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loriache · 9 months ago

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Kabru, impossible mutual understanding & unknowable objects

Despite his concerted and constant efforts to understand other people, it’s established in a few extras that Kabru believes that true mutual understanding between certain different races is impossible. Specifically, between long-lived and short-lived races, and between humans and demi-humans. Partially, we can trace this conviction back to specific hang-ups caused by his life; the trauma of the Utaya disaster, prejudices he carries from his childhood, and his experience of racism among the elves. In this “little” essay, I’m gonna discuss how I think those experiences formed this belief, how it comes out in his actions, and how some of his actions seem to contradict it. The question of whether it’s possible to reach mutual understanding with other living beings despite our differences is one of the core themes of the manga, and I’ll also touch on how this aspect of Kabru’s character links to that.

Seeking understanding

Kabru is a character who devotes a huge amount of time and effort to understanding people, and he is very good at it. In his internal monologue, we can tell how advanced and complex his skills of analysis are. He is able to read a huge amount of information just from looking at people's faces and body language.

People are, to him, what monsters are to Laios. This is something that's been expanded on at length in other, excellent meta. It's the fact that they're foils; it's the fact that Kabru is also very easy to read as autistic, with a special interest which is the opposite and parallel of Laios'. It's something that came out of trauma and alienation, as Laios' special interest in monsters also began as a coping mechanism.

The complicated origin of this "love" for monsters and for people comes through, I think, in the fact that one of the places we see both characters use their fixation is in being very, very good at killing the thing that they love. This also ties into the idea that loving something isn't even remotely mutually exclusive with using it to sustain your own survival; using it for your own purposes; hurting it or killing it. Love can be, and often is, violent, possessive and consumptive. This understanding is part of what makes Kui's depiction of interpersonal relationships so compelling to me.

While Laios fixated on monsters and animals to seek a place of escape, in both his imagination and his self-image, from the humans who he couldn't understand and who couldn't understand him, Kabru seems to have fixated on understanding people in order to navigate the complex, socially marginal places that he has been forced into throughout his life. As an illegitimate child raised by a single mother with an appearance that marked him out as different to the point his father's family wanted to kill him, and a tallman child raised among elves who didn't treat him as fully human and wanted him to perform gratefulness for that treatment – treatment that, after he met Rin at age 9, he certainly always understood could be a lot worse – his ability to work out what people wanted from him, whether they were friendly or hostile or had ulterior motives, wasn’t just an interest. It will have been an essential skill.

Milsiril, I think, was a flawed parent who tried to do her best by Kabru and did a lot of harm to him despite her best intentions. She may have treated him much better than an average elf would have, but like Otta and Marcille's mother, there are other elves with different outlooks on short-lived races. How would they judge her treatment of him? We don’t have any insight on what it could be, but to be honest, the person’s whose opinion of her I’d be most interested in knowing is Rin’s.

But even if she'd been perfect, living as an trans-racial adoptee in a deeply hierarchical nation with a queen who is a 'staunch traditionalist' who wouldn't even acknowledge the existence of a half-elf like Marcille (according to Cithis) is an experience that would deeply impact anyone.

Elves & Impossible mutual understanding

While Kabru was living with Milsiril - in other words, while living in the Northern Central Continent - he came to believe that "there was no way to achieve mutual understanding with the long-lived races."

This is evident in his political project: he wants short-lived races to have ownership over the dungeon's secrets. Despite his dislike of the Lord of the Island, he's a useful bulwark to stop the elves taking over. Despite his doubts about Laios, Laios needs to be the one to defeat the dungeon, because if he doesn't the elves will take over.

Kabru still carries a deep scar from Utaya, one that was exacerbated by the fact that he never got an answer to any of his questions about what happened or why. This, despite the fact that Milsiril knows about the demon and how it works. Do you think Kabru, with his social perceptiveness that borders on the superhuman, wasn't aware that she knew more than she would tell him?

Given that, the fact that he gets to a place where he "doesn't have any particularly negative feelings about [elves/long-lived species]" .... well, to put it bluntly, I believe that he thinks that's the case, but I kind of doubt it. After all, if he did have resentment, of Milsiril (someone who was his primary provider and caretaker since age six, and who despite her flaws, loves him and who I do think he loves) or of elves (who he has had to play nice with for most of his life, in order to survive, and will still have to play nice with in order to achieve his goals, since they hold all the power) what would that do except hurt him and make his life harder? Kabru is Mr. Pragmatic, so I don't think he'd let himself acknowledge any such feelings he did have. Exactly because he can't acknowledge them, they're well placed to get internalised as beliefs about the Fundamental Unchangeable Nature of the World.

However, these stated beliefs seem to contradict his actions. Despite his belief in the impossibility of forming a mutual understanding, he certainly seems to try to understand long-lived people, just as much as he does short-lived people. There's no noticeable difference between his treatment of Daya & Holm versus Mickbell & Rin that isn't clearly down to their relationship with him. His skills of human analysis were honed and developed while living amongst elves, and as soon as he's alone with Mithrun he immediately sets to understanding him - his interests, his motivations, his needs, and his past.

He treats him considerately and without bias, and despite the fact that Mithrun conquering the dungeon for the elves is both a reenactment of a core part of his childhood trauma and a political disaster for his aims, that doesn't seem to colour his perspective on Mithrun negatively at all.

This is something I find extremely laudable about Kabru, and it's another way he parallels Laios. He seems to understand that people, as a rule, (in Laios' case, he understands this about monsters - and eventually, all living beings) will act in their own interests, and if those interests conflict with yours, might harm you. But that's just their nature, and it's not something that should be held against them; you're also doing the same thing, after all. The crux of Laios' arc is precisely that he has to accept the responsibility of hurting someone else in order to achieve what he wants.

Kabru is deeply concerned with his own morals, what he should and shouldn't do, but mostly in the context of responsibility for the consequences - a responsibility he takes onto himself. He isn't scrupulous about what he needs to do in order to create the outcome he wants, but if he fails to create that outcome, then....

He blames himself to the point of thinking he should die. He doesn't blame Laios, or seem at all angry with him, despite concluding he should have killed him to prevent this outcome. That's because in his eyes, ultimately Laios was going to act according to his own nature, and it's Kabru's fault for not understanding that nature well enough. He's extremely confident in his ability to understand and predict others, (including elves and other long-lived people). Then, where does his conviction that mutual understanding is impossible come from?

Partially, it's the "mutual" part. I'm sure Kabru, who isn't able or willing to deny Otta's insinuation that Milsiril saw him more like a pet than a son, has felt that his full interiority, the depth of his feelings and his ability to grow, act, and think as a fully equal being, was something that the elves around him just couldn't grasp. Because that was their excuse for it, he came to understand this as a gulf between short-lived and long-lived beings, an inevitable difference in outlook caused by their different lifespans.

This experience might be part of what leads to his iconic “fake” behaviour. He trusts his ability to understand others, but if they aren’t able to understand him, then there isn’t any benefit to being honest about his feelings and thoughts. If his attempts to reach mutual understanding with his caretakers were never able to be fulfilled, then it isn’t any wonder that he reacts with such surprise and horror at blurting out his desire to be Laios’ friend.

In his experience, making yourself vulnerable in that way only leads to being hurt. Soothing him, hushing him, lying to him, talking to him like a child that isn’t able to use proper judgement – that’s an inadequate and deeply hurtful way to respond to genuine distress, the desire for autonomy, or disagreement. Ultimately, I think that’s why he comes out on the side of being grateful to Milsiril; because she did equip him with the skills and knowledge he’d need to reach his goal, and let him go.

Though he could understand them, they couldn't understand him. To the extent that was true - which I'm sure it was - it wasn't due to anything about lifespan. It was due to the elves’ racism, and the solipsitic mindset & prejudiced attitude that it caused them to approach him with.

Because, if it needs to be said, the idea that there is an unbreachable gap in understanding between the long-lived and short-lived species is not true. Marcille and Laios have a much greater difference in lifespan than any full elf from any short-lived person, and they’re able to understand each other – maybe not perfectly, but better than many other people who are closer in life-span to them.

That doesn’t mean that I think Kabru is wrong about this, however. Because there’s an interpretation of his statement that is reflected in his actions and is true. When he talks about his problem with elves, it’s not just their attitudes: it’s their power, and what they use it to do. They “explain nothing and take everything”. Though it’s presented in the guise of ‘guiding and protecting’, in fact it’s a simple case of a powerful nation using their military power, wealth, access to resources, and historically stolen land – including the island itself – to protect their own interests and advance their own agenda. That’s why they’d be able to show up, seize the dungeon, and forcibly take Kabru’s party and Laios’ party to the West. If Kabru wants to stop that from happening, or change that status quo, persuasion or a bid to be understood would be completely pointless. Between the political blocs formed by long-lived species and the interests of short-lived species, “mutual understanding”, given their current, unequal terms, would be impossible. This is something that we see reflected in Kabru’s actions; before he asks his questions about the dungeon, he grabs Mithrun as leverage. He never really attempts to persuade the canaries to see his point of view, because that would be pointless: they’re agents of the Northern Central Continent’s monarchy, and will act in its interests regardless of any individual relationship with him.

I don’t think Kabru sees the different dimensions of this belief of his in quite such clear terms, however, as is evidenced by the other group who he thinks it’s impossible to communicate with.

Demi-Humans & Unknowable Objects

The other place that we see his conviction about the impossibility of mutual understanding is in the kobold extra.

I'm including the whole thing, because I think it's an excellent and clever piece of world-building. Aside from what it says about Kabru, which I'll expand on shortly, what this extra does is deconstruct and call into question the usual "fantasy ontological biology" present in these sort of DnD-like settings. Essentially, the kind of worldbuilding where a race (such as kobolds) can be described as war-like, and that's establishing something essential about their biological nature. That's common to the point that if Kui didn't include this, some people would probably come away thinking that's the case about, e.g., the orcs.

But here, despite what Kabru is saying, the information the reader actually gets is:

the conflict between short-lived humans and demi-humans such as kobolds is mostly over access to material resources that they need to survive.

These resources are scarce because powerful nations, such as the elves, have monopolised them.

Kabru, who has grown up in a place at the centre of these conflicts, ascribes essential, negative traits to a cultural group which was in direct conflict with his own. Communication with this other group is impossible; they aren't people, they're more like objects.

oh yes! just like this conflict between groups of tall-men, a conflict which the reader will immediately interpret as more clearly analogous to real-life racism. Our other protagonists also carry prejudices from growing up in a place where a marginalised group was in conflict with the dominant group over scarce resources. It's definitely impossible to communicate with these people, and you can only kill them.

Woah, when you say it like that, it sounds pretty bad!

But also, nobody walks away having had a realisation or unlearned their prejudices - because they don't have the tools they need to do that work. Yet. I do think, to an extent, it could happen - especially with Kabru, since it's suggested in the epilogue that Melini might become a safe-haven for demi-humans.

To focus in on Kabru, the key here is his statement that you should think of demi-humans as "unknowable objects". Even his extraordinary powers of understanding have seemingly hit a limit. Part of this is just inherited prejudice, and doesn't need to have a complicated psychological explanation, any more than the elves who were prejudiced against him need one.

But also... this is probably somewhat linked to the way demi-humans seem to be considered "pseudo-monsters". They're the place that the strict delineation between the human and the monstrous is permeated. Laios, who is not interested in humans, remembers and is excited by Kuro. Chilchuck and Laios argue over whether it's OK to eat a mermaid. Kabru's prepared to (pretend to) roll with the idea that Laios ate the orcs.

But these are people, aren't they? Of course, this is a social construction, as we see from the fact that in the Eastern Archipelago, the label of "human" is reserved for tallmen, but in most of the rest of the world it depends on some obviously arbirary classification based on number of bones; "demi-humans" aren't in any essential way monstrous, except to an extent in their appearance, and physical location - due to their marginal social status, they're pushed out to live in unsafe places such as dungeons.

Therefore, Kabru's view of demi-humans as fundamentally "other", unable to be understood - monstrous - could be read as akin to abjection, the psychoanalytical concept described by Julia Kristeva. In order to create a bounded, secure superego, that thing which permeates and calls into question the border between self and other, human and animal, life and death, is rejected and pushed to the margin.

“Not me. Not that. But not nothing, either. A "something" that I do not recognize as a thing.[...] On the edge of nonexistence and hallucination, of a reality that, if I acknowledge it, annihilates me. There, abject and abjection are my safeguards. The primers of my culture.” (Kristeva et al., 1984, p. 11) “It is thus not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order. ” (Kristeva et al., 1984, p. 13) “The pure will be that which conforms to an established taxonomy; the impure, that which unsettles it, establishes intermixture and disorder. [...] the impure will be those that do not confine themselves to one element but point to admixture and confusion.” (Kristeva et al., 1984, p. 107) (discussing food prohibitions in Leviticus)

This is both (due to its affinity with food-loathing and disgust) a very fruitful concept to apply to dunmeshi, and a psychoanalytical theory which I wouldn't exactly cosign as True Facts About Human Psychological Development. You may also know the abject from its utilisation in the classic essay "Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine" by Barbara Creed - that's a lot more approachable than Kristeva if anyone's interested.

Key here, though, is that through the symbol of the "demi-human" is embodied a step between "human" and "monster" - and that's a prospect that puts at risk the whole notion of an absolute separation between those two categories in the first place. To Laios, that's something wonderful, and to Kabru, it's terrifying. We can see this principle further embodied in the relationship both characters have with the notion of becoming monstrous.

To Laios, this is transcendent, and represents a renunciation of everything human - in fact, if it didn't, it wouldn't "count".

To Kabru, it's a deeply-held fear, established by his childhood alienation (due to his illegitimacy, his eyes, and perhaps also his neurodivergency), deepened by monster-related trauma and the sense of responsibility and survivors guilt he feels for what happened at Utaya. His identity as a human who is not monstrous is key to his sense of stability and safety; he doesn't want to touch monsters, he doesn't even want to see them.

To acknowledge a kinship, a possibility of similarity between the things he loves (humans) and the things he hates (monsters) would be more than touching them - it would be putting them inside him. We know, quite explicitly, that this notion is triggering to Kabru. He literally has what seems to be a flashback when he's about to eat the harpy omelette.

So he abjects it, classifying the demi-human as fundamentally unlike him - an unknowable object, or an object that he refuses to know. Because in understanding it, he would interject the things he hates and fears into his self, which is already, always under threat by that hated and feared object.

Of course, again, Kabru isn't very good at enacting this refusal in practice. For one, when he chooses between his desires and ingesting the feared object, eating monsters... he eats monsters. Part of this is treating himself badly, the "ends justify the means" mentality. His goal is to destroy all monsters, so if he needs to become monster-like to do that, he will. But part of it is also the other motivation that he didn't even seem to know about until he said it: he wants to become Laios' friend, and to learn from him how a person can like monsters. He wants, at least in some part of him, to reconcile the feared and hated object into something he can understand.

For another:

Kabru can speak the kobold language. In the first place, while this may have been common in Utaya, it also could have been something he chose to learn, an early expression of his interest in understanding and talking to all sorts of people. It isn't the kind of thing you learn if you believe that communication between yourself and the group that speak it is impossible, is it?

It's possible to harbour prejudices against a group while being kind to an individual, and given Kabru has those prejudices regardless of his reasons, that is what he is doing. But also, his treatment of Kuro doesn't reflect a sincerely held belief that he's an "unknowable object" at all. His approach is exactly the same as it is to any other person: an analysis of goal and motive, and an attempt to help if he's sympathetic and their goals align - going out of his way to give language and local knowledge lessons in secret. His conviction that Mickbell and Kuro will truly become friends when they can properly communicate is completely contradictory to any sense of demi-humans as fundamentally different, or impossible to reach mutual understanding with. To me, it seems like this self-protective shield against the corruptive force demi-humans as an idea present to his identity, this abjection, when Kabru is face-to-face with one, just simply can't hold up against his finely honed skill of intellectual empathy. Perhaps because he's autistic, it seems his "empathy" is less an emotional mirror response, and more a set of cognitive skills for analysis of others. That instinctual, emotional empathy might not trigger when presented with a member of an out-group, but if it’s possible for Kabru to turn his cognitive empathy off, we don’t see him do it.

This isn't to say that this prejudice doesn't affect his behaviour. For one, it could negatively impact his judgement of politics and policy, where individual people don't enter into it. For another, I'm not convinced he'd be willing to overlook Mickbell's exploitative relationship with Kuro if Kuro wasn't a kobold. As it is, since both of them are satisfied, he doesn't feel like he needs to intervene, regardless of the fact Mickbell isn't paying Kuro. But if Daya and Holm were in a relationship, and Holm took both Daya's and his own share from their ventures, but only compensated her in living expenses and kept the rest, do you think he'd tolerate it, for example? Even if she said it was OK?

Conclusion

The kelpie chapter establishes that "people can never know what monsters are really thinking." That isn't just true of monsters, though.

True mutual understanding is impossible - between anyone. We can never truly understand another person's heart. This is touched on in, for example, the existence of shapeshifters and dopplegangers. Even a monster that seemed like a perfect copy of a person wouldn’t be that person, and wouldn’t be a satisfactory replacement.

We’re intended, I think, to understand the winged lion's repeated suggestions to just replace people who have been lost with copies as something uncanny, which demonstrates the way that the winged lion never manages to attain a complete understanding of humans. A version of a person who was created to fulfil your memories of them, to be the person who you wanted them to be, would be a terrible, miserable thing.

Disagreeing, coming into conflict, and misunderstanding each other, are essential parts of what it means to be living beings, as fundamental as the need to eat.

The only thing to do is not to take more than you need to eat to survive, and not impose your own desires onto others. To do your best to sincerely communicate your desires, even if they're embarrassing or vulnerable or strange, like Kabru eventually does with Laios; like Laios does, bit by bit, with the people around him; like Marcille does, Chilchuck does, Senshi does... to hope they will accept you, and do your best to understand them in return.

We can re-examine, in that context, Kabru's line about the elves' tendency to "explain nothing and take everything".

They have the power to impose their preferred "menu" onto less powerful groups. And in that context, mutual understanding being impossible just means that they won't give up their power because they're asked nicely. Kabru's goal is to seize the truth that they won't give to him, and to create a situation where they can't take everything. Because he's accurately surmised that nothing about the treatment of short-lived races will change so long as the power imbalance remains. Despite the way he mistakenly ascribes part of that to "long-lived vs short-lived" or "human vs demi-human", the actual gulfs in understanding he identifies are structural, are about power and about access to material resources and safety.

I think he could come to recognise this. Yaad is teaching him political science after all, and while a prince's lessons on political science won't exactly get at much that's radical or invested in the interests and perspectives of the marginalised (Capital is a critique of for a reason after all...) I believe in Kabru's ability to learn critically and get more from a lesson than it was intended to teach.

#og post #kabru of utaya #kabru dungeon meshi #laios touden #dungeon meshi meta #dungeon meshi #dunmeshi #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #dungeon meshi analysis #kuro dungeon meshi #the canaries #milsiril #continuing to develop my kabru theses.#literally sitting and thinking about kabru all day. rotating him.#he's in the microwave. to me.

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heaven4lostgirls · 9 months ago

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Can you pretty pleaaassse write for regulus black x reader angst

Where they were friends and got along really well and because they're both pureblooded there families arranged marriage for them. But then regulus gets paranoid and starts to think badly of you and thinks that you were only ever nice to him so that your parents would arrange marriage. And he thinks that you hold the same awful pureblood beliefs as both of your parents and he is afraid to say anything about it incase you tell his family that he doesn't really believe that muggles are lesser. Then regulus is quite distant and mean in your marriage and he eventually comes to his senses when he realises how upset you are and how much his distance hurts you and he can hear you crying yourself to sleep

pairing: regulus black x fem!reader

warning: angst, regulus is a bit of a dick but he comes around ! miscommunication (i’m sorry✊)

summary: request above

authors note: hi! sorry this took forever, i’m really bad at keeping up with requests but i hope you enjoy this, i always say im hoping to get back into writing but it’s always touch and go, my mental health isn’t great a lot of the time and uni just piles on so much more, hopefully you guys understand ! 🫶🩷

regulus wasn’t used to people sticking around, he had been abandoned by the only person he ever truly cared about and left to fend for himself. which was why he assumed when news of his engagement to you was announced by his parents, at a shared dinner party for the sacred 28, you two would simply…co-exist. never fully acknowledging the others presence yet acquaintances at best.

what a shock to his system it was when he grew to know what a wonderful person you were, never abrasive or hostile like his parents, never boastful like most of the pureblood families he knew, instead you were the embodiment of everything he never knew he wanted, a calm to the raging angst inside of him he couldn’t quell after sirius had left, and that alone left him scared more than any of his parents threats to present him to the dark lord as a servant.

you two had formed a quick friendship due to the circumstances surrounding your fast paced engagement, you were set to marry next august and your engagement had only been announced in april. regulus had no problem performing his duties to his family, however this one came with little to no reluctance from either of you as feelings of love and respect blossomed from the friendship you two shared.

however, as time passed, regulus could slowly but surely feel his walls he had fought so hard to build up, crack. he couldn’t fathom why someone like you would feel so comfortable around him, how you somehow managed to worm your way under his skin like no one ever could, not even sirius.

except as time flew by, he had somehow found some of that “gryffindor courage” as james potter always declared, to tell you about his feelings, emphasizing that if you wished, he would never bring up again if you did not reciprocate and you two would still move forward together into marriage as friends.

to his surprise, you were much more welcoming to his feelings than expected, you two had shared a small kiss as you leant your forehead against his and claimed “i was just waiting for you to see me.”

since you two were already a couple in the eyes of the public, the only people he had really had to tell was your shared friends. as expected, they all reacted joyfully to the news and you both carried through the rest of your year no longer pretending to be in love, but actually falling into it.

however, at the beginning of your 6th year, you could tell something had shifted between yours and regulus’ dynamic. no longer was he patient and comforting, instead he was judgmental and fast to anger. some part of you knew it had to do with his parents but you didn’t have the heart to push your questions onto him.

as time passed you watched as he distanced himself from you, pushing away your touches, rejecting your offers to hang out, blowing you off when he would eventually agree. you could only handle so much of his behavior before you eventually broke when telling your friends.

“i don’t know what to do anymore, it’s like walking on eggshells whenever he’s around because im scared of him snapping at me for breathing too loud” you vent to your friends as you place your hands on your eyes to try keep the tears at bay.

“how longs this been going on y/n?” pandora asks softly as she shares a concerned look with lily. you blubber out as answer that sounds like “a couple of months” as tears leak past your palms.

“i can’t keep doing this” you emphasize to them both, “and you know i can’t break up with him because we still have to get married-“

“break up?!” lily questions surprised, “you can’t be serious y/n.” she says as she places a hand on your shoulder.

“i think you need to talk to him” pandora says again as she smiles softly at you as you look at her with tear filled eyes.

“…what if he doesn’t want me anymore?” you whisper, too afraid to say it out loud in fear of it coming true.

“oh love” lily coos as she drags you into a small cuddle with her and pandora, “you’re gonna need to ask him to know that y/n” she whispers as she rubs your back.

you sigh heavily and nod before looking at the both of them. “okay” you concede as you try and form some sort of a plan to confront regulus, your anxiety spikes at the thought of him not wanting your relationship anymore, you couldn’t imagine a marriage with the man you loved where his feelings weren’t reciprocated.

the next day, you planned to corner regulus at the library before dinner but as you walked up to his table, you heard the voice of not only regulus, but barty as well.

“reg, you know you’re hurting her by ignoring her” barty says with a sigh as you pause behind a bookshelf near the table to eavesdrop.

“you know better than i, that i can never be with someone who thinks the way she does…its disgusting” regulus says with a sneer but you can hear how disappointed he is by the statement.

disgusting? he thinks i’m…disgusting? what is he even talking about? you don’t think you’ve ever done anything remotely bad enough to be called disgusting.

“how do you know she thinks like them?” barty implores and you hear regulus sigh, “you’ve seen how she acts when the sacred 28 talks about the muggles” he says and you frown, part of being a child of one of the sacred 28 meant you had to act your part, regulus knew that better than anyone else. so why was he suddenly judging you and telling barty about your issues when he couldn’t even give you the time of day?

“i don’t know if i can marry someone like her” regulus says again and your heart drops. someone like her, you repeat in your head, every insecurity you ever worked through, comes back in tenfold from that sentence alone. you stumble on your feet from the flashes of tears and heartache from all your deepest points of sorrow.

you shake your head and straighten your back before reminding yourself, if he wants a true pureblood wife, that’s what i’ll be. quiet, docile,…perfect.

your wedding approaches faster than you can imagine, dress fittings, bridal party dresses and events all pass with a blur. never fully there, you encompass a state of numbness.

regulus and all your friends notice how you slowly fall into the facade you usually have in front of your parents, instead this time, it never breaks in front of them.

regulus waits for you to come to him, to seek his comfort like you have so many times before, but it never comes.

he spends his nights worrying about you, questioning if it’s something he’s done, you’re still sweet and loving to him, just…more hollow than you were before.

you embody the perfect pureblood princess and he couldn’t hate it more, he hears from people around you how you’re not sleeping, always coming to class in a perfect face of makeup everyday when you usually only used skincare, in beautiful dresses for hogsmead days when you used to use comfortable clothes.

he tries to talk to you, to question why you’ve somehow flipped the switch out of nowhere, but they go unanswered.

the day of your wedding, he can see past the makeup, your sunken in eyes and red eyes. he still places a soft smile on his face as you stare passively into the distance, never making eye contact with him while saying your vows.

the distance between the both of you grows larger as he starts to believe that this was the life you truly wanted, a prince and princess, a couple born out of need not out of love, arranged perfectly to fit the narrative of pureblood royalty.

however, one night he falls asleep later than usual and hears you cry into your pillow, small pleas of being good enough for him as your body shakes with small sobs. he resists the urge to reach out to you in fear of you not recieving his touch well.

he lies awake as he hears you say, “i’m not like i was before, please let him love me now, oh merlin please” you whisper with clenched hands and eyes that leak tears. his heart breaks at the thought of you existing to please him.

he had seen how his mother had done the same for his father, how she turned cold and abusive with no comfort and love from her partner, how she pushed her self hatred onto her children. how that pushed her eldest son to run away.

he spends the next week racking his brain for what he could’ve done for you to think that way before he realises that the summer after his 5th year, his parents had implored him never to give you anything more than the bare minimum because nobody could be trusted. he remembers pulling away from you and pushing you away in fear of you using him for his fortune.

the idea that his parents had made him internalize that you would never love him just for him, you were moving into this marriage not because of your shared love but because of necessity. his heart drops out of his chest as he realizes all of this must have translated to you and that he now had a lot to make up for.

he plans out meticulously how to get his wife back and slowly but surely, he does. it starts with small things, a single flower that you had told him once you liked the smell of on your nightstand, a pair of earrings you remarked look beautiful when window shopping. a handwritten letter telling you goodmorning and his favorite things about you in your bag before class.

your initial confusion morphs to anger at the thought of changing yourself all for him to want you to go back to the self he called repulsive. you don’t respond to his initial attempts to woo you, but as weeks and months pass, he doesn’t give up.

he speaks to you, really speaks to you, asking you about your day, how he can help you when you’re not feeling well, what you need whenever he leaves the house, small compliments about your cooking or how the colour of your dress matches your eyes.

you two start sharing small good mornings and good nights when going to bed, which then translates to small hand holding or shared touches between each other. the ice around your heart slowly but surely starts melting whenever he’s around, you quickly become accustomed to his quick kisses on the cheek whenever he leaves the room or house.

he holds you at night as he whispers sweet promises of never letting you down again, grasping your face to look into your eyes whenever he compliments you to let you know how much you mean to him.

your heart is now warm and full at the thought of his presence, no longer a shell of yourself, slowly but surely healing with his sweet actions.

#juliwrites #marauders #regulus black #regulus black x reader #regulus black angst #regulus x reader #r.a.b #regulus black drabble #regulus black angst x reader #regulus black x fem!reader #regulus x reader angst #regulus angst #harry potter angst #marauders era #marauders era angst

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eamour · 2 years ago

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states

table of contents ⌵

1 ⋮ forewordㆍdefinitionㆍexamples

2 ⋮ state of knowingㆍstate of lack

3 ⋮ changingㆍmaintainingㆍfalling outㆍbeing aware

4 ⋮ misconceptions

5 ⋮ advice

foreword

before we dive into this post, we first need to define WHO you are. you are pure consciousness. you are "I AM", the phrase that states just that — being nothing but awareness. your appearance — just like a state — is what you embody. a malleable physical object that can be changed through imagination. you aren’t the state itself. the state is your costume, your clothing, something you choose to put on and off. the moment you identify your "I AM" you turn your pure, unconditioned awareness into conditioned awareness.

definition

a state is an attitude of mind, a state of experience / consciousness / identity / awareness / imagination with a body of beliefs which you live by. a collective of several thoughts that all refer to one state. you identify yourself with it by saying: "i am…". there are infinite states into which you as an individual may fall, therefore your "i am…" can be anything. thus you manifest through states. what you are conscious of is a thought, an assumption, a bunch of statements that declare one and the same thing, leading to one and the same state. no state is greater than another. but the state, the attitude of mind to which you most constantly return to, constitutes your dwelling place. it's the state that manifests into your 3D reality. depending on what state you are in, it determines your actions and thoughts.

as you are always expressing a state. we wander through states all the time, several times a day. as there is an infinite amount of realities to be aware of, you choose which state it is that you want to dwell on. you can simply pick which state you want to embody and persist in it. persisting in a state is no different than persisting in an assumption. in fact, it's the exact same since a state equals the plural of assumptions.

examples

you always express a state of either having or not having your desire. here are some examples:

state of self-pityㆍstate of self-confidence

state of povertyㆍstate of wealth

state of anxietyㆍstate of calmness

the state of the wish fulfilled

you will hear this phrase a lot as it was coined by neville goddard. being in "the state of the wish fulfilled" simply means that you identify with the version of yourself who has their desires and is aware of that. it's a generic term that says that your wish has been "fulfilled". "fulfilling the inner man" — another term coined by neville — means to be in the state of the wish fulfilled.

example: being in the state of the wish fulfilled could mean being in the state of having your desired apartment.

the state of lack

the state of lack is the opponent to the state of the wish fulfilled or the state of knowing (both mean the same). a state of lack states that you have not established the belief that you have your desire — in other words — that you have not fully adapted to your desired state. acknowledging, realizing, noticing and pointing out that you don't have your desire in the 3D indicates that you do not have it in the 4D either.

example: being in the state of lack could mean being in the state of not having your desired apartment.

changing a state

how do you enter a new state? how do you leave your old state? through belief. you must believe in your state. whatsoever you desire, believe you have received it and you will. the thoughts of you must be accepted literally as they will be fulfilled literally. if you can believe and persuade yourself that things are as you want them to be to the point of actually moving into the feeling of knowing they are true, they will be felt and seen in your world. you must feel (=know) your desires are already realized, that they are already true, for the truth of any concept is known by the feeling of certainty that the thought is true.

in steps

1 ⋮ choose the state you want to occupy.

· · · become clear about what it is that you want to have or who you want to be.

2 ⋮ decide and accept that you have it.

· · · embody the person who already has what you desire. by doing this, you are either living in the end or in the knowing aka living in the state of the wish fulfilled. moreover, you are fulfilling yourself in imagination and enter your desired state.

3 ⋮ remain in the state of knowing by persisting in it.

· · · don't pay attention to opposing thoughts and flip them if needed. persist in staying in the new state until it becomes natural to you.

maintaining a state

you can move into any state, but you might not remain there since a state is made up of a body of beliefs. if you spend the day thinking from a certain point, a certain body of beliefs, the chances are that you might will fall asleep the night occupying the same beliefs.

your maintenance of a state is defined by resistance — in other words — the amount of opposing thoughts you have. you will know when you aren't occupying a state anymore as soon as you get doubts, negative assumptions or thoughts that make you question if you are still inhabiting that state.

meaning, you maintain a state by persisting. this does not mean that you keep going back to the wish fulfilled but rather stay faithful to your whatever you have mentally accepted in imagination.

the same way you have shifted your attention to an undesirable state, you can shift your attention right back to the state that you want to focus on.

falling out of a state

what if you think you have fallen out of that state already? you don’t just magically "fall out of a state". you will know when you aren‘t occupying your desired state anymore once you face resistance. once you start to question the fulfillment of your desire and the rightful embodiment of your state, you inhabit a new state — the state of doubt aka not having your desire aka lack. not thinking of your desire anymore — although you have accepted it to be true — doesn’t necessarily mean that you have stopped being in the state of owning your desire. an accepted thought, an embodied state, does not have to be remembered all the time. do you recall all the things that you own already? exactly, you don’t!

don’t condemn yourself for the state into which you have fallen. if you don’t like it, move into another. don’t feel sorry for yourself, because if you do you will make the state a habit and remain there. remember, the states into which we fall cannot mar or in any way deter our immortal self who fell.

knowing which state you are in

your physical reality will always give you evidence to the thoughts you have accepted to be true. what you see and what you do not see determines the state you are in. why? because manifestation happens instantly. your inner conversations create the external world you are currently living in.

misconceptions of states

1 ⋮ your state does not consist of emotions. emotions have no influence over your manifestation, how you will manifest it, etc.

2 ⋮ you are always in a state, whether you like it or not. it's not a method. you cannot "use" or "apply" it. you don't choose to not be in a state - just like you can't choose that your assumptions don't manifest or that you can magically "stop manifesting". you are always expressing yourself, you are always manifesting. call it assumptions that manifest or states that manifest, it's the same. the idea of states only serves the purpose to demonstrate the law in a more simplified way, trying to make you control or monitor every single thought / assumption of you less.

3 ⋮ therefore - both - thoughts and states manifest as they are the same. thoughts that end up being materialized in your external world have become assumptions accepted as true aka new beliefs. they represent the state you are currently in. it all comes down to belief, not the thought itself, not how many times you repeat an affirmation, but if you believe it to be true.

4 ⋮ having said that, methods do not manifest. you do. your state does, the collective of thoughts.

5 ⋮ you might not enter a state right away after just "intending" to enter it. you enter a state once it feels natural to you and once you have fully accepted it to be true to you. remember, manifestation is instant. your state — if rightfully persisted and thus believed in — will be immediately reflected in your 3D.

6 ⋮ persistence does not equal repetition (aka affirming).

advice

if you will think you have your desire and remain conscious of the state long enough to make it natural, as the thoughts flow from you, they become a natural part of your body of beliefs, and the world will proclaim your desire. your state of occupation will naturally change.

walk in the state until it becomes natural. the moment the feeling is natural, your desire is yours!

with love, ella.

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taradactyls · 6 months ago

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Something I love about how Pride and Prejudice is told through an omnipresent narrator, aside from the witty remarks and insight into other characters it allows even though it's usually focused on Elizabeth, is how it plays on the audience's own prejudices and assumptions.

The narrator tells us very early on, chapter 4, that Darcy is "haughty, reserved, and fastidious, and his manners, though well-bred, were not inviting." We've already seen that when we meet him the previous chapter, and will see more of it in those following. But it's the readers, along with Elizabeth, who take that observation as not only a list of flaws (despite only the first actually being negative) but presumes even more damaging flaws must be attached to it. Darcy can be off-putting, especially so in the setting we meet him in: he dismissed Elizabeth within earshot of her, didn't engage with people attempting to converse with him, etc. It's easy to assume the worst of him in a world so driven by social niceties, and because we follow Elizabeth, who is so lively and playful amidst the rules which govern society. Elizabeth thinks he's bad tempered? It would make sense - he hasn't shown consideration for others much socially, why would he care when he's angry? He acted from resentment and jealousy and went against his father's will? That's not such a jump after the conclusion of a bad temper, his own acknowledgement of implacable resentment, and evidence of pride. The awareness of one offensive trait so naturally leads to prejudice against it, that we easily assume still worse qualities must exist. We are as mistaken as Elizabeth.

Even the idea that 'No, Darcy was never haughty or rude, he was just shy and misunderstood, the narrator is wrong' is just magnifying that prejudice. Yes, we do find out later that Darcy is not at ease among strangers, and was always intrinsically good; his morals and core values meant he was never as bad as Elizabeth believed. But that doesn't mean he was without flaws, and it's so fascinating that some analysis of his character seek to completely remove the negative traits which he eventually overcame after acknowledging them in himself. The logic seems to be that they feel if he had them in the start that he isn't actually such a good person. It's just another example of being so prejudiced against certain flaws that it's impossible for some people to reconcile that there doesn't have to be more serious failings attached, and someone can still be a good person despite being arrogant and not always nice. It's, ironically, being prejudiced in the exact same way that Elizabeth was at the start of the novel. It's amazing that Jane Austen was able to tap into that aspect of human nature so deftly, and invoke in both in her main character, and readers to this day.

Now, of course, the story is so well known it's rare for anyone to read it blind, so it's less likely anyone will be unaware of Darcy's good qualities despite first seeing his worst. Even if they do, Pride and Prejudice has become so genre defining that new readers who are the slightest bit genre savvy will be more aware than contemporary audiences were. But even if we know the story it's still so understandable why Elizabeth feels the way she does. We see what she sees and feel her conclusions make sense. Just as, even though the narrator tells us Darcy is starting to catch feelings for Elizabeth, we fully comprehend her not noticing and believing there's a mutual dislike. And though that is concrete evidence of Elizabeth not reading Darcy and his motives correctly, we are still so sympathetic of the basis of her prejudice that her continued belief in Darcy's lack of virtues makes sense from her point of view. We can see, as she later will, that she takes it too far, and should have noticed evidence to the contrary, but her prejudice against him based on his early behaviour and her pride at reading people correctly is so understandable.

Basically, in a story about the characters' pride and prejudices, I love, love, LOVE how the narrator's voice brings out those same traits in readers the exact same way we see it presenting in Elizabeth. We're all on that journey with her, and we can likewise learn the same lessons about ourselves as she does. Pride and Prejudice feels timeless, because even though society and thus the nuance changes, the book is about human nature, and that remains essentially the same.

#pride and prejudice #jane austen #discourse #elizabeth bennet #fitzwilliam darcy #i do think P&P does this more than Persuasion or S&S #S&S has each stance exemplified by two different characters and we observe rather than experience the same journey ourselves #Persuasion features SO many different types of persuasion and analyses them and explores the well meaning/self-serving applications of them #and that the effects can be good or bad despite the motive and all the nuance of 'when do we have the right or duty to persuade others'#but that's still a more clinical look at it and we're aware we're analysing it #but P&P really makes us PART of the titular experience and I think so many people don't realise it #I think it's a huge reason of why the novel is so satisfying

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blueepink07 · 10 days ago

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My interpretation of Diana's character

(spoilers for chapter 1 and fte!!)

I find it interesting how many people believed that Diana is the mastermind, when the prologue released, and still believe that she is hiding something, especially since we see the events from Damon's perspective. And for me it's really odd, because I feel like Diana doesn't act with other ill-mannered intentions in mind, but out of consideration for others. So much so that I think that she has become a people pleaser.

Starting with her animal motif, the chameleon, everyone knows it for its ability to change its appearance as a form of protection, in order to survive. Many people tied the chameleon with her ultimate talent, because as the ultimate cosmetologist she can change others and her appearance with make-up. But I think it goes further than this. Her personality is rather unpredictable. Of course, she is usually bubbly, and very talkative, however, it seems she cares a lot about what others think of her.

At the end of chapter 1, after the trial, the conversation she has with Eva, highlights some interesting details about her character as a whole. She wanted to make both Wolfgang and Eva happy. However, these two had contrasting beliefs, two sides of the same coin. She was forced to choose between two different points of views… But she wasn't able to. So she tried to support both of them, the best she could.

In the end, this choice led Eva to not trust Diana's kindness at all, because she knew Diana was never fully on her side. She would still agree to what Wolfgang said, which implied going against her. What comes next is more concerning, however. And I’m not talking about the fact that Diana might become the antagonist in the future chapter, but strictly about what it will become of her character. To throw away your sense of self so easily and to state that you will live to fulfill somebody else's wish, that she will change to become more like Wolfgang and continue on his footsteps…

And then, I've completed her two fte's and realised that her decision to continue Wolfgang's legacy makes sense. Damon, in the second fte, asks her why she never told anything about herself, but insisted for him to open up more. From Damon's perspective, of course he finds her behavior suspicious, because considering the context and the fact that they are in a killing game, Diana is at advantage, not sharing information about herself.

So I've decided to look again at Diana's first fte and this part was truly interesting.

She asks if Damon wants her to become his follower. The report card summarizes the conversation by stating that Diana asked Damon what he wanted her to be.

Considering all these aspects, I have reached the conclusion that Diana doesn't really have a "sense of self". She is always seen changing the way she behaves in order to please the person she has a conversation with or is seen asking how she can improve in order to meet the expectations. The reason why she even went to the boiler room was also because she didn't want to disappoint Wolfgang. Diana's always thinking about how others perceive her, so much so that, with time, it seems she has lost her sense of self.

That’s why, the moment when Damon wants Diana to talk about herself, she is restless. Diana has no idea what to say. The only thing we learn about her is the fact that her family is nice and supportive and she never had to worry about money. But she didn't continue on with the conversation, because she felt like she was bragging.

Moreover, she always seems to see the good in people, but is harsher on herself.

Despite Eva being the culprit, Diana considers that it is solely her fault for not saving both her and Wolfgang. Even after the way Eva treated her, she can't see her as a bad person. Diana acknowledges that nothing will ever be the same, but is still standing strong, wishing that her actions will give hope to others. She hasn't just covered the wound that she received from Wolfgang, but, indirectly, also her trauma and her negative thoughts about herself by stating that she will change, in order for others to not suffer anymore.

Maybe I'm just biased, but I can't see Diana having any bad intentions. She is just a 17 year old, who experienced something very traumatic, and is trying her best to help the people around her by putting her own needs aside, changing the way she behaves so the others can feel comfortable around her.

#project eden's garden #diana venicia #thoughts #character analysis

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linkspooky · 9 months ago

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Megumi Will Start the Merger Theory

You heard me. I know this sounds wild and out of left field, but it's just a theory. A Jujutsu Kaisen theory. I fully acknowledge it might not happen, but please stick around long enough for me to argue why I think Megumi's character may go in this direction.

This one is for all the Megumi corruption arc truthers out there. I came up with this theory when it became clear that saving Megumi from Sukuna's grasp was going to be more difficult than just giving him a motivational speech, or punching Sukuna until their souls separated. Furthermore, I believe that Jujutsu Kaisen's manga won't end with the defeat of Sukuna. There will be one more curve ball thrown at us by Gege in the late game, and this is me trying to anticipate the pitch before the baseball hits me in the face. Underneath the cut I will speculate on the direction that Gege may take Megumi's arc, the relationship between Sukuna and Megumi, and Yuji's role in the finale.

What is a Corruption Arc?

Before digging in too deep I want to explain what I mean when I say I'm a Megumi corruption arc truther. A character arc is a story arc in regards to a character where a character changes from beginning to end. That's the most basic definition, arcs can be more complex, some arcs are actually inversions of the standard character arc where a character is defined by his lack of change.

However, those still need some element change, sometimes characters around them change to show contrast. For example, Eren is a stagnant character from beginning to end in Attack on Titan, but characters like Mikasa, Armin, Jean all grow up to show by comparison how little Eren has grown. Sometimes circumstances change around a character, and their lack of growth is a failure to adapt to those circumstances.

A character arc requires a change, but it's not necessarily a positive change. Often called negative character development, these characters regress instead of grow. This happens in many ways. One of the most basic examples of a character arc is a want / need arc. A want / need arc shows an emotional hole in the protagonist's life that needs repairing and how resolving the plot allows them to fill that hole. The protagonist usually knows what they need, but they know what they want, and often what they want won't actually fix them.

For example if I'm feeling sad I want to eat donuts to lift my mood, but what I need to do is learn healthier ways to work through my negative emotions. A character who keeps pursuing what they want, instead of realizing what they need won't grow, that's negative character development.

That's just one example though, Gege gave us a blueprint for a corruption arc in Hidden Inventory.

In Yu Yu Hakusho the character Sensui (directly cited by Gege as his inspiration for Geto in an interview) once was a spirit detective like the protagonist. No one describes him as corrupt from the beginning, in fact he's constantly described as more pure and upstanding than delinquent Yusuke Urameshi who likes getting into fights. He has a strong sense of justice, but rigid black and white views that come with it. Once he's confronted with evidence that directly contradicts his demons bad, humans good paradigm he cannot cope, and the narrative all but states Sensui's purity traditionally a good trait corrupted him because of his inability to adapt and his rigidity in in his beliefs.

Sensui goes through a corruption arc, albeit one offscreen and mainly referred to in backstory.

Geto's happens onscreen in its own story arc where he is one of two main characters. Much like Sensui he's presented to us as a sorcerer like Gojo, but unlike Gojo he believes sorcerers are obligated by duty to protect non-sorcerers who have no way of fighting against curses. You could argue that in some ways Geto and Gojo are the same type of jerk, but Geto's principles are clearly set up to contrast Gojo who at that age only was a sorcerer to flex his abilities. Geto's friendship often has him lecturing Gojo about respecting others, paying special attention to Gojo's feelings in ways that other characters don't, and also not being afraid to clash with Gojo over differences in morals.

If Geto is corrupt from the beginning there's no arc there, so he's clearly set up as being the moral fiber to contrast Gojo. We are literally presented with a scene where Gojo admits he could kill the non-sorcerers who hired a bounty hunter to assasinate Riko and feel nothing, and relies on Geto to make a moral judgement in his place, that society will already punish them and their slaughter is pointless.

The irony is that later, Geto will engage in pointless slaughter killing an entire town in retribution for their abuse of Nanako and Mimiko. When Gojo confronts him about his actions, Gojo cites the same reasoning that Geto provided him to stop him from killing the cult members.

That Geto's murder of innocent civilians is pointless, because it won't achieve anything - his world of sorcerers is out of reach. Geto's clearly positioned as Gojo's moral tether, because he cites Geto's statement of only killing when there's meaning to it right back at him.

This is also where the corruption part of his corruption arc comes in, a change has taken place here. Geto hypocritically contradicts his earlier words, not just engaging in meaningless slaughter but also punishing people with his own hands instead of letting the justice systems in place take care of the punishments. Two things he held Gojo back from doing, only to do himself post corruption arc.

You could cite many things as the reason for Geto's corruption arc, but the common theme shared with Sensui is resistance to change. Geto saw the world in two distinct categories strong / weak, the same way Sensui saw humans good / demons bad. When Geto is shown that weak people are capable of bonding together to oppress strong people (the cult) and that sorcerers despite having strength are on the losing end of their society (they are expected to risk their lives and toil endlessly for curses 99% of the population can't even see), he cannot cope.

He especially cannot cope with the reality that Rika's death showed him, that he is not strong as he once believed. All of this combined leads Geto to double down, still seeing strong and weak as separate categories but now blaming normal citizens for the inherent corruption inside the Jujutsu World. Notice how Gojo a character with positive development seeks to reform from inside the Jujutsu World instead.

Geto also still wants to think of himself in the strong category, rather than facing the feelings that Riko's death and his helplessness in that moment gave him, as well as Gojo pulling he instead decides to double down on the idea that he's in the strong category, that he's superior.

Geto even remarks jealousy at Gojo's godlike power for the first time, when before this he's always been the only person to treat Gojo as an equal - because Geto doubling down on his superiority complex begins imagining himself above others and therefore untouchable by trauma. It's also a grab for agency, because in this world sorcerers are rather agenciless, forced to be cogs in an unfair system. Geto incorrectly assumes agency = power. If he possessed Gojo's power he would be able to grab his agency back (which is simply incorrect because Gojo is one of the most agenciless characters in the manga, defined by his rigid role as the lynchpin of society).

Geto also doesn't mature. A mature adult lives in the world, and accepts that the world is imperfect. Geto is remarked as childish, first by Shoko when they are smoking together "sulking because no one understands you... sounds awfully childish if you ask me", and then by Yuta "You think you're a god? You sound like a kid!"

So we have, refusal to grow up, refusal to adapt to a complex world, resistance to grief, and grabbing for agency and power instead of fixing an issue inside himself - all of these combine to make the Jenga Tower that is Geto Suguru collapse.

The central question of Geto's arc, spoken by Gojo to Yaga is "Is it possible to save someone who doesn't want to be saved?"

If Geto refuses all help, refuses to admit that he's wrong, and does not want to change then what really can Gojo do in this situation? Was he right to give up? Did he give up too early, refusing to kill Geto but also spending ten years just ignoring the problem until Geto attacked in Jujutsu Kaisen Zero? Did it not matter what Gojo did because ultimately Geto's choices are his own?

There's no clear answer, because it's a question the author is asking the audience to ponder. It's also a question directly set up for Megumi to answer, because when Gojo is unable to do a thing for Geto we see his next action is to seek out Megumi. His words imply that he sees Megumi in Geto and advises him not to be left behind, he also clearly became a teacher in order to not let what happened between him and Geto repeat in the next generation.

In spit of Gojo's best intentions, he's not able to protect Megumi from any of Sukuna's designs toward him, or basically anything that happens in post Shibuya's. Simply raising Megumi to be strong, did not prevent him from suffering trauma in his youth on Geto's level.

There's even a deliberate parallel, they both witness the death of an innocent who they promised to protect (Tsumiki, Riko Amanai) and they both have had their body taken from them, Geto's corpse is turned into a literal puppet to help advance Kenjaku's plans, Sukuna steals Megumi's body in order to revive himself in the modern era. They're both even used as tools against Gojo, Kenjaku uses Geto's body to awaken memories in Gojo and complete the sealing. Sukuna uses Mahoraga to learn the world splitting slash that cuts through Gojo's defenses.

Megumi also has a set of values that society spits in the face of. Megumi wishes to selfishly protect his sister, and pick and choose who to save. Geto believes the strong are obligated to protect the weak. Geto sees weak people who are corrupt and not worthy of his protection and also the reality that sorcerers are the exploited class, Megumi is forced to kill Tsumiki with his own hands.

These are intentional narrative parallels to show the risk of Megumi may walk the same path as Geto, especially since Megumi is in many ways a pure child like Geto himself.

Dark Phoenix Arc

There's one more corruption arc I want to compare Megumi's too, to give some idea of where I expect Megumi's arc to lead.

The Dark Phoenix Saga commonly refers to the story in Uncanny X-Men #129 - 138 of Jean Grey’s corruption by the power of the Phoenix and the Hellfire Club. It was considered incredibly shocking for its time. One thing to note is while Jean Grey is famous nowadays, in early X-Men she was the weakest character and her role was basically limited to “The Woman” of the team.

Elevating the helpless damsel woman to the most powerful member of the team, if not the entire universe and then having her turn evil had never been done before. It was a jaw-dropping shock at the time.

The reason I am citing the Dark Phoenix arc as an example, is because both Jean Grey and Megumi's character arc revolves around themes of agency, how it's stolen from them and how they reclaim it.

The basic summary of the Phoenix arc is that Jean Grey is initially given a massive power boost when she's possessed by the Phoenix. She stays behind on a crashing ship only to be saved by the Phoenix, a guardian, alien entity of immense power that was locked away in a crystal. Jean Grey returns as Phoenix with a massive power boost, but there's several ambiguous elements that compromise her agency. It's implied that Jean Grey always had a tremendous power that was in part sealed away by Professor Xavier using his telepathy (infringing on her agency) and that while the Phoenix gifted Jean Grey power, it's also an alien entity effecting her mind and body.

On top of that when she acquires the power, outside forces begin wanting to manipulate Jean in order to gain her power for their own ends.

A group called the Hellfire club begin to psychically tamper with her mind. They trap her in hallucination world where she is a woman of the 1800s, (not famously known for their agency) and in love with the leader of the Hellfire Club, even going so far as to give her false memories in order to convince her that this is reality.

The concept of agency and how it's constantly infringed upon, even by someone who's supposed to be on her side (Xavier) is central to this arc. Jean evetually escapes from the Hellfire club's manipulation, and reclaims her bodily autonomy but the story does not end there.

The subtle changes in Jean's behavior still continue, even after Jean has freed herself from the mind control. Is this the result of being given too much power at once? Is Jean losing control because she was never taught to properly handle her powers?

Jean Grey is also the character with the strongest potential in the main cast (much like Megumi) and also a character who's been prevented from using her powers to their full potential and even had her powers stolen and used by others (Much like Megumi).

It's heavily important that Jean's corruption into dark phoenix happens after freeing herself, and in response to the Hellfire club's machination to take all agency away from her. Jean instead makes a grab for power and agency by abusing her power as Dark Phoenix.

Jean even mentions that turning against her friends and trying to kill them as Dark Phoenix, will sever the last tie holding her back, will get of Jean Grey for good and cause her to fully embrace being Phoenix.

Jean has flipped entirely, overembracing the power and agency that has been stolen from her again and again, but really how could someone not desperately try to take back control of their lives after being mind controlled or having their mind violated multiple times (the phoenix itself, the hellfire club, even by Xavier).

How can someone never allowed to use her power, or given choices on how to use her power, not be corrupted when after being stepped on all of their lives the power of a god is dropped into their lap?

This is why I believe Megumi will be the one to initiate the merger, because his entire arc has been about having his power stolen away from him and what would Megumi do when given total power over the merger by Kenjaku?

Megumi Corruption Theory

The biggest piece of evidence for this theory is right here, Kenjaku specifically says to give Megumi Fushiguro the authority to start the merger.

There's a technical reason for this, Sukuna is currently in Megumi's body, and Sukuna himself was actually registered in Yuji's place because Yuji was built by Kenjaku to be a cage for Sukuna.

However, it can also be read as foreshadowing. If you believe like I do that the merger has to happen, then Sukuna can't be the one to initiate it. The simple reason why is that the main characters will have to be alive to fight against a merger, and Sukuna has set the condition that he'll start the merger after killing the main cast in order to motivate them to fight him with everything they have.

If Sukuna is going to start the merger after killing all the main characters, then he can't be the one to start the merger because the main characters have to be alive to witness the merger take place and fight against it somehow.

Therefore, logically if the merger is going to occur the only person who could possibly activate it is Megumi Fushiguro after reclaiming his body.

There's more foreshadowing then this one instance however, and a lot of it revolves around Sukuna and Megumi's unique relationship and Sukuna's role as a character.

As for why Megumi would possibly start out the merger, it's the same as Jean Grey, a character denied of agency suddenly has all the power in his hands, who wouldn't be corrupted? Especially Megumi, a character who's just been robbed of his sister and his mentor, and his purpose in life besides that (protecting Tsumiki)? Why wouldn't he lash out if suddenly given the power to? His friends are trying to save him yes, but Megumi is begging those save friends not to save him to end it all.

How do you save someone who isn't prepared to be saved?

How is the story going to answer that question, if saving Megumi is a matter as simple as just beating up Sukuna and giving his body back to him?

Onto analyzing more foreshadowing, but first a brief tangent on the nature of foreshadowing in Jujutsu Kaisen. Every major twist in the manga is foreshadowed far in advance. Kenjaku beng the one to possess Geto's body - foreshadowed by Kenjaku killing Mechamaru when Geto was against killing young sorcerers, and the fact Geto was deliberately killed onscreen with no explanation provided to the audience on how he could possibly revive.

Sukuna calls the purpose of the bath to be near evil, to submerge Megumi's soul.

If saving Megumi is just a matter of ridding him of Sukuna's possession however, then how does that allow Megumi to reclaim his agency? What agency does a damsel in distress who just exists to be rescued have?

Megumi's entire arc has been defined by the potential power that everyone sees in him, and his inability to reach that power especailly since other characters (especially Sukuna) seek to steal that power for their own ends. In the culmination of this arc, Sukuna literally steals Megumi's body, and his bodily agency.

How does Megumi finally live up to that potential if Megumi's arc ends with him being saved by Yuji? How does this make Megumi grow or change in any way?

Sensui, who is once again Gege's model of a corruption arc is referred to as a pure angel that was inevitably grew scarred and defiled, by his close personal confidant Itsuki. Not only that, but sinking deep into despair made him grow stronger not weaker.

Itsuki is also, a demon who met and encountered Sensui and then took a deeply invested perosnal interest in watching Sensui be corrupted in real time.

Megumi also has a curse that took a sole interest in him because of his talent and potential, then had a hand in bringing him closer to evil in order to make him sink into despair. There's once again the symbolism of purity being corrupted.

This panel explicitly shows white lilies (symbols of purity) being torn apart and blackened to symbolize what Sukuna wishes to do to Megumi in order to further is own ends.

There's also the heavy budhist symbolism with Sukuna's role in the story, and the way he influences the rest of the cast, especially Gojo Satoru who is our stand-in for the Budha. If the goal of Jujutsu Society is to attain enlightenment (escape cursed energy probably the only thing that will end the miserable lives of sorcerers), then the merger represents the opposite, Kenjaku's goal of optimizing cursed energy by mixing humans, sorcerers and curses to give birth to a new being.

That's also a conflict that needs to be resolved, but Sukuna by pushing forward the optimizing of cursed energy and representing the peak of sorcery living only for sorcerery and his own strength represents a Mara.

Sukuna is comparable to the Celestial Demon Mara in budhist mythology, more on it in this thread. In budhist cosmology, Mara is the “personification of the forces antagonistic to enlightenment.”

If the ultimate goal of budhism is to escape the cycle entirely and stop being reborn in the sensuous realm, Maara instead tempts people to stay in this realm. it defines impernanence by suggesting we stay in this realm forever. It defies Dukha by saying we indulge in physical pleasures in this realm, that we should seek to satisfy ourselves even if budhism argues that life is primarily unsatisfactory.

We even see Sukuna literally tempt a budha-like figure into remaining in this earthly realm. After all aren’t we shown that Gojo achieved enlightenment at seventeen and let go of earthly emotions like the need to be angry and avenge Riko’s killer because the feeling of oneness with existence was too good in that moment.

A lot of people noticed what they thought was Gojo acting out of character in the fight with him and Sukuna, by enjoying the fight and choosing his selfish desire to love jujutsu and fight as a sorcerer over his responsibiltiy to protect children. Something which Nanami says in his dying hallucination that Gojo only ever lived for the pursuit of his selfish desire for Jujutsu in the first place.

Gojo in his last fight against Sukuna forgets about saving Megumi or at least makes it a lesser priority, because Sukuna tempts him to do what he's always wanted to go all out in a sorcery fight and have the freedom to use his powers to the best of his ability. Hoewever, even after using his full strength, Sukuna cuts down the notion that he is above humanity and drags him back to the earth - literally calling him unenlightened.

“This is goodbye. You were born in an era without me and hailed as the strongest yet you turned out to be painfully ordinary…”

Does Sukuna not represent this temptation for all characters? Sukuna represents the selfish ideal of sorcerers, using his powers for himself to satisfy his hedonistic desires and because of this he has the most agency in the story and the story at times even bends to his desires.

Characters even fight for Sukuna's recognition, Hajime, Jogo and Gojo are validated by that same recognition in theend.

Why wouldn't Gojo and more importantly Megumi who are characters with very little agency not jump at the chance to be more like Sukuna, especially if it brings Sukuna the freedom he possesses?

Itsuki refers to himself as Senseui's shadows, leading him to act on his darkest impulses and enjoying watching the corruption spread. Megumi is literally a character who's Jujutsu revolves around his shadow, and summoning powerful Shikigami from it in order to fight. A character with an incomplete domain expansion (another loose plot thread with Megumi that would be unresolved if Megumi were simply saved) which is his own creation, which might surpass Mahoraga the technique handed to him.

In addition to being a Mara, Sukuna is also literally called the "fallen / disgraced one". Itsuki calls Sensui a fallen agel, but in the context of Jujutsu Kaisen there's literally a character called Angel, who's only goal is to save Megumi's soul, and there is a satan figure in Sukuna who wants to corrupt him. Literally, there's an angel and devil on Megumi's shoulder.

How is stealing Megumi's body corruption though? Megumi's not being tempted into being selfish. He's not responsible for any of the sins that Sukuna commits in his body. There's no arc there, because Megumi doesn't reclaim his agency in response to having it stolen away, he doesn't decide to do the bad things himself - it's Sukuna who commits the wrongs.

Even More Setup for the End Game

Here's where I stop referencing Yu Yu Hakusho and only use foreshadowing in the comic itself. The first is the discussion of roles, and how Yuji needs to break away from them, as much as Megumi needs to fight for his agency back.

Part of the reason Sukuna jumped bodies is because Yuji wanted to be given an easy role like a character in a story - rather than thinking and deciding for himself. He thanks Megumi and Gojo for giving him a role seconds before the body swap happens. If Yuji is immediately punished for thinking that what he needs is to be a cog in the machine, to be given a role then methinks that's a bad thing.

However, Yuji has not broken away from that thinking in any significant way. Sukuna even mocks him for finally being given a role.

If Yuji's thinking hasn't changed then no story arc has taken place. If this conflict of Yuji wanting to conform to a cog or a role has persisted since Shibuya - then it's clearly important to his arc and is something that needs to be resolved. If Yuji just solves the problem by being stronger than Sukuna and beating him in a fight, how does that resolve Yuji's flaw of clinging to roles rather than thinking for himself? I ask once again, where's the change?

Saving Megumi like a damsel in distress is still a role someone else has assigned him.

How does the decision to save Megumi right now challenge Yuji's hero complex in any way, besides the fact that Megumi has sunk into despair and would rather just end it all. Is that much a conflict that really forces Yuji to think for himself - to go against the grain of society rather than blindly following others.

If Yuji gets to rescue Megumi like a damsel, that's giving him what he wants, without forcing him to realize what he needs. That's as much of an unfullfilling end to Yuji's arc as a ending where Megumi never reclaims his agency and stands on his own feet and just has to sit there and wait and be passively saved.

Most of all the question: "Is it possible to save someone who's not prepared to be saved?" goes unanswered.

Geto wasn't just depressed and suicidal, he was actively making harmful choices and represented a danger to others. He also had no intention of stopping the path that he was on.

There's a clear parallel between Megumi and Yuji's friendship, and Geto and Gojo's past fallout. However, if it's just a conflict of Yuji saving Megumi who's simply too suicidal and doesn't want to go on living, there's no conflict there. The audience will not see whether or not Gojo was still capable of saving Geto post his burning down the village, or if there was no walking back from that choice. The previous generation won't resolve or fix the mistakes of the past generation.

Yuji remains a hero, Megumi remains a victim, as I reiterate for the thousandth time there's no change.

Megumi starting the merger, or even defeating Sukuna himself (maybe with a completed domain expansion) and then starting the merger is a change. It's also foreshadowed, Mahoraga is the technique he inherited, the technique Sukuna stole (and Mahoraga won't work against him he's already defeated it), Megumi's domain expansion is his own creation, created in his deepest moment of personal growth.

The process of individuation also literally requires a character fully integrating their shadow. Sukuna possessing Megumi is not Megumi facing his shadow or his worst traits, because Sukuna is not Megumi's shadow, he doesn't reflect Megumi's flaws in anyway, he's literally just a parasite.

There's also the 1001 Toji parallels to Megumi that have gone unfulfilled. Toji specifically a character who was abused, then chose to continue the cycle of abuse, specifically because he wanted to prove himself stronger than the peak of sorcery. Especially after a lifetime of being belittled and abused by not having the potential of his Heavenly Restriction recognized.

And what do we have here, but a scene of Toji LITERALLY EMERGING FROM MEGUMI'S SHADOW, in order to enter Dagon's domain.

How is Toji referred to afterwards? As a puppet of carnage bearing his fangs at the strongest around.

An incredibly Sukuna like description, number one because Sukuna's entire existence is simply bearing his fangs at the strongest around, and number two Sukuna is referred to as pure destruction, like a calamity, something with overhwelming sense of self and no humanity.

Not only that, but when fighting Sukuna, Gojo makes an explicit reference to Toji comparing him to Sukuna as the last time he ever felt nervous or challenged by an enemy. Sukuna and Toji are being alligned as similiar characters, supremely selfish people who hoard their agency and strength. Toji also represents the worst of Megumi, a victim caught in a perpetual cycle of lashing out against the world, a bad future path he might take if he doesn't get over himself.

Sukuna is connected to Toji wo is connected to Gojo, and all three represent a path that Megumi has been nudged down his entire life, that he should just selfishly use his power with no regards to anyone else the same way they do.

As I said before in my comparison to Jean, why wouldn't someone who's been robbed of all agency for so long, not go too far in reclaiming it? What's stopping them now that the chains are finally off?

Megumi parallels Geto, who parallels Toji, who parallels Sukuna and why draw all these lines between these characters if it's not to represent a path that Megumi could take?

In other words...

#megumi fushiguro #jjk meta #jujutsu kaisen #ryomen sukuna #geto suguru #fushiguro megumi #gojo satoru #jujutsu kaisen meta #jujutsu kaisen theory #jujutsu kaisen spoilers

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a-d-nox · 3 months ago

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pac/pap: (creature feature: mindflayer): suckers, tadpoles, and the hive

welcome to my october pac/pap creature feature series - instead of having a single pac/ pap this month, there will be five! every wednesday (at 5p / 17:00 EST) this october, a new creature will be coming out to play as the sun begins to set earlier and earlier... keep an out; you never know what is lurking in the darkness..

today's creature is the mindflayer: song queued: "c.s.i." by duke!

take what resonates leave what doesn't - nothing is 100% for you because these aren't personalized so please no angry comments or dms about what i am saying not being a good fit for you or that you "don't claim" just keep scrolling if that is the case. be kind, self reflect, and have fun.

last pac/pap: creature feature: dragon - wings, breath-weapons, hoards, and teeth

masterlist of pap/pac posts

want a personal reading? click here to check out my reading options and prices!

pile 1

suckers: what thoughts/beliefs are feeding off your energy and are affecting your mood?

life being perceived as unpredictable, will likely leave you feeling powerless or subject you to forces beyond your control. believing that “things just happen to you” might be draining your energy as well. a passive mindset where you’re waiting for change or for luck to improve your situation, rather than actively shaping your own fate doesn't serve you long term.

inner conflict or avoidance of external conflict may be lowering your energy. you’re trying to keep peace at the cost of your own boundaries or you are avoiding confrontation out of fear. suppressing your own needs or desires to avoid conflict, leads to feelings of resentment, self-doubt, and/or frustration.

you may have parasitic thoughts revolving around failure, lack of success, and/or concerns about not meeting societal or personal expectations regarding financial or familial success. the belief that you’re not building a solid foundation for your future, creates a sense of pressure and/or failure that weighs heavily on your mood.

tadpole: when do you find yourself dwelling on ideas/feelings that seem to take on a life of their own, as if they’re not truly yours?

you may find yourself dwelling on intrusive thoughts / feelings during times of indecision, inner conflict, and/or avoidance of making difficult choices. when you are faced with situations where you’re unsure of what direction to take or when you’re avoiding addressing uncomfortable truths, your mind may latch onto ideas that don’t feel authentic or true to you. which could make you feel overwhelmed, taking on a life of their own because you’re not actively confronting or resolving the underlying issue.

moments where you might feel mentally or emotionally stuck are greatly effected by a lack of clarity/decisiveness which can lead to you ruminating on thoughts that feel forced or imposed. this is often rooted in fear, doubt, and/or external influence. by avoiding a decision or action, the unresolved tension gives power to these parasitic thoughts, making them feel like they aren’t fully under your control.

hive: how can you address the mental “tadpoles” that grow within?

take a step back and reflect on your life, your thoughts, and your emotions with clarity. recognizing and identifying the sources of your doubts and fears can greatly help. ask yourself where these mental tadpoles came from - are they rooted in past experiences, external criticism, or internalized beliefs?

take responsibility for the role you’ve played in nurturing these doubts, whether consciously or unconsciously. growth comes from accepting your part in holding onto these fears and then deciding to let them go. do not blame others or external circumstances - to reclaim your power you must acknowledge that you have the ability to change these patterns.

once you’ve acknowledged the doubts and fears that have embedded themselves, know it’s time to release them. do so by forgiving yourself or others for past mistakes, letting go of old/limiting beliefs, and making a conscious choice to move forward.

you need to tune into your true self and what aligns with your authentic purpose. let your inner guidance lead toward thoughts and beliefs that uplift and empower you, rather than those that sow fear and doubt.

pile 2

suckers: what thoughts/beliefs are feeding off your energy and are affecting your mood?

a disconnection from self-care and feelings of insecurity about your ability to manage your life, responsibilities, or emotions feed off your general energy. believing that you’re not capable of providing for yourself - whether materially or emotionally - may have latched onto you. feeling overwhelmed by life’s demands, neglecting your own well-being, or seeking external validation to compensate for a lack of self-worth. parasitic thought can manifest as a constant inner voice telling you that you’re not “enough” or capable of nurturing your life in a balanced way, leading to burnout or emotional exhaustion.

an underlying belief tied to emotional immaturity or naivety exists within you. you might find yourself clinging to idealistic or unrealistic emotional expectations about relationships, self-worth, and/or happiness. this belief could be parasitic in the sense that it leads to disappointment/disillusionment when things don’t align with these ideals. focusing on fleeting feelings rather than grounding yourself in deeper emotional truths, can be destabilizing and lead to emotional roller coasters.

tadpole: when do you find yourself dwelling on ideas/feelings that seem to take on a life of their own, as if they’re not truly yours?

your suppression of subconscious fears, anxieties, and/or truths about yourself, that you’re not fully confronting may cause you to ignore your instincts, dismissing red flags, and/or believing illusions about your situation / others. avoidance can feed off your energy by keeping you in a cycle of confusion, doubt, and/or a fear of the unknown.

you may find yourself dwelling on ideas/feelings that take on a life of their own during moments of creative block, lack of motivation, and/or when you’re feeling uninspired. you might experience a disconnect from your usual sense of passion or drive, leaving space for ideas that don’t feel like they come from your true self to creep in.

when your usual enthusiasm or energy is low, the absence of clear direction / inspiration may invite feelings of frustration, self-doubt, and/or stagnation. dwelling on thoughts that seem to sabotage your motivation further - thoughts of inadequacy, fears of failure, and/or feelings of unworthiness in pursuing your goals - can easily spiral, taking on an exaggerated importance, even though they aren’t aligned with your core desires/ambitions.

hive: how can you address the mental “tadpoles” that grow within?

a fear of stepping forward / taking risks due to uncertainty or past mistakes, may be holding back because you’re afraid of making the wrong choice, which generally breeds doubt. it’s important to acknowledge that mistakes are part of growth. allow yourself to take steps forward even when you’re unsure of the outcome. give yourself permission to explore and make mistakes, knowing that they’re part of the journey.

impulsive decisions made without sufficient thought, which can feed doubt or fear later when things don’t go as planned. take time to evaluate your choices carefully and avoid acting out of impatience / restlessness. make sure you’re making well-thought-out decisions can prevent seeds of regret from taking root.

doubts may arise from an over-attachment to safety or familiarity, which prevents you from stepping into the unknown. the fear of what could go wrong may stop you from taking important steps toward change. confront your fear of the unknown and understand that you don’t have to have everything figured out to move forward. embrace uncertainty as part of life’s adventure rather than something to avoid.

you might talk yourself out of new experiences or growth opportunities due to ingrained fears/doubts. consciously challenge limiting beliefs by asking yourself where they come from and whether they hold any real truth. replace them with affirmations of your capability and readiness.

ground yourself more before embarking on new endeavors. make sure that you feel prepared and confident before taking big steps, rather than acting out of impulse or overconfidence. taking small, deliberate actions can help you feel more secure, and reduce the mental space for doubts and fears to grow.

pile 3

suckers: what thoughts/beliefs are feeding off your energy and are affecting your mood?

being overly focused on the past, perhaps romanticizing it or feeling stuck in old emotional patterns can manifest as an inability to move forward. with a deep attachment to how things “used to be,” draining your energy by keeping you locked in a cycle of reminiscing or wishing for a return to earlier/simpler times. which can lead to feelings of dissatisfaction with your present life, making it hard to embrace new experiences / growth.

you might be holding onto beliefs that your future is either uncertain or not unfolding the way you envisioned. you may feel like your plans aren’t moving forward, leaving you stuck in a cycle of doubt or indecision. these beliefs may cause you to avoid taking action or limit your perspective, feeding off your energy by keeping you in a state of hesitation, frustration, and/or fear of the unknown.

you may feel life or others are treating you unfairly, or that you’re carrying the weight of unresolved karma/injustice. thoughts of resentment or guilt, are likely to drain your energy by keeping you stuck in cycles of blame, anger, and/or self-righteousness. you may either overestimating external factors or being too hard on yourself, creating internal discord.

tadpole: when do you find yourself dwelling on ideas/feelings that seem to take on a life of their own, as if they’re not truly yours?

you may find yourself dwelling on ideas / feelings that seem to take on a life of their own during moments of heightened emotion, romantic idealism, and/or when you’re caught up in fantasy and escapism. you are likely deeply connected to your emotions or imagination, which can lead to thoughts and feelings that feel larger than life, dramatic, and/or even disconnected from reality.

you may get swept up in feelings of love, inspiration, and/or longing that are not fully grounded. you likely dwell on ideas that don’t truly align with your practical / deeper needs. emotions/thoughts can be fleeting but powerful, and you might feel like they aren’t fully under your control, as if they are carrying you away into fantasy.

hive: how can you address the mental “tadpoles” that grow within?

the best way to confront your doubts and fears is to act decisively and with confidence. doubts and fears grow stronger when we hesitate or overthink. take swift and focused action, them you will break through the mental stagnation and show yourself that you are capable and powerful.

reconnect with what excites you / brings you joy. by focusing on what ignites your energy, you can push aside mental blocks. Let your passion become the fuel that overrides any doubts, guiding you toward what you truly desire.

start seeing obstacles not as threats but as challenges to be overcome. your doubts and fears are simply hurdles on the path to success. by shifting your mindset to view these negative thoughts as opportunities for growth rather than setbacks, you can tackle them head-on with a sense of excitement and adventure. the more you see fear as something to conquer, the less power it will have over you.

doubt may thrive when you overthink or dwell too long on decisions. trust your instincts and act quickly. by taking the first step can dispel the fog of doubt.

work on building your self-confidence. take manageable risks, achieve goals, or even reminding yourself of past successes. the more you affirm your own abilities, the less room there is for fear to grow.

keep your eyes on the prize and do not let distractions, doubts, and/or fears sidetrack you. when you find yourself overwhelmed, return to your larger purpose. stay focused on what you want to achieve, you’ll naturally push past the doubts and fears that threaten to slow you down.

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genderkoolaid · 10 months ago

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i find this so interesting. on multiple levels. i actually agree that there are trans people who use the language of "gender is fake" while still relying on the idea that gender is not a construct. i mentioned this in another post but we have a problem with conflating our choice in labels with the experiences we use them to express. and then ofc there are people who still follow the medical model of being trans which uses shit like "brainsex."

but i find the comparison w christianity interesting because of the assumption that "full" or "true" belief is an objective measurement. there are plenty of people who identify as christian and perform as christians but don't "truly" believe. and i'm not even talking about hypocrites! there are agnostic + atheist christians who find community in christianity and/or find it valuable philosophically. same as most other religions. because, like gender, things don't have to be Scientifically Real to be worthwhile. its fully possible to acknowledge that gender is fake (so is sex btw <3) and still find value in gender identity. laws being a social construct doesn't mean there can never be value is having an agreed upon set of rules. the only thing recognizing social constructs inherently asks us imo is to interact w those constructs knowing that they are always being recreated.

anyways. transness Exists as a scientific fact. in that there is clearly a common experience had by homo sapiens. partaking in culture is not diametrically opposed to "nature" we are social animals social construction is our nature! this is why social + physical transition works for many. its just smth humans naturally experience. the best argument terfs can make with this information is that identification w sex constructs exclusively is what is the most politically useful thing we can do, but at best this obscures how much influence gender identity has over society & pressures intersex & transsexual people to put themselves in a binary that cannot accurately discuss their experiences even if they are willing to admit that sex is a construct.

#m.

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scuderiasundays · 1 year ago

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the way i do

summary: holiday traditions lead to flashbacks of the right person he met at the wrong time 💌

words: 706

a/n: haven't written in ages but something compelled me to write this short piece (slightly inspired by "long live"). timely considering it’s taylor’s birthday! tagging @vamossainz55, @sainzcaleruega, @monzabee, and @silverstonesainz just because. any and all feedback much appreciated as always! hugs and kisses 🫶🏼

"Papa, who's this? The lady standing beside you?"

Isla, the spitting image of her father, looked up at Lando with those piercing blue-green eyes. With Christmas just around the corner, the Norris family honored their long-standing tradition of leafing through old photos together. A storied career and a blissful family life had amassed into a pile of scrapbooks as tall as young Isla herself.

Yet, Lando found himself taken aback as Isla's chubby pointer finger rested on a particular figure in the photo. This image, long tucked away in a box of sentimental keepsakes, hadn't seen the light of day in ages. He was captivated by the scene of pure elation, his champagne-soaked figure, and the look of admiration in her eyes. This was São Paulo 2023, his last podium in a tumultuous season. Coincidentally, it was the last time he laid eyes on her, though not by his own choosing.

The stakes were palpably high as the Formula 1 season drew to a close. Despite the heightened cheers from the crowd, the pressure bore down on Lando, almost devouring him whole. The two were similar in that way, devout believers in what Lando playfully termed a "don’t let them in, don’t let them see" mentality.

You had known for months that Lando wasn’t being upfront with you. You hadn’t been there as much as he desired in a season that had tested his belief in McLaren and, more importantly, his self-confidence. It resonated in his voice and his wandering gaze when he spoke of other drivers’ partners following them from race to race. Lando had always made it a point to acknowledge and champion your genuine passion for clinical genetics. You had been the one to introduce Lando to Girlstart, a nonprofit dedicated to exposing young girls to high-quality STEM experiences. Your heart grew twice its size as you watched him interact with the girls throughout the race weekend. However, it wasn't lost on you that, despite honoring your independence, half of his being yearned for the simplicity of going to bed and waking up beside you every day.

As the team gathered for a celebratory group photo, you entwined your fingers with his as you lined up in front of Lando's garage. Three reassuring squeezes, a habit from their early dating days when privacy was paramount. He squeezed right back. Mentally, you pledged to open up to him later, fully aware that you risked losing the person who mattered most.

You sat with him by the hotel pool, a glass of rosé in hand. You needed all the liquid courage you could get for what was about to ensue.

"What’s the matter?" Lando gently brushed a strand of hair out of your face.

"I need you to be honest with me, not just because I’m asking, but because you love me. Do you think this is working?"

"What kind of question is that, love?"

"I know this might seem out of the blue, but I’ve been contemplating this deeply, and I-." A single tear fell as you struggled to gather your thoughts.

"Hey, hey, hey. I already know what you’re about to say. It’s alright."

"You do?"

"I’ve had this strange feeling all weekend. Something about our connection and all." Your heart shattered as his eyes fell.

"I wonder if I’ll ever find a love like ours again," he said, his voice shaking.

"Oh, but you will, Lando. I just know it."

"Feels far-fetched at the moment."

He leaned into the crook of your neck, the cold metal of his necklaces laying against your skin.

"Are we consciously uncoupling right now?" you asked, seeing the faintest smile emerging on his lips.

"An amicable separation in every sense. None of that Hollywood bullshit."

Just one glance at that photo had transported Lando to that night so many years back. The years that had gone by allowed him to really take her image in. The way her eyes crinkled, the dimples he so loved, and the evident pride emanating as she cupped his face.

She must’ve really loved me, he thought to himself.

"That’s Y/N, darling. Someone special who made daddy smile like no other."

"The way I do?"

"The way you do, sweet Isla."

#lando norris x reader #f1 x you #lando norris fluff #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #f1 fic #lando norris imagine #lando norris x y/n #lando norris x you #lando norris angst

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inkedberries · 3 months ago

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Hey! Prefacing this by saying that this isn't meant to be an attack (which generally isn't a great way to start a message but I'd rather be clear about intentions) and more so genuine curiosity. Apologizing in advance for this being long; I have a tendency to overthink and overexplain.

I don't typically interact with fandom outside of like... carefully curated little microbiomes. As such I haven't really encountered the whole proship/anti shit with any amount of seriousness since probably around 2018. I personally don't put much stock into either of the terms because there's far too much grey area and for the fact that (as per my understanding) exist as ethical frameworks, and I don't care much for subscribing purely to a single framework to the exclusion of anything else in terms of personal ethics and morality. At most with friends we tend to colloquially refer to incest + pedophile ships as proships, because that's just sort-of what the term has evolved to mean most strongly (again, at least in the circles I run in). I don't consider myself anti or proship or whatever the fuck else, because I generally don't care to involve myself with that kind of fandom drama. I'll involve myself over like, matters of being anti-bigotry but the rest is just something I haven't wanted to deal with for 5-6 years. Tagging + filtering + block functions exist for a reason, and I don't need to do anything more than prevent my feed from showing me those things. I generally just hit block and move on with that kind of stuff, especially because I'm anti-censorship for a variety of reasons.

Tl;dr on that: proship/anti aren't terms I really use or subscribe to, because I feel like they oversimplify everything and conflate "drama". From my understanding, I agree with proship ideology (????) in the sense that I believe censorship only fucks over everyone, and that you can just block + filter and move on. But at the same time I see this overall conception that 'proship' means you support/condone/etc incest and pedophilia and so on, which I really truly don't. But there is this really heavy perception that proship = this person ships (usually) pedophilic or incestuous relationships. A bit reinforced for me typically because when something like that comes across my feed and I go to block the person, they generally have 'proship' in their bio. That to acknowledge that I do have some bias in that, even if I know it's a correlation/not cause thing. That all being (over)said (and I'm SO sorry again about how fucking long this is, my twitter TL is having a meltdown and I've avoided all this stuff for so long I don't know if I'm missing something? Because ethically on my end there's no reason for me to block or whatever outside of just the word proship...? Two minutes for a quick search as as far as I can tell you don't participate in anything against my own comfort/moral beliefs. so) I guess I'm asking what your definition of proship is for yourself and why people are jumping to this conclusion of dislike so instantaneously? Obviously you're under no obligation to educate me on what I presume is fucking YEARS of fandom history, nor respond publicly or even at all. I'm only asking you specifically because this is the first time I've encountered 'being proship' ≠ shipping pedophilia etc etc. I think maybe I came across it way back when as a middle schooler, but I'm not about to trust any of my opinions/recollections from when I was that age lmao. But anyways. Just genuinely curious and wanting to understand because I'm wary of reacting too-quickly just because other people are, and especially so if it's actually a total non-issue for me. Sorry again for the insane rambling in this lol

hello!! i hope you don't mind me prefacing this response too by saying to please read this out fully, if you don't agree with the starting points i've provided, i hope you still continue on reading until the end💙 i think @/frownyalfred best words the defense i would most likely stumble on if i give it a go at answering your question with my own words

and this was a post made in 2016 (where a lot of ppl say is the year anti-shippers started sprouting up) and this is honestly what i mean when i say i hate antis

if anything, antis just started the propaganda that all proshippers are incest lovers and pedophiles and people ate it up like cats who haven't had wet food in three weeks. as proven by your friend group using the term as such? that's wild to me that ppl use the term proship like that, i hope the case i'm making will change that for you and your friend group.

no, proship literally is anti-censorship. ship and let ship. antis gatekeep, police shippers and harass anyone who doesn't ship their ship the RIGHT way. and it's not just the ships you say are 'harmful' or 'immoral'. i've shipped a rarepair before and the fandom at large did not like me shipping a rarepair so they started calling me a pedophile bc i aged up said characters???????? they'll find anything and i mean ANYTHING to twist everything i say and do to make it seem like it's "okay" for me to be harassed and bullied. "oh it's okay that i'm telling this person to die because they're gross," yeah no that behavior is So Much More Normal than a person shipping two fictional characters the "wrong" way. AND YOU KNOW WHAT'S FUCKED UP? ppl BELIEVED THEM LMAOOOO

and hey no sweat, i was like you once. i didn't define myself as proship or anti bc the real world exists but then in the one space i thought i'd be free from real life speculation and surveillance i get these anti policing assholes so yeah im a proshipper now lol just to get away from that bs. i honestly just want to have fun on here without judgement but i can't even have that lol that's why im all about blocking/muting.

you say your tl is having a meltdown? well shit, they're probably calling me names on there too. probably throwing out baseless accusations without fact checking bc i'm lowlife enough not be respected or given the decency of a fact check? or saying my art wasn't good anyway? bc gatekeeping their precious kudoichi is so much more righteous, top priority that they start slandering a real life person, right? no no no one disgusting should be touching or shipping our precious kudoichi lmao i hope you see how Not Right this is. kinda makes me feel sick for real lol

and i hope you understand how harmful this is not just to my mental state but my livelihood as an artist as these people would just start policing their fellow fans and just tell them not to support or view my art because im a 'proshipper' not even that, they'd probably just straight up say i support incest and pedophilia which are?????? such STRONG accusations to make????????? now they're just buzzwords. BUZZWORDS for antis to use to defame and cancel an artist! a real life person. over their precious fictional characters. over their precious kudoichi. oh man it makes it so much more stupid if i specify the ship, what is wrong with people sometimes😭

but hey im all about blocking and muting and unfollowing if you don't like my stuff i'm 100% for that but i hope they do it on their own terms. their own thinking. not because someone told them to.

and i dunno man that behavior of not even letting their 'friends' think for themselves, that they'd bash them too if they support me, my art, kinda seems like grooming don't it? or nah no im just looking into it. it might not be that deep. but i really yeah that's why i hate antis and why im more proship.

but hey i appreciate you even taking the time to come to me in the first place and uhhh idk i hope you found what you were looking for and that i answered your bit of curiousity there!

#acaiis #bean talks #lol i mean honestly it's my fault why did i expect not to find antis in bnha😂 of all the ships i had to like why did it have to be this one

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yudrein-aile · 5 months ago

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Second Gender Manifestations, Sexual Assault and the Law: Omegaverse in Turning

I got too invested after an earlier elaboration. As always, chapter references are in brackets.

Content warnings: human experimentation, rape, mutual-non con, assault, childhood sexual assault. Please be mindful while reading!

I’d be lying if I said that this topic has been haunting me since I started reading Turning. I picked this novel up specifically because it had the Omegaverse tag and I found myself intrigued. Would this story play it like most BL Omegaverse, following a more “traditional” set up or if the author was going to do something fun and new with it?

And new it was, brand new in fact. The concept of Alphas and Omegas is brand new in Turning. By the time the story starts, they’ve only existed for two years – and that is without knowing quite how long it took the population to figure out that second genders had even manifested. Kishiar awakened and went through his second gender manifestation at the same time (160), and is one of the first confirmed second gender Awakeners in the world (115), but Kishiar awakened as a male Alpha, which, from what we know so far, doesn’t appear to deviate as much from being a cis man in the first place.

Still, second gender manifestations were new, and immediately cause panic.

The Emperor of the Orr Empire and the Pope officially declared it the "second gender bestowed by the gods," and the general populace, who had been terrified that their own bodies might change at any moment, were greatly relieved. (3)

Second genders are not well received. Yuder tells us that in the first timeline, people are quick to start to discriminate against Omegas, who are believed to awaken weaker abilities and have weaker physical abilities. Their heat cycles are also stronger, as is their scent, quickly leading to the belief that they are sexual deviants, who can’t control their own scents, which can be detected even by non-Awakeners (3). This eventually leads to Omegas also being excluded from the Cavalry, despite the head of the Cavalry being an Omega himself (3).

Yuder was praised as the strongest Awakener on the continent, but even he wasn’t free of discrimination:

There had been countless people over the years who looked down on Yuder, an Omega, for being the leader of the Cavalry. Among the Awakeners, there were many who refused to acknowledge him. (4)

Not only is Yuder an Omega who allegedly slept his way to power – more on that notion later – but he’s also a “broken” one as he doesn’t perceive scents or experience a heat cycle. (4) All of this reveals a prejudice that mirrors real-life misogyny well enough, which is quite fascinating considering Turning itself appears to have little societal misogyny, women are fully legally equal citizens to men, and a woman inheriting titles or such is not forbidden, but even welcome in some cases (Myra el Herne) and they are even high-ranking in the army while married with children (Meghna Cuglieva). This makes the particular discrimination Omegas face quite interesting as it appears to not just be a straight-up copy of discrimination that women already face.

And clearly, even within the Awakener community, there grows a perception of what Omegas should be like. Yuder, during his time as Commander, had to deal with people sneaking into his bedroom “claiming they could suppress the scentless Omega Commander with their scents” (190) aka attempting to “fix” him, not unlike the rhetoric used particularly around queer people. While Yuder speaks of “suppressing” here, to me, it reads more as though their intention was sexual assault. The fact that Yuder’s solution to this was beating them up until their “dicks were broken” (190) appears to support that.

One, further, explanation for the discrimination Omegas, particularly male omegas, might face is the fact that they can get pregnant. While there appears no disgust per se at the notion, Lenore and Beltreil’s conversation about Kishiar’s second gender, at the very least, drips with mockery, it is a worthy consideration:

"I'm not sure. Didn't uncle say it's difficult to distinguish just by appearance? But I would prefer it if it were the Omega." "Why is that?" "Wouldn't it be nice if God granted at least the mercy of nurturing an imperial heir directly to someone who is destined not to have children? Especially considering how blessed he is."

Clearly, they are making fun of him here, especially since Kishiar is considered Tall Handsome ManTM, but perhaps in there lies the truth, that even the body of a man like him could be changed without his input, feminized in a way. It is in particular why I love Kishiar so much when he interacts with Yuder, all typically “feminine” character traits, interest in fashion, dancing, being chatty, are regaled to Kishiar and not Yuder. But also I would kill for an Omega Kishiar AU in case anyone feels inspired. Moving on-

We know that talking about second genders becomes a taboo topic within years of them becoming more common knowledge as Yuder notes that, opposed to now, two years after they appeared, “in a few more years, openly asking about someone's secondary gender would become impolite” (20). Yuder calls this current state of talking about it easily, without shame or stigma “liberating” (20). Perhaps the closest real-world comparison to this is going from trans* friendly space where discussing gender happens nearly casually, to being thrust into the open world, where every discussion of your gender is immediately tied to an expected performance and tied to a sexual connotation. But we’re not here for the real world, but for this fantasy novel so let’s continue and take a quick look at how second gender manifestation actually works.

Second Gender Manifestation aka Puberty, but WorseTM

In chapter 156, Yuder summarizes quite neatly what they know of how second gender manifestation works.

Being an Awakener did not necessarily mean one would undergo second gender manifestation. Furthermore, those who did experience the second gender manifestation didn't all manifest in the same way. Typically, signs of upcoming changes would manifest as persistent low-grade fevers or pain over a few days, followed by a slow transformation while being sick for nearly a week. However, there were individuals who unpredictably spewed out all the pain in a single moment, undergoing a sudden change. […] The onset of the first in-heat period after manifestation varied as well. Some would not experience their first in-heat period for a long time after the second gender manifestation, while others would enter their in-heat period immediately after. The cause of this variance remained unknown despite research from previous lives. The only known fact was that those who awakened their power and experienced second gender manifestation simultaneously underwent the transformation with the least amount of pain. (156)

So what I’d argue second gender manifestation boils down to is:

You’re sick.

It hurts, depending on your combination of awakening/manifestation, that could be a lot.

You manifest as either Alpha or Omega.

You get a scent out of it.

The other important note that Yuder notes pretty much from the start of the novel is that no Awakener of the opposite gender should be present during the manifestation (28) as this causes “problems”. Problems is a very mild way of paraphrasing “sexual assault”. But let’s take a step back before we address that part and take a look at 3. first.

To boil it down, Alphas are capable of impregnating anyone of the opposite gender, while Omegas can get pregnant, either regardless of their first gender (3). Canon does not exactly elaborate on what that means for Alpha females or Omega males, beyond their body changing somehow. (I mean. 618 does, uh, imply cervix penetration IMO but let’s leave that discussion for another time.)

Yuder notes that “most Alphas felt a distinct desire only for Omegas” (37), but considering Yuder brings that up in the context of it being unfathomable why Kishiar is flirting with him, I’d not exactly consider that truthful, but more a reflection of Yuder not being able to grasp why Kishiar would want to do anything with him without his second gender manifestation forcing them. Additionally, at the time the novel was still going to include the concept of Betas.

Now, let’s get back to the word the novel continuously avoids, whether that is intentional, or a reflection of Yuder’s point of view, but even without spelling it out: rape is more than just alluded to.

When Yuder departs East with Gakane and Jimmy, Kishiar warns him that Jimmy shows signs of second gender manifestation. Yuder’s reaction to that is worrying whether this might prompt his own second gender awakening as there are rumors that somebody experiencing second gender manifestation might trigger another (112). This is more or less confirmed later during Beltreil’s research (132).

His second, more concerning worry, is whether Gakane, an Alpha Awakener, might become a threat if Jimmy manifests as an Omega (68). Why is it a problem if Gakane is there if Jimmy, who is twelve, manifests as an Omega? Yuder speaks of the need to be strong enough to isolate them (68). What this spells out to me is, in the end, Yuder worrying about whether Jimmy’s second gender manifestation would trigger Gakane and whether this might escalate into Gakane assaulting him. This is, frankly speaking, absolutely horrifying. Jimmy is a kid, everyone treats him like a kid when it concerns potentially emotionally damaging topics (67) and Gakane is probably even more of a green flag than Kishiar.

Yuder is, plainly, worried about an instinctual reaction and lack of control. Now the question is, is this realistic?

Hate to say it, but Turning hasn’t really given us much to prove the opposite. First of, in universe people don’t know much about second gender awakening in the first place, never mind what it means for someone so young.

It is said that when Jimmy manifested “many were worried about his manifestation at such a young age, [but] Jimmy rather enjoyed it” (116). This does fit a little more with the vibes we get when Gakane and Jimmy talk about his second gender manifestation earlier. When Jimmy worries about his manifestation, he links it to becoming an adult. That reads a lot more like the discourse surrounding preconceived notions about what starting to menstruate is like/means (89). So it could honestly be that Jimmy, or any kid, awakening as an Omega around an adult second gender awakening triggers more “yeah that’s a kid, gotta take care of the kid” instead of anything sexual, but neither we nor Yuder knows that.

What we do know is the opposite.

Yuder is more than just apprehensive of his own second gender manifestation. During the first timeline, Yuder’s second gender manifestation is sudden and overlaps with Kishiar’s near heat, causing Kishiar to lose control. Yuder describes him as “beast-like” (301) and he hardly has any memories of the incident.

While he was tangled up, he did not know whether the place had changed or whether days and nights had passed, but he continually felt as if something inside him was being ripped apart and was being messily mixed with something that came from outside. The pain, as if something unseen and ragged pieces were arbitrarily stitched together. (301)

None of the words Yuder uses to describe his second gender manifestation are kind. If anything, they make me a little nauseous.

Yuder, however, could not comprehend the 'pleasant moments' they referred to. He failed to see what was refreshing or enjoyable about losing control of oneself. For him, being a second gender Awakener was a source of agony. The single heat experience that had come and gone with his manifestation was a source of shame, and the powerless time when he could not control himself was a horror he did not even wish to imagine in dreams.

He speaks of pain, a loss of control, shame – it summons the image of suffering from the aftereffects of a date rape drug. He barely remembers what happened to him, he recalls the dizzy aftermath.

Why did the traces of that path feel like screams? […] It was the pain of a naive and awkward emotion dying. He didn't know what he had hoped for, but he knew he hadn't wished for this, and thus, a mournful moan escaped him. (613)

Yuder very much did not consent to this and didn’t want it – and neither did Kishiar! Turning has done an incredibly good job at leading up to this, pointing out the loss of control. Much earlier already, Yuder remembers part of the conversation he has with Kishiar in the aftermath, during which Kishiar apologizes and affirms it’s not Yuder’s fault and also that he doesn’t know what happened, but that he will figure it out (142, 159). We know Kishiar figured something out for sure, even if not everything, but that also makes you wonder. We know they kept hooking up, we also know that Yuder carries the trauma of that experience with him. When he experiences his second gender manifestation in the second timeline, he’s afraid and thinks the outcome is almost inevitable.

"Yuder Aile. Whatever you're afraid of now, I promise it will never happen. Won't you trust me?" [...] Overwhelmed by heat, self-loathing, and confusion, Yuder sighed and closed his eyes. Even his gasping sounds felt disgustingly repulsive, making his stomach churn (160).

It’s not, but we also know Kishiar was holding himself to an unexpected degree and had the luck of not being near his own heat cycle.

Additionally, we know that Yuder wants guidelines on how to handle second gender manifestations because of incidents in the first timeline. It’s not entirely impossible that similar situations of (near) mutual non-con happened.

And this, finally, brings us to a part of the novel that I honestly when I read was appalled, but didn’t fully grasp until later.

The Apeto Experiments

Beltreil’s experiments are absolutely horrifying. We don’t actually see the experiments themselves, but we learn the results of his experiments. The goal was to figure out whether Awakener children could fix the curse on their bloodline (462), which is why they were so keen to get second gender awakeners (95).

What Beltreil concludes from the experiments is this:

Second gender manifestation in one Awakener, can trigger the same in another non-manifested one. (132)

In Alphas and Omegas who have reached their mating cycles, sexual attraction always occurs, though to varying degrees. (184)

Even if one party is not in heat, sexual attraction can occur, but the probability of copulation appears to be extremely low if one party is in a normal state. (184)

Pregnancy does not always result from copulation between Alphas and Omegas who have reached their mating cycles. (184)

Physical reactions manifest such as scent, along with heightened senses, sexual arousal, excessive protectiveness, a sense of unity surpassing camaraderie. (184)

Awakeners who have manifested their second gender become vulnerable during heat. (184)

The chance of a child being born between second gender Awakeners is extremely low. No child has been born safely, resulting in either miscarriage or in the sudden death of the parent. (462)

And then we have to ask, how exactly did Beltreil conclude all of this? Well, the way he came about his results is written down quite directly.

He had gathered powerless commoners who had Awakened from all over the empire, almost kidnapping them. Initially, he attempted to transform himself into an Awakener by exchanging his blood with theirs, but after failing, he moved on to forcing Awakeners with second gender to conceive children, with the intention of observing the process. (462)

Or to put it more plainly: He locked them in a cell and forced people to rape each other, probably either under conditions similar to Kishiar and Yuder’s case waiting for them to lose control, or by forcing them. During the trial, one Awakener brings up many dying due to “vomiting blood due to the drugs they were forced to consume, drugs that were purported to induce heat period” (209).

Just carefully read through the list above, and try to imagine under what circumstances you’d find the conditions for this. While we can’t be sure this is particularly correct – Kishiar notes how inhuman the conditions of these experiments were and that these writings should not be believed – he does put some belief in it, considering how careful he is not to knock Yuder up (462, 620).

Beltreil started his experiments a year ago, so just a year after Awakeners appeared. For there to be miscarriages to happen which even resulted in the death of the parent, suggesting they probably happened later during the pregnancy, he probably rather quickly stopped the whole blood transfusion and switched over to assault. In the first timeline, Yuder never learns of this, but he isn’t particularly shocked this was happening either. At the very start, Yuder already notes that some omegas “were even kidnapped and used as sexual playthings by aristocrats who coveted rare and peculiar possessions” (3).

So now let’s talk about what the Orr Empire (didn’t) do about this.

Laws and Regulations in the Orr Empire

So Yuder notes that “in the past, laws could only be established after numerous accidents had occurred” (38) and that he “had gone through a lot of trouble to push through regulations and laws related to the second gender, against the opposition of greedy nobles” (68). From this we conclude that in the first timeline, due to Kishiar mcfucking dying, Yuder was the one pushing for laws and regulations regarding second gender manifestation, but probably Awakeners in general.

They have to deal with kidnapping, human experimentation, slavery, assault – a continuously long list of hurt. And this is in the Orr Empire – the best place to be an Awakener on the continent. Every other country is worse, except, perhaps, Nelarn later on, because Ejain is an Awakener himself.

One of the issues Yuder also had is that “there were hardly any scholars conducting proper research on the abilities and physical changes of the Awakeners and it was nearly impossible for the leader of the Cavalry, who came from a commoner background, to correct misconceptions and prejudice alone” (68).

This is important because this means that the preconceived notions of Awakeners are what determine the law. Omega Awakeners are weak, Awakeners in heat are sexual beings.

Yuder notes that “rumors began to circulate that perverse, wealthy individuals were buying Omegas for their alleged enhancing or aphrodisiac properties, even though no evidence supported such claims” (585).

If you really want to push it through, then laws and regulations are needed because otherwise you could – and I’m sure that in universe they did – argue that it isn’t assault if an Awakener is in heat. They’re asking for it, after all.

And Yuder in the past did what he could, from having rooms set aside for people to safely spend their heat for example.

During his time as a Commander, Yuder used various local branches as shelters to protect Omegas going through their heat periods. Anyone experiencing an impending heat period could visit a Cavalry branch, receive sleeping medicines, and use the isolation facilities. (585)

The fact that this was necessary, speaks miles about the conditions at the time were like. So it makes sense that Kishiar, now in the second timeline, quickly wants to bring about proper laws concerning Awakeners as there is “still no formal law concerning those with the second gender” (520), even if we know that by 583 they’re working on it – one can only assume that once Kishiar and Yuder get back from the North, Keilusa’s clean up will have included some changes towards that.

Conclusion

Do I have a final conclusion? This is already 2k longer than I wanted it to be. I think in the end, what this essay boils down to can be summoned up as “the treatment of second gender Awakeners was horrific” and “a lot of Yuder’s reactions and beliefs regarding his own second gender (manifestation) can be directly traced back to this.

#yuder aile #kishiar la orr #turning #터닝 #meta #mind the cws!!!

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