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unit-zero-two · 5 months ago

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It's been a few months since I played through Traum. I meant to write a post about it as soon as I finished, but alas life got in the way. The short version is that I loved Traum and I'm going to talk about all the things I loved in it. It's not a perfect chapter. There's weaknesses to be found in some character stories and plot elements, but nothing that ruined the chapter for me. I think it'll be a much better look at the chapter through a positive lens than trying to ding it like I'm YouTube clickbait. There will be spoilers below the cut, but if you find yourself trudging through the chapter unexcited, I urge you to spoil yourself so that hopefully some excitement can be brought into your Traum experience.

Traum introduces an element that I've long been hoping for in the story and which I feel helps enhance our main cast. Kadoc. We've seen the moody boy before, but now he's out of his coma, resigned to working with Chaldea with a suicide Squad collar around his neck and completely unprepared for the wackiness that is Chaldea. Kadoc's inclusion helps highlight how much of a normal person the Protagonist is, even after everything we've gone through. We only survive because we hold on to our humanity. Kadoc is a man with a lot of humanity, but was raised in a society that told him to succeed he needed to kill that side of him. In a lot of ways he's a repeat of Goredolf while we were clearing Lostbelt 1. Mages who have kindness inside of them, but try to act like they don't. Kadoc knows what the proper way to do things is, but he's also not great at doing it. A lot of the fun of Traum is watching him stumble along and regain his humanity while hanging out with the protagonist. Kadoc and the Protag get to be each other's senpais, one in magecraft and the other in being a human. The protagonist has a much stronger voice and character in this chapter than in previous ones, and that is very much due to Kadoc as a foil and someone to bounce off of. Watching Kadoc grow from his loss in LB 1 and to regain hope in the world after dying, that's just so great.

Sherlock also comes with us, and this is the BEST he's ever been written. I've read every official Sherlock Holmes story, so you'd best believe I rolled for him as soon as possible in FGO. His writing has always been...rough... At times entertaining and compelling, at others frustrating. It's a hard balance to write Sherlock. He's the world's greatest detective, so he can't not figure out a situation or he's an idiot. But if he figures it out too soon, it gets frustrating as the writers have him act coy and not tell us important information, "just because". There was no point during Traum I felt this issue. Holmes was very forthcoming when he figured something out, and his mental battle with Moriarty created a good reason for why he was constantly feeling on the back foot and struggling to focus. His mental acuity and his humanity were on full display. Kadoc and Vlad were also huge helps in balancing out Holmes as they could bounce off of him with their specific specialties. The fact that Traum introduced a mystery with Sherlock that we never thought to question was such a good retcon and the reveal of his origin was heartbreaking. His final moments, his sprite beautifully drawn, his thoughts pensive as he remembered everyone who meant something to him. The satisfied smile he had on his lips as he went over that waterfall...the final bow of a character I'll miss greatly.

Moriarty as an antagonist allowed our protagonists, but especially Holmes and Kadoc, to shine. He thought he was ahead of everyone but constantly his manipulations failed He had no human connections, and could not comprehend others holding on to them. Constantly rejected, in the end he doesn't get what he wants, but he does find that he gets what he needs.

OH MY GOD I LOVE THE PALADINS SO MUCH. Like, holy crap (pun intended) are the Paladins all so good. It's self evident that Astolfo is the best Servant in Fate sorry Mordred, but that they go from goofy comedy to one of the most badass 1v1 fights between honorable warriors ever done in FGO is fantastic. Through their defeat of Tametomo, Astolfo elevates Tametomo as well, adding humanity to the man who claims he's a robot, but is actually just a proud warrior and a bit of a child. Astolfo's friendly banter in this helps to give nuance and introductions to all the other characters they interact with. Roland, Bradmante, and Charlie all feel like characters we've been with forever, and one of those characters is a Traum original. Roland's one gag is pretty funny, but he also manages to be a charismatic knight who has a pretty badass and sad sacrifice. That he and Astolfo just decide, "yeah, our king would approve of an imposter stealing his name" and help the charade tells us so much about Charlemagne before he even appears. An easy going king and knight, Charlemagne is just such a positive figure. He's smart enough to understand the dark sides of people, but he looks to the positive and the good. His is a radiance that is clearly visible even before he removes his cloak. His reveal isn't a powerful moment because it's a surprise, but because of what he's doing. Standing up for a knight who was willing to give his life in battle to live up to the name he stole and protect the one he loves...

...Which brings us to Don Quixote and Sancho. Holy shit these two had me in tears. Traum is a sequel to Atlantis is so many ways. Spiritually, Atlantis and Traum are about heroes making sacrifices and moving forward inch by inch to fight for and protect what you love. In Atlantis we heard of some Servants who fled from the might of the Gods. In Traum we meet one of these Servants, the combined Don Quixote and Sancho. A knight more famous than possibly any other in modern history. The lengths Sancho is willing to go to save her lord are awe inspiring, even as we know that he himself does not wish for any of this. But until that moment where he's facing down Constantine, hopelessly overpowered, Don Quixote just constantly gave in. But as he goes knight versus knight against an Emperor, as Sancho begs him to stop and his light is fading, through his actions he inspires Charlemagne to act. He moves a legend, and proves why he was the one who was worthy of running the realm in the King's name.

Constantine was introduced as our bespectacled ally previously, but now we get him in his full regal glory as one of the primary antagonists. He plays into several of the main themes of Traum, primarily: Existence in History and Love as Motivation. He existed, but he rebels because he finds it unfair that Pope Johanna does not. He fights for a sudden love, and in that regard he is placed in opposition of both Sancho who is willing to do anything for her Lord, and Kriemhild who wishes for nothing more than to make the pain of her love go away. He is not just defeated by a conceptual weakness, but by the love in his heart that meant there was no other path for him in that moment besides sacrifice for Johanna.

Pope Johanna, a woman who hates humanity for creating and then rejecting her existence. Traum plays around with what it means to be a Heroic Spirit and what it means to exist. Everyone in the Singularity is full of contradictions. The composed, compassionate Pope who leads the nation vs the angry woman who storms into a capital and challenges it's leaders to a fist fight. Johanna is both of those things. She's the woman famous for lovers who may not have existed, but when faced with Constantine's love, she only realizes what was there when it's gone. And with it she realizes her own mutual feelings that had grounded her the entire time. It's a tragedy and that she lasts until the end to bring her thoughts and feelings to fruition is a triumph.

Bradmante was fantastic as Johanna's gal pal. In opposition to the other knights and her king, we get to see how the Paladins operate by following their hearts. It does not matter if she's fighting her lord or friends, they understand and support her. And she brings that support back to Johanna. She may be our enemy, but she's never felt more like an honorable knight.

Salome...brought me to tears...Her story is short, a footnote early in Traum. Someone for who love in dangerous. She loves those who are exceptional, and in that love takes their lives. But the protagonist isn't exceptional. We're just a normal human in a land now only occupied by the exceptional. In a world of the exceptional, the mundane shines. And it is due to that normality that Salome is able to hold that love to completion for the first time, to not consume or be consumed by it's fires. We are not Jokanaan, we are not a saint, we are just a person who is kind. A person who cares, and is cared for. Salome resists her nature and instead of taking, she gives, and in giving she receives final moments of repose. Her love has not consumed her this time. A love that puts her in contrast with....

...Kriemhild. The Ruler of one of the three realms. The primary antagonist of Traum. The cruel dictator who sacrifices others quickly and callously on her path towards victory and her dream. Kriemhild is terrifying and effective the entire Singularity. She is driven by anger. But what is the source of this anger? The loss of her husband Siegfried? The revenge that consumed her and all she loved? The inability to change her own nature? Love. Love is the source of her anger. As it compels and empowers all the characters I've talked about above, from Kadoc all the way through Salome, no one else is moved by love more than Kriemhild. That's the main theme of Traum. When we find and free Siegfried and the two former lovers resign themselves to a final bloody confrontation it is clear only tragedy can come from this. We all know Siegfried from Apocrypha and Orleans. He is unyielding and unwavering in his determination. He will not change his ways. We know that and Kriemhild knows that. She counts on it. But in that final battle, as we fight against Kriemhild's rage, Siegfried does not beat her physically in battle or emotionally with his iron clad determination. He surrenders to his love. Kriemhild's rage melted and reshaped the metal heart of the legendary hero Siegfried. A dream long overdue, that she had given up on ever experiencing, happens in this moment. Siegfried chooses her over everything else. Kriemhild wins. He apologizes for his actions and he changes sides. Kriemhild's lover fights and dies by her side. Her will outlasted Siegfried's, and as a Servant she got what she'd long deserved in life. Kriemhild gets her wish. The scene was such a reversal of everything we knew about Siegfried and it's beautiful. In the end, love wins.

Traum is a triumphant story of heroes and of love. It is a tale of those whose names made history, and those who will never be known to us. Traum is a step towards a new era in FGO, where secrets are revealed, old allies are lost and new allies are gained. Traum is still not my favorite chapter, but I enjoyed and loved it from beginning to end.

#fgo #traum

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volivolition · 9 months ago

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Any updates on all wip fics? and what is your ao3 username if you have one?

if you don't want to share any info, it's all good

i hope you know how hard i am YIPPEE-ing after getting this ask, I LOVE TALKING ABOUT MY FIC WIPS!!!! YEAHGKJH!!!! <33 my AO3 is also volivolition, but i dont have anything posted there yet :]

TL;DR: I have 4+ WIPs im working on simultaneously: Unstoppable Force Kisses Immovable Object - A Voli/Echem enemies -> enemies with benefits -> friends with benefits -> lovers fic that started as PWP but whoops its not just smut anymore lmao? Meet the Parts that Make You - A "Kim introduced to the Skills" fic! Let's Make It (a) Home - A Skills fic showing the aftermath of the amnesia wiping out Harry's mindspace, with the Skills working together to rebuild it into a home during the Hanged Man case. Mostly domestic fluff. Swept Up in the Feeling - An Empathy-centric fic, originally an excuse to do Skill character studies. Empathy understanding each skill while they do activities together <3 (gained a plot. suddenly.)

ANYWAY!! more info, snippets and musings under the cut!

Unstoppable Forces Kisses Immovable Object Word Count: 18722 Rating: Explicit Okay, so technically this document isn't just one story. It's my catch-all "any Volistry writing goes HERE" containment zone. Like I said, this wasn't supposed to be anything big, I just wanted to write a bunch of drabbles and practice writing smut because I've never done that before. But then the drabbles started connecting to each other and Voli and Echem started falling in love without asking me and so it's like. A whole thing now lmao?

they bring me so much joy. they're so fun to write, because volition will say something so normal and echem will find some way to misconstrue it and volition will bicker and echem will flirt back and volition will sigh and they're so fucking funny to me. they just keep talking, their back-and-forth banter is so natural to write, which is why this fic is so long hkgjh

they learn to balance each other out!! i want them to be soft and witty with each other and i'll. cry about them. if you catch me at the right time i will wax poetic about their relationship but right now they're just being incoherently rotated in my brain.

anyway here's a snippet, i have so much written for this damn fic that i had trouble choosing lmao. it's like. mildly suggestive? but truly nothing blatant, just cutesy shit lmao

Meet the Parts that Make You Word Count: 3886 Rating: Mature This fic is the closest of the four to being abandoned lmao? Or at least I want to finish Swept Up before writing this one, because as it stands I feel like I can't grasp everyone's characters right without doing some character study beforehand. It might also be because I'm currently more obsessed with the Skills instead of the humans, though i still love them.

but yes! Meet the Parts that Make You is a fic after Martinaise, established relationship for KimHarry, where Kim is casually introduced to the skills over dinner, and they document their findings in Kim's notebook over the course of about a week. it's a lot of skills banter and silly moments!! harry can honestly say that every single part of him loves Kim.

here's where they're trying to show off each of their different specialties, featuring Reaction Speed and Hand/Eye Coordination who are my sillies.

Let's Make It (a) Home Word Count: 1896 Rating: Teen+ I think if I want to finish any fic first, I want it to be this one, because it really sets the scene for the rest of the universe of all my other fics. The main gist is that Perception can pull in anything that Harry's looking at into the mindspace, and once they figure this out, most of the skills go "Hey we should bring in more things so we can decorate!"

volition my friend and perpetual spoilsport :3 anyway, different skills affect the object's properties! Perception can pull things in, Interfacing can give it texture, Conceptualization can make it different colors and Reaction Speed can duplicate it. Empathy makes it so the object has the correct feelings attached to it (Dora's letter, for example) and Half Light can immediately destroy the object (Dora's letter, for example).

this fic is basically The Hanged Man case, but from the perspective of the Skills. i think it focuses on some specific skills, but maybe not all of them because I'd die if i had to give each one of them an individual chapter. maybe i'll smoosh some skills together? i love all of them and i want all of them to get some screen time, but it would wreck me lmao

i have a whole Volition scene written out and i think its so fucking gorgeous bro... i love writing. it's like... rebuilding after death, the skills have a kind of blank slate too, you know? they're learning to work together again, regaining memories, making new ones, making a home together. the way different skills need to work together to make an object in the mindspace real. I WANT THEM TO BE A HAPPY FAMILY. AUHG.

Swept Up in the Feeling Word Count: 5103 Rating: This is Mature. Except the Echem chapter. Which is Explicit.

EMPATHY MY FAVORITE SKILL. OUGH. EMPATHY. MY FRIEND. this fic is about Empathy getting roped into a bunch of shenanigans with the other skills, and goes along with it all while better understanding each of them.

so remember when i said I'd die if i had to give each one of them an individual chapter? yeah. that's because THIS is the story where i give each one of them an individual chapter.

24 chapters, one per each skill. Including, but not limited to:

Exercising with Physical Instrument!

Art time with Conceptualization!

Performance with Drama!

Listening to Encyclopedia infodump!

Reminiscing with Volition!! (THEY ARE CHILDHOOD BEST FRIENDS!!!)

Staying up late with Endurance

"Overstimulated Skills Support Group" with Perception

Talking about understanding people vs understanding machines with Interfacing

Talking about understanding people vs understanding specific people with Esprit de Corps

Apologizing to Composure about making their life harder with UNNECESSARY FEELINGS ("as if we don't deal with enough of our own, you bring in other people's emotions for me to hide?" "why do we always need to hide them?" "BECAUSE... :| Just because.")

A Talk with Half Light.

Y'know... with Electrochemistry (there's more to it than just that though lmao)

This fic will be the death of me, with all the skills, but I really really want to do skill character studies. I need to research their lines on Fayde and understand each of them so I can write all of them better.

This is also so I can be obsessed with each of them. Currently I have a lot of faves, but I don't care about all of them yet when i WANT TO!! i want to know each of them intrinsically!! I wrote a bit of the Endurance chapter and I didn't use to care for him very much, but then I wrote the lines

"Endurance is not tired; he can't afford to be. Not when everyone else is. He would stand before any of them, from the first intellect to the last motoric, in order to take a blow meant for someone frailer, less capable of surviving it. He will endure it instead."

and now I'm sympathetic to him. like, ough. If I understand them, then I learn to love them, and that's also why I'm writing it from Empathy's perspective! Empathy feels what other the other skills feel and does bonding activities with them with similar feelings, does that make sense? i really want to learn characterization for each of them, this fic truly is just an excuse for me to do character studies so i know all their character motivations.

BUT. it also has backstory plot now that im invested in lmao? based off of character design that i have. I STILL NEED TO POST MY SKILL REFS. RAUGH. but yeah all of my stories get too big for me really, i always bite off more than i can chew for projects like this lmao.

Other Fics: Skill Body Swap Fic! its shoved into Unstoppable Force's document for the time being, since this is mostly an excuse for Volition/Echem swap (Echem's body is ~sensitive~ if you're not used to it and i love putting voli through Situations. meanwhile Volition's body has the morale health pool in it that echem has to take care of), and ive only written that specific swap, but i think it'd be cool if i swapped EVERY SKILL.

Logic and Drama would be funny hkjgh Drama would 1) immediately slot into the new role and be extremely good at pretending nothing is wrong. What do you mean, he hasn't switched bodies with anyone? That's highly improbable. 2) love saying lies as if they were appropriate conclusions, and actual Logic would be like "That's literally wrong. Stop that."

Empathy and Composure would be interesting! Empathy's body is constantly picking up on everyone's emotions, and also is always on the brink of tears. Composure's body is not made to experience the same emotions, much less the emotions of others. Empathy's cut off from feeling and Composure is struggling not to fucking cry, poor guy.

Shivers and anyone? I just think Shivers should be small and worried about her connection to Revachol. and some other skill is just like "WHY IS THIS SO OVERWHELMING. HELLO??"

i dont know, theres a lot of ways i could go with this, i'll figure it out lmao. if anyone has suggestions for interesting/funny swaps and is even reading this far, let me know

The Sunrise Momentum. I SWEAR TO GOD IF I DONT WRITE THIS FIC. I NEED TO FUCKING WRITE THIS. Volition's vow with Harry that i cry about once per day. VOLITION IS TO HARRY AS HARRY IS TO REVACHOL. AUGH. "I will do everything in my power to keep you alive. I will keep you on this earth." my knight in lavender armor i am OBSESSED WITH YOUUUU!! *vibrates at high velocity*

okay that's about it, thanks for reading my RAMBLES!!

#inland drabbles #volta transmissions #BIG OL POST!! i love talking about my wips. i have so much to say #sorry this took a bit to compile. every time i checked word counts i added a little more to each story and had to keep updating word counts #ad infinitum forever hkgjh I JUST ADDED 500 MORE WORDS TO SWEPT UP JUST NOW WHILE UPDATING IT!! FUCK!!!#sorry this drama chapter is really fun hkjgh ANYWAY!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING!!! ASK AGAIN ANYTIME <33 #it will be shorter next time i promise. probably. lmao??#task: unstoppable force #task: meet the parts #task: let's make it a home #task: swept up #task: sunrise momentum #esprit: Red

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earthstellar · 1 year ago

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Genuine question, sorry if this feels random, but if a human was trying to understand/study cybertronians on a biological level, what fields of research would be most applicable?

This is a great question, and I'm sorry it's taken me this long to reply!

What comes to mind first would be two critical areas of immediate understanding, and one example of further comparative investigation to deepen that initially established understanding in selective areas.

Physiology, Anatomy, and multiple sub-specialty areas-- I'll focus on one here as an example, a sub-speciality of Orthopaedics called Arthrology.

Physiology is a very broad field, which essentially covers the functions and processes of life.

Anatomy is also a broad field, involving the study of the structure of living things.

Arthrology is the study of joints and articulations, and is often applied in Orthopaedics and Rheumatology (among other fields like Sports Therapy, Paediatrics, etc.).

Arthrology may sound like an odd choice for an example of how various sub-specialities would be involved as well, but let me explain:

In the context of studying Cybertronians, due to their basic humanoid shape (bipedal, two arms, two legs, one head, etc.), we can make some basic comparisons to human beings.

But how similar are we actually, and how can we determine that? What are the differences, how do we start figuring that out? How does it play into any anatomical/physiological findings that have been made up to this point already, possibly based on information provided to humans by Cybertronian medics?

Selecting one system or aspect of the body and focusing on that to further develop any initial anatomical and physiological knowledge may be helpful in early investigations as well.

We may want to start in several areas once we've established knowledge of basic physiology and anatomy, which would inform further investigations, or we might start developing any physiological or anatomical knowledge in the first place by picking a specific place to start and figuring out the anatomy/physiology from there.

I think the order and approach to investigations here would depend on how much information Cybertronians may be willing or able to provide to any humans, and depending on any specific systems being studied, it may vary.

For the sake of this example, using Arthrology as one potential area we would want to examine, we could compare Cybertronian joints to human joints, and start determining how things are structurally and functionally different.

This could help map out the anatomy of any joints and connected systems, such as tendon-like pistons or muscle-like protoform, which may potentially be involved in Cybertronian mechanical joint systems.

Studying connected tendon-pistons and surrounding materials and functions in the body, working from the joints outward, could help us start to understand how their fine motor control processes physically work on a mechanical level, such as servo functioning and how those components fit in with everything else.

It could also provide some insight into potential concerns, such as any indications of stress, wear-and-tear, or any markings on the components of the joints and associated systems/materials.

There would be a lot of multidisciplinary work; For example, Neurologists may be focusing on studying the processor, but would also be interested in the findings from any arthrological investigations as well, since fine motor functions are both physical and neurological, and understanding how Cybertronian's bodies send movement signals to their joints would help further knowledge in both areas.

So the answer is: Building a knowledge of basic anatomy and physiology would be critical first and foremost.

This could be done either with some pre-existing knowledge shared by Cybertronian medics, in which case basic information would already be known and investigations would attempt to further build on that knowledge, or alternatively we would be going in without any prior information and would need to develop our understanding of anatomy and physiology by utilising multiple specialities to begin learning about individual systems of the body to build our understanding of Cybertronian bodies.

I gotta go to work in a minute and haven't had time to edit this, so I hope it makes sense! :)

And thank you for such a good question! <3

#medbay posting #reply #maccadams #maccadam #transformers #long post #cybertronian medicine

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yuki-hitomi-chan · 11 months ago

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Show us your ocs!!!!

Okay okay. Note that I'm bad at remembering to take screenshots, so the ones I have will have to do. I'll do my video game ones, including Dragon Age (origins and inquisition) and Baldur's Gate 3. Yes, they're all very similar I know, and yes I like playing as elves shush.

Baldur's Gate 3

Current Tav: Rion About: Half-Elf/ Rogue/ Thief/ Urchin Canon Romance: Gale

So this is Rion, and he's romancing Gale. He's pretty charismatic (12) but don't ask him to lift anything. He's like every other guy in the game and has a total of 8 STR. You also can't see it here, but he has red highlights that show up in the sun. As for personality, he's mostly good aligned, although he will sometimes cause problems on purpose, especially if he thinks it's funny. He's a sweetheart and has a bad habit of picking up stray children (he wants to protect them like he wasn't when he was a kid), so yes, he finds the tiefling kids funny and even gave them some tips on how to improve their scams. Fun note: He's transgender, which is why he makes certain decisions (He got magic hrt don't ask me how it works it's magic), especially if it comes to affecting how he looks.

Also, I didn't realize that there was another half-elf with his name in the game until I met them. Was a bit funny, since they pronounce it like Rye-on and he pronounces it as Re-On.

Dragon Age Origins

Hero of Ferelden: Da'len Tabris About: City Elf/ Duel wield Rogue/ Assassin Canon Romance: Zevran Arainai

Da'len is my Tabris Warden! Her name means "Child" in Elven, and the story behind that is her father heard a mother calling to her child, and thought it was a wonderful name despite her mother's (rightful) disagreement. Turns out, she's just permanently named 'Kiddo' (which earns her some weird looks from those who actually understand elven to her annoyance. She didn't choose her name, her shut-in father did). Always the troublemaker in her family she wasn't ready to settle down at the beginning of her adventure, giving her family a headache, but that doesn't mean she won't kill for them. She fell in love with the assassin who tried to kill her. She's somewhat grated against humans, which gets her in trouble a lot, especially when she doesn't put up with their bullshit, and even more so when she thinks a knife is a good way to solve a problem (I mean, sometimes it is). Still not sure who's bright idea it was to keep her as the leader of the group, but nobody important died, so that's gotta count for something, right?

Ironically, despite having a mabari, she's not really a dog person.

Dragon Age Inquisition

Inquisitor: Ferris Lavellen About: Dalish elf/ Archer Rogue/ Assassin Specialty (I also played him as a mage at one point.) Canon Romance: Dorian Pavus

This is Ferris! He's a Dalish hunter turned savior for a god he doesn't even believe in! (Well, he sort of recognizes the maker as "a god" but more like the human's god versus his pantheon.) He originally had brown eyes, but due to the Breach and it's magic, he got very green eyes that sometimes weird people out because of how unnaturally green they are (No, they never change back, so good thing he looks good with green eyes). He struggles at first because he has no idea what proper human social cues are, but eventually he figures it out. He doesn't really like being a leader, but does it because someone has to fill the role, and he's the only one who's going to do it. He wasn't too sure about Dorian at first, but he came to fall in love with his sarcasm and flirting. (Ferris is not subtle about his flirting with someone who could be considered an enemy socially, something that makes Cassandra and Josie want to pull out their hair)

Fun fact, this boy right here is how I figured out I'm a gay trans man!

So that's my OCs from those games. If anyone wants to learn more about them, feel free to drop an ask! I know I got a bit ramble-y here, but I had fun!

#dragon age inquisition #dragon age origins #baldurs gate 3 #Original Characters #Crow's OCs #inquisitor lavellan #warden tabris #bg3 tav #Ask to tag #ocs

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s-creations · 11 months ago

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26 Ways to Feel Mortal - W: Withdraw

26 Chapters based around experiences that newly arrived Geno experiences while trying to find the Star Pieces.

Fandom: Super Mario & Releated Fandoms, Super Mario RPG Rating: Teen and UP Audiences Relationship: Mario/Geno (Nintendo), Mario/Princess Peach (Nintendo) Additional Tags: Rating for Teen needed for later chapters, but shouldn't be to worrisome, I'll have warnings if I'm worried, Poly relations!, Main characters will always be named, Minor characters will arrive as needed, the chapters are not in a specific order, just meets the needs of the given word, please be aware of spoilers.

Withdraw: (verb) Remove or take away (something) from a particular place or position.

“Geno?”

Said puppet didn’t look up. Quietly berating himself for not hiding himself away better. But also knew Mario would have found him eventually.

Geno closed himself off further as Mario sat next to him.

“You, um, you missed dinner,” Mario started off softly, “I saved you a bit though. It’s a Toad Town specialty. Really something you can’t miss.”

That hit harder than what Mario meant, no doubt. Geno clenched his jaw to keep himself quiet. Even as the sorrow crept up his throat.

“Um, Peach was hoping to show you around? The locals are curious about the hero from the stars. Or, well, the hero who is a Star. Suppose that’s more accurate, right?”

Geno was thankful that his cape could hide the upper portion of his body. So Mario couldn’t see how hard Geno was clasping his hands together.

“Did I do something wrong?”

That caused Geno to finally snap his attention to Mario. The human looking away, dejected eyes staring at the ground.

“You’ve been really quiet recently and you don’t interact with any of us anymore. At least, not like you used to. You stay near the back. You’re so focused on battling. You’re barely eating anymore. Did something happen? Did…Did I make a mistake?”

When Mario looked up his face fell from confusion to panic.

Geno suddenly realized he was crying now.

Said puppet turned as quickly as he could to rub his eyes furiously.

“Geno-”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re clearly not!”

“Just drop it.”

“No.”

“Mario…”

“Talk to me, please.”

“I can’t…”

“You know I’m here for you.”

“I can’t…”

“Geno-”

“I have to leave!”

Geno didn’t mean to shout. Or stand. Now towering over a wide eyed Mario.

“Don’t you get that? Once we get the final Star Piece, I have to leave. I have to go back to help build Star Road and I can’t come back. I have to leave all of this behind! I have…I have to leave you.”

Geno’s resolve crumbled away. Unabashedly crying as he allowed his sorrow to pull him down. Mario able to catch Geno quickly and hold him close.

“I know, I know it will hurt because it already does,” Geno sobbed, “I know it’ll be so much worse. I figured, if I pulled away, it wouldn’t hurt. If I just broke away, it would be easier for everyone. But it still hurts…”

“You need to trust me when I say that’s not going to work,” Mario whispered softly, “You’ve made everyone worry and hurt yourself more than you meant to.”

Geno hiccuped as he buried himself into the crook of Mario’s neck. “I don’t want to leave.”

“...Do you really have to?”

“I need to make sure the road’s built again. I need to know wishes can be granted again. They’ll need my help.”

“Then…I’ll wish for you to come back.”

Geno pulled away to stare in disbelief at Mario’s words, “What?”

“I’ll wish for you to come back ,” Mario stated simply again, “You’d be able to grant that, right?”

“...O-Of course.”

“Then I’ll wish. I’ll wish every night for you to come back here. Even if it takes weeks, months, years, I’ll wish and wait. And until the end, when you have to go back, we need to celebrate however many days you have left here. Yeah? No more hiding away anymore.”

Geno let out a small whine and nodded.

“Okay… Do you want to go back?”

“...Can we stay here for a little longer?”

Mario smiled softly, “Sure, I’ll give you as much time as I can give.”

#geno smrpg #geno #mario #mallow #princess peach #bowser #genario #s-creations #fanfiction

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system-of-a-feather · 1 year ago

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Gatekeeper Talk

(Disclaimer: This is entirely based on how our system works and should be taken as 'these are notes on how I do what I do and is not meant to represent how 'most' DID appears in any way'. This is shared mainly as a 'here is how we operate and you can read and take it as food for thought')

Parts keep talking about me and I needed time in the front and had been meaning to ramble on this a bit but just some gatekeeper talk about how I do some of my shit and all for the system.

To start I am the Primary Gatekeeper which is our system just means that I stand at the top of a large structure of gatekeepers hierarchy and that is mostly based on respect from the rest of the system. I am technically only slightly above tied in hierarchy to the gatekeeper of "the other side" but she doesn't work with me and is a child and also tends to work "in mysterious ways" because the other half of the system is structured in "mysterious ways" and thus she keeps an eye on those parts and area for me. It also means that I am basically always at least somewhat co-conscious in the sense I am basically always listening (and because I'm always listening, I am also typically good at choosing not to front even with positive triggers or people calling me out) I largely handle system dynamics and structure since the "lesser" gatekeepers tend to have a handle on memory shit but I also do that if something slips by, but usually it's not my "specialty" beyond "looking information up" and comparing and contrasting questions then deciding what to tell the rest of the system based on what they need to know.

Thanks to the fucking shit ton of gatekeepers around to handle keeping trauma shit where they need to be, I really just get to largely focus on system stability, structure, and coordinating parts with one another and honestly, thats stuff I find a lot of fun thinking and talking about.

Usually that means I sit back and observe and keep a good idea on the "profiles of each part" and where they stand on certain topics, what traumas they are generally attached to, what they state they want, and key personality traits and what not and I use that information to create dynamics and plans for parts to be paired or set up for a dynamic change and what not.

If there is a new part, I keep a note on them and figure out what we are going to do with them - whether they are prone to going dormant again or if they are liekly going to stick, whether we are going to try to incorporate them into the "functional unit" and main fronting set of the system or if we are going to mark them as more of a part that needs to be taken care of and thus - rather than focusing on "finding their place in the system" and finding what responsibilities to give them, we focus on who we can pair to be responsible for them, support them, and help them get to a place where they can function independently.

If there is a part that fused, need to fuse, or has split, I tend to take those parts in and see what that does to the overall system web and how things might adjust.

If there is a part that has grievances with the structure and/or wants a change to be made as they are unhappy with their place or what they are seeing with the system, I will go ahead and handle that grievance and see the best way I could try to remedy and make that fit.

If there is a part that needs a break, I'll provide a temporary dynamics shift and protocol for what parts move where to handle what.

If there is a part that needs more time near the front to processing something or communicate with the fronting crew more, I'll provide a temporary dynamic shift and protocol to make sure they get that.

If a part has a large scale or existential system need to be met, if they have an idea of what might help them, Ill work with them on that; but if not, I'm honestly not that great at helping parts figure what they need out so usually they'd have to go to Lucille, Riku, or XIV for 'therapy' and figure it out then come to me. I'm not very good at being emotionally available.

Overall my job is knowing how to adjust the system in accordance to whatever struggle one part may be going through, whatever changes happen, and whatever life throws at us and to do so, I have to be well in touch with the functions and jobs of each part as well as why they originally split.

There is a lot to managing the system dynamics and connecting parts to work with one another that I really couldn't list here off the top of my head as its very case-by-case, but here's a small list of things I like to keep in mind when figuring out dynamics within the system.

Mainly sharing this in case it helps others in trying to figure out stability in their system.

Innate Synergy / Compatibility / Resonance between Parts - It's not inherently obvious and doesn't always make sense, but as gatekeeper I can generally tell - like a sixth sense - what parts are most compatible for one another and "compatible" is different depending on what we are asking. For fusion, usually it is due to the alters having similar emotional wavelengths, views, experiences, and/or dynamics with the rest of the system that make them compatible. In term of system dynamics, it is often just an innate closeness of the parts; generally this innate connection is like a judgement for how easy it would be to actually get those parts to click (For example, XIV and Riku had negative synergy and compatibility so shit was hard for a while, where as Riku and Lin have a pretty high compatibility so working those two together was easy)

Counterparts and Balance - DID tends to form alters that are extremes and - in our old therapist terms - parts tend to split in ways that balance one another. Instability, system conflict, and unsustainable dynamics tends to happen when too many alters of a similar type tend to have too much say over life or tend to conglomerate together. When setting parts and the system to work with one another, it's good to spread out opposing views and functions with one another as to keep any part from falling into too far extremes and so that each part can keep the other in check. Unfortunately this tends to be inverse with the innate compatibility. Additionally, when considering fusion paths, you need to focus on making sure the parts have good synergy and compatibility, but you also don't want to exacerbate one part's extreme more extreme than is healthy - thus why I don't support the suggestion of XIV fusing with Chunn (XIV had suggested it and I laughed cause Chunn is extremely misanthropic and easily annoyed but functions by his preference to flight over fight; XIV is society-hating and easily annoyed and very aggressive, but actually enjoys people; god forbid we get an uber misanthropic, uber easily annoyed, HYPER aggressive alter)

Consent and Interest - Any part that is not at least interested and onboard is not on the table to play and organize with. If they are too far into trauma space, do not want to work with the system, refuse to work with a specific part, do not want to fuse or whatever, they are off the table. While you theoretically could try to force a plan to happen, most of the time not having enthusiastic consent with system dynamic changes with the parts involved ends up in more instability than it is worth and an increase in persecutor-y behavior within the system. Stability is built upon satisfied and cared for participants - disregard and breed resentment within the system and you'll end up with issues.

Strengths and Weaknesses - This just generally informs what parts are capable of doing and what they struggle with. Beyond just skills and personal outlooks on life, there is important notes on what parts are aware and in contact to other parts and any other unique quirks and traits that come with them. Trying to match alters that have strengths that counteract the other's weaknesses is the goal. (Riku is a hedonophobic, workaholic, perfectionist who is avoidant of trying new things in favor of sticking to what they know and things they know they do well. XIV is a hedonistic, sensory adrenaline seeking revolutionary personality that loves shaking everything up and causing chaos to rebuild shit in his vision. Both are prone to self exploding independently and while they innately didn't work well together, once they got a better synergy going, they perfectly cover one another's major flaws and enables both of their major strengths)

#alter: ray #gatekeeper stuff #actuallydid #dissociative identity disorder #gatekeeper talk #gatekeeper #advice #communication #system dynamics #system dynamic #actuallycdd

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killerandhealerqueen · 6 months ago

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ITS ME

Meta asks: 1, 16, 19, 20, 21, 25

Hi baby! I've missed you! How are you?

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

Oh girl (gn)...I have so many wips. Currently though, I'm in my F1 era (if you couldn't tell), so the current project that I'm working on is my Lestappen hero x villain + baby au! In this au, Charles is a hero and Max is a villain and Charles has a son named Ollie. Max hasn't seen Charles for a while, so he went to check on him (just to make sure he's not dead because Charles is his rival, no one gets to kill him except Max yada yada) and is surprised to find that there is a baby in Charles' arms.

It's an angsty fic, as is my specialty, but it has a happy ending. And once I finish writing this fic, I'm going back to work on Rebel Moon (my K&H fic).

I also have other wips, so I'll just list them here:

Lestappen hero x villain (yes, another one)

Loscar detective x criminal

Lestappen mafia au

Carlando hero x villain or mafia x detective....haven't decided

K&H

Afterglow

Hero x villain #1

Hero x villain #2

Kei x Yaku

Rebel Moon

Killer and Healer rewrite

So many wips...so little time. I do wanna try and write an omegaverse fic for f1 but I just have to figure out what sort of story I want to tell...and who the couple should be

16. Tried anything new with your writing lately? (style, POV, genre, fandom?)

Yeah! I think the only new thing is trying out a new fandom, F1. I never thought I would write RPF but oh my god, there are some amazing fics in this fandom that I swear I was reading art. But anyways, yeah, tried out a new fandom. People seemed to like my fic, so I'm happy about that...do wish I had more comments though

19. Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?)

I'm always describing people's eyes...or just describing people in general. But then again, I've been told that that's how people can tell the fics I've written and that they like it so...*shrugs*. Also, I write a lot of detective aus, mafia aus...omegaverses...I just like my aus

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

I don't really have a lot of meta tbh...because I'll end up spoiling the whole fic and I like people to read the fic and not get spoiled

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

I always say that my fics would work well as a film/tv drama because that's how I write them. I see my scenes in my head like I'm watching tv or a movie so...i think it would translate well

25. What part of writing is the most fun?

The daydreaming and working out the scenes and how they're going to flow into one another

fun meta asks for writers | send me asks

#sass answers #took 🐸#fun meta asks for writers

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littleladymab · 10 months ago

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FebruarOC - Calanthe

My field researcher druid, Calanthe! She premiered in the prequel session we played for Sagas, "Dishonored Guests", which was my first time playing Pathfinder! And HEY, wow perFECT TIMING I SWEAR I DIDN'T PLAN THIS, you can now check out @sagasofthesunlessreach where you can find our brand new personalized podcast feed! There's a lot of excitement in this paragraph!!

Anyway.

For the Sagas one-shot, she was part of a group tasked to investigate a location called Grandelodge where there are some suspicious Goings On. I'm not going to spoil it, because y'all should go listen to it, but she does end up starting her frog collection here. She works out of the major university as largely a research specialist instead of a professor/teacher and her specialty is: poisonous plants! She loves them. They are her babies. She has probably eaten nightshade, for science (shoutouts to Dianne, this one's for you).

She adds poisonous frogs to the mix, but that's just a hobby not part of her actual research.

She has a leshy familiar which is a strand of bougainvillea that twines around her arm. It's got a single bud, with bright pink bract and two little flowers that are its eyes, if you were to give it a face. His name is Reginald.

When I get back to doing Mutiny project, the thing I want to do with her is use it as a chance to expand on granular world building in my own way. In game the crew only came across one noticeable plant (I was using bits from Tomb of Annihilation at that time because we were still in DND) and actually now that I think about it, Calanthe would love to get her hands on that flower... she'd just become another version of the scientist who developed the poison. The world truly isn't ready for her. But I digress.

Mutiny (the world is called Assalia) is my favorite sandbox, as it is the world I have the grandest and clearest scope of that I have created. So, naturally, it would make sense that I can just go hog wild on world building details and create flora for all the different regions. Do I need to? Absolutely not. Do I want to? Hell fuckin yeah!! I blame Dianne! I'm just going to make it worse by also getting Calanthe a geologist rival. Does this mean I have to start learning things about science so i can properly utilize these characters? Hmmm.... consequences of my actions.

As she was created for a one-shot, I don't have much figured out about who Calanthe is as a person just yet. The bulk of her character in this setting is just... researcher at the university. Who occasionally goes out into the world to cause problems (not on purpose) (okay sometimes maybe rarely on purpose but she has friends that are SO much better at that than she is i'm looking RIGHT AT YOU APRICUS "SET SEVERAL PEOPLE ON FIRE" THE LUMINARY). Whenever I sit down to write her field journal for Mutiny, I'll work on fleshing her out a lot more. Does anyone have any good solo journaling games that have to do with being a field botanist? No? Is that too specific a subject? Hmm.

You can see the art that Buddy did for me! and the pin board I made to give Buddy inspo is here :)

If you want to see what her character sheet looks like, it is over on my patreon!

#LISTEN TO MY PODCAST BOY!#sagas of the sunless reach #februaroc #a lil miss original #lil miss writings #forgot my own damn tags #mutiny confirmed

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jinxedshapeshifter · 1 year ago

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i might end up making a side blog dedicated to the good doctor

anyway here are a few reasons i love it so much.

yes the autism representation is good. there are some incredibly subtle representations of autism that are represented that aren't brought up even in autism centric spaces much and that fact makes me incredibly happy (for example, i don't see a lot of discussion about shutdowns, but as someone who experiences shutdowns more than meltdowns, seeing an autistic character shutdown because he's overstimulated, then see another character refer to it as "falling apart" made me feel represented because it can feel like you're falling apart, and from the outside, it looks like you're falling apart). like at the very least i feel represented.

i swear to god lea has adhd. shaun and lea give me audhd couple vibes and i love it. at the absolute least, lea is definitely not neurotypical.

the good doctor made me want to pursue a medical career again. not just "oh, something like bioengineering where i'd be working in the medical field would be super fun!!" no. i want to get a bachelor's in biology, go to medical school, and do a residency in either neurology or surgery (possibly something else, i'm not entirely sure yet). if i can get some structure in my life and find a place to live in salt lake city (where they have a university that doubles as a med school and a teaching/research hospital) i can absolutely start the journey to being a doctor at an actual hospital as soon as next fall.

im learning about actual conditions i didnt know about. did you know theres a real congenital deformity of the spinal cord that leads to your spinal cord being split in half at a certain point, leading to what basically results in two functional spinal cords? or that your heart can develop outside the ribcage, and protrude outside the chest? or that just getting a surgery, no matter how sterile the operating room and surgical tools are, can give you sepsis, because cutting you open can leave you vulnerable to bacteria regardless of sterility of the surgical environment due to the bacteria inside your body (risk goes up depending on the surgery; for example, your risk for sepsis goes up if you get surgery on your intestines for obvious reasons)?

theres what i perceive to be a realistic balance between personal experience/empathy and objective medical knowledge when it comes to the doctors in the good doctor. for example, morgan not wanting to fuck up a patient's chances of playing violin in the future, and this resulting in the patient's arm getting amputated. on the other hand, shaun's objectiveness means in that same situation, he was trying to convince morgan to do testing, something she was hesitant to do. i think that experience helped morgan find a middle ground between being empathetic and being practical about what tests and such she needs to do in the future; as melendez tells her, one day, she will kill a patient. all doctors eventually do; mistakes are made, surgical errors are made, signs and symptoms are missed, things get misdiagnosed, and a patient dies. i feel like that's a very grim reality in medicine that people don't like to acknowledge (especially people who practice medicine) and adds some realism to the good doctor that isn't seen much in shows centered around anything medical. it's something i'll have to accept if i do decide to go into medicine. yes, the goal is to save people; but i can't save everyone, and in my career i will almost be guaranteed to make mistakes that result in someone dying. the earlier i can accept that (before residency is best), the better off i'll be as a doctor, no matter what specialty i decide to go into.

most of shaun's colleagues are super accommodating when it comes to shaun's autism. it's just a detail i appreciate. they also figure out what helps him out of meltdowns/shutdowns fairly fast, which is another thing i can appreciate.

#the good doctor #jinxed chatter

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vasyas-tie-clip · 2 years ago

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Arestovych's government work before the full-scale invasion: a writeup

See my previous writeup on Arestovych's military resume here. I was originally hoping to cover the entirety of Arestovych's time in government in one post, but there's really so many layers, and so much more info you can find from him and others about this era, that 2/24 makes for a natural stopping point.

Disclaimer that I don't know Russian and I only know the tiniest bit of Ukrainian, so I'm getting almost all my info through MTL. I probably got overzealous with censoring user names this time, but since I already went to the effort I'll keep it that way. I'm going to try to cover this period in more detail than I did the military period, which also probably means running into more of my limitations regarding knowledge of Ukrainian politics and governance. As usual, corrections and additions welcome!

A note to start

Recently, this interview with Arestovych came out, containing one particular passage that I promptly added to the writeup on his military career:

One of my military specialties is an information counteraction officer. There is even an educational task there: to bring public opinion to certain indicators on a certain issue in a particular region. This is a task for novice lieutenants. A separate town is taken, and you must, on a separate issue, bring it to certain indicators in one or two months.

With the caveat that I can't access most of his video material, since his speaking style doesn't work well with auto-subs, this is the most direct confirmation I recall from him of what seemed likely the case: he was trained in his intel officer days in not just analyzing information, but putting it out, public-influencing work that sounds an awful lot like what he's doing now. This fits in with the 2015 interview where he mentioned he was a type of military specialist that couldn't normally be called to the front involuntarily, and Budanov's striking decision to interview with him in the wake of Wagnergate back when he was ostensibly just a glorified milblogger.

I think that gets at a larger point when it comes to trying to figure out Arestovych--I hadn't initially wanted to dig into his pre-OP military career, because I knew I'd be falling into a deep rabbit hole, but you're going to get a very different impression of him if all you know about those years is the accusations by his haters that he's just a talking head making up his military cred for the sake of his ego. (Really, with maybe one early exception, I'm not sure he's publicly gone into any of his personal heroic deeds unless someone else made it public or raised a fuss first. The "33 combat outings" meme was from a conversation he thought was off-camera, people were spreading nasty rumors about the minefield incident, and it's actually one of his former enemies who first revealed his role in the defense of Kyiv.) He might not resemble most people's idea of a soldier (then again intel spooks have a whole different set of stereotypes), but his military background is an important part of him. Even as he's ostensibly just a hot Youtuber and (ex-)official in civilian government these days, he's in fact still using a lot of the skills he got from the GUR, he has a lot of military ties, and I really do think that a sizeable part of his self-conception (and self-romanticization) is that he's an officer sworn to Ukraine, with a duty to the state as a whole, above any personal comfort or political faction. You can argue over his interpretation of that duty, but not that he's put his life on the line for it. It's relevant context to this part of his life even as he, uh, proceeds to thoroughly torch his reputation in military/volunteer circles for god and country I guess.

Backstory

The start of this writeup overlaps chronologically with the end of the previous one--Arestovych was serving in the army through Zelenskyy's presidential campaign, election, and first months in office in 2019. While some people now claim he used to be a full-on Poroshenkobot, that's something of an overstatement. He said a lot of rude things about Zelenskyy and his supporters, and pushed various narratives against him during the election, but he still generally gave credit where credit was due; meanwhile, he had considerable criticism for Poroshenko, freely admitted Poroshenko was corrupt, and considered Poroshenko's own policy failures to blame for Zelenskyy's rise. But he considered Poroshenko the only viable candidate in terms of national security, and lost friends over the names he called anyone who'd vote for anyone else (including Yuriy Romanenko, the journalist he's currently doing his Alpha and Omega roundtables with, whom he only made up with years later). In his words, a surgeon has a cemetery behind his back, until he learns, and a commander-in-chief has ten. He fully expected a Russian escalation within the next president's term, they didn't have the time to train up a new president, and corruption wasn't going to matter if they got overrun.

That year and a half between early 2019 and mid 2020 swings between measured analysis, snarking at Zelenskyy's early blunders, cautious optimism, and profanity-laden personal attacks on Zelenskyy and everyone who voted for him. He maintained from the start that Zelenskyy had personal virtues and the potential to learn, but he was clueless and squeamish, and his original team was a mix of similarly clueless idealists and cynical players in the pockets of oligarchs who'd rapidly turn on each other once in power. He consistently pushed back against narratives that Zelenskyy personally was a Russian agent, in a somewhat "don't attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence" way, but considered him beholden to Kolomoisky, and suspected pro-Russian and "anti-Maidan" elements in the team.

You can definitely look for ulterior motives in Arestovych's takes (certainly, people joked he'd been paid off by the other side in the comments every time he wrote something kind of nice about Zelenskyy or vice versa), but at the same time...this is basically the reaction you'd expect for someone who's interested in deeds over politicians, but also genuinely believes the leader society chose might get people killed and just has to live with it. Regardless, after commenters went "instead of bashing Zelenskyy for what he did wrong, how about you do something about it," he openly announced early on, in July 2019, that he'd work for the Ze team if they had the willingness to take on a vocal critic. And apparently, for some time that summer, he actually got in touch with them and tried to offer them advice. The arrangement was likely informal, I don't think he ever met Zelenskyy himself at this point (based on things he later said), and it's unclear whom among the team he met--at that point, Bohdan was still head of the OP, Yermak was only a presidential aide, his old GUR friend Mashovets wasn't yet in, and the OP would suffer heavy turnover between then and his actual appointment as advisor over a year later. But by October 2019, he'd apparently given up on cooperation after seeing all his advice go ignored. By June 2020, he'd been banned by Zelenskyy's Facebook page, probably because he kept tagging Zelenskyy in his snarky posts (he later said that the OP read everything he wrote about them, and seemed quite impressed that they had the fortitude to invite him anyway.)

August 2020 appears to have been a turning point for him. He sounded genuinely happy at Budanov getting appointed to head the GUR in the aftermath of Wagnergate; while it's unclear how much of his initial attempts to clean up the scandal was to help him and how much he would've done regardless out of principle, that experience, combined with other dramas around the same time, seemed to leave him increasingly disgusted by the willingness of some "patriots" to spread dubious narratives beneficial to the Russians just out of hatred for the Zelenskyy government. While he continued to criticize the government for perceived missteps, he acknowledged that it was making actual strides in national defense issues, while the opposition was growing increasingly toxic and delusional. But it seems like few people expected that Zelenskyy's team would offer him actual positions, or that he'd accept.

Trilateral Contact Group (TCG)

There seems to be a lot of confusion around Arestovych's precise government titles in general. Articles often refer to him as spokesperson of the Ukrainian delegation to the TCG, but in fact, in the words of the official document, on October 28, 2020, he was appointed advisor of information policy by Leonid Kravchuk, first president and head of the Ukrainian delegation. While his role resembled that of a spokesperson from the outside, this seems another one of those advisor positions that's more influential than the title suggests.

The background info as I understand it: The Trilateral Contact Group was the main venue of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine (mediated by the OSCE) over the Minsk-2 agreements, which had established a ceasefire and laid out a series of steps toward peace. Signed effectively at gunpoint by Poroshenko, while Ukrainian troops were in danger of encirclement, Minsk-2 was unfavorable, hastily written, and had ambiguities that needed further negotiation; an interpretation acceptable to Russia would require concessions unacceptable to most Ukrainians, but perceived unwillingness to work with the agreements would discredit Ukraine on the world stage, and meanwhile other subgroups within the TCG could accomplish smaller-scale results like prisoner exchanges and opening checkpoints.

So the meetings and negotiations went on, even as progress was stymied and the TCG was suspected domestically of being a platform for selling out Ukrainian interests. Earlier in the year, Yermak's attempt to push negotiations forward had sparked a scandal (that may have resulted in Podolyak joining the OP, incidentally--Podolyak wrote a snarky op-ed about how Yermak's respectable motives couldn't salvage his clumsy handling of the situation, the public now considers him a "dark demon" who tried to betray the state to Russia, that's what happens when you don't have any good media speakers but your opponents do...and three weeks later Podolyak was made an Advisor to the Head of the OP.) September 2020 ended with another scandal, as Vitold Fokin (who'd been Prime Minister under Kravchuk and was now the first deputy head of the Ukrainian TCG delegation) capped off a string of concerningly Russia-friendly statements at odds with the official Ukrainian position by saying that he didn't see a war between Russia and Ukraine in the Donbas. Even before Fokin's firing, Reznikov (who was deputy head of the Ukrainian delegation to the TCG, before getting appointed Minister of Defense in November 2021) had announced the need for a spokesperson to express a unified position to mass media (which might account for some of the confusion around Arestovych's precise title.)

Around that time, from the sound of Arestovych's account, he'd warmed up enough to the current government, and experienced enough secondhand embarrassment at the Fokin scandal, to offer himself up to prevent a repeat. He was invited to observe at several TCG meetings, alongside other candidates, where he provided enough worthy advice to eventually receive a formal position.

The appointment sparked outrage on the internet. There were those who thought the position was too good for Arestovych, the self-declared lying propagandist who'd said spectacularly rude things about the current government and its supporters. And then there were the ones who'd thought that Arestovych was too good for the position, who now saw him as a treacherous sellout for joining a suspect organization within a suspect government that he'd previously criticized harshly.

Responding to the first group, Kravchuk stated that the decision was made after a month of evaluation, and no one in the delegation objected to Arestovych ultimately being chosen; he had military experience and proven ability to "provide in-depth informational communication of everything related to the war in Donbass," and Kravchuk considered his ability to hold and defend distinctive opinions a feature rather than a bug.

Responding to the second group, Arestovych said that he expected he'd be considered a traitor just for being involved with the TCG, but this work was too important not to do for the sake of the country. He freely admitted that before he joined the TCG delegation, he'd misunderstood about 70% of its aims and policies; if he'd misunderstood so badly despite being a military-trained analyst, what chance did the average person have? Even if Minsk-2 might be fundamentally unworkable, perception management was critical. He needed to show Ukrainians that the negotiations were necessary and not going to betray their interests, while showing the world that Ukraine was working in good faith toward peace, and it was the Russians being unreasonable and obstructive, while the Russians schemed to show the opposite.

So he did the expected work of a press secretary or spokesperson, putting up social media pages for the delegation, making the framework documents available to the public, writing updates, giving interviews and comments, explaining what the TCG was doing (or not doing), debunking Russian claims, defending the need for even a flawed ceasefire. Arestovych's work in the TCG seems to have been somewhat forgotten these days, given the full-scale invasion made it obsolete, but it actually made up a sizeable portion of his media output in those days.

But in addition to that, he personally attended negotiations, he's mentioned something about Kozak reacting to what he said that might mean he could speak at them, and he helped develop the unified position he voiced. Before his appointment, the delegation already seemed to regret its old policy of commenting on events only after the OSCE's statement--this was the initial agreement, but the Russian side had started breaking it, so that their version of events got out first and hijacked the discussion--but Arestovych implemented his new policy with particular aggressiveness. In his words, "in the information space, there is only one mistake - not to be in time. And then, whether they praise you or criticize you, people are already simply serving your narrative, if you managed to voice it. And if you didn’t have time, you “trudge” behind someone else’s narrative." He framed it in military terms, going on the offensive and getting inside the enemy's OODA loop, and reported with pride that by the fifth day of his tenure as advisor, their speed and quality of presentation had forced Putin's press secretary Peskov to personally intervene, and that, where Russian narratives around the TCG had previously dominated the Ukrainian media space, his constructions were starting to show up in Russian statements.

The strategy seemed to also have its hazards. In one incident that might sound familiar, in December 2020, the delegation's Facebook page initially incorrectly reported that a Ukrainian soldier had wandered across enemy lines while intoxicated and died from alcohol or drug intoxication, when it turned out the soldier had in fact been strangled. Arestovych apologized personally the next day, saying that in a technical error, he'd mixed up the version of events from the Russian side and the version to be given to media.

But his work was overall such that Podolyak defended him in the scandal, confirming that it was a technical error and calling him "absolutely competent in what he does." In a later interview, he sharply disagreed with a claim that Arestovych was only good for scandal and hype, crediting him with successfully "imposing his agenda" and rattling his opponents in a field where Russian propagandists had once "absolutely dominated." Importantly, his skills also caught the eye of Yermak.

Office of the President

There's also a lot of confusion over Arestovych's position in the OP. A September 2022 document lists Arestovych as an unpaid freelance adviser to the Office of the President, and Podolyak has stated that this has been his position from the start, and it's a technical error that official sources have called him adviser to the Head of the Office of the President.

Arestovych says he first met Yermak briefly upon his appointment to the TCG (and met Podolyak two weeks later--as the head of the OP's information policy, Podolyak was also in charge of the TCG's, but gave Arestovych basically free rein there). A month later, on December 1, 2020, Yermak appointed him an advisor on "strategic communications in the field of national security and defense".

Yermak's made his attitude toward people who insult the president quite clear, so one imagines that he must've seen considerable need for Arestovych's skills--in his words (according to Arestovych) "Well, you're such an expert on fakes, you've bred so many of them, that no one but you would know how to deal with them." He was Arestovych's direct superior and task-setter in the OP, whom Arestovych worked with daily (in comparison, before the full-scale invasion, Arestovych says he met with Zelenskyy about once a month,) while he worked with Podolyak, a fellow advisor, as more of an equal. While Arestovych has said he kept to a strictly work relationship with his bosses, he quickly made genuine friends with Podolyak--interestingly, a later comment of his suggests that he didn't like him at first, but somehow that turned into meming about them destroying patriotic consciousness together a week into his time at the OP, and let's just say that you have to be really good friends with someone before posting a picture of yourself with a gun and joking about shooting them. He also seemed to work with his old GUR friend Roman Mashovets (deputy head of the OP, in charge of national security and defense as a whole).

Arestovych's communications work encompassed coordinating between the OP and other groups, including the TCG; and between departments in his field on behalf of the OP--he cites helping mediate a conflict between the head of Ukrboronprom and the Minister of Strategic Industries. But naturally it's the public-facing work that people remember. The mysterious friend-of-a-friend Ukrainian officer from that military forum gave an uneasy assessment of Arestovych's new position--take with as many grains of salt as you think you need, but it's certainly intriguing:

Arestovich, perhaps in good faith, found himself in very bad company, and in the most unfortunate place, on public relations. Now whatever he says will be used against him. And any punctures destroy the reputation he has built up over the years. A position that is not to be envied. Time will tell if his decision to go there, albeit at the invitation of people he trusts personally, was justified. P.S.: I do not agree with his assessment of the situation and some personalities so I look at his attempt skeptically.

Because the immediate reaction to Arestovych blogging for the government was a wall of insults, accusations, shaming, threats, and memes of Lyusya the political whore. While everyone from the OP inevitably met with a wave of internet hate, Arestovych happened to have previously been a prominent member of military/volunteer circles alienated by the Zelenskyy administration's early actions (and heavily courted by Poroshenko.) There was an element of personal betrayal to the reaction. A volunteer friend replied to one of his anti-Poroshenko posts with "Lyosh, if you've been kidnapped and tortured, reply in capslock"; a good chunk of his existing following was...considerably less charitable.

The poster observed TV appearances where (in their opinion) Arestovych combined 90% of perfectly sound explaining and analysis with 10% thinly-supported attacks on the opposition. They generally seemed to think that he was destroying his reputation in his circles for the sake of unworthy leadership:

No, everything is fine with him with the level of knowledge and skills, IMHO, they just cut unsolvable tasks for him, and even change them once a week for opposite ones …

(It's worth saying, since this write-up is for English speakers who may only know his content from his obnoxious shitposting, that he comes across quite differently if you actually watch his military/political long-format videos. He is in fact capable of being professional and laying out topics in a clear engaging way and providing measured analysis in his fields of specialty and more subtly steering an argument or provoking thought. This is most of what he does! But people remember the rest of what he does a lot better!)

In countless panels, programs, and interviews, Arestovych informed about--and defended--basically everything the Zelenskyy administration did within quite a broad interpretation of "national security and defense", encompassing everything from international politics to COVID response, sometimes contradicting or downplaying things he'd said before his advisorship. And while he'd had harsh words for political figures in the past, it was never to the extent to which he went Poroshenko delenda est as an advisor. (For what it's worth, Podolyak's blogging was similar--he'd despised Poroshenko from the start, even if he was initially unimpressed by Zelenskyy, but there's a major difference in the consistency and forcefulness of his anti-Poroshenko posts pre- and post-OP.) Arestovych has talked about how he'll subsume his interests to a team's, he would've gained new information in the OP, and he said, recently, that he received some piece of information about Poroshenko before the public did, and "drew conclusions very quickly"--but regardless, it looked rather like selling out to many.

(Interestingly, he actually seemed to go on the attack against the OP's enemies in November 2020, after he was appointed to the TCG but before he was appointed to the OP, to a notably greater extent than his usual level of criticism, for example against Poroshenko and Butusov. One wonders if it was his initiative, or a trial period.)

He didn't help his reputation with his frequent scandalous statements on TV and profanity-filled arguments on social media. He said that the country should be renamed to Rus'-Ukraine, and defended accepting Afghan refugees by saying they were better educated than Ukrainians anyway. His telling a commenter who asked him to write in Ukrainian instead of Russian to go fuck himself (though he says the user was actually a troll that had been hanging around his Facebook for some time wishing death on his family) rose to the level of a parliament vote. He challenged another commenter to fight him at Bankova, only to postpone it indefinitely because it was beneath the dignity of a representative of the country on an international platform, wait until he got kicked out of the government in disgrace first.

The thing is--he's trolling. We know he's trolling. People know he's trolling. A popular theory is that he deliberately made himself into a hate lightning rod, so that enemies waste their media efforts attacking him instead of the rest of the OP. Every time he says something outrageous, social media users joke about the OP needing a diversion; one interviewer remarked to his face that people wound up discussing his statements instead of serious politics, though he denied that he was trying to distract from serious issues. Podolyak offers a slightly more dignified explanation in one of his own interviews:

Yes, Oleksiy often goes for deliberate provocations, draws out the negative, and then calmly, carefully, and subtly works with it. It may sound paradoxical, but I believe that it is Arestovych who cures our society of traditional media hysteria, giving it the opportunity to talk through difficult things like in a psychotherapist's office. And it's very difficult to take on a lot of public hype, to personally conflict with a big machine of the same "powderbots." If we fairly assess Arestovych's work in the medium term, he is definitely a positive character.

So basically: he's trolling, but in a constructive way, with the OP's blessings.

Much of the time, it's hard to figure out exactly what game he's playing. It's been long enough since the original scandals that the context and reactions are tricky to investigate (if the necessary context is even publicly known), but he's made fun of actual "insider" "expert" "analytics" Telegram channels and their abysmal success rate at guessing the OP's motives and strategy, so I won't feel too bad about throwing up my hands here instead of trying to evaluate individual incidents in earnest. On the one hand--he's talked in an older post about deliberately swearing at an interlocutor to test their reaction. He's joked about all the engagement and views he was getting from the porobots. Gordon's called him a swindler to his face live without getting a rise out of him. I don't believe that he was actually getting that mad at all those internet randos. On the other hand--his old post history on a certain august forum demonstrates that he's fully capable of getting that mad at some internet randos. Exactly when and why he started fake scandals, and when he got into real scandals, will probably remain between him and the OP for the foreseeable future. It's just clear that he's playing 5D chess, but also sometimes he eats a piece.

On the other end of the respectability spectrum, as an advisor, he did in fact give actual advice! He's talked about how, while the OP strictly observed "functional zones" when it came to what areas he could discuss, he had some say in the OP's information policy, and could advise on national security and defense, including directly to the president--and some of those meetings belied the claims that Zelenskyy was surrounded by a "warm bath". However, he said in late 2022 that "maybe only 2 or 3 or 5" items of his advice were ever accepted.

First resignation

Arestovych and Yuriy Romanenko, with whom he'd had a falling-out during the 2019 elections due to their support of opposing candidates, seemed to gradually reconcile over the course of 2021. On January 15, 2022, with the threat of Russian military escalation hanging in the air, they streamed together for the first time in years...upon which Arestovych went on an epic rant about his frustrations with the OP--they weren't accomplishing enough, the people meant to change the system were becoming part of it, he feared the country was sleepwalking into disaster. His worst fear was that Russia would invade just the Donbas, so that the rest of the country would be torn between continued apathy and finger-pointing instead of uniting, the world would continue to turn a blind eye, and Ukraine would end up like the proverbial boiled frog.

A commenter later speculated he'd get into trouble over the rant, but Arestovych answered that funnily, some people in the OP actually liked it. Instead, on January 19th, he posted to Facebook that he'd quit. Opening a treason case against Poroshenko, yet failing to detain him when he returned to Ukraine, had been the final straw for him: "I can forgive many things including personal meanness towards me (that's politics, we're all Machiavelli, cynicism, cold-settling and so on). But I can't forgive weakness."

There's a lot of theorizing over whether he had some unstated motive for leaving, and to what extent he actually left. He definitely stopped participating in the TCG; one of his former coworkers was asked about him in an interview, and lamented the fallen standards and loss of communication channel with the OP in his absence. But an anonymous OP source claimed on the day of the resignation that Arestovych didn't actually tell the OP directly or sign the corresponding documents in his ragequit, and he'd since agreed to meet with Yermak. However that meeting went, Arestovych has said he remained in active communication with the OP the whole time after he quit, and certainly, regardless of what he personally believed, he continued the OP policy of downplaying the military threat to the public all the way up to the evening of February 23rd.

But he didn't seem to plan to return to the OP. He'd pledged to go to the front himself if anything happened, and in fact made arrangements with friends before the full-scale invasion. On the morning of February 24th, he was en route to the military commisariat when a call from Yermak came, telling him the OP needed him.

In his words, there were 2000 majors in the AFU, but only one Arestovych. "Chasing a Russian tank is a pleasure, but conducting information policy and fulfilling certain assignments is a duty. And as an officer, I chose duty."

People have naturally called bullshit on that story, but one of the friends he invited actually wrote a post about their plans very early on. He ribbed Arestovych for leaving the others "orphaned", but acknowledged he was in the right place at the OP.

The next (hopefully last) post will get into that wild second advisorship stint and beyond.

#oleksiy arestovych

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the-firebird69 · 6 months ago

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Current Chevy Deals & Offers: New Car Deals (chevrolet.com)

If you read this article now if you look at this website it's the official Chevy website if you listen to youtube and other boy these idiot trumps life to jumble everything up they're such a sore loser's and sore sports then I can't stand them anymore and need them out hey everybody does and they're going after them and they're getting them for breaking the law tons of them are dying it's a huge deal going on right now. We're also figuring out they are the laziest people on Earth. We have tons of them that are not complying with any law thank you thank you very much oh great this is true. We also have some people who mismanage things on purpose we're asking them to leave they try and damage our son stuff the exception of the bell which they were driving mac nuts with we also need to have a lot of people on this particular portion of the assignment and yeah this is what we need it came damaged to the critical spot and we don't like this these people don't package it right on purpose to him and we're going to find them and the people who are driving the truck sometimes damage it on purpose for their own greed in this case that is what happened maybe we are going to request a check into it kim vent and we don't like them for it this makes it dangerous but anyways we need people for this in Simon we need them now and I'll explain. It is a complicated assignment it is about going fast these cars are not slow anymore. Even the Camaro is a class B car but the Corvette is Class A they say it has 800 or 900 or 1000 horsepower with the three different models the Stingray the C8 or the EV and we need people on board who know what they're doing but we need a whole bunch of different specialty personnel as well we need people who are military to sign on to this duty this duty is very important right now and so the forerunner of a very large infiltration effort we need to decide on now. I'm glad that he pushed for us to do this as well it is something that is very welcome and appreciated we need regular cars for regular people but in order for that to work and for our people to be safe we need this project to take off quite rapidly and no pun intended. So with that said I'm going to put in the request and we're going to get going on this project thank you all and by the way the

-Stingray; Is there to 60 and 2.5 seconds the quarter mile in about 7 seconds top speed is listed as 380 miles per hour if you change a few things settings it goes 580 mph. This is very very fast folks this is not a toy and he said the price is too high I do agree you can't identify what it is by putting a high price on it. Now it's very it's about $120,000 we want to bring it down to 89,000 yes.

- The C8 and that is zero to 60 in 2.3 seconds quarter mile in 6.5 seconds the top speed is listed 400 20 mph. Fiddle with a couple things and it goes from 420 mph to a new top speed of about 680 mph.out the shoot it goes about 400 mph

See these cars are very serious supercars really they call them sports cars and they should come with a limiter and we're going to do that so people don't think that they're mega cars right away they'll have to find the secret of those to look for it will top speed out of the box will still be 230 mph for the low end Corvette Stingray. And they're all stingrays. Thinking about

Thinking about

- Camaro There will be a couple versions not one we are going to open the specialty factory for each of these Corvette will be 1 plant camaro will be another and we're going to start producing them now in the vast numbers and we're going to have to stamp them it takes too long and it will help our military vehicles and everyone will start doing it. This car will come with a 350 V8 standard automatic transmission of 4 speed out of the box there will be a 220 mile an hour car. Just as fast as a low end Corvette with a limiter. If you tweak it now in the next model up is a specialty Camaro they call it ZL1 I think top speed is about 260 miles per hour and their top end Camaro is about 320 which is extremely fast and it has different fairings and slightly different motor options nothing Humongous and that's what we want we're going to start this up. We need this much more than specialty trucks those are kind of a waste of time we just need regular trucks and putting in for that is a special project too to see what that demand is really and the F-650 and F750 is there if there is one we'll be in high demand we already know about it so you know start those these are important cars. These are the mainstay of a lot of our business we need to get this going now.

frank Castle Hardcastle

It's hard to tell sometimes what they really are saying but this sounds like they actually need these and it's very important my husband thinks so too it is about prestige it's about looking good it's about speed it's about having credentials and more but it is also upon our business and we need that we need it very badly we need to make sure that this happens And we need to make sure it happens relatively soon we need to get on this because it is important there's a way to do this and it is not very difficult you want to start small and he has cut onto that part and build a ton of them and race around in your own area and see what the response is if they want them You're gonna know where and they said they're going to head with it and I like that idea I heard it before and it works for me the other option my husband mentions if the demographics are mostly the same is you send the vehicle there to where the demographics are the same and so we're going to see if that will fly we need to do these things as soon as possible and Pronto is what it means so I'm waiting for a response and I'm seeing the right to send it to me and I can't wait terrific I'm more shortly

Hera

Olympus

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kyrodo · 8 months ago

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This is a year 3 rant. This is trauma. This is what happens when people go out of their way to ruin someone's life. The axe forgets but the tree very much remembers. Even the lowest point in my entire life can't beat your crime and I find that hilarious.

Me and Red barely get by. Too often Red is stressed because he's either out of the job or in a very stressful one. A combination of car expenses and retail therapy often has me covering rent or lending 800+ a month to cover Red's side of things. And the more money Red makes like when he was supervisor for a while, it somehow doesn't change anything. I still have to cover 500-1000 per month over top of what few expenses I pay attention to. Red could make a million a month and would somehow still require me to cover him because unlike me where gaming is my main ambition financially, Red has an endless amount of things he wants and spending makes him happy. Which is not a healthy habit.

With both of us working and in the 20/hr ranges, it is more manageable now than it used to be. But we're always struggling. Red gets less and less social, we go on furry related trips way less than we used to, which is currently none at all unless it's vrchat. Red slowly succumbs to depression and for a while until I met Choskey was definitely bringing me down with him. If we meet more people like bittfish and zen and Choskey and whoever else. Or possibly even people like Azuki, the more likely we'll be able to get a room with people and cut down the costs of such trips and also have people to actually hang out at the con with, which matters much more than what attractions or events the con has to offer. And it becomes a viable activity we could start doing again.

What makes me happy isn't spending and sometimes even gaming by myself isn't fun. What makes me happy is being in those kinds of social environments having a good time with people and making memories with them.

I'm not for everyone. I'm not the best at making conversation, I don't like being teased that much, I tend to be pretty stiff. I make up for it by making noises and trying to be cute or finding ongoing antics with people. I'm also not a great handyman and even when it comes to technology my knowledge is limited and specific. I don't watch sports, I don't read news, I often hear about things through other people so I'm usually the one being told about things and not the one telling them. I don't like being forced to react to something in any kind of expected or pre planned out way.

I'm not as useful as Red. Frankly I don't know what it is I bring other than how many ways I find to express affection with words and animal noises. But Red finds value in it, and Choskey finds value in it. I'm not for everyone. But if it's any wonder, I did find where I do fit.

I make honest assessments of myself, especially in the present where I'm not trying to be as extra. I make honest assessments of other people. I'll say things every now and then, poke at stereotypes like too much testosterone out of spite, but I don't honestly believe that. It is a way to get someone triggered. And as far as accurately evaluating people goes, I do it more and more over the years. Because you wouldn't. Because painting a clear picture was something you actively avoided. And the only one left to say anything about it is me.

I am aware how different I sound in text than irl. Especially when I am expressing intense emotions. But ultimately I try to make sense. I try to be coherent, I keep as many details as unambiguous as I possibly can except when I'm emphasizing a point. And that is my specialty. Understanding people. Figuring out why they do what they do that might not be obvious at a glance. It is partially something I learned while trying to read between the lines too hard, but it also helps me calm down. It helps me feel relaxed when I can see more than just what's on the surface. It helps me avoid reacting to things at a glance, and things go by more smoothly than they would otherwise.

I was forced to do this by someone who would not stop being extra when it came to communication. But I have adapted it to my needs. When me and Choskey talk I tend to be very intuitive, often making conclusions before he has to say it himself and they are spot on more often than not. And that seems to make it comfortable to talk to me as well about most things. I've matured incredibly well in many countless ways. I'm certainly not head voicing characters when I type anymore. When my own seems to do it just fine. Choskey loves my voice so much that he gets off to it so, needless to say I don't see much reason to sound like anything else anymore. I found confidence in myself because of Choskey. Because of all the people on vrchat that love my cat noises. My noises are no longer just a private thing only Red can ever witness.

And I find reasons to be happy about being me. About being Kyrodo. My cute noises, the art, the avatar, my ability to play games most people would not spend the time to train like adofai. Being loved by two people, one of them for way longer than most couples last. Having a lazy job that allows me to focus on play over work. Being able to make friends so easily in vrchat and discord. My art by Hyrika being liked by so many people. I keep finding more and more reasons to be happy to be alive. And I feel special. And I no longer feel alone. I'm never alone anymore. Choskey always sees to that and I love him for it. While I used to dread having to spend a day to myself without having Choskey to play with, it's not as necessary now. I haven't had enough time to do things like get through and explore the skills and crafting options of 7 days to die. Or play Valheim because we're constantly doing something so often. And it used to be that I had way too much time to myself. I'm having the opposite issue now and it's not a bad problem to have. This is exactly the kind of social life I wanted.

And this wouldn't have been possible if I had simply resolved myself to live the same shut away life the ever increasingly introverted Red seems to want now. I've needed this for a very long time. I just didn't know where to look or how to get Red to be okay with it. You were a desperate chance at something I didn't have any other options for at the time. And that is the only reason I even paid attention to you. I don't always understand what makes me feel connected to someone, but you were the biggest stretch I've ever made when it comes to romantic interests.

Lawrence it's definitely the femboy and sylveon thing. Enternode I liked before I developed the crush on Lawrence and she/they are a Sylveon. She was curious about my rants when we were mutuals for a bit and she was such a massive contrast to Ronnie that she seemed like a good follow crush to help me heal. Vera, Vera's a wolf and a Blackheart and that's pretty much it. Choskey we both ran around in the same avatars and kept playing Dive To Blue in mmd. Kay, the camping memories and being connected to the mountains. Red the boyscout stories, programming mentoring, introducing me to the furry fandom. Kara Redwall roleplaying and chatting, and she was very wholesome and cheerful. Paige she would invite me to her lunch group whenever she saw me sitting alone. Shadetail was just flirty. Ron the only thing I can think of is subtextual nonsense. That is pretty much the only thing he had going for him and nothing to follow up on it. Specifically nothing, no matter how hard I tried to believe otherwise. And I guess pyramid head reminded me of Marcus who's close friends with me and Red, so naturally I thought Ron would also get along with us.

Unfortunately content and personality are two separate things. And yeah, it's not the greatest that so many people have found their way into my heart for one reason or another. For Kay she used to complain a lot about how lonely she was after Mew broke up with her and Mew played a similar role to me in making vocal noises that I used wonder if I could be a good fit for her. Sometimes something as small as that is enough for me to like someone. The moment I start thinking about if another person would think about me, then I get curious about it and I start to develop feel for them. Or when they are very nice to me or spend a lot of time with me. I wish I was a bit less fickle cause it means I would get hurt less, but with Red and Choskey in my life right now it doesn't seem like I'll have to worry about that again for a while. No one else really spends enough time with us for me to take interest in them.

Also I'm less likely to make all kinds of remarks or assumptions about someone I haven't met. Over anticipating someone's "fangs" because of the kinds of stuff they watch or what they're going through for instance. I was intimidated or scared given the kind of soft perspective Red usually has of me. I made a lot of wrong moves. And if we did get to a point we could start talking normally I felt like ultimately none of it would matter but we didn't get there because I didn't care enough about the first impressions I was making.

Gynosexual I think accurately describes me. I like femboys a lot. Lawrence in particular but Mew was kinda girly and it... definitely has an appeal, and in some ways it's also wholesome and cute. And I grew up with Shadetail being one of my heroes and shadetail is male to female trans. If anything Red is the least likely person for me to be into when looking strictly at sexual appeal. He has a nice face but beyond that everything else is memories, good repor, and everything he's done for me like being a social hub in our early life and bringing me into the furry realm which I highly enjoy. He also knows so many things and he loves teaching me random things. So it's not really much of a physical attraction kind of thing but he was a good choice for a wholesome lasting relationship regardless. Which unfortunately leaves me wanting areas he doesn't quite cover. Given the overwhelming majority of the people I fell for are trans or female and I tend to enjoy art in that direction as well a lot, I definitely think I'm gynosexual. Choskey is not girly or at least will actively deny it, even though he likes being pink and pretty. And I acknowledge that. But I do like that side of him even if he won't identify with it. I do like being a cat, and cats are often associated with the trans community as well. Autism as well which I still don't claim to fully understand or understand where I stand with it, but cat boys are definitely a plus for me, so long as they aren't a prick. I like the programming socks aesthetic way too much, even low quality art of it tends to look pretty nice. Or harnesses, or maid outfits. The whole cat cafe thing. Some of it might be glue from liking Ronnie into Enternode then into Lawrence. But it is extremely appealing. Especially since I'm naturally skinny so if I were to have the clothing for it I'd probably look okay in it. But yeah I guess that is my thing now. And my avatar looks so good. Being pretty while not necessarily being 100% male or female. I like it a lot and everyone finds it cute. I recognize not everything will ever be reasonably covered by a one or two person relationship but this is good enough.

But to double back on Ron maybe that's another reason I kinda started off saying you were a bit out of my usual as far as people I would typically fall for. I don't understand our dynamic beyond the subtext. I have my preference for black orange and blue and that's about it. I didn't get to know you enough to see whether or not you are toxically masculine but your music is definitely out of my range. I'm too soft for you and you are too edgy for me. My edgy parts with blackheart fire etc tends to be pretty short-lived, and only around when I want to feel intense emotions, which are usually negative ones. And that was great back then when I wanted to be angry because of what I was going through. It's not so great now. And I do tend to lean towards things like Ori's soundtrack which is in sharp contrast. Even when I'm mad the only screamo I listened to was Bastard by Oomph! or I Could Care Less by Devildriver. And pretty much nothing else. So it is so different and difficult for me to appreciate that kind of music the same way as someone who enjoys it on a regular basis even when they're having a good day. I like girlier music so to speak, and I say that knowing full well what Vera is like. But that's what my ear prefers. That's what theme I prefer. It relaxes me, it's feelgood, and it seems so well put together and beautiful. So the dynamic with Ron at that point is what? It requires a certain appreciation for chaos and things that sound skin crawly or disturbing that appeals to one audience while turning off another. It's as polarizing as liking or not liking pickles. There is no middle ground really. You either like it or you don't, and if you don't chances are you're never really going to. It is not a taste you can just acquire but something your mind is compatible with or not. Which isn't to say someone who likes children of bodom can't also enjoy Ori music. But going the other way is definitely harder. And as someone who tends to feel sick to their stomach whenever I'm experiencing adrenaline, shovers, cold sweat, twitching lip, a general constant feeling of unhappiness, trying not to invoke that feeling is not a good starting point for appreciating that style of music. I would go as far as to say that's the whole point of it. That's what makes it exciting or enjoyable. But it's not for me. And I suppose the same could be said about horror. It's not for everyone either. Kara has some appreciation for it even though she gets scared easily, and Choskey doesn't like scary things at all, especially jump scares. Red is hypercritical and doesn't like it and says most of it isn't scary anyway. So it kinda works out that I didn't get into it because socially as of now I don't have any reason to. And again I'm stiff. I don't like having expected reactions forced out of me by another person or entity. So when I already know a movie is scary, all the jump scares get numbed down to nothing because I'm already waiting for it and I don't really get immersed into it because of the fact that I'm preguarding myself. I anticipate it so hard that I feel nothing and just find it silly.

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