#Empathy Through Reading
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omegaphilosophia · 3 months ago
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The Philosophy of Reading
Reading is more than just decoding symbols on a page; it is an immersive, transformative experience that shapes our understanding of the world and ourselves. The philosophy of reading delves into the multifaceted nature of this activity, exploring its cognitive, emotional, and ethical dimensions. Here’s an exploration of key aspects of the philosophy of reading:
1. Cognitive Engagement
Reading engages the mind in complex ways, involving both comprehension and critical thinking. The act of reading stimulates mental faculties, enhancing vocabulary, analytical skills, and the ability to synthesize information. Philosophers of reading study how texts influence our cognitive processes and contribute to our intellectual growth.
2. Empathy and Emotional Connection
Reading, especially narrative fiction, fosters empathy by allowing readers to experience the lives and emotions of characters. This emotional engagement can lead to a deeper understanding of others’ experiences and perspectives. The philosophy of reading examines how literature can cultivate emotional intelligence and moral sensitivity.
3. Interpretation and Meaning
One of the central concerns in the philosophy of reading is the interpretation of texts. This includes the debate between authorial intent and reader response, as well as the role of context in shaping meaning. Hermeneutics, the theory and methodology of interpretation, plays a crucial role in understanding how readers derive meaning from texts.
4. Ethical Implications
Reading is not a morally neutral activity. The content we choose to read and the way we engage with it can have ethical implications. Philosophers of reading explore how texts can challenge or reinforce ethical norms and how readers have a responsibility to approach texts critically and thoughtfully.
5. Transformative Power
Reading has the power to transform individuals and societies. It can inspire change, challenge the status quo, and promote social justice. The philosophy of reading investigates how texts influence our beliefs, values, and actions, and how they can be used as tools for personal and collective transformation.
6. Aesthetic Appreciation
The aesthetic dimension of reading involves the appreciation of literary beauty, style, and artistry. This aspect of reading goes beyond the utilitarian function of texts, focusing on the enjoyment and enrichment that come from engaging with well-crafted literature. Philosophers of reading study how aesthetic appreciation contributes to the overall reading experience.
7. The Role of Silence and Solitude
Reading often requires solitude and silence, creating a space for introspection and contemplation. The philosophy of reading considers the importance of these quiet moments in fostering deep, reflective engagement with texts. This solitude can be a counterbalance to the noise and distractions of modern life.
The philosophy of reading encompasses a rich tapestry of ideas that highlight the profound impact of reading on the human experience. From cognitive development and emotional engagement to ethical considerations and transformative potential, reading is a multifaceted activity that shapes who we are and how we understand the world. By exploring these dimensions, the philosophy of reading deepens our appreciation of this timeless and essential practice.
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garvalhaminho · 2 months ago
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why does every tsc male main character act like a divorced father of three w bills to pay at 17. who gave them the right.
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yudidoodles · 5 months ago
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One of the few parts of every adaptation that makes me cry is the Yi City/Coffin City arc- something about finding love when you don't deserve it, fighting with all you have for it, only to ultimately ruin it with your own hands,,, like MAN I know these guys could never have any sort of functional relationship as is but I wish they could! What very little we see of their dynamics are amazing 10/10 would cry at crushed old candy again
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share-the-damn-bed · 20 hours ago
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(potential) JANCY PARALLELS | guilt and grief
✨ requested by anonymous based on this tweet "I wonder what this will mean for Jonathan and Nancy as a couple, it has so much potential. Will Nancy understand where Jonathan's fears about leaving his family come from? Will Jonathan see Nancy blame herself and realize that he's not responsible for Will being kidnapped just like Nancy isn't to blame for what Vecna did to her family?"
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edwardshundredyearoldspunk · 6 months ago
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dot and bubble might just be my favorite episode this series. it's safe to say there have been NAUR bad episodes but the futility of dot and bubble, the slow realization that these young adults (who have been chosen as the final vestiges of this civilization) aren't just rich and beautiful, they're also ALL white. the subtle, unexplained hostility lindy pepper-bean has for the doctor. the way she listens to only ruby, addresses only ruby even when it's the doctor who is talking to her. and then. that ending. the doctor's disbelief. he can't believe these people aren't letting him save them just because he's black. and they could have gone the allegorical racism, the whole sci-fi alien bigotry. but I'm glad they didn't. the doctor has never encountered this problem before and what does he do? he screams. he cries. because if there's anything the doctor will always hate, it is the meaningless loss of life. and that's exactly what will happen to lindy and her friends. they will die. and as audience members there is some part of us that enjoys that, because we hate bigots and we love the doctor. but the doctor cares, so part of us cares, even when we don't want to. and that's the beauty of doctor who. I truly don't believe a piece of media has had more of a hand in making me as empathetic as I am and for that I love it. best episode so far this season for me. rtd at his absolute best!
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susandsnell · 4 months ago
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Good Luck, Babe! is in fact about Sue Snell
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isekyaaa · 17 days ago
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Another story idea. One of those basic ass stories where this child is abused by her family due to her sister (adopted) came and brainwashed the whole family into loving her and hating mc. In the end mc is framed for some crime and is ultimately executed. Only after mc dies does the family realize their fault when the whole world becomes destroyed. Following me? Basic ass brainwashing story. Anyway, here's the twist. Time gets reversed, and mc awakens to the point in time ten years before her death. But the twist? Mc isn't the main character. The story takes place from the viewpoint of one of the brainwashed siblings that slowly remembers their previous life.
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fromtheseventhhell · 1 year ago
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why does this fandom act like dany never suffered again after she gains her dragons? i saw an improperly tagged post on my for you page here and in the tags people are genuinely saying that after dany births her dragons, she never experiences sexual violence or oppression again unlike sansa who has to use her "ladies charms" to survive. i couldn't believe my eyes as i read tag after tag explaining why dany is a girlboss who never experiences anything bad after agot. what is wrong with tha fandom?
It's cause! A subsection of Stansas have adopted the show's (misogynistic) logic that suffering = deserves a good ending, so they want to play the suffering Olympics so Sansa ends up looking the most deserving of a happy ending. They're constantly downplaying other female characters and their trauma to fit their logic. Dany has dragons -> which offers her protection -> which means she hasn't suffered as much as Sansa. Arya has a sword -> which means she can fight back -> which means she hasn't suffered the same way Sansa has. Cersei has power -> which means she has control over her circumstances -> which means she hasn't been victimized the same way Sansa has. And so on and so forth. It's nothing but thinly veiled misogyny based on fundamentally misinterpreting the books cause the story being told doesn't make their favorite look special enough for them. Even a cursory glance at the books would prove these takes incorrect but something tells me they haven't taken the time to actually read them.
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lgbtlunaverse · 1 year ago
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I think i need to explain why this line makes me go so feral
I think the "fine! I'll kill myself after I kill you" line from nie mingjue in chapter 49 permanently altered my brain chemistry and it has something to do with precisely how i got into the mdzs fandom space in the first place.
I've mentioned it a few times but i started watching the untamed in late 2019 right as it was blowing up everywhere and, likely due to a combination of undiagnosed adhd wrecking my ability to be interested in anything for longer than 4 seconds and me very much not being used to the specific style of acting, especially during fightscenes, i never finished it. The only concrete memory i have of it is seeing wen qing's face and meng ziyi completely short circuiting my little gay brain. I remember more of staring endlessly at pictures of her than I remember of the plot. Press F to pay respects.
Flash forward a few years and a friend recommends me a fic writer for an fma fic (the fic riter in question is metisket) and i like their stlye so much i decide to read other stuf they've written. Here we get to our prime suspect: "the one body problem" a genuinely hilarious fic where jingyi gets posessed by wei wuxian like a year before the plot happens and they become awkward brain buddies. 10/10 i loved it (and still do) even though i remember huasiang showing up in my first reading and I, having fully forgotten his name, had no fucking clue what was going on. (Little did i know...)
Anyway flash forward ANOTHER year and I decide to reread that fic, and then the other untamed fic metisket wrote, a wen qing time travel fix it that's also real fun. And then i'm like. huh. that's fun. wonder if there's anything in their bookmarks.
And then, within 20 days, I had read approximately 350 fics. Many of them 100k+ words. I cannot stress enough how much this CONSUMED my brain's ability to do or think about anything else. I now think back to the early days of getting my adhd diagnosis and insisted that while i had pretty much all other symptoms, I did not get hyperfixations. Lol. Lmao, even.
I am mainly focused on wangxian and the junior quartet becuase they are my baby ducklings and i love them. I do come across some 3zun fics and I think huh... this is interesting. But the 3zun brainrot is LIGHT at this point.
The thing about reading more than 350 fanfics is that at some point you kind of piece the plot of the source material back together backwards. Especially because my favorite genre was time travel fix its, where characters relive the whole plot and like to make allusions to all the ways everything went wrong last time.
Because I'm still squarely in my wangxian + juniors (plus a heavy dosis of yunmeng sibling reconciliation) corner here... the feelings on jin guangyao in my fandom corner are. different from where I'd end up soon after. He is my special little guy though, so I do kind of immediatley develop a fondness for him, and I approach my 3zun and early nieyao thoughts specifcially from the assumption that the widespread opinion is that nie mingjue is a fine good guy and jgy is the evil one (I have not seen the bad nmj takes yet. well... I am seeing DIFFERENT bad nmj takes but they're nice to him. In, like, the wrong way. With no solid undertanding of the inherent tragedy at the heart of him that makes him so blorbo to me. But still.) major reactions to the stairs scene as I see them on twitter are "girlboss! He should've kicked him harder 💅"
And the baby jgy apologist in me goes :/ me no likey. And at this point I am also actively seeking out metas and analysis posts so i'm seeing some better opinions than that and getting a halfway solid graps on the themes. wwx and jgy being foils becomes very obvious to me very quickly. So, with my curent understanding of the plot, I go... you know all you people who are like "god i wish nmj would have killed jgy sooner" it uhh... kinda sounds like he'd have died if he did that. If he'd killed him before meng yao had gone off to spy there is a very big chance they'd have lost the sunshot campaign and most of the main cast would be dead. If he'd killed him at the stairs that's... well that's killing your sworn brother, which by the canon's own admission is a universally reviled crime, and jin guangshan could easily take advantage of this by demanding nmj's head in retribution, since he already wanted to get rid of him anyway. He doesn't give a fuck about a-yao of course but he could pretend well enough that he does. And what leg would nmj have to stand on? The jin clan is canonically both willing and able to slaughter entire clans for the murder or attempted murder of the leader or his family, and nie mingjue is the kinda guy who'd immediately offer himself up if it meant the rest of his clan would be spared.
This combined with jin guangyao specifcally dying for his murder of nie mingjue, with huaisang basically not caring much about everything else he does and wanting to get revenge only for his brother, it gives nieyao a sort of mutual doomed soulmates feel. For either of them, killing the other would spell death for themselves. They either both die or they both live, one cannot live on without the order. That's crunchy. I like it.
The fire palace though? well, on meng yao's part there is a real argument that if he'd let nmj get killed immediatly instead of dragging it out he wouldn't have been able to get wrh alone and distracted enough to assasinate him, so that's one half of the mutual doom coin, and if nmj had killed him during their fight there he's also done for. But after? Right before Xichen intervenes? I had no answer for that yet.
(You know what's coming. I did not)
It is at this point that i realize that if this is gonna keep being A Thing then i need to read the source material before I catch fatal fanon poisoning. Yes, I can piece together the plot and themes from seeing what stays consistent across fics and what are the author's own opinons. But I know just as well that sometimes fanon just agrees on shit that didn't happen and treats it like canon, and I have no way of knowing which is which. So I start reading the novel.
And of course, eventually I get to the empathy sequence. And remember, my "nieyao both live or both die" theory is heavy on my mind at this point, and the only stickler is that nmj could sort of have killed meng yao after the confrontation with wrh, still believing meng yao was actually working for him, and not a spy, and get off... not scott-free, Xichen won't be happy, but it's not gonna cost him his life.
And then I read THIS.
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Please Imagine dropping a whole block of pure elemental sodium into water. Except the sodium is this quote and the water is my poor little delicate brain. Not only is my theory right, it is ten times more unhinged than i thought it was.
And considering that Nie Mingjue does not seem like the kind of guy who'd consider something like a life debt to have an expiration date, and because after this he will link himself legally and socially to jin guangyao as family and declare that one among their brotherhood turning against the others is to be met with a painful death, I can no longer read the scene at the stairscase in jinlintai without the impression that he is still planning to die afterwards. Which, if you wanted to make that scene even more painful, this is a very efficient way of losing all your remaining hinges.
I think I'd have gone crazy about this line no matter what context I heard it in, but this one specifically? where I'm already obsessed with idea of nieyao's deaths being connected by the narrative and missing just this one piece and having it confirmed? out loud? from one of the characters himself? It's like giving cocaine to a baby.
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eclaire-went-bam · 1 month ago
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low/no empathy is Minorly Othering in terms of interests (in my experience) because almost everyone i know prefers fiction over nonfiction, because it's more interesting and easier to digest,
but prefer the opposite for the same reasons. nonfiction is MUCH easier for me to parse through. i stress myself out a lot whenever i try to imagine a characters thoughts and feelings, and i end up usually just misunderstanding entirely. oftentimes it's so frustrating i just put a book down and never try reading it again. i understand rhetorical devices, messages, themes, symbolism,,, i understand the book on a technical level when it comes to the artistry of how it's written. but i, for the life of me, in the moment, simply cannot fathom a character's thoughts and feelings
comics are only a little easier bcs they have added help of drawn depictions of thoughts and feeling, but even then it can still be hard. i just can't enjoy the same literature many ppl are into just cus i find textbooks n stuff more easy to read
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goldkirk · 9 months ago
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as I'm going back over my past history and items and journals and years, I come across all sorts of things, like the pencil I saved from that so-precious memory from second grade, and a pair of flip flops I've been missing for two years, and [checks notes] the modern-high-school-AU-kidnapped-by-a-serial-killer story I wrote in late high school jdfsjdfsjkjlksfd
#i can't wait to find out what red flags I didn't see in my own self back when I last read this thing in 2015 hfdhfdhjsfd#also. there's gonna be like a good sentence here and there and then CRINGE. the whole rest of everything is just me still trying to copy th#breathing pace (essentially) and ways-of-describing-things of mainstream authors like I thought I was supposed to#so this'll be somewhat painful but also god what a joy and a gift and an honor and a delight to get to hold this close to my heart#and witness it with understanding and empathy and slow reflection and care like my past younger self deserves#i'm so lucky i'm alive to be here and do this#i'm so grateful i'm headed towards welcoming back and embracing the last little girl i was that still felt a lot of things#so excited for her focus and precision and tenacity and constant curious joy and movement to be back someday#i'm afraid people won't like the me i was before rule after rule and then dangers#but my god it'll feel so good to be the fully-flowing energy machine and dance and conduit again how will I have enough bother to care?#people who are good to each others' nervous systems cumulatively feel better and better#if i'm not good for you and yours then you really truly SHOULD go elsewhere and find someone who makes YOUR self feel right and light + war#anyway now that i wrote an essay in the tags as usual [nervous laughter]#personal#add to journal#words n rhythm#WHY DID I FEEL CAPABLE OF UNDERTAKING A STORY LIKE THIS#cradling my past self gently but also BANGING my HEAD against the WALL lmao#i'm proud of myself for writing and sharing this and its creative ideas. even if i don't like it now or feel ashamed or see mistakes.#anything. it mattered that it came to me and it mattered that i explored it and it mattered that i poured myself through it to help shape i#and it mattered that I left it on the internet so that now it still exists. i'm going to honor this story no matter what current me would#objectively think about it if it was written by anyone else.#this is a gift i give myself now.#this is a lot of what I learn and learn to do#trauma evolution#mosswrites
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bancaishi · 7 months ago
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didn't want to put this rant in the tags of that last post but honestly i feel like a lot of people hate toshiro disproportionately compared to what he actually did in-story. and if we're being real it's most likely because of racism
#xyx.txt#because so much of his misunderstanding of laios comes from a cultural angle#and because his mannerisms are strongly coded as japanese especially relative to the other characters in the story#i think a lot of people's implicit biases have them reading this as an inherent and unchangeable aspect of his being#rather than being just one aspect of him that originates from a particular context and is fully changeable#like any other trait on anyone else.#part of this is just because of the fact that the story is told from laios and his party's perspective#but i think a lot of people's perspectives on him are probably informed by racism#not all east asians are quiet and polite. i know this myself as a kind of loud and awkward and easily excited east asian person myself#but generally cultural mannerisms from east asia tend to be more subdued overall than western ones#so it's. not uncommon. for western people to read east asians as being rude or cold or aloof just for behaving like this#the 'oriental inscrutability' moment...#like he doesn't need to 'get rid of the stick up his ass'. he just needs to not put such heavy expectations on other people#but yeah i think a lot of people are way more unsympathetic to him than they would have been if he were not so distinctly asian-coded#which is ironic! a lot of people being really mad at him for ableism specifically in the social expectations he holds of others#while applying the same kind of judgment to him but through the perspective of race instead of neurodivergence. suspicious.#blah blah blah it's because he's 'neurotypical' or whatever#predicting how some of you people would behave toward neurodivergent asian people and the outlook isn't good#also if we're on the subject of microaggressions.#laios repeatedly and insistently calling him 'shuro' to the point that everyone else calls him that too#that's not 'funny autism bad with names' moment that's a racist microaggression#someone misnaming me because of my distinctly ethnic/foreign-sounding name doesn't automatically become funny and relatable#just because you're neurodivergent lol#can we maybe have more empathy toward characters and people of color in fandom#instead of always using them as punching bag side character trope#thanks.
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gu6chan · 17 days ago
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tell us about barnabas 👀
YIPPPEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!
Okay so first right off the bat i owe you an apology, you were so kind to reach out and this ask is like a month old and i actually finished it 2 weeks ago but thought "Barnabas' birthday is on the 27th, isn't it?" so i actually scheduled it for there 😭 im so sorry if it felt like i forgot about you!!!! i never forget about my asks, i swear skgdhbjhfd especially not as kind as this!!! i just take an extremely long time answering them, i promise aaaaa....
OKAY, SO (I may want to warn ahead of time for warnings of murder, CSA and general violence/mistreatment of kids)
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There's a WHOLE bunch that i could go into in how his story DEVELOPS but i'll try my best just to give a basic rundown otherwise this could last forever!! There's going to be a few details left unsaid for the sake of brevity and simplicity since it's a lot but! I will do my best to explain this coherently 🫡 THANK YOUUUUU SO MUCH FOR ASKING ABOUT HIM IVE BEEN WORKING ON THE DOODLE HERE FOR THE PAST COUPLE DAYS SO I COULD DO THIS ASK JUSTICE LMAO
So!!! Generally speaking, Barnabas (His full name being Barnabas Johannes Mandalay) is a very important character in the little story I have!! It's divided up into four main parts which make up the primary story, with a couple side stories here and there :3<
Barnabas isn't really seen in most of the story till about the last moment, but he's certainly there!! He also gets to be a "protagonist" of his own story, Garden of Genesis, which is sort of like a de-facto "prequel" to the four main bits? That said, that will probably be the section of his story I cover here as it's.... literally HIS story lol Honestly, whether I'll ever do anything with this story at all or just keep it in my head I'm not even sure, so I'm thrilled whenever I get to yap about it!!!
But to explain who Barnabas actually is, he was born on October 27th, 1697, the son of the duke Johannes Mandalay and his wife, Rosemary, and the twin of a stillbirth, Edmund. Barnabas was deemed unlikely to survive due to an extremely weak heart that made even the act of walking difficult, and given the high infant mortality rate of the time, he was sadly cast aside with expectations he would die. His parents didn't want him dying miserably, so they placed him in the nursery they had prepared for them with plans to pick him up by next morning.
However, two servants, Empathy (11) and Henry (10), would eventually be led to the nursery holding the young baby Barnabas that night by a certain crow, which I'll talk about later. (Technically it was Empathy who was led to it and Henry who later stumbled across them both after hearing a ruckus and deciding to investigate, but...) The two decide to try their best and take care of Barnabas in secret, a task that they end up being pretty good at for two pre-teens! lmao
So time flies, and Barnabas is introduced back to his family! Of course, he's alive, but still very weak, not being able to leave past the premises of the manor and also needing to be pushed around in a wheelchair to get anywhere at all. His mother loves him and pays him attention enough, though,,, she's also kinda not getting her hopes up for him to STAY but his father is the exact opposite, even if he IS kinda skeptical that Barnabas is going to live, he still showers him with attention and praise and essentially spoils the poor boy rotten to the point everyone was kinda "???? what are you doing" 😭
Most IMPORTANTLY though, Barnabas' father was his main foray into religion, which Barnabas was absolutely TAKEN with. One of Barnabas' most cherished items is the small red bible his father left him, which he continued to carry around to the end of his life like a pacifier lmao
So skip ahead 2 years, his father DOES passes away in a freak accident and his mother is left to take the title due to Barnabas' VERY young age at that point, additionally not really able to find it in her to come back to her "Maternal" senses in her nihilism that came with the realisation of how fragile things really were. Barnabas is then raised by his servants (Now grown ofc), who he's come to regard as parents in their own right, though he sorely misses his mother, and considers his engagement to his cousin Maria a type of "gift" or sign from her. Barnabas falls into obsession with religion, setting on a dream to start a family on earth and become an angel when he dies so he can answer the prayers of people all over the world <3 he's a little baby lol
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Here's a little thing I doodled for this ask (The colouring is a bit off, my apologies!!), Henry and Empathy at 24 and 25, respectively. Barnabas would be around 12, where most his story takes place! And I feel so bad for doing it but seeing how much I've yapped just getting his character established i might have to REALLY summarize... (This kid is REALLY important so there are just so many threads and characters to introduce to make the story make sense and aaaaaaa!!!) So in the most basic terms, his story goes like this: Barnabas, entirely dependent on religion as means to fill up his lack of any real parental figure in his life (Henry and Empathy are LESS than suitable parents and I dunno if I'll get to that in this post, but hopefully!!), is caught in the middle of a series of sadistic murders of servants in his own estate while trying - and failing - to move on by relying on unfortunately cold and/or misled people, such as his fiancée, "friends", and caretakers. this is really long so lemme just....
So the first character who he really meets on his story is Edwin: fast forward to when Barnabas is 12, while visiting the forest on his birthday he comes across a trapped crow. He frees the crow, only to find a boy greeting him later that night who came to thank him. Barnabas is very enamoured with this boy (unknowingly), initially only psychically at first, but coming to grow a,,,, romantic? emotional??? attraction later on (I'll opt for the best description being unhealthy emotional dependence, i think lol)? Edwin has a VERY important role with Barnabas but also another character! Mentioned rn Maria: Barnabas' cousin/fiancée, NOT a friendly person!!!! NOT a friendly person, she's the main,,, antagonist? of the work? So long story short she had a more or less normal upbringing for the times, though just had completely detached herself from typical human morality as a result. She ends up making a sort of faustian pact with Edwin after stumbling across him (All according to keikaku on his end) and in line with seeing humans more as objects and ofc as previously mentioned, having detached herself from any emotional permanence, expresses interest in watching them die and seeing the fallout from it. She has Edwin do the dirty work to avoid getting any suspicion or dirt on her hands, and initially plans to kill Barnabas as a "final end" before allowing Edwin to take her soul, though through the story ends up... Not falling in love, persay, but growing a sort of emotional permanence to him that results her forcing him into a suicide pact of sorts towards the end of the story. She only ever kills 2 people.... technically?
Finally there's Samuel, who I forget exists half the time and is the NEWEST addition to the story, as the initial draft I wrote back in like 2011/2012 was in DESPERATE need for a B Plot i kid you not the original story was so fucking bad.... 😭 So I still don't have him PERFECTLY established and honestly he's a bit of a woob so I PERSONALLY don't care about him as much, but long story short he's hired as a servant in the MIDST of the murders (to everyone's surprise!!) after being plucked off the streets by Henry. He's slowly rotting away from like several STDs which,,, people aren't GREATLY aware of himself included (As was the bit of the times) but is kinda no one's favourite kid, there's rumours flying around that he's whoring himself out for his position and Empathy doesn't care for him because of how just his existence "threatens" the image of a family she had made for herself (More on that in a bit!!). And its like the kid didn't even do anything tf......... However, Barnabas, free from all the anti-Samuel slander and the such, sees this weird sickly kid staggering around and takes to him very quickly!!! This kind of sparks a certain infatuation on Samuel's end, who begins to fall in love with Barnabas off the simple fact he was one of the first people to him with human eyes. Samuel takes it upon himself to "Protect" Barnabas' purity, which comes to a point when he starts growing suspicious of Maria's role in all the murders. Unfortunately the feeling of "I need to get RID of this tramp" is returned as she figures Samuel is a prime target to frame for the murders should things ever go south. She crafts this brilliant scheme after Henry's sudden death, one death she did not have calculated, and linking it back to Samuel herself. Unfortunately, this ends in complete failure on both ends after Samuel attempts doing away with her in a blind fit of rage after Barnabas grows deathly ill and he overhears Maria confess to Barnabas her role behind the murders and form their aforementioned suicide pact. Maria manages to wrestle the knife out of his hands and stabs him multiple times, leaving him to bleed out before she seeks to inform Empathy of his suicide. Interestingly enough, Empathy does dare to state her suspicion on it, however! Maria, more than aware of Empathy's feelings towards Samuel, is just like "Well it doesn't matter bc its easier for you now isnt it lol" and so the whole thing gets passed off as a suicide. Barnabas does NOT take the news well, however, and even despite Edwin's VERY panicked efforts to keep him alive, he ends up passing away from his sudden onset "illness" later on (Illness was really a pretense, what actually happened was Empathy deciding to let him by smothering him in his sleep because at that point, his declining psychical and mental state as a result of Samuel's death was enough to "ruin" her familial perception of her, Barnabas, and Henry to the point she couldn't bear it. She justifies it to herself by simply claiming it to be a necessary mercy kill, unable to fully face up to what she did or the thought it was based in.)
The general truth behind Empathy and Henry is that Empathy was raised by the church, and through the circumstances of her birth that led her to being raised by the church, she was forbidden from having a family or any children of her own. This led to her drive to become a nanny to begin with, eventually meeting Henry through their stumbling across Barnabas together and over time, either as a result of developing a sort of crush on him or developing a crush on him because of the "Father" mold she began to ascribe to him, crafting a sort of "mold" for her hypothetical perfect family and reacting,,, poorly? to anything that didn't fit within it. She ignored how Henry grew up to become a predator and his rampant sexual abuse of several younger members of the staff, and outright despised Samuel while not outright showing it despite her "Motherly" role to the rest of the Mandalay household. This is entirely because Samuel wasn't as quiet and couldn't "Hide" the effects of his abuse as clearly as the others, thus "interfering" in the perfect family image she had constructed for Henry, Barnabas and herself.
Of course, there's a few smaller bits I left out for the sake of brevity (as you can see i am a master of it) and the fact SOME bits of the story might be better fitted for another post (There's one important bit about Barnabas and Edwin's relationship because funny enough, it fits the story of two other characters better, being Zinnia and Alaundra!) , but!!! this is in reality like 0.001% of barnabas' story, after his death he ends up having his wish granted, somewhat, and becomes not just an angel, but a part of God himself. Barnabas' ensuing regret over this and the true purpose of his existence and becoming one with God is where things really kick off. Still though, despite starting off as one of my crappiest, In the Garden of Genesis and its characters have been developed into a story that has a really special place to me, I think! I don't talk about my OC's often since,,, I don't know how to explain it, for as often as I DO think about them, it never crosses my mind to talk about them? That said! Characters like Maria I roll around in my head constantly, and Edwin and Barnabas are just too cute lol <3 I really do apologise for how long it took me to get this out, but this being the first ask about any of my OC's, I REALLY wanted to do this justice!! It's a bit messy and I hope it's not too painful or awful to read, but this ask made my whole day when I got it.... and all the months it took me to answer it since then QwQ Thank you so much!!!!!!!
P.S: Because I couldn't find a place to put it, Edwin's name is actually Edward! "Edwin" is just a nickname Barnabas gave him after learning his name from Maria and it stuck (Much to his distaste).
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fatherramiro · 10 months ago
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ive got so many thoughts about origin character playthroughs in bg3 as i go into act 3 of my wyll origin run, and while a majority of them are "wyll and lae'zel co protagonists of the game by a large margin" there's also some moments where im like "ooh id have done that differently if i were writing the game"
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hermitw · 2 months ago
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There is nothing gege can do that will not get hate posts written about it,
And I'm so sick of them taking up my fyp when I never interact except to hide those posts?
Is there a way to manipulate the tumblr fyp
Ik that following or liking a single blog/post of a certain ship or fandom can make my fyp like 90% that thing
So it's easy to add things but hard to remove them?
Is there a cheat code please
Also I keep telling tumblr that I'm not interested in the same post. 2 hours, days, weeks or months later, it just. Vomits the same posts back up into my fyp. If I wanted it to have another chance I would have just scrolled past!!
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opens-up-4-nobody · 11 months ago
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#i was looking through old photos today. they where from wjen i was like 1 and it made me so sad#bc my mum would have been like only a year or 2 older then i am now and she looked so young#and now she has an abdomen full of tumors and blistered hands and feet. theyre prob gonna hsve to remove her bladder#but shes still very pragmatic abt it. but she grew up in a house where no one really cared about her feelings so she made them small#and now her mother calls and doesn't ask how her grandkids are doing and doesn't ask how her daughter is doing. im cursed with terrible#grandparents on both sides but i resent my mothers mother worse. though my dad said i probably wouldnt have survived his upbringing#and hes right. my nana has like zero empathy and cant cook for shit. idk how my parents r so normal but the fact i had a good upbringing is#probably the only reason im still here. and thats the other thing that made me sad abt the old pics. just looking at this little baby with a#fucked up head and thinking: in 25 years that kid is gonna b so broken down their not gonns kno what to do or how to fix it. idk whats wrong#with me. ive always been some stage of miserable but i used to b able to get things done. and now i cant seem to force functionality#and it sucks. bc im home now and i still feel like im cringing around this open wound in my chest. but whatever#as of today ive started taking ab1lify. hopefully it helps in the long term but in the short term it triggers my 0cd. which is not fun#its so frustrating. whatever. i also found out my eyes used to not work together. not enough to have a lazy eye but it was hard for me to#read and apparently my eyes were tracking at like double the speed of a normal person. wtf is wrong with my brain? also also my mum was like#yea i never would have guessed bip0lar but we thought it was something. autism i could see 100% but yea didnt see that coming. ao i guess#i brehave like a bit of an oddball. ans my nana would bother my dad to try to make me participate in church and my dad was like no. she#clearly don't wanna b here lol. ay. they did the best they could which i appreciate#unrelated
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