#I feel like I mostly talked in circles

[astralprisms]

@seynne, thank you for these! My ask box should now actually be open if anyone is trying to send messages. I forget it's not on by default. From the Weirdly Specific Questions list

How often do they show their genuine emotions to others versus just the audience knowing?

I don't think that Xa'rok is intentionally deceptive about their emotions, but they are hard to read if you don't know them well. If asked directly and divulging doesn't put them or those they care about in danger, they would be honest about what they're feeling, but there are some things they prefer to keep to themselves. Persuasion and Deception are their particular skill avenues of choice, and so they're fairly aware of what they are presenting to the world and what effect it might have/what effect they might want it to have (either on the audience as a bard, in concert, or in their line of work as a convincing public speaker), so they're very adept at managing a crowd's expectations and emotions; a skill I can only assume they continue to excel at as an illithid.

Being so in tune with their emotions and how they are perceived does make it easy for them to hide what they want to keep hidden, though, should they choose to do so.

What’s the most obvious difference between their behavior at home, at work, at school, with friends, and when they’re alone?

This answer varies over different parts of their life.

I think they prefer to present as someone who has their shit together, and prefer to reserve their doubts for close friends and quiet moments. They can let their guard down around certain people, in certain places, and elsewhere they remain vigilant for threats and show little weakness. Most of this attitude was borne out of necessity: life in their northern creche was often harsh, uncompromising, and despite the insistence on training in units, incredibly solitary. But they are social by nature and deeply curious. They long for connection and take joy in finding it. They love to talk, and take pleasure in an audience. They are at their best when connecting with others, and find the psionic boost from the tadpole, and later, illithidom, a boon. To touch someone's thoughts and know their mind makes making those connections easier.

At 'work' they are by turns diplomatic and charismatic. They have spent a long time learning how to read a room and how best to construct a narrative or a story or a song to capture its occupants' attention. In front of a listening crowd, they are in their element. But they are aware of their charm and can be impulsive in its application. While they usually know when to drop the performance, there are times where their persuasive public-speaking persona will take over and they can become a little too pushy or manipulative. Their good friends will tell them to stop or remind them to mind their manners.

At home and alone is where they truly put all the performative parts of themself away and just allow themself to be. This becomes even more important once they go full illithid and get over the (very arduous) hurdle of readjusting to their new form. The Emperor was correct: home is where one can be their truest self, without guile, without pretense.

When do they feel the most guilt? How do they respond to it?

Failing to live up to expectations. These are largely internally set expectations and thus hard to gauge from someone else's perspective. But they take pride in being able to perform to the best of their ability, whether in their line of work, in their playing, in battle, or in following through on a task they have been given or accepted for themself. Falling short of those expectations really stresses them out. They work doubly hard to make up for it, and sometimes injure themself as a result.

What do they commonly misinterpret because of their own upbringing / environment / biases? How do they respond when realizing the misunderstanding?

For someone whose life's mission is to unpack cultural biases, Xa'rok is certainly not immune to perpetuating some of their own. They have long sought to be open-minded but they still find themself falling into old patterns of thinking reflexively. Mostly this tends to resolve itself in "your experience is not universal" type situations. Surely all children are exposed to the harsh and uncompromising trial of combat. Solo survival training is a common rite of passage for everyone before a certain growth milestone. That sort of thing. Growing up in the far north, they are resistant to and unbothered by deep cold and harsh winters, and so they are continually perplexed by anyone who cannot stand the cold. They find gender and its societal constraints a perplexing and unfathomable puzzle. They actively work to take their own missteps in stride and find no weakness in admitting they may have been wrong about something to which they have not had enough exposure to to know otherwise.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[galactic-rhea]

Thoughts on Padmé x Anakin x Rex?

Padmé and Anakin are so mutually obssesed they would first have to check into that before trying to bring another person to their carefully-balanced-kind-of-damage or something it's going to explode.

Honestly it's a fun ship! But I don't have too many thoughts about them because when I consider them is usually in very low-stakes-fun-AU-scenarios.

And I'm actually a bit of a fan of Rexwalker myself! Athough I tend to like them more as very good buddies, the covering-for-you-dynamic it's so funny for them, lol It's also angsty and complicated because, y'know, the power-imbalance and unchecked trauma? Is funny that the clone that's actually a slave for the republic is the most normal if you bring him into the anidala romance circus.

Also shout out to @phoenixyfriend , she has a lot of rexanidala fics and recs for anyone interested reading this!

[cosmicterrorthe8th]

Another Grant headcanon:

I think he wrote love notes when in relationships, and he went all out with like making the paper scented and stuff. But like he had no good perfume so he ended up using his horrible body spray. So like the lucky boyfriend would like find a paper reeking of the body spray like every once in a while.

Also I think he was someone who fell deep into romance because having a crush and feeling butterflies in his stomach was better than numbness. So he would pursue every crush even if he knew it would not end well because of the thrill of it. I think this sucked but I think he atleast felt like this is a normal way for life to suck.

[silver-grasp]

I need to never look at youtube comments on.... well anything really because while most of them are inane but harmless there's always a few that make me want to throw people through windows. But anyway that's besides the point because I am laughing hysterically at someone in the comments of the ep where Second Prince and Ye Ling'er talk on the roof going "I wonder if the second prince is playing her?" and I'm like you. wonder. WHAT ELSE DO YOU THINK HE'S DOING????

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[antarctite]

treating a form of oppression like a neverending force that you can’t fight against, you can only identify it (and to many of you identifying it just means swinging your arms and naming whatever you hit,) is not a surprising stance by any means when you consider how white this website is,

think about it in terms of decolonization. we need to fight for colonized land to not only be freed, but to remain free, of colonizers. once the colonized have been freed, we can never let colonization happen again. we need to STOP it. that is the goal.

but to much of this website, they do not see it that way. they do not hope for a future for oppressed people. just what is happening now, that they can see in front of them (or rather on their screens.) and you wonder why people feel dehumanized by you! you can’t genuinely understand their needs and wishes this way!

if you view oppressed people only as their oppression, you are contributing to their oppression. you don’t see them as people. you don’t want them to escape that oppression. because it’s all they are, to you.

[sauronism]

i'm a firm believer that a character can be multidimensional, and be unapolegatically contradictary. never a big fan of fandoms dismissing different perspective of their blorbos, just because a certain fanon interpretation of that character is popular amongst the fanbase. limiting the character in a box of "of-what-they-should-be" is doing a massive disservice to them. a character can be a hypocrite, and they can also blemished their personalities to be appealling. they said this, they do the opposite. they claimed this, someone proved them wrong. etc etc. you get me?

[nowendil]

whooooo having an anxiety attack about covid. again 👍

[essektheylyss]

I know we're all aware that Lady Sandrilene fa Toren is aroace as hell, but I did forget that she says very emphatically, within forty pages of the first book, that she is not interested in marriage, and that never changes. We stan an icon.

[akkivee]

No wait, please come back and talk about Ichiro and Nemu's perceived lack of sense of self that comes from confidence issues. Or not; I'm not the boss of you.

i am quite literally always down to talking about ichiro and nemu lol

i’ve been looking at it like neither ichiro nor nemu have had the opportunity to explore who they are and grow up as themselves because they really aren’t at a place to do so

for ichiro, he’s crafted himself to being the perfect big bro he thinks his brothers need. like, he’s so focused on not being anything his brother’s don’t need it took nemu unlocking buried childhood memory #896 for him to recall a food he enjoyed enough to call a fav 😭😭😭 in the tdd manga, you see a lot of ichiro’s less than savoury sides of his personality, his hotheadedness, his very brash way of speaking, and a touch of ruthlessness. it’s all facets of himself that helped drive jiro and saburo away so he buried them once he got the chance to be the ‘adult’ figure in his brother’s lives out of a fear he’d drive them away again

nemu, on the other hand, is doing great lol unfortunately, she just got brainwashed just as she was coming into herself. however, because of she views herself as weak, she’s blind to the fact she’s always stood her ground in the face of wrongdoing. her standing up to otome??? her standing up to samatoki’s brand of violence??? her not even flinching when terrorists threatened to kill her??? that strength’s always been in her character but since she had to rely on her brother (and that reliance led to fuel samatoki’s violent lifestyle), she doesn’t see that about herself and only views herself as a damsel

[ninjaaa-go]

I need to talk about my ocs more

[elytrafemme]

oh also very promising life update the close friend of mine who i have a massive crush on i no longer seem to really care about? they've been frustrating to me. they said they miss me earlier but like. we're around each other almost every day. we don't talk like that much. but this is a fixable issue. told them about the concert though. and honestly i don't really give a shit about the other minor stuff we did past that. it doesn't matter. they will survive.

[sesamestreep]

my brain cells trying to think of an argument that would get me to finally post those TWO complete fics sitting in my drive that maybe need a few minor edits but are otherwise READY TO POST

[jonny-b-meowborn]

Dude I miss the feeling of being in love. Like no one ever loved me back and I've never been in a relationship, so I can't miss that, and while I'd love to date someone, I just really miss the feeling of having a crush on someone

[conartisthaiji]

hey lyz! sending you this ask because you reblog enough kpop to be my designated kpop mutual and i was thinking abt giving it a try.

no need to answer this or put effort into it, but if you want to share, do you have any groups or artists you recommend? especially to a beginner? (i have never been into kpop ever...)

also! hope you are having a nice day! <3

hi clem! thank u for your patience! i wasn’t sure how i wanted to go about this since my normal go-to, loona, is currently out due to boycott reasons (general reminder for everyone else to stop listening to them on spotify/apple music/youtube and any other streaming platforms btw). 

anyways!! i picked some of my favorite groups and sorted them in order of most well-known to least known :) then i picked just a few songs from each group to help give u an idea of what the group’s vibe is. 

twice: i feel like you can’t do a kpop introduction without them...they’re iconic in every way. TT, What is Love, and Fancy are their three most popular; personally i really love Feel Special and Yes or Yes. 

seventeen: my current boy group...Aju Nice is iconic!! i also really like Rock with You, Don't Wanna Cry, and Cheers. 

red velvet: this was actually my first kpop group ever...they are so special to me. most popular tracks would be Psycho, Bad Boy, and Peek-a-Boo; i’m a huge fan of Really Bad Boy and Feel My Rhythm as well. 

stayc: they made a splash when they debuted with So Bad and have continued to make waves with their good music! personally I’m a huge fan of Stereotype and Run2U. 

billlie: they’re sooo underrated in my opinion like have you heard about billlie? no? well you should. Gingamingayo is probably their most famous track; personally i adore Ring Ma Bell and flipp!ng a coin as well. 

h1-key: my nugu girlies <3 they debuted last year with Athletic Girl and they just released their first mini album, rose blossom! the title track, Rose Blossom, is really pretty. they also released Run last year, which is a really fun summer-y song imo.