So, I got a picture that was real interesting for me dysmorphia-wise. The expression was diabolical because he caught me mid-snigger, but it's more the size. Old me would have crashed out because of the size.
My brain would have said "fat, fucking disgusting", but because I know that's my chest and shoulders under there, and it's strong AF.; it's like my brain did a record scratch after the initial repulsion. Dunno. It's a new thing... Usually I can't deal with pictures I haven't taken.
the two genres that are most closely aligned to dysmorphia are body horror and comedy. dysmorphia is grotesque. it is visceral and it is humiliating. for me, the most resonant depictions are largely unintentional: aunt marge blowing up like a beach ball, jeff goldblum mutating into a fly, content mill articles about plastic surgery gone wrong, the groans from a sitcom studio audience when a fat character does something gross like mention their sex life, the comical horn music when they walk about, mr creosote exploding in the "wafer thin mint" sketch, people on "embarrassing bodies" being paraded around like performers in a freak show. stories about transforming against your will, being turned into an object of disgust and derision. the body as a horror show. the body as a bad joke.
𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐔𝐌𝐀. — Let’s talk trauma. It’s pretty obvious for anyone who has read Throne of Glass that Aelin suffers through various kinds of traumas and a degree of mental illness through the series – I’m going to break down the main ones I’ll be referencing throughout my own writing, featuring spoilers. It’s worth noting that even with the below, Aelin never lets the majority of this show. Most of the time, this will feature in introspection – please never presume your character is aware of everything, though she’s likely to show hints and symptoms along the way. She keeps the walls up, and holds trauma close.
— oo1. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:
This does not occur from one isolated incident in her life. There is a long series of history here dating back to her childhood and the trauma of being afraid of her own powers and the extent of her abilities, which we see the King of Ardalan take advantage of and weaponise against her to make her paranoid extend to her own form of control – this manifests during her adolescence and training in Wendlyn with Rowan, where she is terrified to truly unleash without hurting anyone. It’s severe training that allows her to overcome this particular fear.
We then have the trauma she undergoes in her time in the Assassin’s Guild – what is essentially grooming from Arobynn, the deep seated trust issues she forms after his betrayal, and also from the atrocities she commits as Celaena Sardothien who I firmly believe she has partially disengaged from our own self as Aelin. We even see her reluctance later to adopt the identity again, and the visible difference in how she acts when she does slip back into the character ( though if I’m honest, this a whole meta on its own ).
The most obvious of her trauma occurs in the Salt Mines of Endovier – we know she spends one year in the mines where most only survive three months within the prisons there, endured frequent beatings, and is responsible for killing over twenty-four guards on the anniversary of her parent’s death, the same day she attempt suicide. We know during this time she witness physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, as well as being exposed to unbearable living conditions, the verge of starvation, and being broken down so physically that most would have died long since. It is the Salt Mines of Endovier that generated her absolute hatred of slavers, and her fear of whips ( which we reference when Rowan threatens to lash her in her disrespect during training, and later when Maeve uses this fear against her ) ; even now she can’t stand the sound of a lash.
Let’s then factor in the experience she has at the hands of Maeve, and specifically Cairn. We know in that time that she endures broken bones, kneeling in broken glass, being flayed, at minimum – the extent of what she goes through is only hinted in various chapters, and witnessed by Fenrys. I think the most interesting moment of this abuse is when he threatens to use fire against her, and we see a moment in which Aelin realises if he uses fire against her, she will fear it, and in doing so, fear part of herself. I think this introspection confirms she knows at least to some extent how traumatised she is, and what wounds linger.
At the end of all of this, she has a long list of triggers, and a very damaged psyche ( largely masked by her sarcasm and her attempts to push people away ). Even after the series ends, that trauma lingers – and factors into each of the issues I’ll list below. Her months spent disassociating during her time with Maeve ( no doubt a tactic partially employed in past torture ) mean she does occasionally revert to that mindset without realising, and most commonly in silent communication with Fenrys without realising. Touches without her consent – ie. coming up behind her without warning – likely yield a violent response due to shock. Crowds place her on alert because she’s so used to looking for danger. This kind of trauma manifests in social withdrawal ( not externally, she’s good at a mask, so it’s internal – she’ll pretend she’s fine while suffering in her own head ), emotional detachment on occasion, and throwing herself into distractions like physical training in effort to remove from the demons in her mind. Time does not heal this trauma entirely, though time does bring closure and allow her to live with it.
— oo2. Insomnia.
We already see this several times in canon, that where most sleep, Aelin does not. Most commonly her form of self -soothing when it comes to her own insomnia is to render herself exhausted – not necessarily just by her daily activities, but most of the time we see her roaming at night and often times her plans and plots take form by night, where she will spend hours on end employing tactics when no one else is awake. Most of the time, it’s only by utterly exhausting herself that she manages to find some form of rest. More commonly than not, particularly after her time within captivity in Kingdom of Ash at the hands of Maeve, she has nightmares, and can’t discern if she’s awake or asleep because of the months spent in that nightmare like state. She wakes, and for those few moments she doesn’t know if she’s in the Iron Coffin, or if the darkness is nighttime ; it’s only herself that can bring her mindset back and remember she’s not there, that her dreams are only dreams, and that she’s long since gone from their clutches. And then it’s the realisation that she’ll have the same fears in the next day when she wakes, and however tired she might be, she begins to loathe sleep.
I think, again, this is something that eases with time ; Terrasen is never completely dark, even in the night time, so when she awakes the moon and the stars are always bright enough to pave the starlight through her chambers and ease the fears. But it’s only in time that she begins to properly find some form of rest.
— oo3. Cleithrophobia.
I’ve been thinking quite a lot about whether or not she suffers from claustrophobia and cleithrophobia and why she may be one more than the other. Where claustrophobia is a fear of enclosed spaces, the latter is a more specific trauma – that is, the idea of being trapped in any confined space, unable to escape.
After three months spent in an Iron Coffin, with a mask on, literally unable to move, her fear manifests in the second far more than the first. Where claustrophobia indicates an irrational fear of small spaces, her own terror is something based on experience. It’s not the actual space that bothers her ( though I doubt she loves it ) but the very specific situation, that she can’t get free or she can’t escape. Any remnant of that situation likely triggers the same response – panic, in her chest, an almost manic desire to get free, eventual disassociation to cope with the scenario. To put it bluntly, it’s not a situation she ever willingly enters into – small spaces are fine, but if the door were to close behind her, or something blocked her getting free, it’s a deal breaker.
— oo4. Thanatophobia.
To be clear, Aelin does not fear death for herself – it’s not something that makes her uncomfortable, given she knows how many people she’s lost along the way, and I believe part of her does have full faith she’ll see them again after her own death. However, the deep seated issues she has in not being able to save the ones she loves, particularly after witnessing some of those deaths, is something that she finds manifested into genuine fear. We witness it constantly in her self sacrificing behaviour – it’s not self destructive as such, but it’s demonstrated in the fact she places everyone else as more important than her own life. We see it when she admits to Rowan she can’t lose anyone else ; it’s not as shallow as not wanting to lose loved ones, it’s that she can’t deal with the loss again, which manifests in her seeing danger to loved ones even when there is none.
— oo5. Body Dysmorphia.
This develops entirely after Kingdom of Ash, and I think it’s so important to acknowledge here that Aelin was very, very attached to her body. We see her reference her scars repeatedly through the series, the fact that each means something to her, and it helps ground her – physical marks tell her a story of what is real and what was not. I honestly believe this is why she’s so traumatised by the fact her torture at Cairn’s hand results in her entire body being remade over and over for the course of months, that she doesn’t know what was done to her, what was real, what never happened ; there’s nothing to track each injury to the matching wound. Likewise, the years she spent in that body are now remaining only in her own mind.
Not to mention in terms of her physicality, she is suddenly a stranger in her own skin – she knew what her strength was, what her body could handle, had built thick skin, had muscles toned by years of her own training. Suddenly she’s in a body that is untrained, and it’s a blank canvas.
I truly believe this results in a disconnect between her own mental state and her body, and a hypercriticism because her body isn’t as trained, isn’t as fit, isn’t what it was before. Even after resuming her training with Rowan to self correct this, it’s not good enough in her own opinion – it isn’t the same as it was before. Factor into it then that she then loses her mortal body entirely when she forges the Lock ( which is traumatic on another level because her fae form is the one she was reluctant to take for years, and suddenly she’s mourning the loss of her human self, as well as everything she’s been through ), and it takes literal years for her to feel like she’s settled into her skin again in any way shape or form.
Is papyrus dysmorphic??? Like, his snow sculpture and any image he draws of himself he has these hulking huge human-like muscles. Classic triangle-dorito shape. He's a skeleton so he . Obviously? Doesn't look like that.
But.
His battle bod.
Looks suspiciously close to that.
And papyrus refuses to take it off even in the shower.
🌹it’s completely okay to love it. to change it and remake it. to control it in ways that don’t hurt it. to make it into art. to make it your home. to be proud of it. to cover it and hide parts to keep them to yourself. to admire it. to work with it. to put pride and time into parts of it. to teach it new ways of being and moving. to feel it lose abilities and functions and to accept that. to feel comfortable and safe in it.
🌹but it’s also completely okay if you hate every bit of it. if there’s part of it you can’t stop hating. if you want out of it. if you want to change it in a destructive or vengeful way. or want to hurt it. it’s okay to hide it out of fear or shame. it’s okay to distrust it. to disregard and try to ignore it. to dissociate and live outside of it. if you feel alienated, and let down or hated by it.
🌹it’s completely okay to grieve and love your body at the same time. to hold positive and negative memories or associations with various parts of it. to have changing views of it. to say it’s not yours. to treat it as an object. to treat it as an obligation or responsibility. to love the parts that others have hated. to love it as an act of resistance.
