmnt #whattrainofthought

[balthazarslostlibrary]

I haven't even played BG3, and yet I still have been inundated with Astarion-posting because I'm in D&D groups and fandoms.

Usually I wouldn't be bothered, but the way a lot of people talk about him, is extremely uncomfortable. I've seen so many people be horny about him in ways that lean into fetishising trauma.

If you find yourself saying things like "what I actually want is a pale, sad vampire boi with trauma so heavy that his back constantly hurts from carrying all that weight." (actual quote I have seen)

Please stop. This is really gross and is objectifying people with trauma. It's especially concerning when talking about a character who's trauma is specifically related to sexual abuse.

It's ok to be horny about characters with trauma, just don't do it in this way please. If I see you doing so, I will be keeping my distance.

#cw trauma #discussion of trauma #bg3 #bg3 astarion #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate astarion

[young-prince-firefly]

Dazai: *talking about some traumatic thing that happened to him*

Dazai: And then I curled up in fetal position and cried. Do you know what fetal position is?

Atsushi: *lays down and curls up*

Atsushi: I sleep in it

#incorrect quote #this is based on a stormbringer discussion me and my sibling had #Atsushi sleeps in fetal position and I accept no other opinion #dazai osamu #atsushi nakajima #firefly posts #cw #trauma #crying #dazai #yeah he's a content warning #bsd #i know it says cried but he screamed #he just didn't want to worry Atsushi

[probablyaseamonster]

Me up at 2:30 AM trying to find a my little pony speedpaint series I liked 5 years ago, scrolling through piles of gore and smut only to find that the artist deleted their account and all their videos...

#the average mlp fan experience #man this reawakened a bit of trauma #the fact that a completely clean artist left the fandom out of shame #probably because they spun characters on a wheel and made fankids of them #but that's not even the cringiest type of thing to me #like okay i'll give it to them that the gore mlp artists are talented #but bro... what's so appealing about mlp? #what draws you like wasps to a juice? #i would like to have a discussion about this #i forget the artist's name but it was something involving light brown foods i think #i feel... loss #mlp #mlp fandom #cw mention of smut #cw mention of gore #just in case #bronies really traumatized a whole generation #but honestly I think we had it better than the next few #what a thing to find when you're barely a teen #thanks internet

[the-badger-mole]

Words Mean Things!

Guys...it's time. We need to talk about Trauma Bonding. I don't believe I've ever seen this term used correctly within fandom. Specifically, I mean the ATLA fandom, and especially in regards to Zutara. (I'm certain that it's not exclusive to this fandom, but it's the one I'm active in so that's what we're talking about)

A lot of us seem to think that trauma bonding happens when two people connect over similar traumatic experiences, or who go through the same traumatic experience. A cursory Google search shows that's not what the term means.

According to ChoosingTherapy.com, a trauma bond is a "strong emotional bond that develops between a survivor of prolonged abuse and the perpetrator of the abuse."

In a trauma-bonded relationship, the abuser intermittently punishes and rewards their victim, creating a dynamic where the victim works harder to stay on the abuser's good side. Trauma bonds are often a survival tactic for abuse victims. While they are common in romantic relationships, they can happen in any relationship where someone is abusing or exploiting someone else, such as in cases involving elder abuse, kidnapping or hostage situations, religious or political cults, or in abusive parent-child relationships. The victim will often make excuses for their abuser, even believing they deserved the punishment in the first place. They may even become hostile when someone outside of the relationship tries to intervene or convince the victim that they're being abused. There is a clear power imbalance in a trauma-bonded relationship, although both the abuser and the victim may become emotionally dependent on each other. - (Broxtowe Women's Project).

There are certain criteria that are widely accepted to be necessary in determining whether a relationship is a trauma bond. According to PACE (Parents Against Child Exploitation), some of the necessary conditions that need to be met include:

To be threatened with, and to believe, that there is real danger

Harsh treatment interspersed with very small kindnesses

Isolation from other people’s perspectives

A belief that there is no escape

That has never been Katara and Zuko's dynamic. While they were violent with each other, that violence occurred as opponents in battle. When Zuko turns sides, Katara's treatment of him is hostile, but not abusive. Once they're friends, they're equals who meet each other with care and understanding, and in the few short episodes where we get to see them interact, they have one of the healthiest relationships in the friend group. There is an explicit trauma-bond relationship in the show, however, and that's Zuko's relationship with Ozai.

Zuko spends his journey believing his father was right to burn and banish him. He spent the first season and a half trying to atone for the sin of speaking up against the slaughter of his own people. Iroh's attempts to help Zuko realize his father was evil were met with resistance and hostility. Zuko clung to his memories of the days when he thought his father loved him. His character-defining struggle was the decision to break his trauma bond with Ozai. (MedicalNewsToday.com)

What Zuko found in his new friend group was support, care and understanding. To call Zutara in particular a 'trauma bond' because they could relate to each other's losses is a huge discredit to their friendship, even if you don't like them together romantically.

#atla #zutara #cw abuse #abuse #child abuse #domestic violence #trauma bonding #nothing graphic here #just a heads up #i fail to see how two people discussing and bonding over similar tragedies is unhealthy #that's literally the point of support groups

[dennisboobs]

god the bad takes just keep coming how are any of us going to survive hiatus lmao

#ada speaks #cw incest mention #this might surprise some of y'all but some of us don't want to openly talk about inc*st #both because there are freak shippers out there who take and spin your words into supporting whatever it is you're discussing #or because we have related trauma and don't fucking want to expend time and energy talking about it #it doesn't mean we're like. stupid or media illiterate for 'not seeing' it #i cant even fucking post a still of dennis and dee standing next to each other without shippers coming in my goddamn notifs #i do not think we have space to discuss these things in a nuanced way in this fandom #because i can't even discuss dennis and dee's relationship at ALL without it being spun into inc*st even if i am NOT talking about that shi #so yeah forgive me for not wanting to touch that with a ten foot pole #get your incest shipper asses out of my notifs im going to throw you into traffic #the fact that i have to put dee/den shippers dni in my fucking bio should say enough about the state of respecting boundaries in this fando

[steddie-island]

I have two things I have to do today. 1) call my surgeon for my 2 week post-op followup 2) therapy this afternoon.

I want to write, but I feel like I should call my surgeon first to rip off the bandaid? But on the other hand, I'm pretty sure doing that is going to ruin my goddamn day lol.

So anyway I think I'm gonna write instead and call at like 4 instead so I at least have a few good hours, then I can have an hour to de-compress before therapy just to get myself worked up again.

#CW Surgery mention #There has been so much trauma around my fucking surgery #Like so fucking much lol #And I have Other Stuff I need to discuss with my therapist but this is going to be the Main Topic of convo for probably the next 4 weeks #And I still want to kick my surgeon's ass tbh #Like I'm still really in my feelings about everything even though I'm in a lot less pain in week 2 than I was in week 1 #But ugh #ALSO ALSO they cut my fucking stomach open and the 2 week followup is a fucking /phone call/ in what universe does that make sense?? #I think my only in-person follow-up is going to be at 6 weeks post-op

[oliveasaltylife]

I am so glad to be home from the hospital

My cats are very happy to have me home as well

And my husband—even more so

I am not so glad about the added trauma that came home with me. I knew it was inevitable, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

9 days in the hospital—which translates to 9 days of constant respirator usage, holding my breath for temperature checks, small sips of water, mouthwash, and hoping that I wasn’t exposed to anything when I was vomiting or dry heaving.

4 days on PPN

3 infiltrated IVs (1 of which may have caused permanent damage to a vein from PPN)

And the beginnings of a Chiari/Tethered Cord flare to top it all off.

I’m not even able to go into more detail at the moment because I was heavily dissociated the entire time and haven’t met the new parts yet.

#cw vomit mention #cw emetophobia #cw trauma mention #cw trauma discussion #cw medical trauma #I know I have more to say but I’m not able to access that right now #dissociation adds a whole different level too #I was trying to explain what it felt like to my husband last night because I was not the one fronting while we were in the hospital #my last memory was being discharged from the first ER visit #I don’t even remember going back to the ER that night even though I know I did and ultimately ended with admission #the best analogy I have to explain it is the feeling of getting knocked out and thrown in the trunk of a moving car #It’s jarring to lose a full 9 days #dissociative identity disorder #osddid #medical #disabled #olive blogs #signed: Annie