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Trigger Warning: Emotional/sexual assault

Honestly, it's been a pretty shit day. I got triggered -hard- in Davis earlier. Like, just standing next to the 9/11 memorial with tears pouring down my face. Because Davis Square is doing The Clothesline Project.

This is, if you've been reading this livejournal for a long time, or otherwise have all the pieces, how I figured out that I had been raped. I had one year of college where the April t-shirts were a tragic thing that didn't have anything to do with me, and then the next year where I walked past them and Understood. My senior year of college, I was able to make my own.

I feel incredibly strongly and positively about this project. But wow, I was not expecting to be slapped across the face with them suddenly appearing in the middle of October, in the middle of the square. I've never seen an installation off a college campus.

So yeah. Walking across the square, spotting the t-shirts strung up in the main part and just freezing. I wouldn't say my stomach dropped, but the sense of Self I keep behind my sternum just completely curled in around my spine. It almost hurt physically, seeing that and remembering.

I went over and paid tribute, because that's what I do. And then I turned and left without talking to the organizers or learning about the domestic violence vigil that was apparently held tonight. Chasing away the pain went relatively quickly, this time. I went to the library, held myself together enough to get my books, and pulled up an old sonnet to recite over and over as I walked. Between the fact that it actually has a good cadence to it, and that performing is a good distraction (and distraction is all I'm ever looking for), I got my brain back on track. I was even well enough to recite it for a video for y'all.

Watch on YouTube

All that aside, it was a nasty surprise to be cold-cocked triggered like that. I have been scarring (I have been lucky?) and while it comes to mind with relative frequency, I haven't been doing the hard-freeze-and-interrupt version of Remembering My Sexual/Emotional Abuse. Usually I do a long soft sad, or a "I'm not actually upset about this, but the conversation has led to a reference" thing.

(I feel weird that my reaction is so often the latter, mostly because I feel like it makes other people uncomfortable that I can treat my rape casually. Like, I'm sorry that I've put in ten thousand words and like eight years of healing, but that's how it goes. Thing happened. It's in my history now. It'll come up sometimes. Get over it please? Being awkward and sad and Requiring Comfort is not your job.)

So yeah. At least my quick search of the internet indicates they won't be there tomorrow. I should be fine even if they are, the visceral hit is over. But whee, huzzah for triggers I don't even realize.

~Sor
MOOP!

Trigger Warning: Emotional/sexual assault

31 Days of Fictional Characters: Day 1 - Luidaeg

Today's been shit and busy and I haven't had much a chance to actually Get Things Done on the computer (I have spent some time on the computer fucking around, and I did get my errands done, so I can't be quite as upset as I would be otherwise.)

At any rate, have a fairly quick character: The Luidaeg.

(Most often when I'm sketching her, I'll refer to her as Annie, but it feels way way WAY too informal to do so in writing, and I don't want her to eat my heart or turn me into a tree. So Luidaeg it is, and apparently it's pronounced Lou-sha-k. Which means one of these days I'm going to get around to writing a filk about her set to Love Shack, which is the worst thing ever)

The Luidaeg is from Seanan McGuire's Toby Daye books. She's powerful as all get out, the San Francisco Sea Witch. Because of the nature of this particular series, going too deep into character details would certainly count as spoilerish, but we can do a good surface probe.

She's immortal (and _old_). She's almost perpetually cranky. She is unfailingly honest. She is powerful-powerful-POWERFUL! Her bedroom is full of fishtanks with monsters, and her house is full of cockroaches. She really likes ice cream and eats a lot of it. Given an assumed infinite ability to control her appearance, she chooses to present as a nineteen year old girl with pigtails, freckles, and overalls.

She's unbelievably sad inside, lonely and alone and not broken but empty.

She is not always nice to Toby, but nice doesn't necessarily get things done. The Luidaeg is as competent as she can be within the span of her (oft ritualized, and questions come in threes) limitations, and she's the sort of independent that makes me whimper with want.

She's not my every day. But on bad days, it's nice to know that there are characters who can be Good --or at least, as close to Good as we get in a faerie that doesn't recognize human morality-- while not being happy or nice. I love the Toby books. The Luidaeg is a _huge_ part of that love.

~Sor
MOOP!