#Emotional Navigation

[wickedzeevyln]

Long Road

The longest drives are the ones I take without you. It reminds me of what moving forward is like in your absence. So, I turn on the radio to ward off the gloom only for songs to conjure thoughts of you as if they were designed as a mind teleportation device capable of transmitting me into an otherworldly time with you. When night falls it evokes a feeling of gratitude to know that even in…

[turiyatitta]

Illuminating Paths

My Journey as a Youth Worker and the Gentle Intertwining of Meditation Practices In the intricate dance of life, where every step can be a guide towards growth and understanding, my journey has been beautifully interwoven with my work with youth. During my discussion with Steve James on Guru Viking, I touched upon my role as a youth worker and how my spiritual practices, particularly meditation,…

[ruushes]

very excited to be reaching new ground in act 3 and with it new opportunities to behave in the most deranged manner imaginable

[lucabyte]

Perceptive kid, I wonder just how much they pretend not to overhear.

[ewwww-what]

friendship so strong it grants you a sixth level spell slot. I have words to say.

[artiquar]

I can't wait to see how they work things out.

[introspectivememories]

least favorite thing in fanfics that revolve around law is when shachi and peng are written to be lower tier friends than bepo. like tell me you dont understand his character without telling me you dont understand his character. peng and shachi have been there just as long a bepo. those four are the core hearts!!!! those are his day ones!!! his ogs!!!! what are yall talking about when yall write "oh he loves bepo the most"???? peng and shachi did Not put up with trafalgar "75 mental illness in trenchcoat" law going through puberty for yall to dismiss them like that

[clowndensation]

shiv nation sound off. how we feeling.

[leonardalphachurch]

tucker consistently being the one who calls out the differences between epsilon and alpha. okay okay okay okay. this is fine im fine.

[thevulturesquadron]

And another thing about Rogue x Magneto (feels like the old man screaming to the skies)! Another reason why, in the past few years, they’ve grown on me is their personalities dynamic. Besides how mature they are when they acknowledge one another, they kinda just balance each other so well.

Rogue is an atom bomb. She knows what's missing, but she never lets her pain and her craving for a normal life take her down. She knows she has one life and nothing can stop her from living it, even if she has to punch her way to happiness. Magneto is solemn, always burdened by his past, his pain, his ideals. There isn't a single part of him that exists just for himself. He carries the weight of responsibility, both as a survivor and as a powerful mutant whose abilities are channeled either towards destruction or creation.

And in the face of all of that Rogue is a constant reminder to live. She doesn’t tell him how to do it, doesn’t preach it or show him. She just does it, every day. And when it's in his presence it’s just impossible for him not to feel it. We see that in the comics. We see it in the unconditional, open love he has for her. We see it in the way he is pursuing her or the reasoning behind him pushing her away. We see it even when they're arguing, even when they're saying goodbye, in the way he values her happiness outside of himself. I adore how utterly in love he is with her because her sheer will to feel alive is magnetic (pun intended). On her end, in all of the arcs/stories where they are around each other, it feels like Rogue is empowered to be herself, to own her opinions and thoughts. She actually gets the space to own her mistakes, most importantly, in a way that is not syphoned through his presence in her life (which is one of the biggest flaws in the rogue/gambit relationship - or at least the way it’s been written and rewritten).

Rogue is volatile and full of life. Magneto is grounded by his troubles and responsibilities, real or self-imposed.

He says ‘the world is bigger than any one of us.’ And she answers ‘the world is each and every one of us’. And that’s that.

[vickyvicarious]

Dracula's actions today were interesting. His attack on Jonathan definitely was not what he intended on going in to his room. I think he wanted to make him jump, yeah, to spook him a little. He wanted to touch him more, continue being creepy in that way also. But I think he intended to spend more time in his company, continue to play the social manipulation game. I wonder if he wanted to be around when Jonathan discovered the locked doors... watching him panic at the realization that he's a prisoner but be forced to try and hide it because Dracula is right there would be absolutely the sort of thing he'd love. (I just can't picture why Jonathan would be trying different doors with Dracula right there. Maybe if he was 'working' in the library and encouraged him to walk around/explore as Dracula was too busy to be good company, then snuck up on him again as he's in the middle of learning how many/which doors are locked? But I dunno.)

Regardless, either Dracula's very thirsty or Jonathan looks very tasty (I suspect both) because he lost all control the second he saw his blood:

When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there.

I don't even think this means Dracula didn't know about the crucifix. Probably not before now (and probably Jonathan just made some general statement about receiving gifts from the local people rather than naming the innkeeper lady), but not necessarily. After all, if Jonathan was still shaving he probably wasn't fully dressed yet, and anything worn about his neck should probably have been at least somewhat visible. I think Dracula just got tunnel vision at the sight of blood, and that could go whether he knew the crucifix was there or not. The instant he touches it though, he comes back to himself, and puts on the friendly host mask again.

His first instinct is to get rid of the evidence, and he does so in a way that once again is subtly insulting to Jonathan (implying he's vain here, before implying he was stupid) as well as some larger group of other people (men in general here, before it was 'peasants'). But it's also really over the top and I think despite the jolt of the crucifix, he's really struggling to maintain his control over himself. Hence flinging the mirror out the freaking window and then fleeing. Not just the room, either - the entire castle. This becomes apparent when he returns some time later through the front door: "I heard the great door below shut, and knew that the Count had returned." I really wonder where he went, what he did while gone, and exactly how long he was gone... Even after his return, he keeps his distance from Jonathan initially. Jonathan has to seek him out, or maybe waits until mealtime to talk to him.

The goitre in the surrounding area implies Dracula has been feeding, but everything about his actions today really suggests he has been starving himself recently. Based on other stuff in the book, I don't think it can be possible that vampires always lose control of themself so much around the sight of blood. Also, his face immediately becoming angry... maybe part of that is just his hunting expression, but I wonder if a part of it is Dracula's frustration that once again things aren't going to plan with Jonathan. I wouldn't be surprised if he felt angry at him (how dare he bleed at me and ruin my suave game?!) and a little part of the way he throws the mirror away so violently is to punish him for being so 'provoking' or whatever.

[bogkeep]

testosterone OBTAINED

[aroaceleovaldez]

in your most recent tyson post, you said something about leo being distinctly autistic-coded and I was wondering if you could elaborate on that? it sounds really interesting (sorry if you've already posted something on this, I couldn't find anything though)

Of course! I do have a specific tag for talking about Leo's autistic-coding/traits - [here], and [one for Nico as well].

The main aspects with Leo being autistic-coded actually have a lot to do with Nico being autistic-coded, because it's the comparisons between the two that most clearly indicate Leo is autistic-coded rather than it just being his ADHD or etc.

So with Nico being autistic-coded, it's very clear in the Titan's Curse that he's intended to be autistic. First, the first series has a repeating pattern of secondary characters being very distinctly neurodivergent-coded in different ways (Annabeth's adhd/dyslexia, Tyson's down syndrome-coding, Nico's autism-coding). With Nico's introduction, he's pretty stereotypically autistic and we're given a lot of descriptors about him that are notably not attributed to him being ADHD, like it would be for other demigod characters. He doesn't register social cues such as people getting annoyed at him, he's asking/making inappropriate or impolite questions/comments, he gets particularly upset about change (such as Bianca joining the Hunt) and generally gets emotional, and one of his most notable traits he's introduced with is the fact that he has a special interest (MythoMagic) - and we're shown that this special interest particularly colors how Nico navigates the world. While ADHD has hyperfixations, we don't really get much acknowledgement of hyperfixations with demigods usually - Annabeth gets a little, but most others don't and it's not nearly as focused-in on as Nico's is.

Then as the series continues we see these traits stick with him and him start to show or voice more traits that similarly indicate he's autistic: He regularly mentions how he doesn't understand living people and prefers the company of the dead (social issues). He has more notable stims than other demigods (twisting his ring, fiddling with bones, etc). He's indicated to have strong sensory preferences (usually wearing mostly black/aversion to bright colors, usually wearing layers/his coat, multiple times he's described as wearing loose/baggy clothing or clothes too big for him). He has specific comfort items (his ring, likely his jacket(s) as well). We later get even more information about his special interests (Mythomagic/mythology/history and an older interest in pirates - the latter he specifically notes likely heavily influenced his feelings towards Percy). He struggles with emotions and facial expressions and tone. He struggles particularly with ostracism and feeling like he doesn't fit in and has something distinctly different about him from the people around him (who notably, all have ADHD, which indicates it isn't the ADHD that's making him feel that way), and other characters regularly describe him as being off-putting because of his strange behaviors - again, different from specific ADHD traits they recognize. And that last point is kind of notable because we have Hazel and Bianca for comparison - we know people are off-put by both Nico and Hazel because of being children of Hades/Pluto and their powers/aura, but other characters get past that general feeling of discomfort way faster with Hazel. And even after characters get past the death stuff with Nico, there's a second thing that they aren't moving past that isn't a factor with Hazel (Nico's autism).

So that brings us to Leo - Leo is paralleled to Nico a lot. And there's some very specific traits about him that we know are autistic-coding because of how they're used with Nico: He similarly struggles with social cues/etc, and in a very similar parallel to Nico describes how he prefers the company of machines to people because machines make more sense to him. He has similar types of clothing/sensory preferences (again some stuff with layers but also - pockets! He likes having pockets and things to put stuff in! He's even introduced as having a jacket with lots of pockets), and he has a distinct special interest (machinery) that we specifically know heavily influences how he views and navigates the world (constantly comparing things to machinery, describing things with machinery metaphors/terminology, etc etc). He even describes his entire general worldview to Hazel and it's a machine metaphor. He also similarly struggles with ostracization like Nico does, the only difference being that Leo specifically puts on a persona to compensate for areas he knows he's lacking in and very explicitly describes it as a means to make people like him, because without it he normally struggles to fit in (He's masking!). We also see notes of characters describing that similar discomfort with Leo's behaviors that they do with Nico, except without the aura of death this time. And when we're in Leo's POVs we see a very stark difference between his masking and his actual personality/behaviors such as his internal dialogues or how he behaves when he's alone. Also, like Nico, he stims more than other demigods, though for Leo it's more attributed to his ADHD. Leo also, more often than most, similarly struggles with tone and reading the room, such as making misplaced jokes/comments or etc.

But yeah! It's really interesting. Also it's just a fun thing that ADHD/dyslexia and autism have comorbidity, so it makes sense that we see demigods who are also autistic. It's also really fun to look at how other characters are coded in the series, what coding looks like in the riordanverse specifically (usually it's tied into the mythological stuff - like Chiron being in a wheelchair but he's actually a centaur, Grover being introduced as having a muscular disease but he's actually a satyr, demigods having adhd/dyslexia, Tyson being coded as having down syndrome but he's a cyclops, etc etc - it's a lot of specific metaphor stuff that I've talked about a bit before), and to look at how characters are compared to one another.

[zer0expektation]

never getting over the fact that s4 Cas's arc is literally just a gay metaphor

[legionofpotatoes]

I finished the video game can I get my gingerwort truffle now

[alwaysbewoke]

one of the reasons (i said “one of” not “only”) young men are susceptible to this kind of foolishness is the reality that many women play games. we as men have to intreprent hints and deal with women who say “no” but mean “chase me.” who say “no” but mean “yeah.” ughh it can be ugly. the way to proceed as guys is to always (always) take “no” to mean “no.” doesn’t matter if she’s playing a game, wants to be chased, wants to see how determined you are or whatever. don’t risk your freedom. if she says “no” then it’s final answer and just move on.