#Thoughts & More

[floralmemorials]

Vietnam Veterans Recognition Day

March 29 is Vietnam Veterans Recognition Day. It was on Mach 29 , 1973 that the last of the American troops were pulled out of Vietnam thus ending our involvement in the war between North and South Vietnam. These very young men were drafted or voluntarily enlisted in the service and fought for what our country ask of them. It is fitting that they be recognized for their service. If you know a…

[overnighttosunflowers]

I've been thinking a lot about that interaction between Laudna and Orym in episode 102. How it starts with Orym saying "I'm so sorry that the world is moving so fast that we couldn't take the time to help you."

There's a certainty to that framing that is very typical of Orym. Not "I'm sorry the world is moving so fast that we didn't take the time to help you." They couldn't take the time. The mission comes first, second, and third until they've seen it through. 

Now, it's hardly a revolutionary observation that Orym's worldview comes from a particular combination of military training, survivor's guilt, and calcified grief that is ultimately self-destructive. It's also not a revolutionary observation that the party has not quite realized this, or not in so many words. They tend to treat his perspective as the only one unshakeable by personal failing. Later in that conversation in 102, Laudna even tells Orym that if someone needed to "finish the job, put me down," she'd wanted it to be him, because she knows he has the ability to do what's right.

His friends think of him as the only one who isn't a powder keg waiting to go off, but it has gone off, with Orym secretly and self-destructively pledging himself to Nana Morri in order to keep his friends alive. Betraying his friends' trust in favor of the mission. And in the end it didn't accomplish anything.

I think of Orym as someone who holds multiple truths at once. First and foremost there's a soldier's truth, the grim relentlessness that's all that keeps him going sometimes. But we've seen Orym be soft, too. He's gentle. He loves his friends. It's there underneath the grim layers of suppression. We saw it more early campaign. I don't think that he was lying in 49 when he told Imogen that he wasn't worried about her just hours after conspiring with Fearne to take her out if necessary. I think he wanted so, so badly to discount that soldier POV and buy all the way into trusting Imogen. But he couldn't. And I don't know if he was able to reconcile that. I think he genuinely believed both. Liam has said that before the events of this campaign reactivated Orym's trauma, he was legitimately on a path to healing his grief. I think that a healthier Orym would have been able to set down the soldier's truth to simply trust Imogen.

But that's not where the campaign took us. At the Malleus Key in episode 51, Orym collected a locket from a dead Vanguard soldier to remind himself that the enemy are still human. And then after Bor'dor died, in episode 63, he dropped it. Locking in on that soldier's truth. Making that deal with Morri. Not letting his friends stop and rest when they need it badly. Pressuring Imogen to give in to Predathos on the moon so that they could learn more.  

There's a grim run of episodes where Orym is stuck like that, prioritizing his soldier's truth and suppressing the part of him that is his heart. Now, I'm not someone who needs to always feel warmly towards a character or agree with their choices to appreciate their depth and role in the story, and I respect what Liam was doing there. The willingness of the CR cast to have their characters make messy and unpopular choices is one of the things I appreciate most about the show, and one of the things that leads us to the richest and most meaningful moments of character arc resolution. 

But that's where I've been frustrated with Orym: by and large, resolution has not been coming. He's been driving deeper and deeper into his traumatized worldview, clinging to it and stubbornly refusing to hear challenges to it. Repeatedly shutting down arguments by mentioning his dead family. I get it, and I feel for him, and I don't know how else Liam could be playing it given the story that Orym is in and the character that he is—not least a soldier whose training tells him never to question the mission. But, god, I'm ready for the growth. Ready for the story to prod Orym in directions that change. Ideally a shift towards a healthier perspective, but even hitting such a low that the Hells can't help but recognize that Orym's rigid morality is as destructive as it is sustaining. That will make them push back on him.

Because telling Orym he's the good one reinforces his worst instincts, increases the pressure he puts on himself, makes him double down. What he needs is someone to push back. He needs that increasingly brittle sense of his own lens as morally superior and righteous to shatter. 

And I am so, so excited for it to happen—because we're starting to see it starting to crack, just a little. In episode 92, he acknowledged to Imogen that his lens is a lens and not simple objective truth, and even implied it's one he wishes he knew how to set down: 

And now, when Laudna tells him he knows best of all how to do what's right, he admits it again: not a lot of his choices have panned out.

And it's true. They haven't. And I hope he keeps on saying it.

I'm glad to have Dorian back and on a revenge quest against the gods, because Orym trusts Dorian and Dorian is not going to let him sit unchallenged in his own convictions the way the rest of the Hells have been. I'm excited to see more of Braius, who not only disagrees with Orym about the Primes, but also doesn't have the same vested interest as the rest of the party in seeing Orym as good. I hope they both push back on him. I hope it unsettles him and confuses him and breaks his worldview and soldier identity enough that when the pieces come back together, instead of scarring over a second time, they can simply finally heal.

[anewp0tat0]

I've been thinking recently, so here's a headcanon:

when Ciel is in a moment of distress, near panic attack perhaps, if someone were to reach out and touch him so that Ciel could feel their skin, his distress would be amplified. however, he does not react that way in response to a gloved hand reaching out for him. in fact, it is almost soothing. afterall, the hand that has comforted him for the past almost 4 years has been gloved. so if he was ever conditioned to fear all touch, that behavior eventually went extinct.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

sometimes

I still think about TWST!Iago being teased but never revealed OTL

[z0mbiefrank]

do you ever wanna listen to a song "organically" so you play the entire album to build up to it, then when it finally hits it feels even better??

[becca4leafclover]

What if Pix the Copper King and Pix the Archaeoloist are the same person?

The Copper King disappeared before even hints of the Rapture started to emerge in ancient times. He was a figure of great knowledge, wealth, and mystery, and one of the most respected, if distant Emperors of the time.

His Empire, known at the time (but likely not before or after it) as Pixandria, worshipped death. The center of their civilization stood a monument known as the Vigil: a remembrance of all those that died in all the Empires, at the time of everyone else's memory. Only some drawings and paintings depict the Vigil now, for most of Pixandria at some point was buried by its sea of sand.

But it is said that despite being the one to tend to the Vigil the most, and hold some of the most sacred duties of it, the Copper King did the unthinkable, and denied death to his fellow Emperors. He uncovered a magic forgotten for a reason, and traded it with those rich enough to afford it.

And for that, he was punished. So they say, at least.

Since he denied kings and queens death, death shall deny him his eternal rest, until all those that paid him repay their debt to the afterlife.

The Copper King then fled into the desert, and was never heard from again. Not even as the Rapture claimed the mainland Empires, as his city was swallowed into the sand. It's possible that he died along with the rest of the great powers at the time, and "equally as possible that he still wanders the world in a self-imposed exile..."

Pix set down his pen and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. He gets tired of writing out this same story every once in a while, honestly. It's the accepted history yeah, but sometimes it's a little frustrating to make out the Copper King as some shadowy, potential evil figure who abandoned everyone just before their moment of need.

He looked out the window flap of his tent at the rising sun. Oh, it was morning already? He slid his chair out from his desk and stretched his back from writing for probably too long for what's considered healthy.

But when he went outside, the golden sun beams creeping over the mountains illuminating the highlights of the leftovers of Gilded Helanthia were a nice wake up call. He had a lot of work to do today- excavate more of the farming district, feed the dodos, oh yeah and Lizzie stopped by the other day wanting to trade slime for froglights again, right?

And of course, Pix had his other type of work to do today. A favor, for some old friends.

He knew the truth, written in between the lines of his ink. Maybe it wasn't quite a curse placed on him. Maybe Pixandria wasn't as buried as they thought. Maybe he didn't want to leave his friends. Maybe not all his friends ever died, same as him. Maybe his friends never left, and needed someone to guide them.

Oh, goodness me- Is that a FACE on Hermitopia?!

[amplified-pain-culture-is]

my rheumatologist told me that her treatment plan will "cure" my AMPS, do you think that's true or BS lmfao (i definitely think the treatment could HELP but cure is a strong word,,?)

.

[seithr]

Another day i shall be spending the whole day Out and am thus unable to draw anything. if only you guys knew. I have so many thoughts. I can imagine anything 👉😎

[floralmemorials]

A Quiet Hillside in Kansas

I went to Coronado’s Castle just outside Greensburg Kansas recently and this quiet beautiful cemetery was next to the castle entrance. First I should explain that the castle was built during the 1930s as part of a WPA project and Coronado had nothing to do with it other than to use his name. The cemetery is along a rolling hillside and even had a few cattle grazing at a distance.

[bikelaned]

GUYS YOU-

I-

I WAS THINKING ABOUT A ROTTMNT AU AND MY BRAIN CALLED IT A "VANILLA+ AU"

THEN I THOUGHT ABOUT SWANNATELLO AND LITTLE PRINCE AND WHAT NOT AND MY BRAIN SAID 'MODDED AU'

LIKE FUCKING MINECRAFT MODS- SOBBING

BRAIN ROT

[flash-from-the-past]

Cake Mania

[imadhatt3r]

I'm going to fucking go insane, first there was a doll drought in Poland for 6 months where I couldn't get ANYTHING NEW and was stalking the stores every day for Venus, which cost a STUPID amount of money, and suddenly, within one month, SPECTRA, CATTY, ALL OF SS4 AND MONSTER FEST DOLLS DROP IN READONABLE PRICES?! AND I still have to buy Venus, so that's 11 dolls I can buy in one month, what the fuck 😭

[salmoncakepls]

:0

[breadandblankets]

Honestly Barbara is lucky with how corrupt Gotham is, in no other city could they pull permits to do the huge electrical upgrades necessary to support Oracle to a building like the Clock Tower

[bmpmp3]

I NEEED to go back to making art that makes it ABUNDANTLY clear that theres something wrong with my brain BUT NOT in a cool or stylishly interesting way. i need to do it in a way that makes people say "hm." and walk away