C. Zira

Nocturnal LSN autistic shapeshifter, can usually be found obsessing over one fandom for a few months before moving on to the next. Whump has migrated to @for-the-ouchies. Adult, all pronouns traditionally found in English grammar.

[c-zira]

Red things.

[mother-aschen]

Always fun for me to convert my human years into the fitting headmate ages, like the cat is ancient, the olm is still a young adult, the doll could be considered to be old but on the very low end for how old they can get, and princesses are just a fucking mystery

[c-zira]

I mean I guess it's fine if you want to judge a patient for not taking their prescribed painkillers but I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to let the patient know that you're judging them, person who took out my stitches today.

Oh and if you ask if I still have any pain and I say yes that's not "complaining".

[c-zira]

How to maybe not get traumatised if your brain works like mine.

Disclaimer: this works for me. It might not work for you. Brains are complicated. It might make things worse. Be careful.

Also, this works for singular traumatic events, not long-term traumatic situations. I wish I had a solution like this for traumatic situations.

Figure out whether the event was potentially traumatic. It helps if you've gotten traumatised before and know what might cause it- I've been in two life-threatening situations without picking up any trauma but then apparently got it from sensory overload. A good question to ask is “how stressed was/am I?”

If possible, get somewhere (you feel) safe and make sure you have plenty of time. Processing trauma and potential trauma is much, much more effective when you feel safe (I'm genuinely not sure if it's possible when not, it wasn't for me).

Revisit the event. Work out how you feel, work out why, work out what scared you and what didn't. This is difficult. Writing it down helps me, and talking it out with a trusted person can too. Take time, take breaks and reward yourself with safe things you like (could be food or a favourite movie or a comfort item). Depending on what helps you (often dependant on the nature of the potential trauma) you might want others around you or you might want to be completely alone.

Practice the part that might be a problem. After I got held down and photographed, I slowly worked towards being comfortable with pictures again by taking a lot of photos of myself I never shared. After I got swept out to sea, I returned to swimming the moment I was physically up for it again. That said, I have heard that if you push yourself too far too fast you can get retraumatised, so be careful.

If it doesn't work, don't blame yourself. It's not because you didn't try hard enough. Sometimes the brain trying to protect itself just does things we don't like.

All of this is harder than it sounds, in part because it requires a lot of listening to yourself, identifying your emotions, and knowing your limits, which are things stress and trauma actively interfere with.

You can also use these steps to go back and work through something that has already traumatised you but it takes a lot longer to get results and some things might never go away (for example, I can still get triggered when surprised by things I can otherwise handle).

[c-zira]

The funny thing about me is that I've spent just about enough of my life surrounded by non-traumatised idealists to think of myself as the experienced world-weary cynical one in those circles but the moment I see people talking as though there's no hope for the world and/or humanity I get angrily optimistic.

Like I don't want to be optimistic or idealistic but at this point it kinda feels like an obligation.

[c-zira]

So baffled by the narrative that childhood and adolescence are the best years of life. You mean the time where you don't get to make any decisions and your issues are constantly downplayed and you get told things that are objectively awful are for your own good?

[mother-aschen]

People really like inviting me on walks and immediately running off as if they will explode at my pace

[mother-aschen]

For some reason the concept of "I am exhausted or in pain" tends to be incomprehensible

[mother-aschen]

At least they can all get breaks when they all stand and stare at me trying to catch up

[for-the-ouchies]

Eep.

[pbpiewrites2018]

Me realizing that I struggle so much with writing characters' emotions because I never know why I'm feeling the way I do lol! I was in such a bad mood today and when I finally entered a headspace where I was self aware enough to ask "What is going on? Why am I so mad?" I didn't really have any answers...

But now I'm realizing that some characters don't need a logical reason for why they're feeling the way they are. Why they react the way they do... So trying to logic it might just make things less realistic anyway because everyone has moments where they don't know what the fuck they're feeling or why they're feeling it!

[c-zira]

This is interesting because I think I might be the opposite for the same reason. I've spent so much time learning about emotions in an attempt to figure out my own that I have a lot of hypothetical knowledge I can use for writing.

The character may have no idea what they're feeling, or why, but I as author probably have a note on it somewhere.

[c-zira]

Really don't like how often I see people telling internet strangers they disagree with to kill themselves.

If you say that to someone, then most of the time all you're going to achieve is validating / supporting their belief that your side is the bad one. And if you're really unlucky and got them at a bad time you might have a life on your conscience.

But it seems incredibly prevalent nonetheless.

[c-zira]

It's both fascinating and annoying how it's so much more socially acceptable for me to take several days off due to moderate acute pain (post surgery) than for severe chronic pain.

Also how I've been given a painkiller prescription for said acute pain (that I haven't taken because come on, it's a 5 at most, I'm keeping those painkillers for when I might actually need them) while the medical advice I got for the chronic pain was to tough it out.

Yes I know it's because I'm meant to properly recover from surgery, but maybe it would be nice if I got to properly recover from flare ups too.

[c-zira]

Thing that happens to me every time:

“So we're going to put a cannula in your left arm.”

“Are you sure you can't do the right one?”

“Yes, we always do the left.”

A few minutes of needle poking later.

“So we're going to put a cannula in your right arm...”

(I can't really complain because they were friendly and also remarkably apologetic about it. Last time I had a nurse snap at me for asking to try the right arm first and then get very disgruntled when she couldn't get the vein in my left.)

[c-zira]

Got a good grade in “well-behaved stoic patient” today. :)

[c-zira]

Forgot to drink enough yesterday and now I have a dehydration headache I can't do anything about on account of getting general anaesthesia in two hours.

[mother-aschen]

🥀 revenge-of-the-ouchies

Poisoned whumpee who survives and immediately posts on tumblr on it

🐦‍⬛ the-chough-king

Learned that poison hurts quite a bit

🐱 frightening-trio-of-women

Girls will literally poison the current monarch so cutesly

[c-zira]

Very important for the functioning of my kingdom.

[pbpiewrites2018]

From this ask game: 1. (Do you like watching sunsets?) and 19. (What fictional character would you bring to life if you could?)

=)

I love watching sunsets!!! I love how pretty the sky is and how it turns such magical colors when it goes down (and up). The orange, yellow, red/pinkish color combination of a sunset is genuinely one of the prettiest color combinations!

19. This is a hard one! It's tricky to pick one who wouldn't just fuck everything up here now isn't it lol? I think that I would pick like Rapunzel! It would be so cool to see ALL OF THAT HAIR IRL!!!

[c-zira]

The Tale of the Traitor: Part One

Complete as of today. Requires Ao3 account to read.

Many content warnings apply, see tags.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

While it in many ways still feels like a rough draft of a story (if I ever officially publish/commercialise it, it will be with a significantly more polished version while this one stays on Ao3 as the original, but that's unlikely), I am very very happy to announce Part One is officially complete. Welcome to the ninety days that changed Canna's life. (And Sev's too, of course. Irrecoverably.)