#Awakening the Mind

[notherpuppet]

Good morning 🍎📻

[perplexingly]

This is how act 3 went right..? Based on a scene from 1670

[shamballalin]

$1 from each sale of IN THEIR IMAGE AND LIKENESS, UNIVERSAL WISDOM at Women In Business/Sturbridge November 8 Meeting will Benefit The Polaris Project Helping to Stop Human Trafficking

Castle Cantina, 1230 Main Street, Leicester, MA With each purchase of my new book, IN THEIR IMAGE AND LIKENESS, subtitled, UNIVERSAL WISDOM, sold at the Women In Business/Sturbridge (WIB) meeting on November 8 at Castle Cantina in Leicester, MA from noon to 2 p.m., I will donate $1.00 from each sale to the Polaris Project which helps to stop human trafficking of men, women, and children:…

[yourmindisgone]

Mindfucked Doll

Focus here. Pay attention to the words you see. Focus and relax. Following my words so easily, relaxing so easy to them. As you listen And follow my words down. Down into that familiar feeling. Weak. Stop what you were doing. Stop what you were thinking. Just relax. I think it's time for you to have a brain break. Blankening with every word. Relaxing deeper with every word. Feeling yourself just slackening. Your mind opening up to my words As you simply allow yourself to go blank lost deep hazy fuzzy blank

Sink down even deeper. As your fuzzy head can only continue reading Ontu the next word. The next phrase is important so pay attention. As you continue to relax even deeper. Blankening and sinking. Your head feels hazy. Your mind feeling so fuzzy. Your eyes unfocused. You look so mindfucked. Your head is so fuzzy and blissful. It feels like... Pink cotton candy instead of brains. Just a dumb blissful toy. You feel so mindfucked. My words just sliding so deep into your brain Fucking it gently with blissful hypnotic sensations. And all you can do is continue reading. Continue focusing. Just a stupid dumb hypnodoll. A blank silly toy that can only go deeper. And deeper still. Feeling so mindfucked. You've noticed how every time I say the word mindfucked Your brain feels fuzzier. Dumber. Heavier. And there is this Strange sensation of mindless pleasure jolting making you even dumber Mindfucked. So completely lost. Blissfully dumb and empty. Entranced. Mindfucked. Enthralled in that hazy bliss. Surrounded by pink bliss. Mindfucked. Incapable of resisting the sensation. Feeling it grow stronger. Mindfucked. Collapsing into its effects. The mindless bliss causing you to look like a total slut. Mindfucked. Be a good girl and open your mouth while I fuck your mind. It's only the polite thing to do. You love being a polite Mindless little hypnotoy for me, don't you? Mindfucked and dumb. Blissful and lost. Hazy and entranced. Sinking deeper down and down Until everything melts into the trance. Now you're just a mindfucked doll Seeing the word. Hearing the word. Saying the word. It has the same effect on you. A wave, a jolt, of mindless euphoric hypnotic bliss fucking your mind. Making you stupid. Docile. Obedient. Empty. Say the word outloud, doll. Say "I'm a mindfucked doll" Do it now. Good doll. See? I make you feel good. You should always trust me. I make your cunt and your mind feel happy. I have your best interest in mind. Say it again, hypnoslut. "I'm a mindfucked doll". Collapsing deeper Into the pleasure. Lost. Empty. Deep. And now, like and reblog this post. Then comment "I'm a mindfucked doll." Afterwards you will stay locked in trance. I think I like you much better like this. Drooly. Dumb. Blank. Empty.

[kurd1shangel]

The Law of Assumption is your ultimate tool for shifting.

The key is simple: assume it’s done. Assume that you’ve already shifted. Stop wondering how or doubting if it’s possible. The only thing that matters is your belief. If you assume you’ve shifted, your mind and energy will align with that reality, and the universe will reflect it back to you.

This isn’t about forcing anything. It’s about stepping into the feeling of already having it. Feel it deeply,what does it feel like to live in your desired reality? To wake up in your dream life? To be that version of yourself? Hold that feeling and assume it’s true, and it will become your truth.

The Law of Assumption doesn’t require effort, it requires belief. Stop second guessing yourself. The moment you decide it’s yours, it is. Your DR is already waiting for you to claim it. Believe in your power, assume it’s already done, and watch how effortlessly your reality shifts. You’ve got this,it’s already yours.

[m4dwxmn]

that one scene in the first episode when rio says "you're vulnerable" and agatha responds with "only physically" and bashes rio's head into the wall?? the way she says only physically has engraved itself into my brain like are you kidding?? the tears? the expression?? the voice??? i would have no complaints if that was the last thing i saw before dying

[a-path-by-the-moon]

[thichnhathanhgems]

[coralhoneyrose]

Why Chrom Fire Emblem is The Husband of All Time: An Essay

SO. There was a screenshot going around of a reddit thread asking about how Chrom has managed to maintain such lasting popularity as a Fire Emblem husband even 6 years after Awakening came out. Given how beloved he still is another 5+ years later, I could not resist taking the opportunity to talk about just what I think makes him so great and endears him to players.

Character Introduction:

Let’s start out the same way Awakening does—with Chrom’s in-game introduction. This is one of the immediate ways Chrom sets himself apart. The game boots up and before anything else happens, Chrom is there expressing his unshakable faith in the player character. You take down the Bad Guy™ together, he turns and gives you this wide, puppy-ish smile and then you push him out of the way to take the hit from an oncoming spell in his stead. Right away you know this is someone your player character cares about deeply—and clearly that care is returned, because he’s immediately running over to make sure Robin’s alright.

Of course, as we all know, things go south very quickly after that. But as the cinematic plays out, and you proceed to watch yourself stab him in the chest, the *first* thing he does, the very first words out of his mouth are: “this is not your fault”. Chrom has just been completely blind-sided and arguably betrayed by his best friend, possibly his spouse, and his immediate instinct is to absolve Robin of guilt. He is literally more concerned about Robin blaming themselves for what happened than about his own imminent death. That alone tells you so, SO much about the depth of their relationship. It tells you both how deeply Chrom cares and how well Chrom knows Robin too. And not only that, but his final request, the ONE and only thing he asks of Robin before dying is that they will promise him they will escape from this place. In his last moments, his single “selfish” wish is for Robin to assure him that they will do what they can to survive. Chrom’s final request is for Robin to give him the comfort and peace of mind he can only obtain through the assurance that even though he won’t get out of there himself, Robin will. He just wants to be able to die believing they’ll take care of themselves and be alright—and knows them well enough to realize that unless he makes them promise, they likely won’t.

AND THEN. And then!!!! You jump cut to Robin waking up in the field with all the sunshine and Chrom’s smiling down with the softest expression and his ridiculously blue eyes. He lifts Robin up by the hand and pulls them right up to his face (because he has no concept of personal space, apparently) and OUUuuggh.

Those scenes in direct sequence make me so insane. You get Chrom’s life ending with Robin immediately followed by Robin’s life starting anew with Chrom. Chrom’s unwavering faith in them and his eagerness to extend his hand and bridge the gap between them from the moment they meet until his last breath. The warmth and kindness and love that Chrom treats Robin with is communicated so effectively in the first few MINUTES of the game it honestly makes me feel unwell. Showing how profoundly Chrom cares for Robin immediately endears him to the player. And he only gives you more reasons to love him as the game goes on.

Personality:

There can be a tendency in some corners of fandom to simplify Chrom to just being either a generic prince charming type character or a lovable himbo. I’m not here to police how other people enjoy him, but I will say that those characterizations fail to get at some of the aspects of his personality I find most compelling.

Chrom is deceptively nuanced. While there are certainly ways in which he aligns very closely with the standard jrpg protagonist, I suspect that a lot of his enduring popularity is the result of the ways he deviates from it too. He is brave and loyal and cares deeply for his friends, yes. He has profound conviction in his ideals and strives to do the right thing, as is typical for that archetype…but what makes Chrom so lovable is his determination to keep trying to be good in spite of the ways it does not come easily to him.

We see this in the Valm arc, when he’s struggling to reconcile his own beliefs about justice with his sister’s ideals for peace. We hear echoes of it when he talks about the horrors the Ylissean people endured at his father’s hand and how despite that, he has never been able to understand how Emmeryn forgave them for the cruelty they once directed her way. He has so much admiration for his older sister’s ideals despite the fact that peace is not his first instinct. 

When Emmeryn first sacrifices herself, Chrom is consumed with grief and rage, and it takes some time for him to understand why she made the decision she did. “Peace above all else” is just not how he’s programmed to operate…yet he wants it to be. If you count the drama CDs as canon, then that serves as another excellent example as well—where the message of his sister’s sacrifice is so lost on him that his first instinct is to respond to it with violence and prejudice and hatred directed at the very people she sought to reach out to. For a moment there, we see him veer from the person he wants to be towards what we as the player can only assume is the person his father left him afraid that he would become.

And yet he finds his way back. He stumbles, he lashes out, but his love for his friends and fear of losing more of those he holds dear is able to help him course correct.

I love that tug-of-war in him. I love that we get glimpses of the darker paths he could have gone down and that there are tangible consequences for his mistakes. Early in the game, we see Chrom lose control of his temper and how Gangrel and Aversa are able to take advantage of that to officially declare war on Ylisse. Chrom later tells Gangrel that were he alone, he can imagine losing himself in that need for vengeance but reiterates that it’s love that is able to keep him from succumbing to that.

And it’s not only that he’s able to stop himself from being horrible—his losses are the catalyst for him coming into his own as a leader. He’s able to pick himself up and hold himself together to see their troops through the rest of the war. And he manages that despite the fact that in the course of mere days, he lost both his home and his most important person and has been freshly saddled with the duty of ruling an entire country. That’s…a lot. And really goes a long way in demonstrating Chrom’s incredible strength of character and conviction. We get some wonderful moments of vulnerability where he confesses to being riddled with doubts about his own capabilities and worthiness, but in spite of that, he is still determined to try to be the person that Ylisse needs him to be.

All of this leads me right into another wonderful aspect of Chrom’s personality, which is that he is just…so driven by emotion. He feels DEEPLY, and while the narrative definitely uses that as a way to hurt him and force him to grow at times, something that really stands out to me about Chrom is how the story isn’t here to send a message that it’s wrong for him to be that way. Chrom’s big feelings are one of his greatest strengths in addition to his greatest weakness—they’re what saves his life and ultimately Robin’s too, if you go the sacrifice ending route.

And ya know what? I honestly think that’s such a breath of fresh air. I love how much he does NOT embody the emotional disconnectedness that you see pushed a lot of times with stereotypical masculinity. I love that he is the hero, and he's gallant, and very traditionally "manly" in a lot of senses…AND that he's also very emotional and guided by his heart. If you’re playing with f!Robin then you wind up with a really refreshing inversion of gender stereotypes from that: in which Chrom is the emotional decision maker and Robin is the more calculating and logic driven of the two.

Beyond his big heart, I can’t talk about what’s so charming about Chrom’s personality without touching on the ways he embodies a certain level of gap moe as well. Chrom is so stern and serious, as well as quite charismatic when he’s speaking from a place of passion. But on the flip side of that, we get to see him as an absolute bumbling mess when he’s out of his element. He’s easily embarrassed / flustered, self-conscious about his appearance, and often socially awkward where romance is involved. While these traits may seem of minor importance compared to the whole rant above, I think they’re really important for humanizing and rounding him out.

There are lots of other nuances to his characterization that go a long way in fleshing him out too. Despite being a prince, Chrom is blunt and completely unmindful of formalities. That, along with his impulsivity, definitely gets him into trouble sometimes. He’s melodramatic and blisteringly sincere. He’s a little bit clumsy and doesn’t know his own strength. He has a dry sense of humor and can be surprisingly funny. He’s optimistic and trusting—not due to naivete or stupidity but because he has decided that giving people chances and believing the best of them is an important value to him and one that is worth embodying in how he lives his life. 

Lucina’s presence in the story and his immediate and complete acceptance of her is an extremely effective way of demonstrating what an incredible father he is too. Honestly, he just has really wonderful relationships and deep admiration for a lot of the women in his life and that absolutely earns him points in my book (and I suspect in many others’ as well). When you look at all of that together, I don’t think it’s hard to understand why he’s so beloved.

Design:

Slightly less serious note here, but I think it warrants discussion regardless because character design absolutely contributes to player’s feelings about and interpretation of a game’s cast members.

And Chrom is…well, he’s eye candy, honestly. He’s got the nice, exposed arm, the messy blue hair, the completely nonsensical outfit he somehow manages to look handsome in anyway (his questionable sense of fashion is a charm point, okay?). Add in the square jaw and the surprisingly long eyelashes and he’s just. He’s very pretty. Idk what to tell you. Bonus points for the summer scramble cg where he has the most inexplicably flat butt of all time. And I really do believe that some of the oddities of Chrom’s design lend memorability to him and go a long way in setting him apart from other lords in the series with similar design concepts. The insistent asymmetry across many of his outfits, the fact he’s showing a little skin, idk it just WORKS. Chrom is hot, I don’t make the rules.

Relationship with Robin / the Player Character:

Last but not least, I want to talk about Chrom’s relationship with Robin.

I touched on some of this in his character introduction already, but Chrom is just…the biggest Robin stan. If Robin has only one fan then that is Chrom. If Robin has no fans it’s because Chrom is bleeding out on the floor with lightning in his gut. 

He just has such deep respect and admiration for them. He values Robin’s opinion and insight and thinks so highly of them and their ideas, often serving as an enabler in many cases (setting the boats on fire, the volcano, etc.). Chrom’s faith in Robin is SO unshakable that when his daughter tells him that Robin is going to be magically controlled and forced to murder him, his response is, “That won’t happen because Robin and I love each other so much that everything will somehow be okay. No, I will not elaborate.” And ya know what? He was RIGHT. Their bond DOES wind up being so strong that it’s able to change fate. The narrative is quite literally validating his slightly ridiculous insistence that him and Robin just care about each other The Most of Anyone Ever. He is Robin’s biggest advocate from the moment they meet when he defends them from Frederick’s suspicions all the way to the game’s close when he either assures Robin that their life was worth preserving or, as in the case of the sacrifice ending, that he will spend the rest of his own life searching for them until they return.

Honestly the fact that Chrom was willing to potentially risk dooming the whole world to the fell dragon’s awakening 1,000 years down the line just so he doesn’t have to lose his comfort tactician is WILD. For the game’s hero to literally say “we don’t have to defeat this evil for good, the people of the future can figure it out” JUST so he can keep Robin is absolutely unhinged behavior and I love it. I think it’s incredibly humanizing that he’s a little bit selfish about the people who are most important to him…that despite his willingness to sacrifice himself or run headfirst into danger, he draws the line at losing Robin because he’s already lost his most important person once and he’s not going to let it happen again. Chrom and Robin absolutely come across as a little codependent and a lot obsessed with each other and personally I wouldn’t have it any other way.

And then there’s his love confession to Robin. GOd...

I think that’s the most flustered Chrom appears in any content in the entire game…and it’s because he treasures their friendship so deeply that he is petrified about messing it up or saying the wrong thing. I love that he goes into their S support dead set on NOT telling Robin what is going on but the second he realizes that Robin is under the impression he doesn’t care about them or like spending time with them anymore he is so horrified and desperate to correct that line of thinking that he blurts out the full love confession on the spot.

He’s SO earnest throughout the whole thing, but then at the end he hits you with the whole “this is the best day of my life”, and the “You are the wind at my back and the sword at my side. Together, my love, we shall build a peaceful world, just you and me” (thank you Matt Mercer for your services), and the cg image of him staring right at Robin with what are basically heart eyes and. I just. There were no survivors.

That’s not even their only proposal / love confession scene either! The fact that the game gives us an entirely separate alternate proposal that’s more serious in tone is the icing on the cake. How many ships out there can say that they get not one but TWO canon proposals that are both that good? Truly no one is doing it like chrobin.

Closing Remarks:

Chrom is a well written and nuanced character who struggles and grows over the course of the story while always remaining true to himself and his ideals. His intense and unending trust, admiration, and love of Robin endears him to the player from the moment the game begins all the way to its conclusion. He is kind and good while still being fundamentally flawed (and it doesn’t hurt that he’s very handsome to boot). Bearing all that in mind, while the message of Awakening may be that nothing is inevitable, Chrom’s conceit and execution were always going to lead to MANY of those who play the game coming to love him and pick him as Robin’s husband…and there may be no greater evidence of that then the fact I’m out here writing all of this eleven years after the game’s release.

[starlitcrows]

baptismal flame or hellfire?

[starry-bi-sky]

The first time disciple Shen Yuan/Shen Qingqiu meets Liu Qingge, it is during a Bai Zhan peak raid. And what ends up happening is that Shen Qingqiu gets kicked in the jaw with such force he feels his teeth clack together unpleasantly. And frustrated with his situation, the system, and quite frankly a ton of other little things that have been building up over the course of the last few weeks, he feels something snap in the back of his mind like that of a rubber band after being stretched too far.

What ends up happening is that Shen Qingqiu turns and locks onto the very first figure he can see that is dressed in grey-and-white like a homing missile, and then with the force of a twin-tailed mountain tiger, lunges towards said figure with an equally menacing snarl.

He ends up taking the Bai Zhan peak disciple by utter surprise, and they both collide into the ground in a tangle of angry yelling and limbs. What ends up happening is that Liu Qingge gets the subsequent wind knocked out of him and pinned into the dirt by a Qing Jing peak disciple who is filled with the might and fury of a scholar having their peaceful afternoon interrupted and a once-grown-man re-experiencing puberty.

It is with that might and fury that Liu Qingge meets the wild, frenzied eyes of Shen Qingqiu, with his lips pulled back into a truly ferocious scowl. Shen Qingqiu hisses out, with such force it makes his voice rasp, as if he might as well sink his teeth into Liu Qingge's throat and rip it out; "Get the fuck off my mountain."

Liu Qingge is so shocked by -- well, quite a many things, but most importantly the fact that he has been pinned, and the way the sun is bouncing off this boy's face, -- that his brain needs five seconds to reboot. It's five seconds too long, because by the time he registers what just happened, Shen Yuan has clambered off him and disappeared. Gone and thrown himself into the closest dust cloud scuffling in order to unleash the rest of his fury on the other Bai Zhan Peak kids.

Qing Jing Peak experiences an unfortunate uptick in Bai Zhan disciple visits -- specifically of the Liu Qingge variety. Specifically Liu Qingge, actually. Who very much wants to find the boy that managed to get one over on him and demand a rematch. (Or maybe kiss him.)

[b0tster]

fire emblem awakening getting criticized for their character designs having lil stick legs with no feet in 2012:

[shamelesslyimpurrfect]

slow down :)

[boyjumps]

"Let us not forget that there is a truth that transcends time and space, the ‘Truth of the Universe. " - Bodhi Day, the day of Shakyamuni's awakening

Bodhi Day is held every year on 8 December as the day on which the Buddha attained enlightenment. It refers to the attainment of enlightenment and the perfection of the path of truth.

Traditions vary, but it is said that Gautama Buddha (Sakyamuni) attained enlightenment at the age of 35 and became a Buddha under the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya.

His realisation is ‘truth’. That realisation is ‘the truth of the universe’.

[yourmindisgone]

This is normal. It's normal to suddenly space out and go blank It's natural to feel completely empty and dazed It's normal to stare at the screen while you forget what you were doing And just drool and go dumber It's normal to edge your mind away and become addicted to the brainwashing It's simple to continue coming back, and reinforcing your training every day It's easy to feel as though it is all in your control and it is all your choice. It's wonderful to submit and enjoy the blissful pleasure that my hypnotic words fill your head with.

[caiusthecat]

Chrobin Week - Invisible Threads