Heather, fangirlin' and geekin' since I first got my hands on The Sorcerer's Stone. Copious posts of geekdom, feminism, social justice, and many things that are pleasing to me.
consistently forget that medication that relieves minor incomveniences exists so when i have a headache or my eyes are itchy from allergies or whatever im like “oh… the suffering is endless. this human form is weak and the tiny pains do build like pebbles stacking to a mountain. i accept it” whole time theres aspirin and allergy eye drops in the cabinet
u know what makes me cry….. that one van gogh quote about life changing for the better….. “many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. and it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘what do i care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ yes, evil often seems to surpass good. but then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. one morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. and so i must still have hope.” yeah….. Crying….
He asked where I was from, I said “Virginia,” and he went “oh, I’ve been there! Went in 2000. To…Loo-ray?” Bless him.
Also, he saw the selfie I got and went “ooh, dramatic lighting.” He was also stupidly lovely to all the other people, despite having just finished a show and probably wanting very badly to get home and start celebrating his birthday.
Have I mentioned Mark Gatiss and I share a birthday? A birthday which will be starting in…about an hour now? Hmm, I wonder if there’s anything important happening on my birthday.
also if I was all nervous-shaky for Mark Gatiss I will LITERALLY JUST CRY tomorrow
My mother once told me that trauma is like Lord of the Rings. You go through this crazy, life-altering thing that almost kills you (like, say, having to drop the one ring into Mount Doom), and that thing by definition cannot possibly be understood by someone who hasn’t gone through it. They can sympathize, sure, but they’ll never really know, and more than likely they’ll expect you to move on from the thing fairly quickly. But that’s not how it works.
Some lucky people are like Sam. They can go straight home, get married, have a whole bunch of curly headed Hobbit babies and pick up their gardening right where they left off, content to forget the whole thing and live out their days in peace. Lots of people however, are like Frodo, and they don’t come home the same person they were when they left, and everything is more horrible and more hard then it ever was before. The old wounds sting and the ghost of the weight of the one ring still weighs heavy on their minds, and they don’t fit in at home anymore, so they get on boats go sailing away to the Undying West to look for the sort of peace that can only come from within. Frodos can’t cope, and most of us are Frodos when we start out.
But if we move past the urge to hide or lash out, my mother always told me, we can become Pippin and Merry. They never ignored what had happened to them, but they were malleable and receptive to change. They became civic leaders and great storytellers; they were able to turn all that fear and anger and grief into narratives that others could delight in and learn from, and they used the skills they had learned in battle to protect their homeland. They were fortified by what had happened to them, they wore it like armor and used it to their advantage.
It is our trauma that turns us into guardians, my mother told me. It is suffering that strengthens our skin and softens our hearts, and if we learn to live with the ghosts of what has been done to us, we just may be able to save others from the same fate.
I always liked to think that Harry didn’t die when he was a baby, because Voldemort made an unbreakable vow to Snape promising not to hurt Lily. And when Voldemort broke that promise, he disappeared, but he couldn’t die because of the horcruxes. I just don’t believe that “the power of love” saved Harry.
Baby gates. My 80lb dog is scared of baby gates. He won’t touch them, jump them, and if he’s too close when you move one he scrambles away. One fell on him when he was a puppy and it’s such a useful phobia I’ve never bothered to do positive associations I’m a terrible person.
Uhmmmm Leia isn’t really scared of anything but thunderstorms but Kenobi:
1. I second the baby gates
2. Garage doors that you push up and pull down (not automatic)
3. Cardboard boxes
4. Glass Door (but not to the outside world, just the ones that go to cases and such)
5. Elliptical
6. Every new thing he encounters
Kenobi is terrified of everything in his life haha
My Greyhound is afraid of my rabbit who is almost all white
Let’s see, for Castiel, so far there’s been:
A suit case left on the side of the street in our building complex, presumably to be retrieved on a second trip. Cas was NOT OKAY with random ghost luggage sitting innocuously on his usual walkway.
Parked motorcycles in our building’s underground garage. New ones appearing earn the same reaction every time.
People in motorcycle helmets. ALIENS. MUST SCREAM.
Filled grocery bags left by a car in the building’s underground garage, presumably to be retrieved on a second trip.
Locust shells on trees at exactly Cas-eye-level.
An angry, seemingly abandoned hermit crab that was having non of his investigating shenanigans that popped unexpectedly out of its shell and skittered at him to chase him off. Probably why he’s suspicious of locust shells.
Young Barney was scared of eeeeeverything. Anything out of place, new, unexpected, or acting in a way it didn’t normally would scare him. A few examples:
Statues… Also, unusually piled pebbles - you know like when people make little towers by balancing them on top of each other? Yeah, SCARY.
A cardboard box being blown down the street by the wind.
Traffic cones & reflective road signs.
A big stuffed toy in the shape of a dog.
He was scared by many people but the one I remember most was when he went nuts at the chap standing on the beach, with a wet-suit half pulled down… Barney thought he was a 4-armed alien of doom.
One day a new sign got painted on the pavement, just up the road from our house. It was a small, blue circle with a white bicycle stencilled in the middle. Barney acted like it was the entrance to a portal to hell, refusing to step on or near it for days - he’d leap over it, or shove me in the road to avoid it. I got some treats out in the end & he’s now cool with the sign.
Oh yeah, & chickens. We’d had a very small flock who all passed away within a a year or so after Barn arrived in the family - he’d been OK with them. Years later, we were given 4 new hens & he spent weeks hurling himself out their way in the garden. .This is a dog who thinks big, grumpy bulls are his friends… & he panicked about chickens.
1. Cowboy hats. I had to apologize PROFUSELY to the mother of a two year old at Bass Pro Shops. In the same token, the pink, fuzzy magic scarf when placed over one’s head.
2. After two years in our house, we are now very suspicious of the air vents in the floors.