#the way she handles her own traumas and griefs just isn't pretty and that's a whole other can of worms she's constantly faced with | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

destinysbounty · 2 years

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We as a fandom do not talk about this scene nearly as much as we should

Like, I had already headcanoned that Nya's independent personality was a result of her upbringing, but the fact that this scene officially confirms it is just *chefs kiss*.

What I find so interesting about Kai and Nya is that their childhood trauma has very clearly effected personalities and overall characterizations. Both of them have lone wolf tendencies (albeit more so in earlier seasons), often tending to go their own way and handle their problems on their own instead of relying on the team. They both have anger issues and short tempers, struggling to process their emotions in a healthy way. And neither of them are comfortable with weakness and vulnerability, and tend to lash out when they feel cornered.

There's also the fact that, due to growing up as two kids forced to raise themselves and learn survive with limited assistance from their community, both of them are understandably afraid of feeling weak and vulnerable. What I find to be perhaps the most interesting part of all this is that despite sharing a similar fear, both of them have vastly different coping mechanisms for dealing with it.

For Kai, his fear of powerlessness manifests in a desire for more power - a desire to be the green ninja, a desire to protect his friends, a desire to be strong and heroic, and of course a difficulty with accepting the situation when he loses his powers. He has pretty seamlessly integrated his power into his persona as well, frequently referencing his abilities and praising his status as the master of fire arguably more so than any other character. He's quickly turned his power into a huge part of his identity. Every time he loses his powers, he tends to go into a bit of a depressive episode - in season 5 he developed a fear of water, and in season 11 he became so upset that he nearly quit being a ninja altogether. When he failed to save the Never Realm villagers from Boreal, he blamed himself for it by lamenting that he wasn't powerful enough to save them.

You get the idea. Point is, Kai doesn't like feeling weak, he doesn't like vulnerability, he doesn't like being the weak link or a liability holding everyone back. Personally, I would point to that insecurity as being the primary driving force for his determination to become the green ninja, but that's definitely up for debate.

And as for Nya, this fear has manifested as her being a fiercely independent perfectionist, equating mistakes and failure with weakness, and fearing failure to such an extreme extent that she either gives up anything she's not immediately good at, or completely ignores her problems and pretends everything is fine. Like in season 5 when Wu was training her to become the master of water. "I'm not weak, this bucket is weak! I'm good at everything else, why do I have to be good at filling buckets?!" Or her struggles to get along with her mother all throughout Seabound, knowing full well that she can't blame her mom for leaving but still not quite ready to have her mom in her life again. She also isn't good at asking for help either, often preferring to handle things on her own even at her own detriment, and often she has a hard time admitting when she's wrong as well.

Whenever traumatic things happen, she just steamrolls right past it, refusing to acknowledge her own grief for very long. At Zane's funeral the first thing she said was, "So...what happens after this?" In the face of Maya's repeated attempts to reconnect and talk about Nya's childhood trauma, Nya would often shrug her off or storm away or change the subject.

Maya tried to explain her reasons once - tried to explain that sacrificing yourself comes with immense collateral damage, often hurting the same people you're trying to protect, and says "That's just the way the cookie crumbles." But Nya can't bring herself to address what Maya is really getting at, instead swimming away and saying "I don't like crumbly cookies."

That's why her final words are so important to me. "Tell my mother I understand now. That's the way the cookie crumbles." Nya has finally come to terms with and accepted her mother's decision, accepted that not all solutions have perfect answers, and has finally confronted her own baggage once and for all. She understands why her mother left, she forgives her, and above all she, the team perfectionist, is making a decision that isn't perfect. A decision that will leave a lot of collateral damage, and will cause serious trauma to her loved ones. She knows that by leaving her friends behind and becoming one with the sea, she's hurting them the same way her mother's absence hurt her - but she does it anyway because it's the only way to save their lives.

And as she looks back to say goodbye to Jay one last time, she cries. She mouths the words "I love you" - something she'd never said out loud before. She lets herself be truly raw and vulnerable. Even during her death in Skybound, she was still trying to keep her up her strong and defensive facade, saying things like "I never wanted to be part of your boys' club anyway". Even on her deathbed, in that moment she can't bring herself to let down her walls all the way. But here, several seasons later, she has finally let herself be vulnerable enough to cry, to say goodbye, to say "I love you."

Nya may not be my favorite ninja, but she does have my favorite character arc. Her going from samurai to ninja was a controversial decision, but I really do think it was a good choice in the long run because it almost feels like it's symbolizing her growth - going from a lone wolf who insists on doing things by herself, to being part of a team and relying on her friends just as much as they rely on her.

Just...I love Nya so much. She needs a hug.

#ninjago #nya smith #nya ninjago #ninjago nya #ninjago seabound #kai smith #kai ninjago #ninjago kai #ns14 #ns15 #long post #destiny post

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m4ndysk4nkovich · 7 months

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here's a question, what do you think happens to Debbie (and Franny) post s11? Personally I'm not a fan of the idea that Debbie would go off with Heidi after she fought tooth and nail to stay in her own house, plus Heidi is...not really what I'd picture for a good ending to Debbie's story. What would you see being a good post script for Debs?

ahhhh i love you for asking this

i mean, there's a part of me that wants to say that everything will go great for them, but i think that it'll be rough for a little while.

to answer the heidi thing (which i have talked about many times before but this ask is a little bit old lol sorry!), she will not last. she'll be gone in like, a week, and will never be heard from again. i think that the finale made that pretty clear, even though other people interpreted it in other ways. when heidi mentioned texas, debbie looked hesitant, and considering how she spent the past season fighting for this house, and the past eleven seasons fighting for her family, there isn't a single part of me that thinks she will be leaving for texas and if she does, her kid will be coming with her 100%.

but anyways, debbie will be going through it. she will have lost her father and her girlfriend in the same week or so and given her abandonment issues, i think she'll probably break. she'll have a whole breakdown over it, then be a bit depressed for a month or two, and then i think she'll slowly start to feel better. also, something that nobody talks about for some reason is the fact that post-11x12 all of the gallaghers (including mickey, tami, kevin, and veronica) all most likely get covid since they were all around frank and like touching him and shit, so that will probably happen.

i think that, as always, she'll pick herself up on her own and fix everything herself. her business will thrive, maybe she'll help out at the alibi if carl and tipping buy it (i hc that they do), but i think that money-wise she'll be set.

she and lip will definitely still have some conflict. every gallagher kid has a complex, difficult relationship with frank (i've actually been writing about this) but these two and frank have always stuck out to me (but they all stick out to me, honestly). i think that since the two of them were already fighting and are both notoriously awful at handling their emotions shit will go down.

debbie will keep the house since it's been in her name since the season nine finale (i mean duh, why would lip get to sell HER house??), lip, tami, and fred will move to milwaukee but then lip and tami will split up and it'll be messy, maybe he'll come back to chicago and they'll get split custody, carl will live there for another year or two, liam will live there until he graduates, and ian and mickey will move back to the south side. debbie will feel uneasy because of all of the change, so she'll insist on family dinners weekly, absolutely NO exceptions (you could be sick with some sort of flesh eating virus and she'd still demand that you attend).

she will never fully process losing frank. even dead, he still manages to fuck her over. i think that she'll set up a memorial for him a lot like the one she set up in 3x01.

if she reads the letter it'll fuck her up even more and i'm hoping that she gets therapy (i have a fic in my drafts about this lol) to help her deal with trauma, abandonment issues, grief, and help her navigate parenting while being only twenty.

i seriously just wish her the best because season eleven really made me realize how much she actually needs help.

live laugh debbie gallagher

#shameless #shameless us #shameless meta #debbie gallagher #franny gallagher #heidi shameless #post-finale #11x12

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itsclydebitches · 1 year

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Clyde, I’m angry because they’re doing it again. They had the opportunity to make a complex situation and they’re making black and white again, Clyde. I’m not happy. I’m very angry, Clyde. The fact that Jaune isn’t allowed to lash out for a second when a village he was protecting was destroyed while Ruby can bitch and moan about a burden she placed on her shoulders really makes me fucking angry, Clyde. Duck this SHOW. Christ.

I feel you 🤣

I do understand the fans - RWDE included - who are fully anti-Jaune because yeah, in the grand scheme of things it's a problem that he is again allowed to hog the emotional spotlight when we've got a cast of four to develop. But within the non-meta context of the story and what we have to work with... hard agree. My problem with the focus of Ruby's meltdown isn't simply that she's complaining about something she actively took from others with horrific consequences (though that is a huge part of it), but that it's explicitly pitted against the death of Jaune's village. Yes, we can infer that Ruby is upset about a lot of things - like Penny - but that's not what's written in this scene. So what you end up with is:

Jaune: I'm lashing out because the family I've been protecting for years in my unimaginable isolation have all been killed and my supposed friends are calling me crazy and won't even acknowledge that this is a true loss

Ruby: I'm lashing out because my self-imposed leadership has gotten too hard for me to handle and my teammates haven't noticed that I'm crumbling under the authority I demanded others grant me

The middle part of that is the only part of Ruby's meltdown I agree with - yes, her teammates have been awful to her since landing in Ever After and I HATE that Yang's sisterhood/Weiss' partnership/Blake's supposed pride in Ruby have all but disappeared - but that's only a small part of her underlying complaint which is... that she got what she wanted? Ruby wanted to call the shots and now she's pissed that people expect her to call the shots. Like yeah, you can (and often should) write a character who regrets their choices, but if they don't acknowledge their agency in those choices (which Ruby veeeery much hasn't) they just come across as a selfish asshole. Which is also a great archetype! ... just maybe not in the supposedly innocent, pure soul meant to be a pretty simplistically good hero?

Then you toss in the fact that Ruby's meltdown is contrasted with Jaune's and things look so much worse. Ruby is regretting her own choices. Jaune is grieving countless deaths at the hands of an established villain and the narrative's uncomfortable suicide metaphor. These are not the same. These are not even CLOSE to comparable and the only way you can try to weigh them equally is if you a) toss in all Ruby's trauma which explicitly isn't brought up or b) buy into her idea that the Paper Pleasers are "make believe" and therefore their loss is of no emotional consequence. Sorry, but that doesn't work for me in a story that (originally) positioned Penny as a person despite not being human AND in an episode that JUST had the girls prioritizing the Paper Pleasers' perspective over Jaune's. The story can't criticize Jaune for not listening to the highly-articulate, autonomous beings and then also claim they're nothing but insignificant figments of his imagination. It's one or the other. If the Paper Pleasers are "human" enough to treat their desire to die with respect, than they're "human" enough for Jaune to grieve the hell out of when they're gone. Plus, I know a lot of people won't buy into this because we didn't see the relationship develop on screen, but Jaune spent years with these non-human people who act innocent and silly and a little bit "dumb" sometimes. That sounds a lot like Penny! If Ruby is subtexually lashing out because she's still grieving a non-human friend she had for a year and two-ish months... why would we expect Jaune's grief to be any less after loosing a whole village of those friends after years of living together? He's grieving countless Pennys all at the same time, after all that time being alone. This basically takes Ruby's situation and magnifies it by a hundred: what if you had LOTS of friends die and the world ACTUALLY forced you into being the hero (Jaune becoming the Rusted Knight) and instead of just being ignored for two days, you were without your friends and family for two decades?

Seriously, Jaune's situation is a lot like Ruby's situation just with trauma squared - right down to him being a leader - except he didn't bring much of this down on his own head. Having these two meltdowns in the same scene isn't just a problem because Jaune gets more emotional screentime, it's a problem because I can't take Ruby seriously compared to the insane horrors Jaune is enduring beside her.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

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lizzybeth1986 · 2 years

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If you had your say, how would you have wrote Liam and MC's ending? Or how would you have written the royal heir?

Thanks for the question, anon! Honestly if it were up to me changes would be made from the latter half of TRR2 onwards. A lot of the writing for Liam at this point focused pretty strongly on the MC, with little scope or necessity for her to be as supportive. This may have been fair, to an extent, during the time that the MC was still handling the plot that hurt her reputation, but once that is resolved the team never actually bothered to make her as supportive as she was to, say, Drake or (later, especially in TRH) Maxwell. (If someone is going to claim Liam didn't help the MC during her investigation I'm going to laugh. The MC actively chooses not to involve him and even then he's offering help whenever he has the opportunity).

For instance, by the end of TRR2 we have the subplot of Liam wanting to be different from his father, who he respected as a king even though he is disgusted by what Connie has done. In TRR3 that never becomes important - as a matter of fact Liam actually isn't given a consistent plot in TRR3! When he eventually loses his father in the attack at the Costume Gala, Liam is made to leave that grief behind and focus on the next task, with the MC only barely making an effort to even ask about his well-being. This is a pattern you will see throughout Book 3, and it bleeds even into TRH (where - even though Liam is faced with reveal after devestating reveal about his mother's death - little more than a second is spared by the MC to show concern for him). When you compare that to the number of times Liam is supportive and protective and at times offering to help - I have to honestly wonder if the MC as she exists in canon even cares.

So probably 75% of the changes I would want to make would have to do with the MC's imbalance in who she actively tries to help and who she barely makes an effort for (you will notice that the first category is filled with white characters). The remaining 25% would be about centering Liam in his issues (including exploring how his losses and the country's crises would affect him), ensuring that most parts of his plot and stories aren't given away as sympathy fodder to Creator's Pets, and absolutely making sure that the writing doesn't try to nerf him into a duke rather than a king just so the MC has more power - which is what happens subtly in the early books and more obviously in the latter books of TRH/F.

With regards to TRH I'm not even sure if I would want it to exist. I'm pretty certain the team was mostly just making shit up as they went - with all the retcons and absolute inconsistencies in characterization - so either I'd try to incorporate Eleanor's story (without the conspiracy angles) into TRR3, or just do without it and let the fandom headcanon the past to their heart's content tbh.

In terms of the pairing I've headcanoned - Liam and Esther connect to each other most because they are two such deeply repressed people, but have to reevaluate that during Esther's own pregnancy (which happens a year or two after their wedding) when they are confronted with their own and each other's traumas. So there is a reason why they won't delve too much into each other's feelings, but I absolutely see them finding other ways to support each other!

#ask me #ask lizzy #king liam #mc: esther dupont #liam x mc #the royal romance #the royal heir

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smolstarthief · 3 years

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Persona 5/Persona 5 Strikers: Pro-Police or Anti-Police?

Hoo boy... So this honestly has been a LONG time coming on my end because I have seen so much of that debate on social media (Twitter namely) and I can see the points of BOTH sides but there have been moments where it just got out of hand... Especially whenever people tried to put in a more grey/nuanced take only to be slammed and taken out of context. Even repeatedly mentioning the interrogation at the beginning of P5 which, I will admit has gotten tiresome. At least for me, I do still feel for Joker and I wished the game acknowledged his trauma more but there's a thing called, "beating a dead horse" and this is one along with "Haru says ACAB" in Strikers (which was done THREE TIMES in the same arc and it got annoying fast, like shut up already! We get it!). So, let's dive in a little bit:

MAJOR SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!!!

Persona 5/Persona 5 Royal

Now let me just say I know! Police in Japan are just as bad if not worse than the West and I STILL hate the idea of Makoto wanting to become a cop for such naive reasons (especially with what happened to Sae, her own sister!)... But there are at least some of form of nuances sometimes and by that I mean, I can see what they were trying to do? I do agree that P5/P5S backpedaled SEVERELY by deciding to sweep issues under the rug after addressing them and not continuing from such. In fact I feel like it could have been a hell of a lot better. But P5 did something different compared to previous games and addresses the issues DIRECTLY right at the beginning of said game! It was tense and horrifying, but needed. Of course... They then sweep it under the rug and act like nothing traumatic happened to our protag which is NOT a good look at all and I'm still pissed off about it. In the main game's case, it's portrayed as more black and white with only a SMALL amount of nuance like that cop that was trying to help Futaba when she went out by herself and got lost (which people ignore entirely by the way). So I CAN see where people got the "anti-police" message from... But that's only the tip of the iceberg as it's ACTUALLY more about Systematic Corruption, not exactly or JUST police corruption. Namely in politics with Shido and the Conspiracy (which is apparently still somewhat around in Strikers until Owada's downfall) controlling everything all the way to law enforcement. The force had been basically under his payroll (including the corrupt SIU Director before his death) whether by force or not (mostly not in this case though). Now honestly, the police depicted there are undoubtedly rotten to the core save for a VERY SMALL handful (the cop that was trying to help Futaba which, again, gets ignored by several). Look at the interrogators who ruthlessly beat and drug a minor without any second thought or remorse for example. But again, the black and white narrative the game kept unwittingly doing ended up being to its detriment in a way. I'm not defending those assholes AT ALL! They deserved every punishment given to them! But for a game that goes on about grey morality... It doesn't quite deliver on that. Still though, it does emphasize that it's more of the fault of the whole corrupt system, not just one part of it. There needs to be change and reform which is what our MCs were trying to do in a way (more like inspiring change but still). In the end, it's all about the following:

Corruption and abuse of power.

Again the police depicted in this game were incompetent at best, corrupt at worse with very few silver linings. But it's not just them but rather the one person responsible for the whole mess. Who had them under his payroll? Who controlled them and by extension all of Tokyo? Who was willing to dispose of anyone who "outlives their usefulness" or is perceived as a threat to what he wants (including his own family)?

SHIDO AND BY EXTENSION THE CONSPIRACY

Bottom line: They are definitely a problem but it's not just them.

"But, Joker and his trauma?"

I definitely understand that and still do. I fully believe he has and still has trauma with the police. Easy! But... I do feel like people go too far with it sometimes. It's hard to explain but there have been moments where people either use it as a justification/argument against someone trying to provide a more nuanced view of things or... Dare I say, depict him like a "uwu soft traumatized boi." Like I said, it's hard to explain on my end so feel free to ignore it. Everyone deals with trauma differently so there is STRONG chance that I'm overanalyzing it. I just remember moments where I just feel a little, I guess annoyed? I'm not sure exactly but final thing: I understand what he went through and I can't imagine how long it would take to recover but I hope he DOES overcome it.

"Sae? Akechi?"

Yep, even though their jobs are different, they are by and large members of law enforcement no matter how you spin it. Both were broken in a way. Akechi is pretty easy to explain with how Shido negatively impacted his life but not much about Sae, who dealt with sexism/misogyny at her workplace along with the trauma of her father's (also a cop) death. She no doubt had some idealism only to be hit with the fact that she's gonna have to use underhanded/downright illegal tactics to get by and even rise up the ranks. She, therefore ended up (well, nearly) corrupted herself before coming to her senses. That's honestly one of the BIGGEST REASONS why I felt like Makoto joining the force to become a police commissioner isn't a good, even a downright naïve, idea. I honestly would have been somewhat fine with it if it weren't for that fact among other things. Regardless of her willpower, it will go south fast.

Now... Onto Strikers!

Persona 5 Strikers

Since the game came out and I started playing it, I still feel like the system is still beyond saving, especially when attempting to do it from the inside. But I don't mind the added nuances that P5 didn't do much of. It's still continuing the critiques, just shows more of what does happen within said system and even has an ACTUAL officer (Zenkichi) say, "Yeah, my job sucks, everyone's corrupt, there are much better ways to do things and make a change but not this. I'm only staying because I have a daughter to take care of and it's all I know. I'm no different from them." Was it all handled well? I wouldn't say "yes" (Joker's trauma is BARELY addressed at all of course) but a little better than what P5's narrative did which only addressed the issues but not exactly follow up on them. Now to be fair... In the system, regardless of where you live, any one within it who remotely tries to do something or speak against it either lose their jobs or even go "missing" irl. Those have happened and it's more proof that yeah, it's rotten to the core. There's no denying it but regardless, that's NOT what the game is about at all. At least that's what I feel about it as it's only PART of the narrative. I think Zenkichi puts it best here:

Speaking of Zenkichi... Oh boy... Now I definitely understand some of the criticisms with him but honestly, he was the best written (PT) character I've ever encountered! He was honestly the perfect representation of those that genuinely want to help and do good, only to be held back by an extremely harsh reality. It was already hinted at with Sae but here? It 100 percent confirms just how harsh and even cutthroat it can be if it could break someone's idealism so badly. Even Kaburagi of all people thinks the same thing Zenkichi said:

Then there's his past and it's a tragic one! But let's look more at the decisions he ended up making:

While it was no doubt done to protect his daughter, he ended making a selfish decision along with a selfless one (which was brilliant!) with not only allowing the cover up of his wife's death and denying justice for her, but also ruining an innocent person and their family's lives.

It's horrible, but also... There's a grey area/nuance as with the rest of his character. It was both understandable, but also wrong as he, as Akane's Shadow puts it:

He sacrificed his values, his morals, all for the sake of having a peace of mind. Speaking of Akane, she's also an interesting case in a way that she more or less perfectly represents the more "black and white" views on justice in general. Namely the more toxic/biased kind. Her reasons are also understandable but she was also acting selfishly by only focusing on how SHE was effected by Aoi's death and not even considering those that were also grieving her death and/or that people grieve/handle grief differently than her. But back on topic.

Her own views and beliefs that law enforcement basically SHOULD be dismantled (mostly out of said childish bias and black & white views) and it's framed as WRONG and it's very much correct on that. Chaos and order are two sides of the same coin, one can't exist without the other. When I say ACAB, I'm calling for reform, defund, have the corrupt held accountable for EVERYTHING and even face jail time for their crimes! Defund the police, have the ones that arrest, harm, and even murder out of bias (race, gender, etc.), lose their badges/jobs and locked up, make improvements! It's saying that there IS still corruption out there and there's no denying it. But fully eliminating the law in general will just lead to more problems. Now granted, she's young and clearly doesn't fully understand why those views are ultimately wrong but still... It was a very interesting subject to tackle and I feel like they handled it well.

Now back to Zenkichi, he was at first in denial about his decisions ultimately being the wrong ones too and even tries to justify it. Of course, his Shadow said otherwise and that was when he finally admitted that he really did act no different from the criminals he despised. But it also doesn't mean he can't redeem himself and that's what ultimately leads to his new resolve:

That right there along with everything else! There's the nuance! And ultimately despite some hiccups, Strikers handled the grey morality and nuance beautifully! Especially regarding law enforcement! Dare I say, even better than the base game! It continues the critiques with no problem but also showing different sides and areas of it! There is good and evil, but what about in-between? What about the more greyer area? It still says that there IS corruption, sometimes even beyond saving but... Sometimes a small silver lining is hidden somewhere.

Now, the ultimate question:

Is P5 & P5S (namely the latter) Pro-Police or Anti-Police?

Personally, my answer is this: Neither.

Why? What theme do they both have in common?

JUSTICE

Someone puts it best on Twitter that the games are more pro-justice and I fully agree!

P5/P5S gives the idea about following your OWN justice, your OWN moral code and rules, paving your OWN path and not let others dictate it! That's what the MCs ultimately start to learn in both games. Therefore it's pro-justice. Again, do I agree that the system is beyond saving? Yeah. Do I at least acknowledge and understand what the narratives are trying to say and nuances regardless even if I don't agree with some writing decisions (ex: Makoto wanting to become a commissioner despite everything)? Also yes. But at the same time, don't judge a book by its cover for other people (not just law enforcement and politics mind you). Especially some that genuinely DO want to help at best. That there is nuance and greyness, just have to look closely. Some of the MCs are still TERRIBLY written and executed (even annoying) but the message was still somewhat there.

Final Thoughts

Now I fully understand how you all feel of course! I still believe in ACAB and even I agree that maybe I'm one to talk and have a lot more to learn about the world... This is just my own attempt at putting my own two cents in. If you disagree, that's fine! This is just what I've felt should be at least talked about more often. And I tried to phrase it as best as I can without coming off as insensitive or ignorant and if I did, I sincerely apologize for that! I'm not trying to say, come off as a "bootlicker" or any of the sort. I'm just trying show discuss more of the grey areas and nuances that are, more often than not, constantly overlooked. How one interprets both games is ultimately up to them. You, the player. And this is my own interpretation. Simple as that. I hope you all have a good day/afternoon/evening!

#starchild rambles #analysis #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #persona 5 strikers #p5 #p5r #p5s #p5s spoilers #p5r spoilers #p5 spoilers #long post

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reading-the-ruins · 2 years

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Just had a really good (and kind of intense) therapy session. There's a term I learned in Al-Anon - "terminally unique" - that means something like when you think you're so special that your suffering must be special, too. No one elae could possibly understand. No one else could help you.

I identified really hard with that term when I learned it. I often feel so special, so precious in my own damaged places that nobody else could ever understand. But the thing about healing shame is that you have to learn that other people can understand, right? You have to learn that it isn't as bad as you think - that you're never as unsalvageable or unlovable or repulsive as you might imagine.

I was thinking about this because I'm working through some grief about an elderly friend who I'll call Estelle who recently passed away, and there's some guilt and shame with it. I feel like I should have been there for her. Based on what I know of her circumstances I think she probably died really lonely, and I loved her, and I don't like knowing I wasn't there to help.

My therapist pointed out that there might be a little bit of terminal uniqueness in my thinking that I alone could have cured her loneliness - this person did have a broad and active support system, and though it makes sense to regret not being there for her, I'm probably not the one and only way to meet her needs.

Thinking about a thing H said about the emotional sexual abuse in my childhood - something like "it wasn't really about you; it probably would have happened to whatever bodies were in the space". That was hard for me to hear at first, and then it was kind of freeing, and now I'm circling back. I was special to Estelle and she was special to me, but her loneliness wasn't about me much as my mom's trauma isn't about me. Her reaching out to me for comfort was...mostly just about her need for comfort, not about my unique qualifications to fix it.

My thoughts kept slipping out through a side-door in therapy in a way that I've come to recognize as a specific kind of triggered avoidance. Rachel, my therapist, walked me through a little inner-child work to figure out what was going on, and it turned out that some much younger part of me was really scared, because if we aren't Uniquely Equipped to Fix Things, how wi'll we stay safe? I just spent some time talking to that little child part, telling them that kids aren't responsible for keeping people safe, and that even though they are special, it's not in the way they think they are. They aren't uniquely prepared to handle grown-up problems or grown-up pressures.

I think someone even littler got upset about that, because if we aren't some kind of Chosen One, then all the hurt is for nothing. All the pain of the weird and intricate emotional abuse of our upbringing wasn't because We Could Take It - it just happened to us for no reason.

Trying to tell that little part now that it's okay - we didn't deserve it, but we did get through it, and we actually grow up to be a pretty brave, pretty cool adult. There are a lot of things we really like about our grown-up life. And we get to choose a safe environment for ourselves now. We live in a house where no one yells and no one hurts each other on purpose. We built that space intentionally. We're so much safer than we used to be.

#ritter.txt #please don't reblogue #mom stuff #childhood stuff #covert emotional abuse #covert abuse #inner child work #also ftr i refer to parts but i don't have DID and i'm not a system #i just find inner child work and some amount of internal family systems stuff really useful!#grief cw #al-anon my beloved

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colorisbyshe · 2 years

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i actually really like Itadori bc he’s struggling a lot with the theme of death in jjk and how he knows he’s going to be executed. ik it gets lost in translation/from manga to anime sometimes but he says something like ‘killing cheapens the value of human life’ while everyone around him including his allies find different ways to justify murder/execution, and it’s constantly proven to him that human life doesn’t matter. i actually thought it was kind of deep, considering he’s on death row himself (in a similar fashion to how the death penalty is set up in Japan). something major that also gets changed in the anime is that he ate the first finger on purpose and cursed himself, ate it with no prompting when he was told it was a poison lol, he’s got some lowkey issues too. i've think it depends on how you want to read it, and maybe the jjk's presentation isn't that unique or eye catching

Death is pretty heavily a motif in JJK (as it is in most battle anime) but I wish Itadori was struggling with it... in a more meaningful way?

Or what he was saying wasn't undermined/changing in every single episode. Like he'll start saying "I wont' kill people," out of nowhere, at the beginning of one episode, and then two episodes later he's like "Well, I had to kill some to avenge my friend/for my own good."

Death is both omnipresent and also like... barely meaningful in the show, at least so far. Geto dies, he comes back. Yuuji dies, he comes back. His grandpa dies but that's only relevant in that it motivates Yuuji to save people but the death itself, missing him isn't something he grapples with. Rika's plotline shows Yuta's bad reaction to her death and how holding on is bad... but then she's still appearing in the manga so... like... he's still using her in the last chapter of the manga (I snuck a look last night). Even if it's not her, it is her curse visually and by name so like... what's going on there.

JJK's take on death feels very much like a have your cake and eat it too moment where like death is HUGE and MATTERS and human life DOESN'T except for what death doesn't matter and life does.

Itadori does have... issues but a lot of them are just played off as him being stupid/stubborn. We don't get a lot of moments exploring his grief... or like... anyone's grief outside of rote flashback moments.

And I think the prequel kinda illuminates this. Like, yes, Rika's curse staying witih him is great symbolism about death and trauma lingering after losing someone, holding on, blah blah blah but they stick to just exploring the overt and literal ways this affects him (her killing everyone) and don't... actually explore the symbolism. His mental health is more fucked because she's killed people and it seems his grief over her loss is only ever relevant when a kid is in front of him.

It's just very sloppily handled.

And doesn't ahve anything new or particularly compelling to say about death. Like... I don't think this series has... actually made me sad yet? Maybe irritated (I know what happens to Nanami) but like... sad? No.

ANd how the fuck are youg onna make a story that deals so heavily with death and not make people sad???

#jjk blogging

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