Idk I just work here

Not a word of a lie, this happened to me too! And I promise I am not bullshitting you when I say that this is normal and expected and EXTREMELY common.

The thing is, you've been in Survival Mode for a while. Probably a long time. And now your itty bitty lizard brain- the part that's been been clocking in overtime hours to sense and predict danger and mitigate crisis scenarios and plan escape routes and secure resources and so on- is no longer single-handedly keeping everything running by itself.

That bit of your brain has been working non-freaking-stop every waking minute for however long you've been in whatever clusterfuck you got out of, and it is now miraculously on its first ever vacation.

It's burnt out. It's exhausted. And now that it isn't running the show, the rest of your brain is scrambling to figure out how to make things work.

You're not in active danger anymore, so lizard-brain CAN take a rest without everything burning down, but... what now?

Emotional Brain has been helping carry Lizard Brain's load, but now it has a shitload of paperwork to catch up on. Like, YEARS of mismanaged backlog that it's just been jamming out of order into filing cabinets and spare storage boxes to deal with later.

Desires Brain has been keeping up with "food" and "don't die", but.... it HAS those now. So... what else could it possibly want? Everything? Nothing? What even IS desirable beyond survival? Goals Brain needs an answer before it can generate motivation. Fear Brain, too. Also Action Brain, and Motivation Brain.

So you're not being piloted by Lizard Brain anymore. That's good! "Keep Human Functioning Constantly Forever" was NOT in Lizard Brain's job description. But now that it's let go of the reins, the rest of Team Brain is going to need some time to figure out how to do their actual jobs the way they're supposed to, and they are WAY behind.

So my best advice is to let them adjust. Rest. Keep things simple. Help them out by establishing a regular routine- home life, work life, regular meals, regular showers, regular sleep.

Once that routine is established, you can ease of the training wheels by trying new things, new foods, new places, new people.

Help Desires Brain by experimenting, figuring out what makes you happier and what doesn't. What kind of fabrics you like, what kind of tastes you enjoy, what kind of work is pleasant and what is merely tolerable. How you enjoy being treated and what boundaries you'd prefer to maintain.

Help Emotions Brain by taking your time with strong feelings as they happen. Pause, consider how you feel, where those feelings live in your body, what physical sensations come with them. When those sensations appear, do they correspond to feelings? When? Why? Are they rational? How do you want to handle them?

Develop goals and plans from these findings. Once "tomorrow" or "next week" aren't an incomprehensible void, let yourself imagine a "next month", a "next season", a "next year".

Make stuff for fun. Save up to buy things that improve your daily life. Decide what kind of places you like to visit and when. What relaxation looks like, what self-care looks like, what a good friend or partner or coworker is.

You probably feel pretty shitty right now. You're probably going to be detached, or numb, or low, or even depressed, panicked, scared, or empty.

But eventually- once Team Brain starts to get a handle on things- the Empty and Dead will be less. New stuff will appear, like Angry and Sad and Joyous.

You're gonna Want things again, and be Excited again, and Look Forwards To things again.

It's gonna take time, though, and work, and it's definitely gonna suck sometimes, especially on days where it seems like you've gone backwards, or like you haven't moved at all.

It's not forever, though. It may SEEM like it, or like nothing else is even possible, but it isn't. I've got no damn reason to lie about that. I've been there, too.

It sucks right now. Might suck tomorrow, too. But eventually it won't. You're going to be happy, and safe, and you're going to enjoy your life and feel all kinds of love and joy and wonder again.

You're going to be okay.

short form writers look at people writing 100k+ fics as though this is some sort of talent given as part of a fae bargain, that the commitment required shows some sort of ungodly mental fortitude.

My sycamore tree began life in the gravel at the edge of a parking lot. If trees can feel pain, that is a painful, unlucky death. I carefully dug it up and put it in a pot I made out of a disposable cup.

Hello small one. This world may be cruel, but I will not be.

I decided to take care of it, not expecting it to survive, and when my sycamore tree unfurled one tiny leaf and then another, it chiseled a tiny foothold in my terrified brain, the kind of brain that doesn't remember a world before the atomic bomb and before 9/11.

I googled the lifespans of trees. My neurons had to stretch and expand to accommodate what I learned: My sycamore tree may live five hundred years. It's hard to think something so big. In twenty years, my baby sycamore tree will be three stories tall, and the home of many creatures. In five years, my sycamore tree will be taller than I am. In one year, it will be summer.

There's this concept called sense of foreshortened future where people who have lived through trauma can't conceptualize a future for themselves because deep down they don't expect to survive, When I look forward, all I see is fire and death, melting ice and burning sky. We were raised Evangelical. All we see is Judgment Day, except there is no heaven.

But now there is a tiny gap in the wall, a crack in the door of my cell

and on the other side, I see a tree

There is, in the future, a great old sycamore tree, full of clean winds and the stir of a thousand wings. A hundred years from now. Fifty years from now. There will be forests in that world. There will be a world.

It takes courage, but we have to imagine it.

Most tree species can live in excess of three or four hundred years. I think I'm learning something. I think there are ancient voices saying hello small one, touch the dirt and the leaves, for now you are part of something that cannot die

in 2030 I will be thirty years old and the world will not have ended and there will still be hummingbirds, and we will have photos of the stars more beautiful than we can now imagine.

I planted an Eastern Redcedar; they may live nine hundred years. There will be nine hundred years. The people in that time will remember us. Maybe we will meet the aliens (hi aliens!).

I will blow out the candles on many birthday cakes in a world where there are wolves in dark forests far from home. I am learning to imagine the future. I learned recently that elk were reintroduced to the Appalachian Mountains after over a hundred years of extirpation, and that they are expanding their range.

That tiny crack I can see through now opens a tiny bit more:

Maybe elk will pass through my hometown, maybe there will be a forest where the pasture is on the high hill that I can see from my home

say it, say it, say it: ten years, thirty years, a hundred years from now

and like to be clear, i don't think shane is a *bad* captain.

i just think he is very focused, game-oriented captain. i think he expects a lot of the team, but i think he also behaves in a way that makes it clear that he doesn't ask anything of anyone that he himself isn't already giving. if you are struggling with something, he's going to notice it (because he can read hockey like a book he wrote himself, and he knows exactly to what level everyone *should be* performing), and if you are genuinely wanting to get better at it, 100% i think he'll work with you even if it means staying long at practice. he wants this team to be the best possible team it can be. he expects excellence of his team, but he also expects excellence of himself. i think he would sometimes struggle with frustration when someone just isn't Getting It because it clicked for HIM so what is YOUR problem, but unless someone catches an attitude about it, i think he would be able to restrain himself (for the most part) and just keep pushing.

and i don't think his team would *dislike* him for this, per se. yeah it's intense and he's intense, but it's an intense that has them all playing better and winning cups and being a fucking FORCE on the ice. and we see that he is funny around them! it's prompted by hayden getting playful first and pulling him into it, but i don't think they JUST think of shane as a robot who plays hockey like a beast. yeah cap can be brutal in practice, but he's in the trenches with them and he can lighten the mood with a comment after it's over and they're back in the locker room.

BUT i do think that this relationship does then hinge ENTIRELY on shane continuing to perform and turn out the excellence he demands of others. there isn't as much of a team spirit of friendship as there might be on other teams, and this is fine UNTIL you have a situation like homophobes on the team already now having a problem with shane being gay and now there is suspicion that he has lapsed in his excellence and dedication.

everyone is entitled to their own personal #myshane, but i do get a little mmmmmmmm when there's no acknowledgement of all about how part of the problem with how montreal ended up is with the fact that enough of the team had a problem with shane being gay that they were then SO fast to jump on the suspicion that he'd fucked up after YEARS of diligence. and shane is very self-contained and doesn't reveal much of himself to a lot of people, but i'm also like?? with how him being gay was received by this team he's given YEARS of his life to?? tbh thank god he didn't come out to them as a group earlier.

and i do think that there is room for him to grow in being able to find a better balance on viewing teammates as friends vs teammates because i think that would make the game more enjoyable for him in a way i don't think he's let himself experience it in a long time (and understandably so! he's the first asian captain in nhl history! if his team DIDN'T demonstrate excellence, 100% it's getting blamed on him. he loves hockey, but so much of his experience as a pro has been "you're the best at what you do, but you also HAVE to be the best because you are The Example whether you wanted that or not." and i also think there's room there to think about how shane would be so fucking hyperaware of not coming across as too soft on his team in a way that maybe sometimes overcorrected him into being a little too strict.)

shane is horrifically embarrassed by this and can not meet vaughns eyes or even his body, he refuses to look at him period.

ilya laughed for damn near 5 minutes and was doubled over coughing at one point fully crying, he is delighted by this and once hes through his warmups that shane wont let him skip he skates to center ice and does the exact same thing, kicking his feet in the air, blowing kisses, little finger waves, winking at vaughn. they dont say a word the whole time they just do these actions like flirting cartoon characters stuck on loop.

the centaurs are also delighted by this, despite the knowledge that vaughn is at the top of the couples “would” list this is the incident that earns vaughnny the nickname “boyfriend” among the team. they’re playing new york? will you guys be seeing your boyfriend? new york lost the game last night? hows your boyfriend taking it? someones family member is taking a trip to new york city? hey can you guys text your boyfriend and ask for recommendations for places to eat?

the admirals give vaughn as many opportunities to drag this bit up as possible because they find it hilarious, with the exception of scott who regards this whole thing like a curse cast upon him that will last long after his death. media days are the worst for scott especially because ever since the media learn about this stupid joke they’ll get questions about it. scott any comments on the rumors that your alternative captain carter vaughn is getting between the marriage of shane hollander and ilya rozanov? he is not, vaughn does not like men. scott is there any expected tension between the admirals and the centaurs at your game next week because of carter vaughns public flirting with the couple? should the media be expecting a fight between your alternate captain and the hockey husbands? i personally dont think you should be expecting a fight if he’s flirting with both of them, but this might become a thing for hollander and rozanov and i think vaughn wouldnt mind egging it on. scott do you think your co captain has a chance of entering a relationship with shane hollander and ilya rozanov and if so how would this effect the team dynamics within the admirals? i dont think vaughnny could handle all that even if he did like men.

Mine was @bea-goldfish’s i’ve been stuck so long (we just got the start wrong). Tuna Melt time loops. Just trust me.

Also feel free to send me your own fics that made you stare at the ceiling. I certainly stare blankly at the wall when I’m writing my own as well and definitely contemplate. *george costanza voice* I contemplate all the time…

Mine would definitely be Deep Misunderstanding by some1_around. Not that there aren't others I've read more recently, but every time I think about that one it hits me like a truck (also made me listen to The Great Divide on repeat)

It is both easier and more rage-inducing to see a character with your exact flaws make mistakes that are so obvious when you have context. But Shane never has the context. He operates on a need-to-know basis. Why? Because if he knows something, he feels he has to control it, manage it, fix it—and he would try to carry the burden alone. he is already at his absolute limit for how much of his life he can manage without snapping.

Shane’s whole life is a performance. He isn’t just a hockey player; he is a product of media training and immense family sacrifice. as an Asian kid in a sport that constantly "others" you, he learned early that any wrong move would get him ridiculed, so he becomes the best. so no one could say he didn't belong in the room or on the ice.

Even seeing another Asian kid on his youth team didn't help because the disconnect was already there, shane has a western last name. When you feel too "other" to fit into any circle, it changes you. You stop trying to belong and start trying to be perfect. He was raised in a vacuum of locker room talk; he repressed his identity until it was second nature to the point that when he is drafted, he doesn't know who he is outside of hockey. which is why so many people, including ilya, say he is boring. he's not he's just at his fucking limit. so when he does get a chance to be brave and sleep with his 'rival' OFC he took it. it was probably the most exciting thing he felt since he was a kid and if anyone knew what he was going through it would be ilya.

in episode 2, when shane realizes sex isn’t a drill he’s "failing" at but something actually fun, the weight leaves his chest. For a moment, his emotions aren't scripted. He falls in love because Ilya—despite his own nerves—makes him feel safe and seen in a way he's never known before. and then ilya, recognizing shane is falling hard and fast, pushes him away. and shane's heart breaks but he can't let it show.

After they reconnect, Shane tries to stay "super totally casual." He's accepted that he's mostly in love with ilya but he’s white-knuckling everything, he can't lose ilya and he can't lose hockey and if anyone found out he would lose both. Then Ilya starts changing. He texts shane more, he invited shane over before a game instead of after. He calls him Shane during sex. He makes him a tuna melt and buys him ginger ale, begs him to stay the night.

This is Shane’s nightmare. Domestic intimacy is a threat, all the feelings shane has worked to hide, bubbling up to the surface. Ilya starts to talk like he might actually want more then just sex it rocks the entire foundation of Shane's survival strategy. He scrambles to stabilize by dating Rose, not because he wants to, but because he thinks he should. He wants the "easy" path to save his career and his parents’ sacrifices. But Rose sees through him and gives him the one thing he couldn't give himself: permission to exist.

it wasn't Rose's permission that changed something inside shane but she definitely helped foster his own self-acceptance and because he's shane and can't do things 1/2 way (8 hamburgers) he went all in and invited ilya to the cottage. and Ilya does the unthinkable, mentions a future together. so naturally, Shane stays up all night coming up with ways to keep him. Now that he has the first person to truly see him—not "Shane Hollander #24"—he would die before letting him slip away again.

This is cemented after his dad catches them. Ilya gives him the space to panic while reminding him that they will get through it together. It’s no longer Shane against his own brain; it’s the two of them against the world.

/pic id: bluesky post from Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher

"If you want to believe it, check it twice ::clap clap:: "If you want to believe it, check it twice ::clap clap:: Doesn't matter if it's awful Doesn't matter if it's nice "If you want to believe it, check it twice ::clap clap::" appended to the post from High Priestess, Low Patience user Cheriepriest.com

If the rage-bait works too well it might be fake ::clap clap:: If the rage-bait works too well it might be fake ::clap clap:: Look we've all been fooled before when a deep-fake makes us sore but kindly doublecheck your source, it might be fake ::clap clap::