trauma makes good drama @darkkitty1208 - Tumblr Blog

Hullo. Welcome.

I'm Kitty. I go by she/they. I'm a fanfiction author, amateur artist, and mother of a dastardly cat. All my written works are posted on my ao3. I also have a writing sideblog/archive at @kittyswritingcorner. I've been here for a while.

This blog is for me to share my writing, art, interests, and/or other hobbies. Feel free to drop an ask or slide in my messages if you fancy a little chat—I don't bite! :D

My current fandoms are: MCU/Marvel Comics (mainly Stephen Strange/IronStrange), DC's Batman (Batfam/SuperBat/BatLantern), MP100 (Reigen Arataka/SeriRei especially), and BBC Sherlock (mainly JohnLock). I may dabble in other fandoms from time to time but I'll do you a favour and not list them all.

This is my own space and I have the right to express myself and my opinions freely here, although I will rarely engage in anything with heavy discourse/debate and the sort. I don't tolerate hate or untoward behaviour.

Tags, prompt rules, etc under the cut!

#pinned #intro

blackstaarrr

#queue #pov: youre a batkid who just got back from an unauthorized space mission with your green lantern dad

algumacoisapop

#their magical girl transformations!!!#queue

tomoless

watch outwaTCH OUT WATCH OUT

#ah yes. average batman ambush includes parted legs at eye level and his whole batbusiness on full display #but anyway #THIS LOOKS EPIC OP!!!#queue

bumbburger

the ancient one and his chud son

#YEAH!!!!#queue

bruce-wayne-enjoyer

Canon Divergent (maybe or maybe not?) Batlantern idea

So when Bruce was travelling the world pre-Batman, learning and studying from his list of the world's "best", he's began to apparently deviate from the list in search of the best possible mentors for more technical skillsets

It somehow leads him to Coast City where a Captain Hal Jordan resides, in the prime of his air force career.

Bruce spends a majority of his layover in California trying to harrass this unfairly handsome pilot into teaching him how to traverse death-defying terrain while in a flying killing machine.

And Hal, unfortunately, is not as susceptible to this pretty boy's sweet doe eyes as his masculinity problems will first have him to be.

Their agreement was simple: a month, rigorous training, and turning Bruce into the second best pilot of this age.

Well, someone must've missed a line in the agreement.... because since when did it include making out in stolen planes and making each other breakfast?

#!!!!#queue

bruce-wayne-enjoyer

Hal is confused by the fact that Bruce doesn't close his bedroom door when he sleeps, but leaves it slightly ajar, even the window. Just as they're done with the deed and Hal is starting to drift off, he feels Bruce stir open the door and return to sleep beside him. Hal's confusion doesn't last long as one night Dick enters the room and whispers to Bruce, "Nightmare…" while Dick checks Bruce's pulse. One day, he finds Red Hood standing in their doorway, fully armed, with a book, talking to Bruce. The next day, Hal wakes up to find Jason in bed with them. Luckily Bruce's bed is huge enough for six people

It's cuter/funnier to imagine that Hal transitions from fwb to lover, simultaneously with his status change from dad's boy toy into nice vanilla-smelling bolster pillow that dad shares sometimes

Dick being the first was a pleasant surprise because Hal is sure that Bludhaven was at least 40 mins away and yet the boy has crossed that distance just to make sure that his worst fears were not true and his dad was okay. At that point, Bruce was just a co-worker who served a nice quick fuck on occassion. Now, Hal was watching Bruce groggily wake up and comfort a grown man, murmuring sweet nothings to his son, and his heart jumps like Oh!

Hal figures it's a one-time thing. Then came another time when Hal had woken up in the middle of the night to a behemoth helmet child by the doorway, holding a book. Jason was genuinely surprised to see Hal, but did not care enough to do anything. The kid just sorta.... flopped between him and Bruce, started reading, while the man entertained him. Hal felt a little awkward, intruding on family time, but honestly, the book was good and Hal was getting vocal with his opinion of it. Jason would laugh sometimes, and Bruce would get this weird look on his face that Hal doesn't know what to do with.

The fleeting feeling in Hal's chest continues when one night, immediately post-fuck, Tim and Damian barged into the room to settle a row they were having during an hour of the night when they were all definitely supposed to be asleep. Bruce is still floaty after ragged sex, so Hal takes it upon himself to settle their argument. Damian flops on the bed in mild annoyance, but apparently would calm down if Hal should hold him long enough. Tim decides he doesn't want to be left out and crawls into bed as well. Hal makes a comment about billing Bruce for emotional labor. Bruce laughs. And Hal very much liked how that laugh sounded.

Hal still is in plausible denial, but has noticeably began to stay the night, not rushing to slip out in the middle of the night. One such morning, the door creaks further open and Hal feels a nice pat on his shoulder. It was Duke saying goodbye to Hal before patrol. He watched the boy give Bruce a tender hug before leaving. It was more filling than any breakfast.

The days that follow, Hal wasn't coming in just to fuck. He just comes to bed to... talk, sleep maybe, after a movie or a videogame. He insists it's because of the nice mattress and even nicer shower.... until Cass slinks into the room in the middle of the night, home from overseas, was about to surprise her dad when she catches Hal still awake.

Cass assesses him for a second. Hal feels judged and understood all at once, in a creepy, displacing way.

She nods solemnly, "You are in love."

Hal is so very confused because "Okay kid, just because my heart skips a beat when I see him being soft and I think about his laugh a lot and remember every personal detail he's ever shared in conversation doesn't mean I'm in love with him 🙄"

Cass looked at him, then at the ceiling, then she closed her eyes.

"Lord god, if you're there, please do not save this man from temptation- 🙏"

"EXCUSE ME YOUNG LADY?"

#BAHAHA #im such a sucker for the kids approving and learning to love hal the same way bruce does #sooo good #queue

aesterea-archived

more on writing muslim characters from a hijabi muslim girl

- hijabis get really excited over pretty scarves - they also like to collect pins and brooches - we get asked a lot of questions and it can be annoying or it can be amusing, just depends on our mood and personality and how the question is phrased - common questions include: - “not even water?” (referring to fasting) - hijabis hear a lot of “do you sleep in that?” (we don’t) and “where is your hair?” (in a bun or a braid, usually) - “is it mooze-slim or mozzlem?” (the answer is neither, it’s muslim, with a soft s and accent on the first syllable) - “ee-slam or iz-lamb?” (it’s iss-laam, accent on the first syllable) - “hee-job?” (heh-jahb, accent on the second syllable)

- “kor-an?” (no. quran. say it like koor-annn, accent on the second syllable) - people tend to mess up our names really badly and you just get a sigh and a resigned nod or an awkward smile, maybe a nickname instead - long hair is easy to hide, short hair is harder to wrap up - hijab isn’t just covering hair, it’s also showing as little skin as possible with the exception of face, hands, and feet, and not wearing tight/sheer clothing - that applies to men too, people just don’t like to mention it ( i wonder why) - henna/mehendi isn’t just for special occasions, you’ll see people wearing it for fun - henna/mehendi isn’t just for muslims, either, it’s not a religious thing - henna/mehendi is not just for women, men also wear it, especially on their weddings - there are big mehendi parties in the couple of nights before eid where people (usually just women and kids) gather and do each other’s mehendi, usually just hands and feet - five daily prayers - most muslim kids can stutter through a couple verses of quran in the original arabic text by the age of seven or eight, it does not matter where they live or where they’re from or what language they speak natively - muslim families tend to have multiple copies of the quran - there are no “versions” of the quran, there has only ever been one. all muslims follow the exact same book - muslims have no concept of taking God’s name in vain, we call on God at every little inconvenience - don’t use islamic phrases if you don’t know what they mean or how to use them. we use them often, inside and outside of religious settings. in islam, it is encouraged to mention God often and we say these things very casually, but we take them very seriously - Allahu Akbar means “God is Greatest” (often said when something shocks or surprises us, or if we’re scared or daunted, or when something amazing happens, whether it be good or bad; it’s like saying “oh my god”) - Subhan Allah means “Glory be to God” (i say subhan Allah at the sky, at babies, at trees, whatever strikes me as pleasant, especially if it’s in nature) - Bismillah means “in the name of God” and it’s just something you say before you start something like eating or doing your homework - In Shaa Allah means “if God wills” (example: you’ll be famous, in shaa Allah) (it’s a reminder that the future is in God’s hands, so be humble and be hopeful)

- Astaghfirullah means “i seek forgiveness from Allah” and it’s like “god forgive me” - Alhamdulillah means “all thanks and praise belong to God” and it’s just a little bit more serious than saying “thank god” (example: i passed my exams, alhamdulillah; i made it home okay, alhamdulillah) - when i say we use them casually, i really mean it - teacher forgot to assign homework? Alhamdulillah - our version of “amen” is “ameen” - muslims greet each other with “assalamu alaikum” which just means “peace be on you” and it’s like saying hi - the proper response is “walaikum assalam” which means “and on you be peace” and it’s like saying “you too”

missandaei

As a Muslim this post is so very important and it makes me so happy that it gives the small facts and details that one might be unaware of or confused about.

#queue #<3 #also! there is a prayer for everything #before eating or after eating or entering the bathroom or even going to sleep #there are specific prayers recited before each activity #and also: alcohol is forbidden HOWEVER i know some muslims drink anyway #either due to personal choice or peer pressure

hpyappcrn

He stands like that irl btw

#cant argue that #cos he definitely does #🤣#look at him. how can you not love him #queue

creekfiend

I understand that there is discussion of masking by autistic people that is much more honest and in-depth, but so much of the stuff I see sort of leans on the assumption that masking is something one chooses to do in order to appear "normal"

In reality, I think the behavior pattern that we name as "masking" is the natural behavioral and psychological result of being consistently punished for attempting to acknowledge your own reality during formative developmental periods. And I'm not sure that "masking" is a clarifying word to use for this

creekfiend

OK OK OK, someone in the tags said that they don't know the degree to which they are masking, bc they don't know what is normal/expected and therefore have no way of knowing how much they're altering themselves to fit into that expectation (thank you for articulating that!!) and I think that clarified a lot for me about my problems with the framing of masking.

Because that method of trying to "unmask" will always fail, bc it hinges on the assumption that there is a core underlying Self that is being Covered Up with the mask.

In reality, one does not have a chance to develop a true "self" due to the circumstances of their development. this is broadly true for almost all humans (SHOW ME AN UNALTERED TRUE HUMAN SELF,) because of the heavily social nature of how our selfhood intersects with other people's perception of us, but in some people it is much more marked and detrimental than others. What I think is the issue at hand is not the Self, but rather the internal experience. The Self is a construction we build to understand ourselves as beings, and it is heavily informed by our understanding of our own experiencs. understanding of those experiences is the actual issue. Being able to identify and name the effects that moving thru the world have on you. And teasing out how those acknowledgements of one's internal experience have been punished out of us.

The "recovering from burnout as a high masking person" post does use this framework, but I think that referring to people whose sense of their own internal reality has been so warped and shattered that they have to completely learn from scratch as "high masking" is just not intuitive and that it communicates what is being discussed... Poorly. I understand that that is the language that is used by the community broadly rn, and I don't object to individual instances of its use, but I do think that we would be better served in these conversations by framing it differently than "masking"

grison-in-space

I also see people framing even the most basic social skills (things like "tolerating mild discomfort" and "avoiding offensive phrasing of desires") as masking. At a certain point I think we have to be aware that there is a degree of curtailing one's personal self expression inherent in existing within a society, and that autistic people are not the only people who have to be aware of societal norms and contort selves to exist within them as part of experiencing that society. The difference is of course in the degree of contortion required to fit neatly into the society, not the phenomenon of having to contort in the first place.

It bugs me! And I think it creates unnecessary friction among communities of people first discovering autism and is susceptible to a weird kind of reverse curb cut effect where unmasking (== "stretching out and de-contorting from the society in which you live into a more comfortable shape") is set aside as something Just For Autistics, as if there aren't lots of groups of people whose existence is policed and shaped and bonsai-trimmed into painfully stunted or twisted shapes. Which, of course there are, and not all of them are groups where a mental health framework is remotely appropriate (e.g. constraints on the acceptable behavior of black people especially in gendered contexts), so why are we framing so much advocacy this way?

shamebats

Trauma in the strict sense is not required for a young human being to suffer the loss of essence, the sense of oneness with all that is. Infants come into the world fully present and alive to every possibility, but they soon begin to shut down parts of themselves that their environment is unable to recognize or accept with love. As a consequence of that defensive shutdown, says the psychologist and spiritual teacher A.H. Almaas, one or more essential qualities such as love, joy, strength, courage or confidence may be suppressed. In its place, we experience a hole, a sense of empty deficiency. "People don't know that the hole, the sense of deficiency, is a symptom of a loss of something deeper, the loss of essence, which can be regained. They think the hole, the deficiency, is how they really are at the deepest level and that there is nothing beyond it. They think something is wrong with them, something is basically wrong." Such thoughts are not necessarily conscious but may take the form of unconscious beliefs. In either case, we develop behaviour patterns and emotional coping mechanisms to cover up the emptiness, mistakenly believing that the resulting traits represent our true "personality." Indeed, what we call the personality is often a jumble of genuine traits and adopted coping styles that do not reflect our true self at all but the loss of it.

Excerpt from 'In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction' by Gabor Maté.

creekfiend

its interesting bc i would personally define this as cptsd. like that IS trauma to me. but then cptsd is not broadly recognized as a legitimate form of trauma by psychology authorities, so i understand why someone would frame this process as not inherently traumatic

bipedal-lizard

I'd be curious to read some newer things and see where Maté would make the split between distress and trauma now, vs when Hungry Ghosts was published in 2008. I haven't read, in particular, The Myth of Normal : Trauma, Illness &Healing in a Toxic Culture (2022); I have heard that in his discussion of "modern-day living," his definition of trauma/traumatic has shifted to encompass a lot more.

shamebats

The Myth of Normal is a must-read. He doesn't talk about autism directly, but the book is all about how trauma responses that helped us survive childhood (which is what masking is) end up causing all sorts of issues in adulthood.

The exploration of how repressing our feelings and authentic selves can negatively impact our health — to the point where we can be at high risk of developing chronic health conditions and even other illnesses, like cancer, and having worse outcomes — was really eye-opening for me. Since I'm trans and came out later in life exactly because for my entire childhood and well into my 20s, I essentially had an assortment of maladaptive coping mechanisms where my personality was supposed to be, and I also have a pretty severe incurable chronic illness.

In Realm of Hungry ghosts he was also, a lot of the time, already describing what is essentially cptsd — because he was working with hard drug addicts, the most likely to be severely traumatized population there is — and also disproportionately neurodivergent, he noticed that many of them were self-medicating their ADHD, which...the book was written in 2008. He was way ahead of what the state of medicine & psychiatry was back then. He doesn't name it, but if you know what it is, you can recognize it in every story, in every chapter.

#save #(for future reference because id love to pick up some of maté's works!)#anyway #i believe tumblr is once again rediscovering the concept of solipsism #but on that note #we are more than the sum of our parts #queue

copperbadge

I was innocently buying a soda and a Kit Kat bar from a snack shop recently when the cashier said, "Oh, a Kit Kat! That's what I named my cat!" and then launched into An Monologue.

Nobody was behind me in line, which seemed to be a good reason for her to treat me to a five minute retelling of the identification, rescue, and argument over initial custody of Kit Kat, who was so small they thought when they first heard him crying for help that he was a bird and not a kitten in a tree, and is now fifteen pounds of "pure, sculpted lardass".

And I didn't mind, precisely, I wasn't bored or anything, but around the time she was bringing me up to speed on Kit Kat's current status it occurred to me that this woman is a cashier in a store that primarily sells candy bars and beverages. People must buy Kit Kat bars from her multiple times a day. Does she do this every time there's nobody in line behind the purchaser? Did I just have that I Own Several Cats And Will Enjoy Your Cat Stories look about me? Was it the first time it occurred to her that she sold the brand of candy bar she named her cat after? Was she new to the job of selling Kit Kat bars?

The idea that every time she sees a Kit Kat bar she is gripped by the urge, Manchurian Candidate style, to retell the story of Kit Kat the Cat, elevates her from a friendly cashier to a deep enigma. Truly there is no knowing the mind of another.

copperbadge

IT GETS FUNNIER

I was in the same snack shop, which I'm in, like, once a month, recently. I only recognized her because I spent five minutes listening to this monologue in sincere wonder. But I did recognize her, so as I was buying a soda and a Milky Way bar (this time) I said, without thinking about how this would come across, "Hey, how's Kit Kat?"

She looked genuinely horrified and said, "What...how?"

"Oh fuck!" I blurted. "Sorry! You told me about him last time!"

This is still quite cryptic as responses go but she gave me a frankly frantic look of sudden recognition and said, "He's fine! You bought a Kit Kat! I was unmedicated!"

I did not inform her she is small town famous on Tumblr and instead just said, "Glad you're both doing well!" and we parted as confused and mortified friends.

Gosh she's fun. I hope she's there next time. I want to reenact the Spiderman Pointing meme with her.

#queue #meet cute fic idea...#also this is such a coincidence considering my little critter is also named kitkat #i adore him. he's an awful little bastard he is

prokopetz

The author's poorly disguised fetish

The author's proudly displayed fetish

The author's fetish you're pretty sure they don't realise they have

The author's fetish which they're firmly convinced everyone has and is just pretending otherwise

The author's non-sexual special interest which just sounds like a fetish because of their habitually unfortunate phrasing

The fetish the author is making a well-meaning effort to cater to in spite of clearly not understanding it themselves

The author's fetish that never quite makes it into the text because they keep getting sidetracked by the requisite worldbuilding

The author's utterly pedestrian sexual preference which the text treats like a bizarre fetish because they've got shit to work through

The author's seemingly innocuous recurring trope they're going to have a personal revelation about ten years down the road

The author's fetish you missed on a first reading because it's so far out of pocket, it never occurred to you that you could sexualise that

#queue

thehumantrampoline

This is your reminder today that Irene Adler in the original Conan Doyle story is literally not a criminal. She never commits a crime.

thehumantrampoline

Nor is she a seductress in any kind of negative or manipulative sense - she has a mutual relationship with a powerful man who then breaks up with her, and afterwards she keeps protection against him in the form of evidence that the relationship existed. She HAS blackmail material, she even waves it at him threateningly because he treated her like shit, but she never even uses it.

Irene Adler is not a thief, femme fatale, or blackmailer. She's just a cool lady that wants to be left alone.

thehumantrampoline

@delphi-star You do recall correctly!! She does not give a shit about that man! She's happily married! She tipped him for being a witness at her wedding!

If your Sherlock Holmes adaptation has a character whose identifying qualities are that she is a seductive criminal in love with Holmes, you have created a character that is basically the literal opposite of Irene Adler and you should name her something else.

thehumantrampoline

I think it's a little funny that there's been a trend in the tags of this lately to assume I was coming specifically for BBC Sherlock, and you're not WRONG, I'm literally always coming for BBC Sherlock, but I'm also coming for every single pastiche I've eve seen. I think I was specifically thinking of the Guy Ritchie movie here, actually, but I do even mean Elementary, I mean all of them, every single Irene Adler who does sexy crime or is attracted to Holmes. I've literally never seen an Irene in anything other than a page-accurate straight adaptation of Scandal that isn't one of those two things. Every adaptation needs to leave my girl alone