#learned helplessness go brr | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

solreefs · 6 months

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was browsing my notes app and found this. it’s from last year so uh. don’t judge it too harshly.

post-canon Santi angst go brr. cw for guilt and fire because Santi is Santi and I’m me.

Santi falls into a routine.

Never walk home at exactly the same time, so no one can learn his pattern. Stick to side streets in order to better hide, but stay within sight of the more well-traveled streets, in case he needs to disappear among the crowd. Move slowly, scanning for danger at every turn, only moving when he’s sure it’s safe to do so. Trust his training, despite the countless times he’s failed to spot anything until it’s too late.

Don’t think about Murasaki. Don’t think about how he was supposed to protect her, and how she died when he couldn’t do his fucking job.

Check around the house for anyone lying in wait for him. Inspect the windows and door for signs of damage or forced entry. Then, and only then, unlock the front door and enter.

Don’t think about coming home from Belgium to an empty, ransacked house.

Step inside, shut the door quickly behind him, call out to Wolfe if he’s home. Turn the key in the lock, as though it will protect them, as though a locked door ever kept out anyone who really meant them harm. Pretend it makes up for his inability to keep Wolfe, or anyone else, safe.

Don’t think about the Artifex promising Wolfe would have scars to match Santi’s, because Santi couldn’t stop asking questions. Don’t think about the way the man who made the cuts on his chest whispered in his ear, told him he could save Wolfe if he just kept his mouth shut. Don’t think about how Santi agreed, caved to their threats, stopped looking for his lover, abandoned Wolfe to those dark cells beneath the streets of Rome.

Take a deep breath, bite his lip until he tastes blood, the sudden, stinging pain bringing him back to the present. Shrug when Wolfe asks about his day. Say it was all right, tell him about the training exercises, mention anything else Wolfe might find interesting or amusing. Change the subject before he can say anything about the guilt that feels heavy enough to choke him. Ask Wolfe what he’s working on, listen to his lover ramble about his latest project, wonder how he ever ended up with someone so brilliant.

Don’t think about Wolfe being ripped apart by that Translation tag and sent back to the prison he’d spent so long avoiding. Don’t think about how Santi should have seen it coming.

Have a late dinner together. Ignore the concern in Wolfe’s gaze when Santi barely eats anything. Don’t mention that everything tastes bitter these days, or that sometimes even the thought of food makes him feel sick.

Don’t think about the scent of Greek Fire, tasting the bitter, acrid reek of it on his tongue with every mouthful. Don’t think about how the chemicals clung to skin in that cell in Philadelphia.

Do one last perimeter check of the house. Confirm that all his weapons are where they’re supposed to be. Whisper a desperate prayer that if danger comes, this time Santi will be able to protect what matters to him. Go to bed, dim the glows, but don’t turn them all the way off. Pretend he isn’t afraid of the dark like a child.

Don’t think about sleeping in dark tents, war zones, bombs, Greek Fire, all the death around him that he is helpless to prevent. Don’t think about Morgan dying in a blazing inferno as Santi throws himself against her invisible barrier, unable to save her.

Wake up gasping for air, absolutely certain that the house is burning. Sit up, look for the fire, see nothing, and lay back down. Hide his face in a pillow to muffle the terrified sobs he can’t hold back no matter how hard he tries. Lay there, shaking and shattered, crumpling under weight of his guilt and fear, and the knowledge that he is supposed to be better than this. Remember how it used to be said that Niccolo Santi didn’t fail, remember all the soldiers who praised his work.

Don’t think about all the friends who died because of him. Don’t think about Zara.

Stay in bed until the sun rises, then get up and make coffee. Get ready to do it all over again.

Don’t think about what happens when he finally breaks.

#solreefspeak #the great library #my writing

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moonlight-melts · 3 years

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????

Anxiety on my end is funky because I don't even have to eat less to lose weight.

Hence why I'm 45 kg. For nearly 170 cm.

I don't particularly dislike my body. It's scrawny for sure, but that's not much of a big deal to me. The problem's that my skin get pressed so hard by my bones that I have bruises everywhere. They don't even really hurt, they're just... There.

I eat normally, even probably more than most of my friends. Yet I keep losing weight.

And that's not the only thing wrong with me.

My parents dragged me to see two different therapists. Both of them ended up saying "Oh but you have a HIP diagnosis, we can't do anything for you, you have to learn to live with it." Oh ok wow that helped me a lot thank you very much! /s Honestly, I still don't get what this diag means. It was expensive to my parents for absolutely nothing because it's pretty much bullshit.

I know that I need help. But I lie so much to my parents pretending that everything is fine because why would I burden them when they already have so much to deal with that I can't tell them. I can't ask them. If my mom ends up doing something because I talked, it'll be my fault. If my dad gets angry, it'll be my fault, too.

And I'm pretty sure I'll get the same result, like... "We can't do anything for you". Because I'm really that failed.

I'm lost. I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know how to handle that situation. I genuinely don't know.

#blueberry talks 🍡#vent #tw weight #haha learned helplessness go brr

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captaincleverusernamehere · 3 years

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OK. even though we only got like a fifteen second clip, here are my thoughts:

1. Jack doesn’t break the doc out of prison like we all thought he would. He also probably broke out himself, as he’s wearing his jacket and not the red jumpsuit like 13 was in the promo pic.

2. The doc is not as helpless as she looks in the promo pic, where she’s seen scratching off the time that she’s been in a cell (or the silence? lol). If this is the case, she somehow breaks out of the judoon facility and finds her TARDIS, even though it looked in the end of The Timeless Children as if she was teleported out of the TARDIS, and the ship left alone.

3. BUT!!! The sound Jack hears could simply NOT be her TARDIS. If it were the Master’s, then we would get an answer of whether or not he actually got killed in the season finale, and get Jack angst because of his experience with the Master in season 3.

4. OR... It could be the TARDIS that the Fam used to escape Gallifrey. The issue with this is that 1: the fam don’t know how to drive the TARDIS, unless it’s like Rose in season 1 (which is unlikely because they never learned about that). and 2: The Fam never new that the doc is in prison. Although, thinking about it, they DO know that the doc may have died, or at least disappeared last they knew. Maybe they tried to get into the prison to save her, couldn’t because of security, and went to the next best person: Jack.

This would be frustrating though, because it would hold off Jack from re-meeting the doc for EVEN LONGER. But i feel like Chibnall might just want to toy with us before we actually get to see that happy reunion. AND OF COURSE, it would make sense that the Fam try to go and rescue the doc, because in the other promo pic we saw, it was the Fam just kinda sitting dejectedly around a table, so maybe they were conspiring to save the doc?

Basically my brain go brr at a fifteen second clip heres the consequences :)

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