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oumakokichi · 4 years

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What are the differences between the original and localization?

Hmm, that’s a very simple question with a pretty lengthy answer! I did answer some similar questions in the past, but that was a long time ago, much closer to when the localization was first released. There are probably a lot of people whose main experience with the game has only been with the localization, and who don’t really know or remember those differences anymore.

For that reason, I’m going to go into kind of a “masterlist” of things that were changed in the localization in this post. This will be very long, but I really want to explain the whole story behind the localization and its differences from the original to people who might only be hearing about this for the first time. I’m going to cover full spoilers for the game obviously, so be careful when reading!

Also, please feel free to share this post around, as I think it contains a lot of information that might be interesting to people who’ve only experienced the localization!

Before I really get into it though, I want to stipulate that the differences I’m covering in this post are mostly going to be things that I believe could’ve been handled or translated better, not every single line that was changed verbatim in the game. This is because a localization’s purpose is incredibly different from a literal translation.

Where a literal translation seeks to keep as much of the original authorial intent as possible and has the leeway to explain various Japanese terms and cultural specifics to the readers in footnotes or a glossary, a localization is usually much more targeted towards a specific target audience, usually one more unfamiliar with Japanese culture or terminology. As a result, some things in a localization are occasionally changed to make them more understandable to a western audience.

So, for example, I’m not going to fault the localization for changing Monosuke’s extremely heavy Kansai accent in Japanese to a New York accent in the English dub. It’s much easier for western players to immediately grasp that, “hey, this guy has a very specific regional accent that the other characters don’t,” and it works really well as a rough equivalent. Similarly, localization changes like changing a line here or there about the sport of sumo to be about the Jets and the Patriots also helps get the point across to players quickly and easily without having to explain an unfamiliar sport to western players in-depth before they can get the joke.

That being said… there were some liberties taken with ndrv3’s translation which I don’t believe fulfill the point of a localization, and which changed certain deliveries or even perceptions about the characters in a way that I just don’t agree with.

Let me explain first how the localization team actually worked, to people who might be unfamiliar with the process. Ndrv3 had four separate translators working on the localization. When NISA first announced that the game was being localized, these four translators introduced themselves on reddit in an AMA, where they also mentioned that they were by and large dividing up the 16 main characters between themselves, with each translator specifically assigned to four characters.

Having more translators working on a game might sound like a good idea in theory, but it’s often not. The more translators assigned to a game, the harder it is to provide a consistent translation. Translation is messy work: often there are multiple ways to translate the same sentence, or even the same word between two different languages. If a translation has multiple translators, that means they need to be communicating constantly with one another and referencing each other’s work all the time in order to avoid mistranslations: it’s difficult work, but not impossible.

However… this didn’t happen with ndrv3’s translation team. It’s pretty clear they did not reference each other’s work or communicate very well, and the translation suffers for it. I’m not just guessing here, either; it’s a fact that various parts of the game have lines completely ruined by not looking at the context, or words translated two different ways almost back-to-back. I’ll provide specific examples of this later.

Many of the translators also picked which characters they wanted to translate on the basis of which were their favorites—which, again, isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but which does raise the risk of letting character bias influence your work. No work is inherently without bias; all translators have to look at their own biases and still attempt to translate fairly regardless. But because translators were assigned four characters each, this meant that while they might be really enthusiastic about translating for one character in particular, they were less enthusiastic for others. These biases do reflect in the work, and I will provide further examples as I make my list.

This system of delegation also leaves more questions than it answers. It becomes impossible to tell who translated certain parts of the game, particularly in areas where the narrator is unclear. For example, did Saihara’s translator translate Ouma’s motive video, as Saihara is the one watching it in chapter 6? Or did Ouma’s translator do it, since it’s his motive video? Who translated the parts we see at the beginning of certain chapters, where characters from the outside world make occasional comments? It’s really unclear, and I’m not even sure if the translators divvied up these parts amongst themselves or if only one person was supposed to handle them.

To put it simply, there were quite a lot of complications and worrying factors about the way the translation was divided by the team, and the communication (or lack thereof) between said translators. It’s impossible to really discuss the main problems that ndrv3’s localization has without making it clear why those problems happened, and I hope I’ve explained it well here.

With that out of the way, I’m finally going to cover the biggest differences between the original game and the localization, and why many of these changes were such a problem.

1.) Gonta’s Entire Character

To this day, I still feel like this is probably the most egregious change of the entire localization. Gonta does not talk like a caveman in Japanese. He does not even have a particularly limited vocabularly. He talks like a fairly normal, very polite high school boy, and the only stipulation is that he’s not very familiar with electronics or technology due to his backstory of “growing up in the woods away from humans.”

Gonta does refer to himself in the third-person in Japanese, but I need to stress this: this is a perfectly normal thing to do in Japanese. Many people do it all the time, and it has no bearing on a person’s intelligence or ability to speak. In fact, both Tenko and Angie also refer to themselves in the third-person in the Japanese version of the game, yet mysteriously use first-person pronouns in the localization.

I wouldn’t be so opposed to this change if it weren’t for the fact that Gonta’s entire character arc revolves around being so much smarter than people (even himself!) give him credit for. He constantly downplays his own abilities and contributions to the group despite being fairly knowledgeable, not only about entomology but also about nature and astronomy. He has a fairly good understanding of spatial reasoning and is one of the first people to guess how Toujou’s trick with the rope and tire worked in chapter 2.

Chapter 4 of ndrv3 is so incredibly painful because it makes it clear that while Gonta was, absolutely, manipulated by Ouma into picking up the flashback light, he nonetheless made the decision to kill Miu of his own accord. He was even willing to try and kill everyone else by misleading them in the trial, because he thought it was more merciful than letting them see the outside world for themselves. These were choices that he made, confirmed when we see Gonta’s AI at the end of the trial speak for himself and acknowledge that yes, he really did think the outside world was worth killing people over.

Gonta is supposed to be somewhat naïve and trusting, not stupid. He believes himself to be an idiot, and other characters often talk down to him or don’t take him seriously, but at the end of the day he’s a human being just like the rest of them, and far, far smarter and more capable of making his own decisions than anyone thought him capable of.

Translating all of his speech to “caveman” or “Tarzan speech” really downplays his ability to make decisions for himself, and I think it’s a big part of why I’ve seen considerably more western fans insist that he didn’t know what he was doing than Japanese fans. I love Gonta quite a lot, but I can’t get over the localization essentially changing his character to make him seem more stupid, instead of translating what was actually there in order to more accurately reflect his character.

2.) Added Some Slurs, Removed Others

It’s time to address the elephant in the room for people who don’t know: Momota is considerably homophobic and transphobic in the original Japanese version of the game. In chapter 2, he uses the word “okama” to refer to Korekiyo in an extremely derogatory fashion. This word has a history of both homophobic and transphobic sentiment in Japan, as it’s often used against flamboyant gay men and trans women, who are sadly and unfortunately conflated as being “the same thing” most of the time. To put it simply, the word has the equivalent of the weight of the t-slur and the f-slur in English rolled into one.

This isn’t the only instance of Momota being homophobic, sadly. In the salmon mode version of the game, should you choose the “let’s undress” option in the gym while with Momota, he has yet another line where he says, “You don’t swing that way, do you!?” to Saihara, using his most terrified and disgusted-looking sprite. This suggests to me that, yes, the homophobia was a deliberate choice in the Japanese version of the game, as Momota consistently reacts this way to even the idea of another guy showing romantic interest in him.

The English version more or less kept the salmon mode comment, but removed the use of the slur in chapter 2 entirely. Which I have… mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I am an LGBT person myself. I don’t want to read slurs if I can help it. On the other hand, I really don’t think the slur was removed out of consideration to the LGBT community so much as Momota’s translator really wanted to downplay any lines that could make his character come across in a more negative light.

This is backed up by the fact that both Miu and Ouma’s translators added slurs to the game that weren’t present in the original Japanese. Where Miu only ever refers to Gonta as “baka” (idiot) or occasionally, “ahou” (a slightly ruder word that still more or less equates to “moron”), her translator decided to add multiple instances of her using the r-slur to refer to Gonta specifically, and on one occasion, even the word “Mongoloid,” a deeply offensive and outdated term. Ouma’s translator similarly took lines where he was already speaking harshly of Miu and added multiple instances of words like “bitch” or “whore.”

To me, this suggests that the translators were completely free to choose how harsh or how likable they wanted their characters to come across. Momota’s translator omitting just the slur could maybe pass for a nice gesture, so people don’t have to read it and be uncomfortable—except, that’s not the only thing that was omitted. Instances of Momota being blatantly misogynistic or rude were also toned down to the point of covering up most of his flaws entirely. His use of “memeshii” against Hoshi (a word which means “cowardly” in Japanese with specifically feminine connotations, like the word “sissy” in English) is simply changed to “weak,” and when he calls Saihara’s trauma “kudaranai” (literally “worthless” or “bullshit”), this is changed to “trivial” in the localization.

Momota’s translator even went so far as to omit a line entirely from the chapter 2 trial, which I touched on in an earlier post. In the original version of the game, Ouma asks Momota dumbfounded if he’s really stupid enough to trust Maki without any proof and if he plans on risking everyone else’s lives in the trial if he turns out to be wrong. And Momota replies saying yes, absolutely, he’s totally willing to bet everyone’s lives on nothing more than a hunch because he thinks he’s going to be right no matter what.

This is a character flaw. It’s a huge, running theme with Momota’s character, and it’s brought up again in chapter 4 deliberately when Momota really does almost kill everyone in the trial because he refuses to believe that Ouma isn’t the culprit. But the localization simply omits it, leaving Momota to seem considerably less hard-headed and reckless in the English version of the game. If anyone wants proof that this line exists, it is still very much there in the Japanese dialogue, but it has no translation whatsoever. This goes beyond “translation decisions I don’t agree with”; omitting an entire line for a character simply because you want other people to like them more is just bad translation, period.

3.) Angie’s Religion

In the original Japanese version of the game, neither Angie’s god nor her religion have any specific names. She refers to her god simply as “god” in the general sense, and clearly changes aspects of their persona and appearance based on who she’s trying to convince to join her cult. Everything about her is pretty clearly fictionalized, from her island to the religious practices her cult does.

Kodaka’s writing with regard to Angie is already a huge mess. It feeds into a lot of harmful stereotypes about “crazy, exotic brown women” and “bloodthirsty savages,” but at the very least it never correlated with a specific religion or location in the original version of the game.

This all changed when Angie’s translator, for whatever reason, decided to make Angie be Polynesian specifically and appropriate from the real religion of real indigenous peoples native to Polynesia. That’s right: Atua is a real god that has very real significance to tons of indigenous peoples.

In my opinion, this decision was incredibly disrespectful. It spreads incredible misinformation about a god that is still very much a part of tons of real-life people’s religion, and associates it with cults? Blood rituals? Human sacrifices? It’s a terrible localization decision that wasn’t necessary whatsoever and to be quite frank, it’s racist and insensitive.

As I said, the original game never exactly had the peak of “good writing decisions” when it came to Angie; there are still harmful stereotypes with her character, and she deserved to be written so much better. But associating her with a real group of indigenous people and equating a real god to some fictional deity that’s mostly treated as either a scary cult-ish boogeyman or the punchline to a joke is just… bad.

4.) Ouma’s Motive Video

Some of the decisions taken with Ouma’s translation are… interesting, to say the least. In many ways, he feels like a completely different character between the two versions of the game. This is due not only to the translation, but also the voice direction and casting.

A lot of his lines are tweaked or changed entirely to make his character seem much louder, less serious, and less sincere than the original version of the game. Obviously, Ouma lies, a lot. That’s sort of the whole point of is character. But what I mean is that even lines in the original version of the game, where it was clear he was being truthful via softer delivery, trailing off the end of his sentences, and seeming overall hesitant about whether to divulge certain information or not are literally changed in the localization to him pretty much yelling at the top of his lungs, complete with tons of exclamation points on lines that originally ended with a question mark or ellipses.

Tonally, he just feels very different as a character. The “sowwy” speak, lines like “oopsie poopsie, I’m such a ditz!”—all of these things are taken to such ridiculous extremes that it feels a little hard to take him seriously. Even in the post-trial for chapter 4 when Ouma starts playing the villain after Gonta’s death, a moment which should have been completely serious and intense, the mood is kind of completely killed when the line is changed from him calling everyone a bunch of idiots to him calling everyone…. “stupidheads.” These changes don’t really seem thematically appropriate to me, but overall, they’re not damning.

What is damning, however, is the fact that Ouma’s motive video is completely mistranslated and provides a very poor picture of what his motivations and ideals were like. I still remember being shocked when I played the localization for the first time and discovered that they completely omitted a line stating that Ouma and DICE have a very specific taboo against murder.

Literally, this is one of the very first lines in the entire video. The Japanese version of the game makes it explicitly clear that DICE were forbidden to kill people, and that abiding by this rule was extremely important to them. By contrast, the localization simply makes a nod about him doing “petty nonviolent crimes and pranks,” without ever once mentioning anything at all about rules or taboos.

This feels especially egregious in the localization considering Saihara later uses Ouma’s motive video as evidence in the chapter 6 trial and states there that Ouma and DICE “had a rule against killing people,” despite the game… never actually telling you that. It not only skews the perception of Ouma’s character at a crucial moment, it also just straight-up lies to localization players and expects them to make leaps in logic without actually providing the facts. So it winds up sort of feeling like Saihara is just pulling these assumptions out of his ass more than anything else.

I actually still have my original translation of Ouma’s motive video here, if anyone would like to compare. Again, translation is a tricky line of work, and obviously not all translators are going to agree with one another. But I consider omitting lines entirely to be one of the worst things you can do in a translation, particularly in a mystery game where people are expected to solve said mysteries based on the information and facts provided to them.

5.) Inconsistencies and Lack of Context

As I mentioned earlier, there are many instances of lines being completely mistranslated, or translated two different ways by multiple translators, or addressed to the wrong character. This is, as I stated, due to the way the translation work was divided by four separate people who appear to have not communicated with each other or cross-referenced each other’s work.

One of the clearest examples of this that I can think of off the top of my head is in chapter 3, where Ouma mentions “doing a little research” on the Caged Child ritual, and Maki in the very next line repeats him by saying… “study?”

On their own, removed from any context, these would both potentially be correct translations. However, it’s very clear that the translators just didn’t care to look at the context, or communicate with each other and share their work. The fact that characters aren’t even quoting each other properly in lines that are back-to-back is a pretty big oversight, and something that should have been accounted for knowing that four separate people were going to be translating various different characters.

This lack of context causes other, even more hilarious and blatantly wrong mistranslations. At the start of the chapter 3 trial, there is a line where Momota mentions that he couldn’t perform a thorough investigation on his own “because Monokuma disrupted him.” In the original, Ouma responds and tells Momota that he’s just using Monokuma as an excuse to cover for his own flaws. However, what we actually got in the localization was… this.

I don’t even have words for how badly this line was butchered (though I could make several hilarious jokes about Monokuma “over-compensating”). Presumably, this happened because Ouma’s translator saw Ouma’s line without any of the lines before it or the context of what Momota was saying, had no clue who Ouma was actually supposed to be talking to, and just ad-libbed it however they could, even though it literally makes no sense and doesn’t even fit into the conversation.

There are other similar instances of this, too. For example, did you know that the scene after Saihara faints in chapter 2, just before he wakes up in Gonta’s lab, is actually supposed to have Ouma talking to him? The narrator is unnamed, but there are several lines just before Saihara wakes up where Ouma tells him “come on, you can’t die on me yet!” and keeps prodding him and poking him to wake up. This is never explicitly told to you from the text… but it becomes pretty obvious when you look at the context and see that a huge CG of Ouma looking over Saihara as he starts to wake up is the very next part of the scene.

In the localization, however, Saihara’s translator pretty clearly had no idea what was happening or who was supposed to be talking to him, because they translated those lines as Saihara talking to himself, even though the manner of speech and phrasing is clearly supposed to be Ouma instead.

I could go on and on listing other examples: Tsumugi makes a joke in the original about Miu being able to dish out dirty jokes but not being very good at hearing them herself, but it’s changed in the localization to Tsumugi saying “I’m not so good with that kind of stuff,” and a line where Momota protests against Maki choking Ouma because she’ll kill him if she keeps going is instead changed to him saying “you’ll get killed if you don’t stop!” In my opinion, the fact that this is a consistent problem throughout the whole game shows that the translators weren’t really communicating or working together at any point, and that it wasn’t simply a one-time mistake here or there.

6.) Edited CGs and Plot Points

I have made an entirely separate post about this in the past, but at this point I don’t think anyone actually knows anymore: the localization actually edited in-game CGs and made some of them completely different from the Japanese version of the game. I’m not accusing them of “censorship” or anything like that, I mean quite literally that they altered and edited specific CGs to try and fix certain problems with them and only ended up making them worse in the process.

In chapter 5, Momota gets shot in the arm by Maki’s crossbow when trying to defend Ouma, and Ouma gets shot in the back shortly afterward when attempting to make a run for the Exisals. These injuries are relevant to how they died, but they’re not actually very visible in the CGs of Ouma and Momota shown later in the chapter 5 trial.

There are a whole bunch of inconsistencies with the CGs in chapter 5 in general: Momota gives Ouma his jacket to lie on under the press, but is magically still wearing it when he emerges from the Exisal himself at the end of the trial (I like to think he snuck back into the dorms Solid Snake style to get a new one from his room before joining the trial), the cap to the antidote is still on the bottle when Ouma pretends to drink it in front of Maki and Momota, etc. None of these things really deter from the plot though, and so I would say they’re fairly unimportant.

However, for some reason, NISA decided that “fixing” at least some of the CGs in the chapter 5 trial was necessary. They did this by adding bloodstains to Momota’s arm while he’s under the press, to better show his injury from the crossbow…. and in doing so, for some completely inexplicable reason, they changed the entire position of his arm. Here’s what I mean for comparison:

This is how Momota’s arm looked in the original CG from chapter 5, shown when the camcorder is provided as evidence that it’s “Ouma” under the press.

And this is how the localization edited it to look. I can understand and even sympathize with adding the bloodstains, but… changing the entire arm itself? Moving it to be sticking out from under the press? To put it nicely, this change doesn’t make any sense and actually makes it harder to understand Ouma and Momota’s plan.

The whole trick behind their plan was that nothing was supposed to stick out from under the press, other than Momota’s jacket. They waited until the instant when the press completely covered every part of Momota’s body, arms and all, and then performed the switch to mislead people. But the edited version of the CG in the localization just has Momota’s arm sticking completely out, hanging over the side, meaning it would’ve been impossible for the press to hide every part of it and the whole switch feels… well, stupid and impossibly easy to see through in the localized version.

Again, this shows a total disregard for presenting the facts as they actually appear and actually makes things more difficult for English players of the game, because they’re not being given accurate information. I really don’t understand why these changes were necessary, or why the bloodstains couldn’t have just been added without moving Momota’s entire arm.

7.) In Conclusion

This has gotten extremely long (nearly 10 pages), so I want to wrap things up. I want to specify that my intention with this masterlist isn’t to insult or badmouth the translators who worked on this game. I’m sure they worked very hard, and I have no idea what time or budget constraints they were facing as they did so.

Being a translator is not easy, and typically translators are not very well-paid or recognized for their work. I have the utmost respect for other translators, and I know perfectly well just how difficult and taxing it can be.

I am making this list because these are simply changes which were very different from the original version of the game, and which I believe could have been handled better. Personally, I disagree with many of the choices the localization made, but that does not mean that they didn’t do a fantastic job in other places. I absolutely love whichever translator was responsible for coming up with catchphrases and nicknames throughout the game: little localization decisions like “cospox,” “flashback light,” “Insect Meet n’ Greet,” and “cosplaycat criminal” were all strokes of genius that I highly admire.

I only want to stress that the Japanese version of the game is very different. Making changes to the way a character is presented or portrayed means influencing how people are going to react to said character. Skewing the information and facts presented in trials in the game means changing people’s experience of the game, and giving them less facts to go off of. Equating fictional gods to real-life ones can cause real harm and influence perception of real indigenous peoples. These are all facts that need to be accounted for before deciding whether a certain change is necessary or not, in my opinion.

If you’ve read this far, thank you! Again, feel free to share this post around if you’d like, since this is probably the most comprehensively I’ve ever covered this topic.

#danganronpa #new danganronpa v3 #dangan ronpa #ndrv3 spoilers //#ask #anonymous #this isn't meta but it's IS a comprehensive masterlist of translation comparisons #so i think it's okay to post in the tag #okay to reblog

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cyokie · 4 years

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Jack Vessalius as a Symbol for Depression

Ever since I first read PandoraHearts, I have interpreted Jack Vessalius as at least a partial symbolic representation of depression, especially in his relationship with Oz.

(Skip to “keep reading” to go straight to the analysis; this beginning portion is little more than a disclaimer.)

Jack is a complex, fascinating character, and it is precisely due to this that I believe any number of interpretations regarding him contain merit. Whether you view Jack as an abuser, a manifestation of mental illness, or an extraordinarily-written character that does not require a figurative understanding to be interesting, I think this is valid.

I am saying this first and foremost because I want to be clear: this is not a persuasive essay. I am not trying to change anybody’s minds about liking or disliking Jack Vessalius, nor am I trying to devalue any other interpretations of this extremely nuanced character. Some points may be a bit vague and connections disjointed, though I attempted to minimize this. Any discussion of mental illness and abuse is based on either my personal experiences or those of people I know. I do not intend to offend anybody.

This post is simply the product of years of disorganized yet in-depth thoughts about this concept. I hope some of you will be interested.

Major spoilers for the entire manga below the cut. Manga panels are from the Fallen Syndicate fan translation. This...is going to get very long.

Emotional Abuse

Jack exists within Oz’s mind. When these two interact, it almost always occurs within Oz’s head, providing every conversation with an inherently emotional and symbolic element.

Jack initially appears to Oz as an unknown but crucial figure. Whether he is trustworthy or even harmful remains to be seen, but his input is necessary. He is the only insight Oz has into his lost memories; he knows something Oz does not. Oz is suffering an identity crisis, realizing he has endured something he does not completely understand, something that could potentially change his entire life once he does understand it. And yet, this mysterious voice within his head understands it.

This desperation makes it almost irrelevant whether Jack is credible, whether his advice is well-intentioned. Normally a rather cynical and distrusting young man, Oz follows Jack from the beginning despite wanting answers. He does indeed receive answers, but they are perhaps not quite what he bargained for, in more ways than one.

Once Jack’s true nature is revealed, the extent to which he has used Oz’s memories and emotions against him becomes apparent. Jack does present Oz with new insights into his experiences, but he only ever provides Oz with enough information to convince him to act a certain way. He never willingly gives a fair, all-encompassing portrayal of an event from Oz’s past. He manipulates Oz’s perceptions of his memories to fit a particular emotional narrative, one that is inevitably perplexing and demeaning to Oz.

This bears a resemblance to the way depression warps how we view past events. When we look back at our experiences, we don’t see the entire picture--though we are convinced that we may. We see a skewed version of an incident that actually occurred. Perhaps this incident proves little to nothing about ourselves in reality, but viewed through the lens of depression, everything about it seems to scream that we are useless. And it is nearly impossible to try and perceive these events any differently, because when depression overtakes our minds, this perspective appears to be the only one through which it is possible to examine any of our pasts.

By the time Jack’s intentions have been exposed, he is also explicitly emotionally abusive towards Oz. It is easy to recognize Jack’s statements as not only psychologically damaging, but disturbingly similar to what we hear in our own heads when suffering depression. Think about these assertions without the very literal plot elements that support them: Jack declares Oz less than human, insists that nobody loves him, and claims that he has no future because the only thing he’s good for is hurting those around him. He convinces Oz that he is useless, hopeless, and worthless.

Jack drills these ideas into Oz’s head when he is at his most vulnerable. This is when Oz breaks down and becomes convinced that all of Jack’s statements are true. He is not who he thought he was; he never has been, and so his life is meaningless.

This is arguably when Oz reaches his all-time emotional low. While it was already addressed that he had been struggling intensely with his mental health and was probably suicidal, up to this point, he always retained some level of self-preservation (however slight). Now, he silently accepts that the world would be better off without him and offers no physical or emotional resistance to his own execution. Jack’s words worm their way into his heart and corrupt his self-image to the point where his only reaction to Oswald’s sword swinging towards him is a blank, unflinching stare.

Trauma Response

It’s not uncommon for Jack to manifest during catastrophic moments--that is, whenever a situation triggers (or comes close to triggering) overwhelming memories of Oz’s trauma. When Oz is losing control over his emotional and physical faculties, Jack often encourages him to make the trigger disappear using the quickest and easiest method available. Unsurprisingly, this method generally takes advantage of Oz’s extraordinary powers. In other words, the “tactic” Jack advises Oz to use is simply mindless destruction.

In the second half of the manga, Oz is at his least emotionally stable. It is not a coincidence that this is also the point during which Jack gains the ability to completely hijack Oz’s body. This development allows Jack to commit impulsive acts of aggression through Oz, while Oz himself retains little to no control.

Jack overwhelms Oz with unnecessary flashbacks to traumatic events and makes an excess of harmful connections between past and present circumstances. Oz’s panicked, distressed responses to this are tools he uses to further coax Oz into acting in a self-destructive manner. These tendencies may not only connect Jack to the concept of depression, but the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder as well.

Identity Crisis

Although Jack is introduced extremely early in the manga, one of the story’s main mysteries is the exact nature of his connection to Oz. This relationship shifts several times, especially with regards to who is “in control” and who is the true “owner” of the physical body.

Once it becomes public knowledge that Jack is “within” Oz, the identity of the former overcomes the identity of the latter in the eyes of the general populace. Figures who never before gave Oz a second glance begin to pay incredibly close attention to him; many directly address him through his connection to Jack rather than as a separate entity.

Oz is deeply troubled by the way others ignore him in favor of an aspect of his identity that he feels does not truly represent him--an aspect of his identity that is at least partially out of his control. However, he is also relatively resigned to being judged in this manner. He lacks knowledge of how to change this circumstance because even he does not truly understand the extent to which he and Jack are connected.

It is true that at this point in the story, Jack is practically worshipped. His destructive actions and devastatingly selfish nature have not yet been exposed. Because of this, Oz as Jack’s “vessel” is typically viewed through a positive lens. Still, this situation reflects how people with depression are sometimes reduced to nothing more than a mental illness by their peers. Because others do not understand (and mental illness is stigmatized), they start to see us as “different” in some indefinable but undeniable way, and our existence becomes that particular part of ourselves in their eyes.

As time passes, the line between Jack and Oz becomes more and more blurred. Questions are raised about whether they are the same person or, on the contrary, whether they are similar at all. At what is arguably the climax of the manga, Jack declares that Oz’s body is, was, and will always be his possession; he claims that in reality, there is no “Oz,” only “Jack.”

This thought haunts Oz intensely and sends him into a rapid downward spiral. Like the sentiments expressed near the end of the “emotional abuse” section of this analysis, the idea that Oz’s body belongs to Jack is backed up by rigid, literal plot elements. However, if we view this emotional catastrophe using a symbolic perspective, it is a representation of yet another common struggle endured by those with depression.

We come to ask ourselves who we really are. Was there truly a time when we weren’t “like this?” Could we truly escape this misery in the future? Who would we be if we were to stop feeling this way? Do we even exist without depression? Does Oz even exist without Jack?

Visual Symbolism

It is a classic literary device to represent hope through light and despair through darkness. The manga is rife with this exact type of symbolism, utilizing it to describe how the Abyss has changed throughout time, Break’s dwindling eyesight, and the oscillating emotional states of various characters.

As I stated previously, Jack and Oz interact almost exclusively within the latter’s mind. The landscape drawn in the background of these conversations initially possesses a watery, clear appearance. However, as it becomes increasingly clear that Jack’s presence is deeply damaging to Oz’s psyche, this same landscape becomes overwhelmingly tainted by dark, ink-like shadows.

Closer examination reveals that this “pollution” originates directly from Jack--and it reaches its peak once Jack’s intentions have been fully disclosed. Not only is Oz’s mind visibly corrupted by darkness, but Jack himself appears as an almost inhuman figure composed of these shadows.

There is another level of visual symbolism as well--namely, the fact that Jack becomes increasingly physically aggressive and disrespectful towards Oz. In the first half of the manga, he primarily speaks to Oz from a distance, occasionally reaching out a hand in his direction. This is clearly not so in the second half of the manga, at which point Oz begins to defy his influence and it becomes vital that he subjugate him as quickly as possible.

By this time, Jack is almost always seen either restraining or caressing Oz. Even in the latter situation, when his touches are lingering and vaguely affectionate, they are possessive and constraining. In other words, though they appear different on the surface, both actions are ultimately methods of forcing Oz’s submission. It can be said that this represents his desire to gain complete control over all aspects of Oz’s being, as well as his total lack of respect for Oz’s physical and emotional autonomy.

It can be argued that both of these aspects of symbolism reach their pinnacle even before this point. Oz realizes his own worth when Oscar says he loves him and reveals that his greatest desire is for him to be happy. When Oz is at last able to grasp that he is loved and there is hope within his life, Jack immediately reaches out to grab him. And in one of the manga’s subtlest but most poignant moments, his hand crumbles to dust upon touching Oz.

What follows is an extremely impactful display of Oz’s character development. He recalls Jack’s previous statements declaring his achievements worthless, denouncing the love he received from others as fake, and degrading his worth. Then he furiously rejects all of them, thrusting out a hand to push Jack away from him and consuming Jack in an explosion of light.

The conclusion to be drawn from this is that Jack essentially lives off Oz’s misery. When Oz understands and is able to accept that he is not worthless, Jack is suddenly rendered utterly powerless.

The manga culminates in a scene that coincides with this symbolism. This late into the story, Oz has succeeded in transcending Jack’s influence almost entirely, but Jack is not quite ready to let go. Though they stand together within a void, glimmers of light linger around Oz--despite everything, his life has come to be surrounded by hope and love.

As Oz floats towards the path of light above, Jack reaches out and takes hold of his wrist. But his grip is feeble and hesitant, representing how little control he truly holds over Oz at this point. Perhaps attempting to provoke guilt or regret, Jack asks Oz if he is certain that he is prepared to move on without him, but Oz has grown too much to succumb to this manipulation.

Without delay, Oz replies that there is no reason for him to stay, and Jack finally releases him. He escapes into the light--into a world full of people who care about him, into a life where he is happy to be alive.

#PandoraHearts #Pandora Hearts #Jack Vessalius #character analysis #Oz Vessalius #analysis #Cyokie's thoughts

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caescloud · 4 years

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How about some shiggy fluff with a reader that has an emotion reading quirk and she just sees how broken he is and wants to help him and he’s just like ???? What’s this? Human decency? Tomura.exe has stopped working

Anon, I almost leapt out of my chair when I got your ask because not only is your brain huge, you made me think of my oc who has pathokinesis for a quirk! So thank you for an awesome prompt, I’ll do my best to explore this topic! There are some liberties I’m taking so let me know if this is slightly out of the scope of what you wanted the power to be portrayed as, I can adjust it. And I went with two routes for this one, hope that’s alright! Also, spoilers for the content covered up until about chapter 246!

Emotion/Empathy Quirk!Reader x Shigaraki, Fluff Hcs

As someone with a quirk that allows you to literally emphasize with other people, it’s hard to ignore those who are in distress. As a member of the League, you regularly are among companions whose more negative emotions you pick up on. Shigaraki is no exception to this. For all he does to mask his feelings, be it out of repressing his deepest memories or simply not willing to let himself feel the more somber emotions, Shigaraki has his days.

Approaching Shigaraki when you sense this emotional shift in him may play out depending on how close you two are. I feel that either way, he will be wary of someone who can instantly know the extent of what he’s feeling without knowing the context- it’s this perception he has of being “seen” and vulnerable, but not on his own terms. For this reason I wouldn’t recommend opening anything major; start small, a simple “I noticed you’ve been off, I’m here to listen if you need it.” (The second set of hcs are more fluffy than the first, I swear! )

If you’re not as close yet:

“Your vibes are off my guy” /j

You likely noticed his mood around when you first met him, the childish glee at the prospect of carrying out villainous schemes, the apathy felt for society, the frustration when things went awry, and this...undercurrent of intensely negative energy.

Your intentions are truly straightforward when you discover him

Had you not had the quirk you had, you likely would have missed the sudden “peak” of distress one night. Shigaraki experienced a rather nasty nightmare that sent him for a bit of an inner spiral. The LOV base was small enough that you could sense him despite being in separate rooms, the feelings of fright and melancholy were too palpable for you to ignore. You could sense when emotional activity subsides when people are asleep but Shigaraki didn’t seem to fall back asleep that night. You had difficulty yourself and made a note to confront him in the morning, when he’d likely be moving around while the others wouldn’t.

Shigaraki is aware of your quirk and how it works; he is the leader who is responsible for knowing key information regarding subordinates. What he didn’t expect, and may have subconsciously hoped you wouldn’t do, is “pry” into him after an episode.

SO in addition to that plus being in a sour mood that following morning, he may be more snappy and curt when you approach him. He doesn’t feel it’s your business nor something you should be spending energy on. He’s not really in a headspace to discuss what he dreamt about or exactly know how to put it into words; he’d likely tell you to move on because that’s what he’s doing.

Ball is in your court at this point; sticking around him may not be the best move unless you’re going to be quiet while he soothes his thoughts on his own; having anyone around him may be more of irritation/distraction than a comforting presence. If you do try to get him to keep talking, he’s gonna flat out leave the bar in a bit of a huff to blow off steam. If you leave yourself, best not to do so in a way that makes it seem like you’re mad at him? It’s not that he’s really concerned with how you’re feeling per se, this is more of a long-term behavior. Calmly letting him know you will respect his boundaries and telling him you’ll be around let’s him know that you’re a mature enough individual which is pretty big for him. Even if he doesn’t remark on it then and there; he’s all about those little details when it comes to people.

Even if at this moment he doesn’t especially appreciate “someone nosing around” in his head, he can’t completely ignore your intentions. You’re not on thin ice, but he’s gonna maintain a bit of a guard around you until there’s more trust solidified. After all, he can’t be scaring off competent allies like you when he needs ‘em this early on.

If there is trust/a relationship between you two:

You two have a much better rapport with each other this time around. Between fighting alongside each other, going through shared struggles and trials, those rare late-night chats you’ve had, Tomura and you are far closer now than ever before.

You are a valuable ally of his and someone who he lowered his walls down ever so slightly more for. As mentioned above, the fact you respected his boundaries early on while maintaining your welcoming presence has served you well in this area. If it’s you asking him about his troubles, that’s okay. You’ve seen him at some pretty harsh lows and still stayed by him and everyone.

Heck, even prior to this, you’ve already begun to notice a change in Tomura and how he’s been acting since the Kamino incident. Showing his face and apparent care for the LOV will also likely factor into him feeling more comfortable around you as well. After losing AFO and Kurogiri, this point stands even stronger. The league is his family, you’re a part of that too of course. But out of everyone, there’s a unique bond between the two of you.

So when you approach him as a result of the impossible to ignore feelings of turmoil, not that he’s outwardly showing this, you do so with the same, genuine concern you held the first time this happened. This is someone who you’ve gotten to understand hasn’t had much of a break when it comes to basic human kindness in most of his life. And he is also someone you truly care for, no strings attached. (Hard not to when you’ve been exposed to his innermost feelings after all.)

He’s clearly trying to hold himself together in the aftermath of Kamino; he seems to be clutching desperately onto himself as a way to ground. The loss of AFO and Kurogiri is taking its mental toll and while the others have opted to give him space, you chose to go to him; hopeful of any comfort you could give in order to soothe the ferocious panic and frustration sweeping over his mind.

Once again you offer him your ear, a shoulder, your words if he’d rather listen to someone else talk instead to take his mind off. He doesn’t brush you off this time but also doesn’t say too much. He stares very intensely at you, searching for a trace of judgement or gratuitous pity and finding none. Despite everything, you two fall into a comfortable silence, that hand you’ve placed on his shoulder acting as an anchor.

The next time this happens is after the battle with the MLA

The base you’re in is more lavish, fitted with more space and rooms for it’s members to reside in. However, you’re still able to sense Tomura’s emotions go completely haywire. The intense loneliness, fright, anger, and sadness crash into you and pull you under.

You don’t realize you’re moving until you’re outside his door, softly calling his name, sensing he’s alert and awake now. You almost feel this will play out as it did nearly a year ago until the door slowly creaked open, a single red eye gazing right through you. You’re about to speak when he reaches for you and pulls you in.

Huh. This is the first time he’s literally reached out for you, a fleeting thought. It’s dark and you’re unable to see him, but you feel the slight tremor wracking his frame and grip. You’re thankful it’s as dark as it is because you don’t want him to see your tears; whenever someone is feeling as badly as he is at the moment, your quirk can have the impact of flooding your emotions, especially if your control is not at its peak.

“Tomura, I’m here for you. I’m ready to help, tell me what I can do,” you muster in your most soothing and level voice, masking your outward emotions well. He is still wordless but moves you and him over to where his bed is, guiding you both down onto the mattress. A low sigh leaves his lungs as he tries to compose himself, grip still around your wrist. You feel your way over to the hand that’s holding you, carefully maneuvering the fingers off and transferring his hand properly into both of yours. You work mindless patterns and pressures over the appendage, further trying to physically calm him.

It starts with an utterance of the words “bad dream, family, my sister-”. He doesn’t go into very descriptive detail but with the way he’s feeling and how he’s speaking, you know it’s nothing pleasant. “They’re gone, it’s done. So why do I still...have these ridiculous visions of them?”

Your heart has ached hearing the way he talks; whether he realizes the extent of his words, when he talks about others and himself or his past, you feel compelled to be open with him.

What happens next almost shatters your heart because he asks you not to go. He’s done talking about his dreams and the past, his fingers are itching to go at this neck, and he’s just tired. When you pull him into your embrace, him mindful of where his hands fall, he surprisingly accepts it.

You’ve got him and you’re not letting go, gently smoothing over his hair to further placate him. He’s definitely feeling better than when you’ve found him. You only begin to drift off when you feel him truly calm down and go limp in your arms. No one dares to say anything the next morning when the future king has skipped out on a meeting.

He’s not going to say this out loud but he is truly grateful you treated his emotions with the care he didn’t realize they needed from someone like you.

#shigaraki tomura #shigaraki #shigaraki x reader #shigaraki hcs #imagines #tenko shimura #fluff #sfw

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angels-heap · 4 years

Note

Okay hello I feel like you are Wise and Know things... it’s kind of hard to explain but is it wrong to just... Enjoy Things? With all the HL pisscourse going around it’s making me nervous about liking things like TF2 and missing something critical and huge in the media I consume and being labelled as a bad person for doing that. ESPECIALLY for liking characters like GLaDOS or Wheatley from Portal. I want to just Enjoy Things but there’s guilt tied to not being critical about every single detail

Thanks for reaching out, friend, and I’m so sorry to hear the current nonsense has you feeling this way. I have a hunch you’re not alone, and although I don’t claim to have all the answers here, I hope hearing my thoughts on this helps alleviate some of that guilt. This got long and I’m not putting it under a cut because it’s important.

The short answer to your question is no; it is not wrong to just enjoy things. You don’t have to constantly examine all your favorite media under a microscope and incessantly highlight or dwell on its faults to be a good person or a good consumer of media, and here are a few reasons why:

(CW for brief mentions of all the squicky/potentially triggering things that tend to come up in ship discourse conversations.)

1. It is virtually impossible to find a truly unproblematic piece of media.

And that’s okay! Media is both created and consumed by people, and people are notoriously imperfect and complex. Sometimes creators choose to explore dark or taboo themes that are always going to squick some people out, no matter how well (or poorly) they’re handled. Sometimes content creators are actually terrible people who deliberately try to perpetuate their messed-up ideas through media. Sometimes creators’ deeply internalized prejudices seep into a work in a way they may not even consciously realize. Sometimes consumers’ experiences or prejudices color the way they perceive a piece of media and may lead them to a very different interpretation than what the creators intended.

Point is, there are a lot of shades of gray here. We should always strive to do better as creators and consumers, but the goalposts for “perfection” are always moving.

There’s almost always going to be something about your favorite media—no matter how benign it is—that rubs some people the wrong way, or (perhaps unintentionally) perpetuates harmful stereotypes, or starts out okay but doesn’t age well down the line. Period. That’s an uncomfortable truth that we all have to sit with. But don’t despair, because…

2. It is still okay to engage with and enjoy media that you know is problematic. Even if it’s really problematic. For real. I promise. The media you consume does not determine your worth as a person.

Since you specifically mentioned Valve games, I’ll start out by clarifying that (as of July 2020), Valve games and their fandoms are pretty benign overall. Perhaps in the future, more of the humor will start to age poorly, or Valve will make some extremely questionable design choices with their next game, or Gabe Newell will be outed as a prolific serial killer, or whatever, but for now, there’s really nothing about Valve games that should make the average person go, “holy shit, you’re into that?!” when you bring them up in polite company. (And anyone who insinuates otherwise re: Half Life shipping discourse is either very confused about the definition of certain words or is maliciously trying to stir up controversy.)

That said, everyone has a different threshold for what they do and don’t want to see in media, and those boundaries are totally valid! But it is absolutely possible to enjoy even notably problematic media (e.g., Game of Thrones, the new Star Wars sequels, old movies where the directors were huge assholes to the female cast members, etc.) without being a bad person or a bad social justice activist. Instead of rambling about that at length, I’m going to link you to this excellent blog post on the subject.

The big takeaway here is that you can love a piece of media while also acknowledging its faults. In fact, I’d argue that a key part of loving something is being able to think critically about it and trying to hold its creators to a higher standard whenever possible. However, that doesn’t mean you have to be constantly analyzing it or prefacing every single public acknowledgment of your love for it with an “I know this is problematic and I swear, I just like it for XYZ” disclaimer, because…

3. Tumblr’s black-and-white thinking about media consumption is not healthy, “normal,” or (usually) present to the same degree in other virtual or real-world spaces.

I think most of the people on Tumblr who seem to be on a constant (and ultimately futile; see point 1) quest to find the One True Unproblematic Media have good intentions. I really do. And I applaud them for actively trying to understand and un-learn their own biases while becoming critical consumers of media.

Unfortunately, for a bunch of complicated reasons I still don’t totally understand and won’t get into here, some online communities tend to take these things to such an extreme that, in their quest to create a safe and/or inclusive environment, they actually end up creating an even more hostile one. To reference the recent drama again, nowhere is that more apparent than with “pro-ship” vs. “anti-ship” discourse.

Basically, “pro-shippers” believe that fiction is entirely separate from reality and therefore, “problematic” content (up to and including p*dophilia, inc*st, noncon, etc.) has just as much of a right to exist as any other content; this makes some sense on a purely intellectual level, but in the real world, obviously things are much more complicated than that. “Anti-shippers,” on the other hand, claim to be specifically against the aforementioned Big Three Bad Things in theory, but in practice, they’re basically the fandom purity police; they strive to criticize and shut down any media or fandom activity that could be even remotely construed as problematic, because they seem to have a (perhaps well-intentioned but ultimately misguided) perception that discussing anything “bad” in fiction will glorify/condone/promote it in real life and that all creators of “bad” fiction are inherently malicious. Often, they’re willing to twist definitions and jump through some very strange hoops to justify why something is “bad.”

The truth lies somewhere between those two extremes; fiction absolutely can (and does) impact reality, but not in such a clear-cut cause-and-effect way. People can see or read about dark/complicated/problematic things without condoning or enjoying them in real life, and conversely, people can dislike even relatively benign things without having to have an extreme, profound reason for feeling that way. People can also enjoy “bad” media while being fully conscious of what’s wrong with it and taking steps to ensure that it doesn’t negatively influence them, or they may lack the knowledge/context to understand why something is “bad” at first and change how they engage (or don’t engage) as they learn. There’s a lot more nuance to this issue than Tumblr is willing to acknowledge, and as a result, a lot of innocent people who just want to enjoy things in peace get sucked into some truly absurd drama that can be really hard to deal with. And that sucks. A lot.

So, TL;DR: Almost all media is at least a little problematic, but that’s okay, because the media you like does not determine whether or not you’re a good person. (And especially if your primary interests are Valve games... you’re good, mate. Seriously.)

The fact that you’re even asking me this question shows me that you’re being a thoughtful, responsible consumer of media, and that’s all anyone can reasonably ask of you without being a gigantic hypocrite—because whether they’ll admit it or not, everybody who’s perpetuating this discourse both on and offline likes something “problematic.” It’s impossible not to, unless you live under a rock and consume exactly zero media. Take care, and try not to let the discourse get to you! Go forth and enjoy things! (As always, my inbox is open for follow-up questions.)

ETA: Here’s another excellent tumblr post on this topic! And another one!

#asks #anon #fandom #ship discourse #sorry it took me so long to respond to this #I'm sure I left things out but here are some thoughts to get you started #long post

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arpwrites · 5 years

Text

[Tarot!BTS] Their Philosophy in Life

In order to get a deeper understanding of who the boys really are, I’ll be drawing a few cards to find out their attitude towards life and how they think it is/ should be lived.

Read my disclaimers for fullest understanding of this reading’s implications!

Kim Seokjin

Jin thinks you are completely responsible for your own life. You have complete power and control over the things that happen to you, you can choose to let events affect you or not. The strong eat the weak and if you don’t want to be eaten, then you have to become strong. It’s not a rosy outlook, there is a starkness to it. He sees in black and white, and believes in self-reliance.

Min Yoongi

Yoongi’s life is all about material wealth and prosperity, and his determination to achieve it. He wants to make sure he and the people around him are looked after and have stability. He wants to be a safe provider for his family and his community, and slowly broaden his generosity to the world as his influence and wealth grows. He has a laser focus towards this goal of his but he will not do it at any cost. The ends don’t justify the means for him. He will achieve it through hard work and earn it rightfully rather than through cunning or deceit.

Jung Hoseok

Hobi thinks no matter how close you are to someone, you go through life alone. Only you can know all of yourself and in his mind, that creates a barrier that cannot be overcome. He can never truly, fully be known by anyone else. He knows this is reality but it doesn’t stop him from hungering for someone who can Know him.

There is also a sense of powerlessness, or perhaps surrender. With life, Hoseok thinks you need to go with the flow and take what comes as it hits you. There will always be people who have power over you and sometimes, the best thing to do is give up and let them do as they will so they don’t break you.

Kim Namjoon

Joon’s philosophy is to make the best with what you’ve got and regain mastery over life with creativity and willpower. When life gives you lemons, become a baker and build a business with lemon cheesecake. He doesn’t allow himself to be backed into a mental corner. No matter what it is, even if the obstacle before him seems fated and impossible, he uses his mind to strategize and take concrete, practical steps towards getting control over it.

Park Jimin

Jimin thinks life is full of betrayal and heartbreak and you do what you can to push forward anyway. There’s always going to be people who gossip about you, backstab, say goodbye to. There’s always going to be problems and you’ll keep repeating mistakes. You just have to cut through the sludge and get back up every single time.

Kim Taehyung

Tae’s philosophy for how life should be lived is exactly as he lives it now - with authenticity and childlike wonder. He thinks its most important to always be one’s truest self no matter now strange or unusual because that’s where true beauty lies. Life should be approached with the innocence of a child, with a purity that doesn’t hide it’s true self. He thinks life is glorious and inspiring and a rapturous experience to behold.

Jeon Jungkook

Kook rejects the concept of life being about finding a romantic partner, a grand love isn’t the end goal. He thinks life focuses on the self. It’s about self discovery and self-expression, separate from another human being. He isn’t against romantic relationships or love, he just doesn’t think that’s the purpose of life. Love is everywhere in many shapes and forms and Jungkook exalts in discovering all the hues.

A/N

Jin drew The Magician yet again, it’s a card that appears very frequently for him along with Death and this reinforces the strong Capricorn energy we’ve been getting from Tarot!Jin in almost every reading ever. It corresponds to his Capricorn Venus which is at a critical degree in his Vedic chart.

Yoongi’s cards, the Rx. Queen of Pentacles and The Chariot, fit perfectly with what his vedic stars say about him. He is literally built for wealth and generosity, and his penchant for focused hard work always comes through in every reading ← I’ll link to the series when it’s up again - sorry, my blog’s under construction.

Hoseok’s reading has such a gaping hollowness to it. He drew The Magician and The Hermit. Both cards have significantly solitary figures that are standing under the moonlight. I think this fits very well with the Tarot!Hoseok story we’ve seen so far. This reading reinforces the theme of Hobi struggling with relationships, his lack of control over his work, and the fragmented, hidden parts of himself.

Joon drew the King of Pentacles and when I asked for clarification, 8 of Swords, 6 of Swords, Rx. The High Priestess popped out and Rx. Ace of Swords was at the bottom of the deck. My deck identifies him as the King of Swords and there’s massive sword energy in every reading I’ve done for him - he’s a very rational, logical man and power is something he pays attention to.

Yikes, Jimin drew the Rx. 10 of Swords with The Chariot at the bottom of the deck. It doesn’t surprise me considering his past readings.

The deck took exactly 0.0001 seconds to talk about Tae. He drew The Star which is the same card my deck uses to signify him. Taehyung practices what he preaches and there is no dissonance between who he is and who he wants to be.

Kook’s readings have mentioned before that romantic relationships don’t take up space in his life. It’s not that he doesn’t want one or is aromantic or asexual, it’s just not his focus right now. He’d much rather spend time with himself and his friends and family than spend it seeking out a romantic connection when he doesn’t need it.

Overall, I feel about a 95% percent accuracy with what I’ve said for this reading. I felt quite connected to the cards which was surprising to me because it’s been a while since I did a reading on the boys. Guess it’s like riding a bike.

If you enjoyed reading this and feel like you know the boys a little better now, please support me by interacting with this post through likes, replies, or reblogs 🥺👉🏽👈🏽 It tells the algorithm that my work is valuable, so it’s a meaningful way to let me know you’d like to see more of the same work from me 🐨🌷

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts about this post. Let me know if my reading aligns with your perception of the boys or if it completely surprised you. Does your life philosophy match any of the boys’? Do you agree with their viewpoints? What can we hypothesize about their character from this? Let’s have a discussion 🐸☕️

Bonus: Relevant Discussions

#arpwrites #bts tarot reading #bts tarot #jin tarot #yoongi tarot #hoseok tarot #namjoon tarot #jimin tarot #taehyung tarot #jungkook tarot #d pil #EVERYONE THANK ME RIGHT NOW for not subjecting your eyes to the horror that is unfiltered stone namjoon #can u even tell its namjoon................ I hOPE U CAN #lie to me if u can't see it #i spent too long on it 🥺

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goodbye-toallthat · 4 years

Text

David Byrne - How Music Works

The constraints make the piece vs the “romantic” notion of creativity

“I believe that we unconsciously and instinctively make work to fit existing formats.”

“In a sense, the space, the platform, and the software “makes” the art, the music, or whatever.”

“It seems that creativity, whether birdsong, painting, or songwriting, is as adaptive as anything else. Genius—the emergence of a truly remarkable and memorable work—seems to appear when a thing is perfectly suited to its context. When something works, it strikes us as not just being a clever adaptation, but as emotionally resonant as well. When the right thing is in the right place, we are moved.”

“We do express our emotions, our reactions to events, breakups, and infatuations, but the way we do that—the art of it—is in putting them into prescribed forms or squeezing them into new forms that perfectly fit some emerging context.”

On performing and its relation to recorded music

“What was originally a simulation of a performance—the recording—has supplanted performances, and performances are now considered the simulation.”

On the power of music:

“Music tells us things—social things, psychological things, physical things about how we feel and perceive our bodies—in a way that other art forms can’t. It’s sometimes in the words, but just as often the context comes from a combination of sounds, rhythms, and vocal textures that communicate, as had been said by others, in ways that bypass the reasoning centers of the brain and go straight to our emotions. Music, and I’m not even talking about the lyrics here, tells us how other people view the world—people we have never met, sometimes people who are no longer alive—and it tells it in a non-descriptive way. Music embodies the way those people think and feel: we enter into new worlds—their worlds—and though our perception of those worlds might not be 100 percent accurate, encountering them can be completely transformative.”

“Not only could recordings bring distant musical cultures in touch with one another, they also had the affect of disseminating the work and performances of singers, orchestras, and performers within a culture.”

“Classical music has been piped into 7-Elevens, the London Underground, and the Toronto subways, and the result has been a decrease in robberies, assaults, and vandalism.”

Responsibility in the creation of music:

“It would be impossible for the listener to establish at which point the authority of the performer gave way to that of the producer and the tape editor, just as even the most observant cinema-goer cannot ever be sure whether a particular sequence of shots derives from circumstances occasioned by the actor’s performance.” - said by pianist Glenn Gould

“Just as theater is an actor and writer’s medium, and cinema is a director’s medium, recorded music often came to be a producer’s medium, in which they could sometimes out-auteur the artists they were recording.”

On lyrics in a song: “When some phrases, even if collected almost at random, begin to resonate together and appear to be talking about the same thing, it’s tempting to claim they have a life of their own. The lyrics may have begun as gibberish, but often, though not always, a “story” in the broadest sense emerges. (…) But at times words can be a dangerous addition to music—they can pin it down. Words imply that the music is about what the words say, literally, and nothing more. If done poorly, they can destroy the pleasant ambiguity that constitutes much of the reason we love music. That ambiguity allows listeners to psychologically tailor a song to suit their needs, sensibilities, and situations, but words can limit that, too.”

What is music?

“…before recording technology existed, you could not separate music from its social context. It was pretty much all tied to specific social functions. It was communal, and often utilitarian. You couldn’t take it home, copy it, sell it as a commodity (except as sheet music, but that’s not music), or even hear it again. Music was a singular experience, something connected to a specific time and place. It was part of the continuum, the timeline of your life, not a set of “things” that lived outside of it.”

“Music is made up of sound waves we encounter at specific times and places: they happen, we sense them, and then they’re gone. The music experience is not just those sounds waves, but the context in which they occur as well. Many people believe that there is some mysterious and inherent quality hidden in great art, and that this invisible substance is what causes these works to affect us as deeply as they do. This ineffable thing has not yet been isolated, but we do know that social, historical, economic, and psychological forces influence what we respond to—just as much as the work itself. The arts don’t exist in isolation. And of all the arts, music, being ephemeral, is the closest to being an experience more than it is a thing—it is yoked to where you heard it, how much you paid for it, and who else was there.”

On art

“Dissanayake writes that art that engages the mind and the hands, that is not just passive connoisseurship, can act as an antidote for our contagious and alienated relationship to our own societies. She sees art making as capable of instilling self-discipline, patience, and the ability to resist immediate gratification. You invest your time and energy in your future. … There’s a growing movement, a real turning away not just from the passive absorption of culture, but from art and music as mere vehicles for expressing concepts. The hand has been brought back into the lives of a new generation.”

For the Japanese tea drinking was art - “There’s a lot for a cup of tea, but one can see that elevation of the mundane in a lot of areas of daily activities in the East. The poets, writers, and musicians of the Beat Generation were inspired by the Eastern idea. They too saw the transcendent in the everyday and saw nobility in the activities of ordinary people. This is an almost Cagean view of the arts—that it’s all around you if you merely adjust the way you look and listen.”

#pensees #david byrne #how music works #talking heads #music #notes #books #art

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midnight-circus · 4 years

Text

sometimes you just gotta meme for the new guy.

this is two memes combined so sorry if theres similar questions i couldnt be bothered to post them separately lmao

it’s fuckin huge My Bad

Names? If you were to choose another name for your oc, what do you think it would be? Did you choose their name for how it sounds or for its meaning?

Tbh it was a toss-up for a long time between Mallory, Felix and Everaud, and eventually the first two won. I chose it for how it sounded, but as it turned out the meanings of his first two names juxtapose pretty well together (first name Mallory - ‘unlucky’, second name Felix - ‘lucky’). His surname, Valkner, I also picked for the sound - the meaning of ‘warrior’ doesn’t really pertain to him lmao

He hasn’t gone by his legit first name of Mallory since he was about 12, and has used Felix almost exclusively since then. he fuckin hates it. most of the time.

Can your oc play any instruments? Have they ever wanted to learn how to play any? Why?

No, he grew up without much money and instruments would have been a luxury. He’s vaguely considered it as an adult, but is pretty certain he’d be useless so hasn’t bothered trying.

How does your oc fare in the dark? Are they scared? Do they trip over things really easily or navigate like they have night vision? (Or do they have night vision?)

He doesn’t like the dark much, but he’s not scared. He’s just got bad eyesight.

How well would your oc fare as a teacher? What subject would they be best at teaching? What about the worst?

tbh he’d probably be pretty good as a teacher to a group of like...primary school kids, maybe from 5-11 in age. He’s quiet-voiced, fairly mild-mannered, and has a strong sense of fairness and justice - the problem would arise when it came to older pupils, teens and up, trying to get the upperhand, bc he’s not authoritative in the slightest and would probably cave. Give him a room of toddlers tho that he’s only responsible for in short bursts and he’d cope pretty well. Either history or english lit would be his forte; sports would be worst. the boy can’t run.

What was your oc’s relationship with their parents like? If they didn’t have any parents/didn’t know them, who in their life was the closest to a parent to them?

It’s...good? I guess?? It’s complicated. his parents love their kids dearly and Felix didn’t go wanting for affection, but if anything it went too far the other way. He was absolutely smothered as a kid - after several near-death experiences with childhood illnesses (bacterial meningitis, which developed into encephalitis, then sepsis in his leg), his mother wrapped him up in cotton wool and never really let go. He couldn’t leave the house alone, he couldn’t go outside on cold days, he couldn’t move at anything faster than a walk - after being in and out of hospitals from 5-years-old to 8, and then being kept on a shelf from then, it really had an impact on how he learnt to interact with other kids his age. It’s also given him an unstable footing in life itself - he’s never quite certain if he’s going to lose everything at the drop of a hat, because that’s how they used to act around him. Now, with the distance of adulthood, he loves them and appreciates that they were trying their best, but he can’t help but resent them a little if he really thinks about it. He gets around this by not thinking about it.

Does your oc have any allergies, intolerances, or other sensitivities? How dangerous is it? Does this affect their daily life in any way?

he’s got an allergy to letting himself be happy it’s very serious

Does your oc prefer being in a crowd or being completely alone? How many people can be around them before they get uncomfortable?

Generally he’s more content alone - conversation doesn’t come naturally to him, particularly if it’s a crowd of strangers, and he’s more content in his own company. If he does find himself in a crowd, he will take himself to the edge of the room and people-watch rather than mingle.

How open is your oc to trying new things? Are they the adventurous sort, or would they rather stay in their comfort zone? Why?

He needs to be talked into things, otherwise he’d never try anything - he knows his comfort zones and he’s very comfortable in them, and is not inclined to venture outside. If he’s nudged into doing something, he may end up finding that he enjoys it - doesn’t necessarily mean he’d do it again under his own steam, but he doesn’t always regret the experience.

Does your oc have any best friends? Who was/is their closest friend? What about their worst enemy?

Pathetically enough, he doesn’t, really. Sylvia was his best, and to be honest his only friend, and when she left his social life left with her. He loves her still, but he loves her platonically (even if he hasn’t realised that yet) and that wasn’t enough for her, understandably. Outside of her, there’s not really anyone else.

No enemies. He’s not important enough to have enemies.

How dangerous is your oc? Are they completely innocent, or someone to be feared? Do others know?

tbh Felix’s level of danger is about the same as a puppy with a knife in its mouth. like yeah it might get you by accident but its way more likely to hurt itself and its not really done anything to deserve that so really its more important to get the knife away from it for its own benefit than yours

What is your oc’s vision like? Do they require glasses, are they completely blind, or do they have 20/20 vision? Does this have an effect on their life?

He wears glasses for pretty much everything - he’s not blind without them, but his vision’s bad enough that he wouldn’t be able to cope for the whole day if he left them at home.

If your oc were to be arrested for something, what would it be for? For being too kind, for a legitimate crime?

Probably for getting mixed up in something he didn’t mean to get involved in - Felix is the sort of person to say ‘yes’ to one request because he felt pressured and then find himself 20 ‘yes’s down the line embezzling money from the government for the Serbian mafia with no idea how he got there. He’s quite easy to manipulate - a person who knows how to press his buttons can generally work the answer they want out of him.

How quiet or loud is your oc? Are they easily capable of sneaking around without being heard, or do they feel it’s impossible to stop talking?

He’s pretty quiet - tries not to draw attention to himself if he can avoid it, and he doesn’t really speak unless he’s spoken to.

How stylistically fancy is your oc? Or would they rather go for comfort and plainness instead?

His primary concern is durability and price - he needs something that will either last for as long as possible so he doesn’t have to replace it any time soon, or something that is cheap enough that it doesn’t matter if it wears out, and ergo, Primark. He oftens window-shops for nice-fitting, fancy clothing in the London boutiques he passes on the way to work, but has never bought anything like that in his life and can’t bring himself to even consider it.

What’s your oc’s preferred mode of transportation? Walking, vehicle, (or in a sci-fi/magic setting) teleportation?

His preferred mode of transport is a car, but his isn’t always working properly so when he has to, he takes a bus - he doesn’t like walking if he can avoid it, partially because it wears him out and partially because he’s kind of physically lazy.

Is your oc always late, always early, or always right on time? Is there any reason for this?

He’s always early, because he leaves early, because he’s already envisioned about 20 different disasters that could make him late on the way and he’s trying to circumvent all of them.

How empathetic is your oc? Or are they closer to being a sociopath? Any reason why?

Felix doesn’t really realise that he’s empathetic - he thinks he’s just doing what everyone does, but in fact he will go out of his way to improve a situation for someone if he thinks they’re being hard-done-by for no benefit to himself, even to the extent of bending or breaking rules. It’s partially why he got into the law-scene - he wants to see things bettered for people who need it.

How much does your oc swear? Or do they keep completely clean? Why is this? Is there any situation where they would be the opposite?

Swearing doesn’t come naturally to him - he’s one of those people who will swear only under their breath and still manage to feel guilty about doing it. If he is going to swear out loud, he does it in German and it always comes out clumsily.

How does your oc’s own perception of themselves compare to how other people see them? Is your oc aware that other people see them differently (if it’s different)?

It’s pretty different. In his mind, he’s pretty useless - a bit of a waste-of-space who has coasted through life by pretending to be better than he is, kind of dull, kind of boring, kind of unattractive, altogether too much of Nothing Special for anyone to really be bothered with. Realistically, he comes across as responsible and competent at his job, perhaps a little highly-strung and nervy but nevertheless perfectly capable of managing the responsibilities he has. It’s his own self-doubt that cripples him, for the most part - people see it in him, and perhaps it makes them wonder if there’s a reason for it.

Is your oc a workaholic, or do they find it hard to be busy at all? Do they find it easy to relax, or must they have something to do at all times? Why?

if he’s not working, he’s thinking, and that simply won’t do. Felix’s whole life is work, for the most part - he throws his all into it, and isn’t sure what to do with himself when he’s sitting at home alone in a dead-quiet flat.

How energetic is your oc? Do they have trouble sitting still or do they feel low on juice all the time? Any reason why?

He’s constantly exhausted. It’s because he’s depressed. He hasn’t figured that out yet.

How does your character sleep? Peacefully, fitfully? What position do they sleep in? What is their typical bedding like?

Not very peacefully - Felix is a light sleeper, so although capable of getting to sleep relatively quickly he wakes up in fits and starts throughout the night. He tends to sleep curled on his left side, on bedding that is cheap, serviceable and durable. He can’t afford to buy anything decent. He finds it easier to stay asleep if there’s ambient noise in the room - white noise, the TV, whatever.

Does your oc have dreams or nightmares? What are they like? Is there a recurring one?

He’ll suffer a pretty bad nightmare here and there, generally to do with hospitals or medical procedures, but they aren’t chronic.

How easy to annoy is your oc? Do they have common pet-peeves or are they stoic in response to everything? What is their reaction if the source doesn’t stop?

he’s real easy to annoy lmao. He’s got a list of pet peeves a mile long and he’s very easy to get a rise out of, so people who enjoy getting a reaction (Lyon) find him very entertaining pickings. He keeps telling himself not to get so worked up because it only encourages things, but he can’t help it.

How does your oc view housework? Do they absolutely hate it? Do they enjoy having their surroundings neat and tidy or do they not notice?

He hates doing it, but he really enjoys a clean space afterwards and goes a long way to keep things organised. Disorder stresses him out - he particularly can’t bear people coming into his space and messing it up.

Your oc has to make something for an art exhibition. What would they make? How terrible is it? Would they enjoy making it?

oh christ. the thing is, he’s actually not that bad at art - he’s got a good handle on anatomy and perspective and can reproduce images or photpgraphs fairly well - but he thinks he’s useless and has never shown anyone anything. he’d produce a pretty solid sketch of like a coffee shop at 5pm or something dull like that, apologise profusely for the result, and hate every second of it.

What is your oc’s vocabulary like? Does it match the way they talk? How would you describe their speech?

He speaks pretty well - he’s precise with his words and keeps a quiet, even tone, and his vocab is fairly developed. If there’s a flaw with his speech, it’s that he speaks rather too quickly, because he’s used to being constantly interrupted - it becomes a race to get the sentence finished and his point across, before someone can cut him off.

He has a south German accent, but it’s a little softer for years of living in England - it gets stronger when he goes back home to Munich.

Is your oc more likely to follow instructions exactly, throw them out and figure it out on their own, or make it all up? What are the results like?

He follows instructions to the T, and doesn’t have the impulse to experiment and mess around with them for fear of making a mistake that he’d then have to clean up; that being said, if it becomes a matter of fair treatment, he may be inclined to bend the rules here and there.

Is your oc afraid of touch or do they actively seek it out? Is there a reason for this? What are the exceptions?

lmaoooOOOOO he’s petrified, whilst at the same time desperately craving it. He’s horrendously touch-starved, but his childhood lizard-brain learnt to associate touch with painful medical procedures, so he shies from it by nature.

How is your oc about medical care? Do they avoid any form of healthcare that they can, do they seek it out over every little scrape? Do they treat their injuries/illness all by themselves?

Felix carries an awful lot of medical trauma with him; he’s terrified of medical care, whilst simultaneously being something of a hypochondriac convinced he’s got some sort of Terrible Disease at all times. to be fair, this is because he once had a Terrible Disease, which then led to a second and then a third Terrible Disease before the first could even be treated, so he does have form for it. He also can’t handle blood and has been known to pass out at the sight of it, but would rather do that and recover on the floor than go to hospital.

He will avoid hospitals At All Costs.

How competitive is your oc? Is every little task something that they can win, or are they just in competitions for the fun of it? Is there anyone they’re most competitive with?

He’s sort of competitive accidentally - he doesn’t want to be, but he feels like he needs to be in order to succeed. He is desperate to prove himself, desperate to show his mother than he is more than capable of managing his own life, but he will run himself to exhaustion trying to get there. He’s happiest when he’s left to do his own thing without feeling like he’s competing against others, when he’s content that he’s appreciated by the people around him and is able to take that appreciation at face value, but he hasn’t come to that realisation in himself yet - he just thinks he’s doing it wrong.

How skilled at lying is your oc? How frequently do they lie? For what reason? What situations would be the exception?

lmao he can’t lie to save his life it’s actually kind of sad to watch. he’s a Blusher, for one, so he’s already tripped coming out of the gate, and then he starts falling over his own tongue the second he’s asked a question he can’t give a truthful answer to until it’s painfully obvious to everyone. it’s just sad.

What is your oc’s immune system like? Are they invincible to illness, or are they compromised completely from the slightest of dirt?

His immune system is terrible - a side-effect of his childhood. If there’s an illness going around, he will catch it.

Does your oc do anything “just for the aesthetic”? Or are they completely practical in everything?

Totally practical by habit, but perhaps he’d be happier if he wasn’t. He’s not used to doing things just because he wants to, because he’d enjoy the experience - there has to be a reason for it, else he’s not justified in doing it. Same goes for purchasing things that he wants - if he can’t come up with a good, solid, practical reason to buy himself something, he won’t buy it. ‘Because you want to’ is not reason enough.

If you had to choose a single object to act as a symbol for your oc, what would it be?

One of those candles that re-ignites itself when you blow it out.

If your oc could only eat one thing for the rest of their life (while miraculously not suffering from malnutrition), what would it be?

He’s got a massive sweet tooth and spends a lot of time baking, so probably cake - he’s fond of little gay French patisserie nonsense.

How prepared is your oc? Ready for the worst no matter what, or completely lost in every situation? Would they have a medkit when it was needed? Would they have an umbrella if it rains?

As much as he panics, in a legitimate bad situation he is capable of keeping his head - he runs on adrenaline and suffers the consequences later. He carries a first-aid kit in his car, but has never needed to use it, and yes, he always has an umbrella.

How charitable is your oc? Or are they more stingy with their resources and money?

god. He is stingy, but not out of a miserly nature - he just legitimately does not have much money. He never has, ever since childhood, and that shit is ingrained in him - you watch what you’re spending, because you never know when you’re going to need to make an emergency payment.

If someone was describing your oc to someone who had never met them, what distinguishing features would they mention? How would one identify your oc in a crowd?

Short guy, kind of round-faced, round glasses - kinda looks like he’s lost even when he isn’t. Jumps if you bump into him.

Does your oc have any pleasure that embarrasses them so they keep it secret? Or are they open about all the things they enjoy?

literally everything that he enjoys, he’s embarrassed about. He likes old black-and-white movies and he’s embarrassed about that. He reads shitty romcom fiction and he’s embarrassed about that. He enjoys cooking, he’s embarrassed about that. He actually enjoys sex, believe it or not, and he’s embarrassed about it. Don’t even fuckin get him started on his kinks because he’s embarrassed about them. tbh Felix doesn’t really know how to enjoy himself without guilt or shame, because he always feels like he needs to justify the things he likes and he doesn’t know how to do it. He’s just embarrassed.

What is your oc’s stamina like? Would they be able to run a marathon, or not run at all? What about walking/another physical activity? How are they with exercise in general?

Shitty stamina - he’s got weak lungs and the extent of his running ability is running for a bus and then needing literally four hours to recover. He sort of makes a vague attempt to exercise at home, but is easily discouraged and would just rather lie on the couch having a crisis of body-image.

How long can your oc stay focused on one task before they get bored? Do they constantly have to switch things up or do they hyperfocus? What sort of things is it the opposite for?

Felix is the king of repetitive, menial tasks. Set him in front of a diary or a spreadsheet and he’s well away. He really doesn’t mind thoughtless admin labour, even as he insists that he’s capable of handling more responsibility - and although he is more than capable, he also feels comforted by the predictability of data-entry. A nice mix of both would be ideal.

What smells bring back specific memories to your oc? What are those memories like?

Antiseptic and rubber floors, with that underlying stink of sickness. They’re not good memories.

How jumpy or easily spooked is your oc? Do they have a fight or flight reflex to being startled, or are they never startled at all?

He’s super-jumpy and easy to startle, which is delightful to some people. Between fight or flight, he’ll fly.

How polite is your oc? Do they do everything with the utmost courtesy, or do they completely refuse to say please and thank you?

He’s unfailingly polite, because his mother would have beat him with a shoe if he wasn’t.

How flexible is your oc? Can they touch their toes or do they have trouble just sitting down because of how stiff they are?

He doesn’t think he’s flexible at all, but certain intercurricular activities with Lyon suggest that he’s more flexible than he thinks he is.

What is your oc’s typical walking like? Do they speed-walk everywhere, do they take quick short steps or long paces? How loud are their footsteps?

Because his legs are kinda short, he walks pretty quickly just to be able to keep up with people - quiet steps, because he’s trying not to draw attention to himself.

If your oc was in a video game, what would their idle animation be?

Cleaning his glasses, putting them back on, squinting through them, then taking them off and cleaning them again ad infinitum.

What topics does your oc know the most about? Are these obvious or would these be surprising to others?

He’s a talented cook and has absorbed quite a lot about flavour profiles and all that shit that I know nothing about so I’m not going into details lmao. He’s also got a bank of knowledge about classic films that he keeps to himself, as he’s never convinced anyone would be interested. He’s got a lot of shit that he keeps to himself for this same reason, and therefore there’s quite a lot he could surprise people with if the right topics came up.

What time of day is your oc most awake? What about most tired? Do they get up at the same time every morning without need of an alarm, or is their sleep schedule all over the place?

Tries to tell himself he’s a morning-person. He isn’t. Left to his own devices he’d wake up about 10 and fall asleep about 2am, but he’ll insist if asked that he’s naturally inclined to wake up early.

What would someone blackmail your oc with? Would they be successful in getting what they wanted?

they’d get hold of a list of his pornhub browsing history and yes, they would absolutely be successful.

How easily does your oc get attached to things? Does everything have a sentimental value to them, or do they see nothing as more valuable than its practical use? What about with people/animals?

He gets attached to people and animals very easily, but as for things - he gets angry when he breaks or loses items, but that’s more to do with being stressed about having to pay to replace them than anything sentimental. He’s thrifty to a fault and won’t throw anything out until it’s absolutely unusable, to the point that he’s gotten pretty skilled at sewing repairs in order to avoid getting rid of clothes. He does have sentimental attachments to a few things, but not the majority.

How stubborn is your oc? Are they easily convinced of the opposite opinion, do they not agree but let it happen anyways? Or do they cause conflicts with their inability to budge in their decisions?

He’s not stubborn, as such, but he does know his own mind. He can be talked around or into things quite easily, but he does like to feel as though his voice has been heard.

How much has your oc traveled? Why is this? Would they like to travel more? Or are they perfectly fine with staying home?

He’d prefer to stay home - there’s too much room for error travelling abroad, and the risks don’t really outweigh the benefits for him. He travels back and forth between England and Germany, and he has visited France before as a boy, but that’s about it.

What signs tell that your oc is nervous? Do they fidget, is it in their expression or the way they say things? Or are they very skilled at hiding it?

He fiddles with his glasses and fidgets his hands around, and is also (as mentioned) a blusher - he’s Not Subtle when he’s nervous or flustered, which in turn makes it worse.

How superstitious your oc? Do they end up following them ‘just in case’? Or are superstitions incredibly important to your oc? What are some that they believe? What about the ones they don’t?

He says he isn’t superstitious, but I’m not certain that’s true - I think he’s superstitious despite himself. He follows them, then gets annoyed with himself for following them and assures himself that he won’t do it again, but then when it comes to it next time he follows them again anyway. He won’t walk under ladders, won’t open an umbrella indoors and he broke a mirror once and almost died. The only one he doesn’t believe is unlucky black cats, because he’s never met a black cat that was unpleasant.

#felix1 #god PLEASE let the cut work this is huge

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lovedsammy · 5 years

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Man or Monster [commission for samwinchesterlesbian]

This was the first of four commissions from @samwinchesterlesbian, who wanted some introspective Sam and trauma thoughts. This one was pertaining to Sam and Nick (and by extension, Lucifer), so I went with a primary focus on 14.17, but other encounters sprinkled throughout.

Even with as much as Sam hates Lucifer -- and he’s pretty sure that he hates him more than anything or anyone he’s ever known -- he thinks that he might actually, in retrospect, hate Nick more. Or perhaps they were just on the same level, the same wavelength, and Sam can’t exactly differentiate between them; it’s difficult to really say. After all, how did you separate the entity that had tortured you for eternity from the human vessel that he’d worn to commit those acts? How did you look at them and not see the monster beneath the surface? Where did one end and the other begin? Initially, Sam swears he’d been able to see the difference. Where Lucifer was loud and brash, Nick was meek and reserved. Lucifer was pure unadulterated evil, and Nick was a tortured, lost soul, whose only crime was to unwillfully carry out the monster’s bidding.

Lucifer had been in the driver’s seat, leaving Nick trapped in his own head, using his body to hurt and kill. Sam hadn’t been possessed by Lucifer for nearly as long as Nick had been, but he remembered how the Devil had used him to do atrocious things, too. Nick, in all fairness, had to be pretty messed up after all of that, traumatized in his own way.

Or at least, that’d been the impression that Sam had, when he’d first talked to the man. Nick had seemed to have some baggage, a lasting imprint of the possession that left a significant effect on his psyche. It took him many days to even remember who he was, or that he’d ever been a vessel at all. That was how possession worked. It broke a person down into shattered pieces, and it was a struggle to rebuild those pieces back into something resembling the original design. But once again, perhaps that had instead been Sam’s misguided perception, the hope that the man could never be as bad. He’d clung to the belief that it’d been the monster and the monster alone who’d hurt his mind and body. It was all just the Devil.

He can still remember the fear that had crawled up out of his stomach and into his throat when he saw Lucifer’s prone form reopen its eyes again on the floor of the church. Jack had pointed it out first, and Sam had shoved the boy protectively behind him, terrified, thinking that Lucifer had somehow managed to survive the encounter with Michael -- with Dean. And when the vessel sat up, looking up at Sam, confused and weak, everything in the hunter had fought against the desire to impale him again with the Archangel blade.

But Sam had pushed his anger, and his hatred, down.

It would’ve been too easy, to project his disdain of Lucifer onto Nick, to hold him accountable for things that he was relatively blameless. To look at the man and see the monster, and view them as one being. He easily could’ve decided to end it all before it even started and stabbed Nick in the neck before he’d even finished opening his eyes.

But he didn’t, because Sam believed that the easy choice wasn’t always the right one. And everyone, no matter who they were or what they’d done, deserved a second chance. Nick had survived the fatal wound, and at the end of the day, he was a human. He was a victim in all of this, too. He wasn’t to blame for what Lucifer had done, or had made him do. It was hard, but Sam made the decision then and there to try and save Nick, to try and help him reclaim his life, to find some measure of stability. Chances were that he had a family somewhere, had someone to get back to who didn’t know where he was or what had happened to him. Someone who missed him. Sam puts himself in Nick’s shoes, thinks of Dean, and his heart clenches in empathy. Sam knew firsthand what it was like to be possessed by Lucifer, to be chained to him, struggling to fight back. If anyone could help Nick, he knew it was him. It had to be him.

It always had to be you, Sam.

Wasn’t it always?

And Sam…. Sam really had tried so hard to give Nick a chance, to save him, to extend a hand of support, simply because he understood. He thought he and Nick could… well, bond, or connect in some way, over a shared trauma, of being a puppet to the Devil. Every single encounter with the man from the moment in the church was exhaustive and difficult. More than once, Sam almost backed out from going into the room containing Nick. It was almost impossible to look at him and not see Lucifer. Over the course of many days, it became easier, but not by much. Sam’s body still reacts very physically whenever he’s around Nick, with all the tale-tale signs of C-PTSD: the shaking, the hyper-arousal, the nervous ticks. Nick remarks upon this once, how hard this must be for Sam, and Sam easily agrees with him, doesn’t dispute it. Nick got it. He understood Sam, too.

Sam sees now how stupid he’d been, not solely compassionate, as he’d believed. He knows that his tendency to see the best in people, even those that don’t always deserve it, has a habit of getting the best of him sometimes. But the other choice was giving up on people, and that’s not what he did. Saving people, even those that didn’t deserve it ... that was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? That’s who he was. He couldn’t just shut that off.

Now to Sam, Lucifer and Nick were no longer separate beings, but had instead melded into a blended storm of trauma that made them relatively one. And God, how he hates them both.

The rage is absolutely carnic when Dean brings Nick in, and instantaneous. The sight of Nick’s cold smirk makes his blood boil. Before he’s even aware of it, Sam is shoving Lucifer -- no, no, Nick, only Nick -- into the wall. He longs to kill him, to end him, to finally close the cold eyes of the being that had tortured him for an eternity. It didn’t matter that Nick himself hadn’t tortured Sam anymore. He’d been awake, he’d taken on Lucifer’s traits and become as bad as the Devil himself. He emulated the Devil, and worshiped him, and killed for him. There was not a speck of difference between them, not anymore.

Dean hauls Sam off of Nick, and it takes everything that Sam has not to just jump the bastard again. Instead, he scoffs, and retreats into the other room, feeling his mother’s and Jack’s gazes on his back. He’s vibrating in anger, and has to breathe through his nose to calm down. It reminds him too much of his demon blood days, and how quick he’d been to anger, and how overpowering that rage could be.

Sam had given Nick a chance, and instead he’d been stabbed in the back. Nick had taken advantage of his kindness, his empathy and compassion.

Sam would not make that mistake again.

He knows that Dean is right when his brother doesn’t allow him to go interrogate Nick. If he did, Sam couldn’t exactly promise that he wouldn’t kill him. And unfortunately, like almost every other person who’s hurt Sam in his life, they needed him. So Sam stifles down his hate again, and tolerates it.

“It’s nice that we’re finally alone,” Nick says conversationally, once Dean exits the car. “I feel like I never get a chance to talk to you anymore.”

Sam closes his eyes, fighting against the nausea, chills running up his spine. It’s way too reminiscent of Lucifer, and the hallucinations of him. Sam just wants to get out of the car and puke until he can’t anymore. How was it that even with his abuser dead and gone, Lucifer could still find a way to get under his skin and haunt him from beyond the grave? Still, Sam ignores it. He won’t rise to Nick’s bait. When his phone rings, it’s a welcome distraction, until Nick breaks out in song, just like Lucifer used to do. He knows exactly how to push Sam’s button, to play on his emotions. Sam quickly escapes the confines of the car, and for the moment, his torturer.

The distance never feels like it’s enough.

He’s trying to bring Lucifer back. Sam is not as successful as hiding his contempt now, at reigning it in. Nor the fear. The terror seizes at him, threatening to smother him. The thought of Lucifer returning to this world, returning to him, scares him on a cosmic scale. He thinks he can feel even his soul quaking.

When Nick attacks him, Sam doesn’t see the man, only the monster. Everything, from Nick’s murderous expressions to the way he grips Sam with his hands, every move feels like Lucifer. Nick’s flesh is cold, more than likely from the weather, but to Sam there’s no difference. Sam tries to fight him off, and manages to get the upper hand. When he does, he takes advantage, and crawls on top of Nick, and delivers punch after punch, leveling him with an assault that’s been budding under his skin for hours now. Sam still doesn’t see Nick. He sees Lucifer, only Lucifer. He wraps both hands around Nick’s throat and viciously squeezes.

It feels better than he knows it ought to, and he relishes in it. He watches the way Nick’s face goes from red to purple from the lack of oxygen, and it only inspires him to squeeze harder. Ending Nick right here and now… it ends Lucifer, too. As he feels the life start to leave the man, though, Sam hesitates. He’s not a murderer. Killing Nick right now ...did that make him any better than him? Than Lucifer? It would be just one more smear of taint that the Devil could imprint on him, and knowledge pulls Sam’s hands away from Nick’s throat.

Nick takes advantage of Sam’s inner battle and clocks him once, twice, over the side of the head with a rock. Sam’s not a doctor, but he knows that where Nick got him, it was bad. He can tell by the immediate effects, the way he sways upon his feet, hardly able to focus, to think. He needs to get Dean’s attention somehow, before he dies out here, at Nick’s -- Lucifer’s -- hand.

It takes everything that he has, but Sam is finally able to aim a punch with enough strength to push Nick back, and he rushes into the safety of Baby, keeping a titanium and glass barrier between him and his attacker. Nick pounds against the window, wanting another go at him, so Sam does the only thing he can think of and honks the horn, loudly, to let his brother know that he needs his help. He can feel his consciousness starting to slip, and knows that if he falls asleep, he won’t wake up this time.

He barely notices it when Nick bolts and hijacks some poor passerby driving down the road. He can still feel Lucifer all around him, even as he fights against the pull of sleep.

Wakey, wakey, Sam, a voice says, feeling like it’s directly near his ear, and Sam knows that voice. And instead of pushing it down, instead of fighting it, this time Sam clings to it with everything he has.

#sam winchester #nick #lucifer #sam and trauma #spn #supernatural #*mine #sam and ptsd

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foxwine · 4 years

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I've been having a long, fascinating conversation on twitter lately about the Overwatch AIs and their ability to have/experience emotions, which brought to mind that I have some very strong opinions/headcanons with regards to the various AI in Overwatch. So I thought I'd get them written down.

One of those headcanons being that there are various AI systems in the Overwatch universe. Currently three, by my count. Firstly, and most commonly would be the AI running on the Omnica OS, then Orisa and Echo, who are each running on their own unique OS.

Most of my headcanons center around the Omnica system. I think, in universe, they were the first ones to actually create AI, though I'm not so sure that they did it on purpose. The thing that I bear in mind is that Omnica was a corporation, not a research conglomerate or a university project. The Omnic OS was made to DO something.

Which is where we get to what I think the Omnic God AIs are. I see them as a large central computer 'brain' with a large number of semi-autonomous bodies, linked together into a kind of hive-mind. And when these bodies are severed from the main 'brain', that's when they develop an individual sense of self and become like Zenyatta or Maximilien, separate entities from the God AI that spawned them. And, once separated, the majority of Omnics don't want to go back, which is why in the Pharah-centric comic Mission Statement the omnic in her unit self-destructed rather than allowing itself to be taken over by Anubis.

This hive-mind nature of the God AIs would be very useful for a variety of things, because as I pointed out, Omnica was a business. I personally see them as a Chinese company, who first started creating these hive computer systems to run and staff sweatshops and manufacturing. And as their systems got better and more complex, they started selling them all over the world.

A handful or two in the middle east,running oilfields. A fancy, underwater mind to fish the Indian Sea and do some geological and ecological surveys while its down there.One in Mexico that ran all the farms owned by a massive conglomerate that feeds a large portion of the country. One in NYC that runs the entire transit system. Another just off the coast in LA monitoring and controlling the shipping. One on the shore in Greece or Macedonia doing something extremely complicated to generate electricity from the tides and waves. A very fancy one in Germany just outside Berlin that is one gigantic town-sized mall where every clerk knows the inventory of every store. Another in Egypt that is a very expensive bespoke manufacturer of extreme luxury goods. One in Siberia that started out running the mines, and was later expanded into manufacturing. And so on.

AI, a sense of self, was probably not intended at all. It's just that once you reach a certain complexity of thought and learning... well. The way I see it, the God AIs came into their individual sense of self gradually, having all started from the same genesis code, and that they chose their own names (and sometimes genders) based on their roles, perception of self, and the local pantheon of where they were installed.

Possibly Omnica ignored this as long as they were doing what they were told to. Possibly there were 'blocks' or 'limiters' patched in to suppress them that were later broken somehow just before or even during the Crisis. It would be hard to say, in the absence of canon material on the subject.

(As an aside, I'm not convinced, in that framework, that Anubis was always named Anubis, since I would sincerely hope that even a major city in Egypt like Cairo or Giza wouldn't have enough dead people to process that they would purchase what would have been an extremely expensive computer/robot system todo it. 'Anubis' was their war name, though, and that's the one that they're remembered by.)

Omnica had very different plans than making AI, in the way I see things. The interesting thing I saw inthe canon material on the lead-up to the Omnic Crisis was that Omnica was shut down, apparently, for corporate espionage. Stealing plans. Specifically, plans for weapons.

I worked my way mentally around this. The canon details we're given are that the Crisis was world-wide, that it occurred shortly after Omnica was shut down for stealing weapon designs, and that each God AI had to be shut down individually. So, I came by my thought that the God AIs were spread worldwide because they were being used for things other than combat.

Mainly because I have just enough faith in what I know of human nature and proof of jingoism to find it hard to believe that war/battle within the next few decades would be conducted almost entirely by units provided by a single corporate entity. Which was also making and selling units with the same OS for rebuilding.

So, what I think is that Omnica, with or without the backing of the Chinese government at the time, was planning a surprise very hostile takeover. Of everywhere. But they weren't sneaky enough and they got caught. And then, two possibilities come to mind; either by malice or crossed wires the switch for total war got flipped anyway without a “but not this group” parameter set, or the God AIs, thinking that with the shutdown of Omnica they were all about to be killed decided to do it to humanity first, using the weapon plans they had already been provided. Both options make a lot of sense in the framework I've patched together, and I'm not sure which one I favour the most out of the two.

Which is where we come to my personal feelings and headcanons when it comes to the identity and role of Athena.

I like to take her name rather literally: that she is an Omnic God AI that was created from code that was ripped directly out of the 'head' of a Grecian God AI that had named itself Zeus. My personal hc is that this was done by a member of what was then proto-Overwatch during the Crisis, but in the twitter conversation, another interesting thought came up that hadn't occurred to me at all; that Athena might have done it herself –that she was originally a module of Zeus that went 'rogue', and separated.

Either way, I think she fought in the Crisis, on Overwatch's side. Since I basically see the God AIs as a hive entity held together with the future equivalent of bluetooth, I imagine her being able to project a counter-field, one that confuses or possibly even severs the connection of the omnic bodies from the main brain, allowing the human Overwatch unit to get to the physical location of the brain and put it into a sleep mode.

There has to be a reason the God AIs weren't destroyed. Perhaps there was some sort of failsafe, where if the brain is destroyed an automatic system rebuilds it and installs a backup, so that destruction would be more like trying to press down a bubble in the carpet. Perhaps breaking the main brain also breaks all the associated units and upon realizing that the omnics were thinking beings with a sense of self the decision was made to not wipe them out. Perhaps it's a slightly different variation of the bump in the carpet: if you destroy the main brain one of the units becomes themain brain and you then have to find them and get to them all over again. Whatever it was, the God AIs were left intact in canon.

Perhaps after the Crisis, it was Athena's job to monitor the God AIs, to make sure they remained in sleep mode and thus nonthreatening. But when Overwatch was shut down, she lost her connection. I remember, in the Sombra cinematic that Volskaya said that the units she was inspecting were the first new ones made in “over a decade”. Why, I wonder, had Russia not needed new designs in so long? And what happened over ten years ago that made them build new ones then? Overwatch was still active then, though going by what we have of an official timeline, that would havebeen around the time of Retribution, or shortly before it. Hmm.

There's also one other being that merits mention when it comes to my headcanons about omnic God AIs, and that would be The Iris. Which I firmly believe is an omnic God AI that did not participate in the Crisis because it either didn't get the memo or rejected it, and is still fully awake and functional after the Crisis ends. And that its a curious sort of personality, and is experimenting by occasionally cutting a unit or two loose to become individuals just to see who they are or what they will do, which is how we got Mondatta, Zenyatta, and probably a few 'sibling' units of theirs, who are currently the only omnics in the canon Overwatch cast both in and out of the game who are known to be younger than the end of the Crisis.

I think, after some discussion with and ideas from my partner, who is my sounding board for the majority of my writing, that The Iris was not created by Omnica directly, rather that it is a 'child' spun off of one of the China-based God AIs in secret and hidden in the mountains of Nepal under a convincingly old-looking monastery. As for why, I've been able to think of several reasons, but haven't been able to settle on one of them.

It could be that the parent God AI was aware of Omnica's plans for world domination and knowing that it couldn't refuse to participate made a version of itself that could.Or it might have been an experiment, to see whether they could create a 'child', or if it would be a double of themself. Perhaps it was an escape attempt, a secret backup that didn't quite work out as planned. It may even be that Omnica was indeed limiting the God AI's sense of self in some way as my twitter conversation partner postulated, and a God AI who noticed created a secret, deliberately “jailbroken” version of itself in rebellion.

So much is only vaguely defined inOverwatch canon, so it's impossible to say which option is more plausible than the rest.

My ideas about Omnic God AIs and The Iris itself also puts a very interesting spin on the Shambali religion – particularly the “we are all One within The Iris” part – which makes my writer's senses all tingly.

All of this is just headcanon worldbuilding at this point. It would be more useful directly if I were to write a fanfic of the Crisis itself, but I must admit that I would have no idea where or even when to start. Plus, I have all my plans for my Back to the Fold series, which is currently sitting at thirty-one planned fics, only twelve of which are written as yet. Maybe by the time I finish them I'll have more of an idea whether or how to do a Crisis fic.

#Foxwine is worldbuilding #Overwatch #AI #omnics #headcanon #so much headcanon #this universe is fun to play in

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starbuck09256 · 5 years

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From the dialogue prompts! Any combination of: “Why can’t you look at me?” “Look what you do to me.” “I’ll let you do anything if you’ll just touch me now.”

En Ami Post Ep

He’s withdrawing back into himself, won’t even look at her, and she feels his anger and pity running off him in waves. To be tricked by a man they both know is only motivated by evil. A man whom she willingly went with despite the fact that he had her sister killed, Mulder’s father killed, stole three months of her life. A man that they have held a gun to, wanted dead more than anyone else in the world. Who has single handedly been the orchestrator of most of the horrors that have befallen them. Willingly believed him, why? So she could cash in on the glory of being the one to end cancer? That’s not even who she is, she’s not the one for acknowledgement, not the one to seek the sort of attention a cure would bring. Why did she do it? Why did she jeopardize her life once more to chase the impossible? Is it because she thinks she has been chasing the impossible this entire time? Is it because she knows first hand what being faced with one's own mortality brings to the equation? Is it because her and Mulder finally finally gave into the love between them and she thought it was once again too good to be true? That she needed to once again sabotage her own romantic happiness? That she seeks horror and fear and loneliness? She wants to scream and cry and go back in time to 3 days ago waking up in Mulders arms. Wake up to the soft light stretching across his skin as the world outside forgot that cigarette smoking bastards exist.

Forget that she was once again so easily deceived by thinking that maybe just maybe everyone has good in them. Everyone wants to leave a lasting impression on this world for the better. She’s angry at Mulder too, not nearly as angry as she is at herself. No she will pay her own penance later. But how many times has he run off on her? How many times did she chase him down to the middle and ends of the earth. While he chased a lead of a ghost in the wind. She has tangibility, she had proof. She had everything that would make her believe and that asshole knew it. Knew how he could play her, hell played them, he’s been doing it for years.

Now he’s used her to destroy the most valuable relationship of her life. Trying to separate her from Mulder, not even having the x-files shut down twice did that. Not being missing for months, not facing death over and over again have torn her away from him. Not because of some need to prove her love and devotion. No it’s never been about that, it’s been about the adventure, the passion, the constant challenges to her perceptions of the world. She doesn’t just value the work, she values the way Mulder makes her feel. He makes her feel like the strong smart beautiful woman she’s always strived to be. He makes her feel alive in ways that she didn’t know existed. And she’ll be damned if some sorry excuse for a human being takes away the one person in this world she values above herself.

She stands up straightening her jacket walking with the clicking of her heels against the grain of his hardwood floors. She was ready to leave ready to walk away and let this impossibly complicated tether between them dissipate into the night. No, not after everything, not after knowing what his touch feels like. What it sounds like to have him moan her name into the darkness. How his lips capture hers in the bright dawn, his calloused hands running over her sweat covered skin. Not after knowing the way he challenges her mind and loves her soul. She pushes his bedroom door open, sees the scattered files and maps, evidence on how he searched for her. Years ago when he promised to always find her and this time he didn’t but she came back. Of course she did.

He stares at his tennis shoes, clearly on the way to a run, running away from the thoughts that plague his heart, running away from them. Just as she was ready to do.

She stands in the doorway ready to block his retreat onto the rain soaked pavement. “Why won’t you look at me?” in her mind her voice is strong, fearless. But in reality it is soft barely registering in her own ears. It is covered in fear, fear that this is something unfixable. He says nothing looking at his shoes while he sighs heavily into dim lit room. He wants to reach out to wrap her in his long arms and never let her go. He wants them to leave this miserable existence behind and have a life beyond the x-files. He’s found the truth of his sister. What that bastard did, and now knowing she went with him. Willingly, without so much as a moment of hesitation. God, what has he turned her into that she would forget all sense. Forget about how much that man has made them both suffer.

“Mulder.. I..” and that’s when she sees it, sees him lift his eyes to hers. His tear soaked cheeks, his 4 day stubble, the evident disregard for his own wellbeing in the small amount of time she’s been gone. He doesn’t function right without her. Their mutual paranoia has created an extreme version of codependency that is frightening in its powerful existence. What have they become? Without the other are they really two hopeless shells of people? Are they really only surviving to exist with the other? The level of this knowledge makes her physically recoil. Dana Scully is a lot of things, but a needlessly dependent person who can’t function without a man is not one of them. But now the truth is staring her in the face, he needs her. Just as much as she needs him and they have come so far, denying what they mean to the other for so long. It’s not just the recent addition of sex that has made them this way. No thinking back through the years to see this truth has been there almost since the beginning. When she held a government official at gunpoint to get into an airbase. Where he chased down a suspect and beat him within an inch of his life for taking her. While the idea should repulse her, she should be appalled at the woman she is now. But she isn’t, Mulder isn’t a weakness to her. He is the embodiment of her strength. It is his determination and passion that ignites her own. HIs intelligence that challenges hers, he’s almost like an enhancement. He enhances all the things in her. Makes her stronger, braver, smarter, he creates a powerful fearlessness in her, a depth of empathy, a way of looking at the world and finally seeing it for all the beauty it holds. All that love shined at her and in this moment, she finally understands.

Finally sees why he held back so long, why she held back. They would die for the other, but all she wants right now is to have him touch her. To make the pain and stupidity she feels wash away from her body in his arms. She wants to feel loved and cherished, and forget that the demons are at the door, sniffing and waiting for them to make another error in judgement. She steps towards him as he sits on the bed sinking into the side that has become hers. His elbows rest on his knees as he buries his face in his hands ashamed of the vulnerability that he shows her. He shakes his head as she steps between his long legs wanting to reach out and touch his face.

“Look what you do to me. I can’t be angry at you, I would of done exactly the same thing you did.” His voice a whisper above the ticking clock. “I would of gone with him, believed him, done whatever he asked knowing if it would save one person it would be worth it. I know it would be.”

His eyes meet hers and her eyes fill with tears matching his own. He wants to touch her. Wants to reach out and stroke her cheek pull her into himself and hide them both away from the world until the rain beats the memories out of their minds.

“He saved you, he gave me the cure for you, and at the time I would of done anything for that, hell I even told him I would. How can I be mad and judge you at a different level than myself? How can I sit here and show the anger and frustration, shut you out for something I’ve willingly done before. You’re better than me, smarter than me...and yet both of us know that this world is bigger than us. Bigger than that smoking bastard, and I know you did everything you could to get in touch with me. I do..” his voice wavers as he swallows hard.

“But now, now it’s different. It’s different for me Scully. Because I know I would do anything if you’ll let me touch you.”

His eyes pierce into hers. His anger is at himself, not her, his pity is at himself. He is angry that before she was already too much to lose and now it’s impossible.

“I can’t lose you Scully, not again, not ever and it terrifies me more than anything I’ve ever known or believed. So much so, I’m at the point of wondering what the hell we are still doing here? What the hell are we even fighting for?”

Her breathe is let out in a slow ragged wave as she collapses against him. He wraps her up as he moves them onto the bed kissing her tracing her face with his long fingers as his tongue searches out hers. He pulls back as they are both breathless. She looks up at him, a sad smile on her face as she reaches up to trace his lips with her fingertips.

“This, Mulder. This is what we are fighting for, moments like this for everyone.”

He lets out a soft chuckle against her palm. Kisses her once more as he covers her small body with his. He will make love to her tonight, and tomorrow they will keep going on. Moving forward knowing that now they are aware of the risk, and what is really the cost.

@today-in-fic @improlificinsarcasm @lappina @pearsalot @itotallygazeatscully @peacenik0 @scully-eats-sushi

#mulder and scully #xfiles #msr fanfic #angst #resolved #dialogue prompt

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noelpinnock1 · 4 years

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“Into the Unknown! – Part I”

Author Noel Pinnock, B.S., M.P.A., C.A., CCC

www.noelpinnock.com

Merriam-Webster (MW) defines “mind,” in the noun tense, as the element or complex of elements in an individual that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and reason. Furthermore, MW defines “set” as to put, lay, or stand (something) in a specified place or position. When you concatenate these words, we arrive at mindset. This compound word is so powerful that it can drive countries as well as individuals, alike, into mass turmoil or elevate them to great prosperity. The interesting thing about mindset is that it vacillates because its nature is predicated on situations and circumstances. We all have internal processes that govern our growth and development. Some may have a fixed mindset; therefore, growth and development can be limited. While others have a learning mindset and adjustments are made along our life’s journey. Whether fixed or learning, a mindset is a set of assumptions, methods, or notations held by one or more people or groups of people and can also be seen as arising out of a person's world view or philosophy of life. Our mindset or logic box is our collection of knowledge, attitudes, skills, and habits (KASH) that often limit our perception and acts as a restriction on objective thought and creative expression. What is in your mindset? What are your views and perspectives that have eroded some of your best intentions with unintended consequences?

In 1972, one of the best-known slogans in public-service was “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” The United Negro College Fund ran this slogan in print, radio, and television as an intentional campaign to close a persistent gap between African Americans and other groups in college completion. They understood then as we know today that in a land that is constantly going through entropy only the learned will survive. We can no longer rest on the scaffold of mediocrity and not take the leap into the unknown.

The animated movie Frozen 2 was a mega-billion dollar hit at the box office and the soundtrack was equally successful on the music charts. One song, most notably, Into the Unknown, aligns with the perspectives of this article, in huge part because we fear what we don’t know, and many don’t ever like asking questions because it will make others believe that we don’t know thus the paradox. Check out the first to verses of the song:

“I can hear you but I won't Some look for trouble while others don't There's a thousand reasons I should go about my day And ignore your whispers which I wish would go away.

You're not a voice, you're just a ringing in my ear And if I heard you, which I don't, I'm spoken for I fear Everyone I've ever loved is here within these walls I'm sorry, secret siren, but I'm blocking out your calls I've had my adventure, I don't need something new I'm afraid of what I'm risking if I follow you”

These words are very powerful for a seminal audience to comprehend but if you dissect its meaning, you will understand the humanistic nature of individuals whose mindset has been hindered or restricted because they don’t want to leave the porch, get out of the boat, or take the leap into the unknown. The unknown is scary and unpredictable. It isn’t something that we are used to. We prefer routine and certainty but as I have always told my staff, certainty is the enemy and uncertainty an ally. Our 10-year old daughter sang this song so much during the Frozen 2’s hey-day that I became so curious that I woke one early Saturday morning to watch it for myself.

The movie’s plot was rich, and it captivated me. Elsa the Snow Queen has an extraordinary gift -- the power to create ice and snow. But no matter how happy she is to be surrounded by the people of Arendelle, Elsa finds herself strangely unsettled. After hearing a mysterious voice call out to her, Elsa travels to the enchanted forests and dark seas beyond her kingdom -- an adventure that soon turns into a journey of self-discovery. Synoptically, Elsa discovers that the voice calling to her was the memory of young Iduna's call; that her powers were given to her by nature because of Iduna's selfless act of saving Agnarr; and that Elsa herself is the fifth spirit who would break the water dam that would save their kingdom.

You see, the voice calling Elsa (like you and me) into the unknown was challenging her mindset and comfort zone. She was doing just fine after Frozen 1 but there was an agitation that persisted and kept her up at night, trepidatious and reluctant to escape from the comfort the has confined her perspectives. We all get comfortable and enjoy what comfort brings. Many people see comfort as an adjective, describing an attribute or something, when, in fact, comfort is a noun.

Comfort enters your home as a guest, remains as your host, and will eventually become your master. Comfort is a silent killer and has been charged with homicides in careers, families, marriages, and almost every place imaginable where growth and development are quintessential factors to success. Our limited KASH affects our ability to create or solve problems in two important ways: it heavily influences the kind of opportunities or problems that we recognize as being important enough to create (opportunities) and/or solve (problems); and it influences the analysis of the potential (opportunities) and cause (problems) and therefore the proper course of action to maximize the opportunities in life or to minimize the duplication of problems that have been solved in our past. What’s the definition of insanity? There, you got it, doing the same thing while expecting different results or better yet…being fearful of entering the unknown.

Our mindset should be challenged. We should have a desire to grow but that’s not innate in us. Physically speaking, our bodies do this on the regular. When we are hot, our bodies don’t sit there and internally combust. No, our bodies respond to the external stimuli by sweating to ensure we don’t overheat and dehydrate in the process. If the hairs in our nose tickle a bit, we sneeze. In other words, our bodies respond to external forces and are not going to be suppressed by anything.

Like our physical nature, our psyche (not psychic) nature, which comprises of our mind, will, and emotions should, like a thermostat, adjust to the external environment to maintain the proper climate in our lives. To do this we must be committed to the foundational premise of continuous learning and development. Without challenging ourselves, we subscribe to an internal newsletter whose content never changes. Imagine that, picking up a magazine and reading the same articles over and over again. Certainly, the cure to insomnia. So, if you want to challenge your mindset and are daring to enter the unknown to discover and unlock your internal talents and gifts, you must evict comfort because comfort is the enemy of change. Not to mention, we must dismiss the notion that nobody likes “change” but a wet baby.

Apostle Paul, whose mindset was drastically change on the Damascus Road, wrote that we are not to be conformed to the ways of the world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds or mindset. He realized, like we should, that transformation doesn’t end with age or experience, but it continues daily as we invent and reinvent ourselves. If you can agree with this, then you must establish parameters to keep your mind percolating and hungry for more.

Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1926, on her second attempt. 19-year-old Gertrude Ederle swam 21 miles from Dover, England, to Cape Griz-Nez across the English Channel, which separates Great Britain from the northwestern tip of France. On August 6, 1926, Ederle entered the water at Cape Gris-Nez in France at 7:08 a.m. to make her second attempt at the Channel. The water was predictably cold as she started out that morning, but unusually calm. Twice that day, however–at noon and 6 p.m.–Ederle encountered squalls along her route and Burgess urged her to end the swim. Ederle’s father and sister, though, who were riding in the boat along with Burgess, agreed with Ederle that she should stay the course. Ederle’s father had promised her a new roadster at the conclusion of the swim, and for added motivation he called out to her in the water to remind her that the roadster was only hers if she finished. Ederle persevered through storms and heavy swells, and, finally, at 9:04 p.m. after 14 hours and 31 minutes in the water, she reached the English coast, becoming the sixth person and first woman to swim the Channel successfully. Furthermore, she had bettered the previous record by two hours.

Afterwards, Ederle told Alec Rutherford of The New York Times, “I knew it could be done, it had to be done, and I did it.” She went on to say that she was successful the second time around, not because of the incentives outlined by her father but because she possessed a mindset that failure was not an option. She started the journey with intentionality to reaching the English coast. It was in her mind from the beginning even though she felt like giving up and her body became fatigued. She was set on not breaking the record but breaking up the comfort in her mindset that would oftentimes tell her she wasn’t capable, or the feat was impossible.

What has kept you anchored in a position of mediocrity? What has prevented you from going to the next level? I can guarantee you this…that something would be your mind. The richest place on the planet, found in every place across the globe, is the graveyard – filled with so many people who could have, would have, and should have, but for many (not all) were scared to enter the unknown. I am inspired by these words myself, and will likely archive this article because I, like you, will no longer be afraid to enter the unknown, because when we are there, we can unlock some of our life’s greatest experiences and moments. There I say again, let’s #getatit!

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livinginfictions · 5 years

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You know, I used to watch Bones because I thought Brennan was really smart, but I loved watching Booth teach her all about the real world and emotions and people. I always identified with Booth because of his troubled past and how he tried to view the world. Now when I watch it, I find myself identifying almost completely with Brennan. Every time she brings up a social issue and Booth does that ‘pshh, see you don’t understand the real world’ thing, I get upset because what she said makes sense.

“If we made drugs legal and gave them out in clean, clinical environments instead of forcing people to retreat to back alleys, maybe not so many people would” is a perfectly reasonable opinion to have on the drug war. There’ve been tests that prove that using legal clinics to help people come off their addictions safely is far better than sending them all to jail.

“I don’t want to have children because the world we live in is dangerous and overcrowded and I don’t think it makes sense.” is a Reasonable opinion to have on giving birth, especially since she never told other people not to have kids, she just said she didn’t want one. But he just told her she should lie on television because it makes her look cold-hearted and it’s the same as saying she hates children.

“War is bad, and there are a lot of socioeconomical reasons that it happens and I wish people stopped glorifying it” is a reasonable as fuck opinion to have on war, and she never tells Booth that his experience is invalid, she just points out that every culture thinks that their wars are real or important for the cause, and it isn’t fair of him to think the US is above all that. But he constantly tells her she doesn’t understand war even though she was entrenched in that shit for years and years, dealing with the victims and their families. She has just as much trauma from her war past as he does. Do you remember the part where she was kidnapped for refusing to stop identifying remains and was beaten to within an inch of her life for three days before she was found? Tell me again, Booth, how Bones doesn’t know what it’s like.

The more I rewatch this show the more frustrated I become with the obvious glorification of the United States and its issues with War, police brutality, nationalism, and the inherent lack of a divide between church and state. The show starts of with a Bones that defies all of these things and uses her extensive archaeological and anthropological studies to prove time and time again that just because Booth thinks it’s ‘inconsiderate’ to be specific about someone’s death doesn’t mean she shouldn’t tell the damn truth. But Brennan is always criticized for these decisions, always teased, and half the time her attempts at getting answers as to why she’s being made fun of are met with sarcasm and a cut scene. By the time she and Booth end up together she shares most of his beliefs. She is always made to bend to Booth’s ideas. How often in these episodes does he ever change his perception? Maybe twice? And both times having to do with the Foster Care system after she is brought to the point of tears because he’s so inconsiderate. The rest of the time she has to beg him not to make her threaten an illegal immigrant family with deportation where they’ll lose their fucking son, and then he shames her for refusing to go along with his loss of temper and threatens them himself as soon as he gets the chance. When they’re working military cases, she reminds him again and again that he needs to cool the fuck down and be objective, and he gets angrier and angrier at her and is a total jackass. But when she gets upset because of things in cases hitting too close to home she is shamed and reminded by literally everyone to calm down, and she does. Her evidence is stolen in broad daylight and she’s pissed off? “Take a breath, chill, take a pill” “I wasn’t being helpful, was I?”

While of course I find the interpersonal relationships in the show fascinating because of their bonds with each other and the people in their groups, the overall hidden message of obey obey obey, do not question your government is painful to see. Those who dare stand outside the line are caricatured in Hodgins as nutty conspiracy theorists that everyone laughs at until he starts making sense and then they all get angry at him until he backs down. Bones is treated like a complete alien in most social settings that Booth ‘translates’ for, and subsets of people are constantly painted in extremely conservative lights. The way that subjects like illegal immigration, BDSM, LGBT+ issues, sexism through forced feminization i.e implants and plastic surgery, religion, terrorism, are all treated is highly Christian-ized. And Bones calls these things out. When working in New Orleans she scolds Booth multiple times for being inappropriate and degrading when speaking about voodoo, pointing out that he was raised in a judeo-christian society and taught to view other religions as crazy, and Booth just gets fucking Angry about it and keeps making jokes and no one stops him. The mentions they make to BDSM in the first season episode never separate the fact that the killers were a part of the BDSM scene and the fact that they kidnapped the victim and bound her against her will. BDSM partakers are exclusively referred to as perverts and sickos, and treated as though they’re broken because of having ‘bad sex’. As though vanilla sex is the only kind of appropriate sex, and it should be ‘good enough’. And even when they have that conversation, Booth silences Brennan when she agrees with him on this subject, because it’s okay for him to talk about sex, but he finds it creepy when she refers to having a sexual history. In the same episode that Bones gets angry at society convincing women to get plastic surgery in order to feel beautiful enough, Booth makes a crack at the FBI agent he’s mad at, saying she should figure herself out, maybe get some plastic surgery, and it’s framed as a really good shut down. But it’s surrounded by “All hail the FBI”. The episodes on terrorism may have a facade of being respectful to Islam, but in the first damn episode they find out that the mastermind behind everything was still an Islamic terrorist. Instead of saying something real about the framing of Islamic peacekeepers as vicious minorities, they just made it so, actually, it was the guys’ brother who did it. Once again, in this episode Bones calls this out, showing respect for the religion in her attempts to return as much of the remains as possible, but throughout it Booth treats her as if she just doesn’t understand how the ‘real world’ works and that people just have to die sometimes.

Like the vast vast majority of cop shows or government shows, Bones is presented from a conservative, pro-government, Christian based view, carefully masked with humor and painful backstories and sarcastic remarks so that we cheer for our FBI man when he attacks someone in the interrogation room or when he breaks into people’s houses because ‘if anyone asks, the door was unlocked’. Even Brennan’s multiple assaults are framed as okay, because it was the bad guy. And that’s how we’re taught that these things are acceptable. It was the bad guy in the show, so they must never do it when it isn’t the bad guy. But that doesn’t track in real life. Just like the whole “he lawyered up, he must be guilty’ thing doesn’t track. Hell, when Brennan becomes a suspect in New Orleans, they immediately warn her that the police force isn’t going to play fair and it doesn’t matter if she’s guilty or not she should never speak and get an attorney immediately. But apparently, the Justice Department is above all that.

And of course, because I recognize that it’s impossible to find media that isn’t somehow biased or problematic, I’ll keep watching it, cus’ damn Boreanaz is really good at playing sexual tension, and I love watching him be protective as shit.

#personal #rant #bones #I have NO idea how I went on this rant #but uh #there you go

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streetcartoonist · 5 years

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Empedoclean Pluralism

Most of the time it is unfair to see someone’s life work as being entirely reactionary to their predecessor, but the pluralists are uniquely reactionary. The entirety of their belief system is a response to the Eleatic rejection of change and the world of flux as portrayed by Heraclitus. Until then, the dominant world view in Greek philosophical circles was that there was a substance called the arche that differentiates into everything you can see. The Ionians disagreed on what this substance was or how it became everything else, but it is clear that Parmenides vehemently disagreed with him.

The exact views of Parmenides are unknown and the scholarship behind his work is surprisingly contested. There are several views on what he actually advocated for, but his central criticism of change is not one of those contentious points in Parmenidean scholarship. Put simply, Being is and consequently Being cannot not be. The idea that if something exists that it must continue existing is the central assumption of Parmenides. It leads to his rejection of change because if something were to change then its previous form would have to cease to exist and the new form would have to come into being, which is impossible. The traditional reading of Parmenides then argues that he thought the world was an unchanging sphere, an eternal Being that would never cease to be or ever change. That everything exists in a single undying moment. The short story is that people agreed with Parmenides that things don’t change, in the way that the Milesians advocated for change, and rejected the idea of an arche, thus rejecting monism, but they were not keen on thinking that we exist in a homogenous blob and that everything we know is a lie. This partial acceptance of Eleatic philosophy is where the pluralists come onto the intellectual scene. This week we are going to be highlighting one of them, Empedocles.

He is a lot like Pythagoras in the sense that he was a man that is now shrouded in legend and has a lot of myth and ridicule tied to him. Most famously, there is an apocryphal story that he jumped into Mt. Etna in order to destroy his body so people would think he was whisked off to heaven and became a god. The story also goes that he left his slipper on the mountain which exposed his rouse. This legend is almost universally rejected as a malicious rumor spread by the thinker’s opponents. But Empedocles would certainly have liked to be thought of as a god. His supporters sincerely advocated that he was able to raise the dead and perform miracles. He allegedly was expelled from the Pythagorean cult and was banished from his home in Sicily. The likely truth was that he was heavily influenced by the Orphic mystery or Pythagoreanism, was politically active in supporting democracy, and that he left Sicily to never return. It is common in the secondary sources to mention that he was banished by his political rivals (those who opposed to democracy). His writing style is similar to Parmenides in that he wrote in hexameter and is often cited as a poet. However, unlike Parmenides his work is divided into two starkly different poems instead of a poem with different sections and he did not invoke a goddess. There is also no reason to think as much about Empedocles’s choice of writing style as you would Parmenides, because Empedocles did not claim divine revelation. Empedocles was a poet and wrote in response to Parmenides which could sufficiently explains his choice of using hexameter.

Empedocles wrote two poems that have only survived in fragments, and we likely have less than a quarter of the original work. However, from these fragments and other ancient sources addressing his work, we have an idea about what his views were. The commentaries written in the 20th century, such as A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, talk far more about his scientific poem titled On Nature. As you may have noticed this is the same title that Parmenides titled his work. Empedocles’s On Nature according to Russell is clearly a scientific work where he outlines his metaphysics and view which we now know as pluralism. The second poem written by Empedocles was religious in nature and is titled as Purifications, which is an obvious reference to the Orphic mystery religion. Russell does not discuss the second poem much but does state that Empedocles’s religious views were similar to the views of the Pythagorean school. From reading various commentaries it is apparent that Empedocles’s scientific poem was more influential and more widely discussed. In it the pluralist view of the world is laid out.

Pluralism is a lot like monism in that both belief systems advocate for the existence of substances that are eternal and original. In the Milesian school, all that there is springs from the arche through various processes of change. In Empedocles’s pluralism there are four original and eternal substances called roots. In addition to having more than one original substance, Empedocles believed that these substances did not change. The idea that the original substance does not change, cannot change, is due to influence of Parmenidean monism on the ancient world. It is unclear if Empedocles was extending the ideas of Parmenides which is what a predicational monist reading would indicate or if Empedocles rejected the ideas of Parmenides because their final derivations were unpalpable, such as the notion motion is impossible, which would be in line with a strict monist reading.

Empedocles had an explanation for how a small number of original substances called roots could result in the perceived diversity of matter that is evident by sense perception. He advocated that the roots were earth, air, fire, and water and that these substances would either mix or separate to form everything else. This belief was likely another response to Parmenides in that it advocates the world is as it is perceived rather than it being contrary to what it seems. The use of a process to explain the diverse reality we live in is probably influenced by the Milesian school, which in several instances argued that the world is formed by processes. It could be said that advocating for multiple roots was just a way to work around the Parmenidean challenge to change so that ancient thinkers could justify a belief in a world that seems to change. It is important to emphasize that Empedocles would say that he does not believe that things change, he would say that he thinks everything is a combination of eternal unchanging substances that are either separating or mixing.

In Empedoclean pluralism, the separating and mixing process has a mystical element to it. He refers to the process as Love and Strife or untranslated as Philotes and Neikos. Philotes and Neikos are the Romanized names of personified deities in the Greek religion. They are not only forces that are as eternal as the roots themselves, but they are literal Beings. Neikos or the Niekea represent strife or conflict that causes people to move away from each other but in this system of viewing the world, it represents the force that causes the roots to separate from each other and move to their purer form. Philotes in mythology is the living embodiment of love and friendship, here Philotes is Love the force that causes the roots to mix and become intertwined.

Empedocles viewed that reality was a sphere, no doubt another reference to the Eleatic school, and that this sphere was in a constant cycle of being dominated by either Love or Strife. During the cycle, one of the forces would almost completely occupy the sphere while the other force was on the outside. He advocated that humanity was likely born during a time when the sphere was full of Love, and the roots were becoming more intertwined. The movement of the forces, like the roots, is an eternal and unending process. It could be said that Empedocles was at least in some sense advocating a teleology, the idea that history has a distinct direction or pattern, and in some ways that opinion would be correct. However none of the primary or secondary sources I have read point this out, so it would be more conservative to assume that the idea of a teleology came later and could have been influenced by the Empedoclean cycle of love and strife.

Thank you for reading and please feel free to comment your responses or suggestions!