I'm a huge proponent of sharing skills and knowledge, particularly of the how to do things for yourself variety. And when I share these with others I try to do so in a non judgemental way. A phrase I use a lot is "If no one taught you, how would you know?" And I mean it in the most genuine way. I understand that there are a lot things people just aren't taught anymore and I strongly feel that it is unfair to judge people for not knowing skills they were never taught.
All that to say one of my coworkers came in yesterday and asked how bad it was to drive with a flat tire. My immediate reaction was !!!! because it can lead to damage that's very costly especially given that a fix, even a temporary one, is relatively easy most of the time.
So I told my coworker I can help as I have a pack that supplies compressed air, can jump start a car, and has USB charging ports. (If you don't have one I highly recommend it. I got mine on sale for about $40 and it's come in handy more times than I can count.)
I asked what their tire pressure should be and they weren't sure. No problem, let me show you how to find that information. (There's a sticker inside the driver side door that lists front, rear, and spare tire pressure.) Then I walked my coworker through attaching the hose, how to set the pack to the appropriate number, and from there it just runs. It has a nice digital display and stops when it reaches the set air pressure. Very easy.
When we came back inside another coworker said they thought their tires might need air but wasn't sure. I took them out and explained how to find what their tires should be at and how to use a tire pressure gauge. We did end up putting air in one of the tires.
Back inside a third coworker admitted they had a tire that definitely needs air but they were embarrassed to get it fixed. So I went through showing them everything and filling their tire. This coworker told me their dad had told them how to do all this but the advice was hard to listen to. And I responded that I'm always happy to help. What I wanted to say is that I'm happy to explain things in a friendly way because things taught when the learner is made to feel like shit rarely stick in a helpful way. But that's too heavy for a light learning experience.
At the end of the day a different coworker started to complain to me about how younger people (they and I have about a decade on the majority of our coworkers) don't know how to help themselves. And I did my best to spin it as yes it's a shame they weren't taught these skills but fortunately you and I know them and are able to share them going forward. This stumped them for a bit before they eventually agreed with me.
I don't really have a neat way to wrap up this post. So I'm just going to reiterate that I'm always happy to pass along knowledge, provide assistance where I am able to, and ultimately help people help themselves in the areas I can.
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19, 20, 21, 22 for the polycule of your choice? :0
whoops we're doing it for two of them :3 and I'll include Heith too
19 - Summarize your character's goals in one sentence.
Marcus: be okay and go home, but also never have to tell Heith about all of his lies by omission
Heith: figure out if she's actually for real serious about Marcus (she thinks she might be actually for real serious about Marcus) and one way or another move out of her hotel room on Aephar
Yera: be a mom and try to make peace with the fact that Marcus is not here to be a part of the family
Hossan: be a dad and help Umedes figure themself out
Gren: see Marcus again and hopefully find out that there was no need to be jealous about his girlfriend, and make sure everyone's okay, especially the baby
Pali: prevent Kiatcarmen from finding Marcus (though that isn't a very active job), make sure the shifter coalition in the court doesn't budge, and get somewhere with her studies of shifter magic
Umedes: figure out whether they want to have a kid or not help
Kiatcarmen: find Marcus, because Minaya must not ascend, and do whatever else she can to preserve her accomplishments in the kingdom
Pirianus: broaden Kiatcarmen's vision beyond legacy, or, failing that, as he has for some 30+ years, get her to open up to him
Caladea: see Marcus again, and for his polycule's sake believe with all her heart the lies they tell Kiatcarmen
Thade: continue completing the political project du jour and end up in a happily ever after with Pirianus, which might also make him more welcome in the palace
Orvi: complete the one thing he was installed in the palace to accomplish
20 - Who's in the way of those goals?
Marcus: his mother. Always his mother. And honestly a little bit himself
Heith: herself, mostly. This is so not like her - well, specifically the part where she's still here when there have been plenty of times to go home
Yera: realistically, Kiatcarmen. But she still sometimes feels like she's lost some of her verve
Hossan: Umedes is the big challenge here. They're just so indecisive
Gren: Kiatcarmen, but sometimes it's easier to focus on the fact that Marcus has an interstellar girlfriend that none of them have ever met and that's so frustrating
Pali: herself. There aren't enough hours in the day for everything, and she has to sleep ugh
Umedes: themself, because they were the one who said this would be a great idea for when Marcus comes back. Who 100% believed Pali and Minaya and her ferasca spouses that this would go great. And who also took one look at Yera & Hossan's baby and thought that maybe they were signing up for more than they realized
Kiatcarmen: Marcus. Always Marcus. But she also blames Minaya and Yera and Pali for his disappearance, and she needs Pirianus to just shut up. This would have been so much easier with Jimmy
Pirianus: Kiatcarmen because he put his eggs all in one basket. But he mostly blames himself
Caladea: Kiatcarmen, but she tries to focus on what she can do better, and how she's getting in her own way
Thade: he's beginning to suspect he's been in his own way this entire time but it can't be understated how much Pirianus is constantly hot and cold
Orvi: it changes frequently, but always some contingent of the court
21 - What is your character's relationship with their emotions?
Marcus: he can't control his bad emotions, so he suppresses them. This has never caused any problems
Heith: she's just as cynical about her emotions as she is about everything else, but sometimes she just can't not feel something completely unironically
Yera: she's gonna feel them whatever they are so [grits teeth] negative emotions are part of the fullness of experience (she will be screaming into this pillow later)
Hossan: left to his own devices, he would feel his emotions, and then let them cast away upon the wind. Being with Yera and Gren has made him learn how to interrogate them more
Gren: he feels everything. A lot. He also conceptualizes things in terms of feelings a lot
Pali: she would like to believe she doesn't have them, but then she lays awake at night deconstructing them
Umedes: they tend to put intense feelings away for later, but don't ever get to later unless later comes for them first
Kiatcarmen: her emotions are so rich and nuanced and nobody understands that, so all of her emotions collapse into some flavor of annoyance
Pirianus: don't like that feeling? Repress it! This will never result in it returning in continually more warped and incomprehensible forms
Caladea: being in the palace seems to have stunted her emotions - they're flatter, duller, and way more anxious no matter what they are
Thade: don't like that feeling? Deflect it! The more mirrors there are between you and your emotions the less you will ever know what they are and the less you can ever be responsible for them
Orvi: he has a mental Tupperware for emotions that allows him to keep control of himself. He is the only person on this list who will actually open that Tupperware on purpose later
22 - What regrets do they have, if any? (From any part of the story, not just exposition.)
Marcus: missing out on eight years of his "real" life, and especially not being there when Gren's grandmother died. If only he'd been stronger, he could have stayed
Heith: before finding out about Marcus, that she's kind of a flake to her band, but they don't seem to mind that much. After finding out about Marcus, that she ever thought there was some kind of "magic" between them and maybe she could feel naïve about love for two seconds
Yera: she regretted drifting away from her father and sister, so she's fixing that now
Hossan: most of his regrets are from the now-distant past and don't make much sense - even he will say so - but he always finds himself regretting that he can't seem to do more for people
Gren: not going home even more before his grandmother died, even though he was practically splitting his time between his home city and the palace. He also regrets letting Marcus leave, even though he had to, and there was no other real choice
Pali: after getting married, she got more distant from her professor mentor, and the regret hit her hard when they died
Umedes: most immediately, thinking that having a kid was a good idea (they are beginning to think that this is a pregnancy kink that got out of hand). But more than anything they regret not going with Marcus, even though they couldn't
Kiatcarmen: Ashmalo was a liability, but she still regrets that he died (despite her image she does not think that assassination is the right way to deal with most problems, including Ashmalo). Conversely, she regrets that she couldn't save Jimmy, even though medical science itself could not have saved Jimmy. She also regrets letting Minaya slip out from under her thumb, because if she hadn't, she wouldn't be stuck looking for her runaway son
Pirianus: that he can't seem to permanently extract himself from Thade. If he stops and thinks about it (read: gets drunk and sad) he regrets spending so many years of his life trying to get through to a woman who would just as soon throw him to the dogs
Caladea: that she couldn't do more for Marcus or Minaya or Ashmalo, and that she still can't. And that being stuck in the palace has left her struggling to try and pick up the pieces of her creativity and her passion even though it should have given her unlimited resources to pursue them
Thade: things he's said to people. Most of them used to be seared in his brain because he thought they were funny, and eventually he figured out that oh, maybe they weren't. But some of them seemed bad from the moment they came out of his mouth (not before that, unfortunately, because he wasn't thinking about it) and he wishes he could take them back for real, especially the things he's said to Pirianus
Orvi: that he's still here. He had one thing to accomplish, and even though it was complex, it's taking SO. LONG. He knew that marrying into the royal family meant that he probably wasn't going to permanently go home again, but the longer this drags on the less he even wants to show his face there, and he wonders if it was worth it at all
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🩹💎🎲
FOR SOBB!
🩹 - Someone who was a source of trauma
wowee! looks around. well it's been a while since i've yapped/thought about sobb(sorry)... but i'll try to be accurate with what i can remember. i can always just rewrite... who cares... ermmm well, he doesn't really remember this, but his biological parents and their krewe were definitely a major source of trauma and distress within his life. again, he can't(or chooses not to) remember this, but there's definitely hints of his past somewhere int hat tiny brain of his. just. asura in general, probably, college, etc., their way of life was probably traumatizing for a while before he up and left to become a frycook! yay!
💎 - Chosen family (including warband)
his chosen family :D M4-B-T and P4-B-T (ma-bot and pa-bot, whom he simply just calls mom and pa) are his parents! they are, as their names suggest, golems, that were made by his biological parents to take on the duties of caretaking! because they had more important matters to attend to. yadda, yadda, these bots showed sobb more affection and care than his biological parents (or anyone, for that matter) did, and eventually, they became who he considered his actual parents. this solidified especially after his bioligical parents and their krewe.... erm... mysteriously dissapeared!
🎲 - Biological parents
assholes. not much to say other than that! obsessed with their research and with themselves, not even sure why they decided to have sobb. they love eachother in a weird "i will beat this guy because he's just as smart as me" way. like. toxic yaoi i guess. go you. maybe they thought having a child would help their relationship or something i don't know. they're on and off a lot, lots of arguments over research and blah blah blah and "go take care of the baby" "make that thing stop fucking sobbing" wah wah wah! anyways!! they dieddissapeared in sobb's preteen years. probably(definitely) by their own creation/research.... ahem... but that's already a lot of secrets spilled so enough for now i suppose
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