#about my dependence on others and my inability to make my own choices and feeling like i'm an inconvenience to everyone and things like tha

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

are you vegetarian/vegan?

i'm not, but it's something i've thought about a lot, more and more as i've gotten older. i feel like i haven't had enough control to be able to make decisions like that. YET. i'm slowly working my way to that point, so maybe in the future.

[a-d-nox]

pac/pap: your greatest asset and your greatest hindrance - advice on how you can master what's holding you back

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: what to release and what to retain this month

masterlist of pap/pac posts

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pile one

your asset is self-awareness - you stop yourself when you notice you are thinking destructively. you know how and when to use your intuition. you pick up on your own unhealthy behaviors and you seek ways to heal and better yourself. don't think that i am saying that you have it easy or that you are like a god by any means - i know that you've gone through it. you are likely someone that has done a lot of shadow work or has worked endlessly in therapy to get to this level of self-awareness. you have self-sabotaged and now you know that you wish to be better so you are breaking those habits.

your hinderance is that you likely don't feel as though you have something to depend on - your beliefs and trust are constantly in flux. you are still trying to see the light in the darkness around you. it's time to realize you are holding the torch - light it and search for something worth believing in and trusting. challenge your pre-existing beliefs - both those that you found untrustworthy and those your are holding on to as though they are all that exists. it is a gigantic world out here. by searching for new beliefs and growing your ability to trust in the unknown you are building a strength and resilience within yourself that may not be fully awoken. find peace in uncertainty - let go of your need to be in control of everything but yourself.

pile two

your asset is you don't settle. you know your worth - which is highly commendable. you know when something is missing and you don't let it stay that way. you know how to follow your heart as well as your intuition - you create meaning in everything you do, you do everything with intention. you aren't afraid to do hard things that involve letting go of what you know - you are open to change.

your hinderance is your inability to plan - you don't know how to create something that makes your grounded. working towards things/goals likely cause you stress - this could be a fear of failing. this could also point to impatience and impulsivity. needless to say you are not a planner and that doesn't always bode well when you must make a choice and sticking with it to see results. you could also be someone that sticks to what you are most comfortable to (for now perhaps it is you future asset that you are willing to let go of why you know). staying where you are comfortable doesn't help you to grow in new and exciting ways.

pile three

your asset is your ability to find peace when you are alone. i feel like i have found my introverted followers and readers in this pile. you enjoy learning new things about yourself - in fact it is one of your greatest strengths. you have a great connection with your inner voice - you know what you want and what you need.

your hinderance is you may be too grounded in yourself - it's time to get out there and share who you are with others. you might not have good emotional intelligence when expressing who you are to others - that is to say you likely need to work on social skills. focus on how you express yourself. be open to receiving communication - don't fear replying and putting yourself out there.

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

I guess that depends on what you mean by weird or difficult to understand.

I think the dialogue is sometimes pretty clunky, I think it's aged really badly in some places, I think sometimes Lucas didn't explain things as well as maybe needed to for a primarily Western audience. But I don't think it's IMPOSSIBLE to understand, either. It's made for children to be able to understand the story and I think he managed that perfectly fine. I think by and large that the intended audience of the Prequel films understood what the story was. They know that the Jedi are the good guys and Anakin's the bad guy even if he seems nicer at the start. It's mostly adults who pick apart the Prequels and find it too clunky to be understood.

I think that Lucas's writing strength is not necessarily in his dialogue, but I also think he WAS intentional with what dialogue he chose and that there's reasons for why characters speak the way they do or say the things they do. Anakin is bad at flirting and awkward because he wanted Anakin to come off as a whiny teenager. This was entirely intentional. You can discuss whether making Anakin a whiny teenager was a good choice or not, but I think he succeeds at making Anakin feel like a whiny, bratty nineteen year old with like little to no ability to be suave.

I think it's possible that popular fandom interpretations of the Prequels have made it difficult to view them the way Lucas intended. It became SO widely accepted that the Prequels were about the Jedi being corrupt that it was nearly impossible to understand them any other way, and it DID take reading several essays on the dialogue and the different interviews Lucas had where he explained some of it for me to change my perspective on it. But that might be less of a problem of the film and its dialogue being weird on its own and more of a problem of fandom interpretations becoming so popular that they manage to overwrite my own understanding of the films. Also, if you're a more casual fan of the films, like I was before a couple of years ago, you're not necessarily looking up interviews where Lucas discusses these things or watching the films with his audio commentary on to hear him talk about certain scenes, so if a certain fandom interpretation is accepted as the truth and starts to spread, you might end up more familiar with THAT than you are with the things Lucas has said that counteract it.

One of the things I needed essays to help me with was attachment, because I DO think that Lucas failed to make sure that his definition of it was made clear to an audience that would've had a very different association with the word already. That being said, I think he DOES make the THEME clear within the story, about selfishness and greed and an inability to let go and how burning the world for the people you love is bad and how you can always choose to be bad but you can always choose to be good again too. I don't think the themes that Lucas was going for in his films are honestly that weird or different from what we OFTEN see in films in Hollywood. The concept of "letting go" is literally everywhere. It crops up in SO MANY films, especially in films aimed at the same demographic, but even films aimed at a more adult audience, too. It's an incredibly basic and popular theme and it's not hard to pick up in his films.

But I think people heard the word "attachment" and it flipped them out because the word attachment is basically equivalent to "relationship" or "love" most of the time in more Western media (see literally any Jane Austen film, they use the word a lot in there) and so they came to the conclusion that the Jedi forbid relationships and love entirely and then it led them to the conclusion that the Jedi were corrupt and THAT'S why Anakin fell to the dark side. That one word being tossed into the dialogue without adequate clarification on how Lucas was defining it had a cascade effect on people's ability to understand the story within the Prequels.

For example, there IS a parallel between Anakin's fall and the corruption of an institution in the Prequels, so people are picking up on something that DOES EXIST in the films, they're just applying it to the wrong institution. It's not the Jedi Order that parallels Anakin's corruption, it's the SENATE. But because people applied the corruption thing to the Jedi, they ended up dismissing the Senate as just already evil because it became the Empire later and it just becomes yet another way to blame the Jedi for things because they were working for an inherently evil organization and either didn't care or were too blind to realize it. So you can see how a misunderstanding of one word in one line of dialogue in one film ended up changing the entire understanding of the films.

But to a kid watching the movies, the word attachment might not yet be something they're familiar enough with to misunderstand. They might just gloss over that line of dialogue the way they would anything that involved a word they didn't totally understand and just rely on the visuals and music and other dialogue to lead them to the correct conclusions. Kids watching these films are capable of picking up that OF COURSE the Jedi are the good guys the whole time, of course they're not corrupt monsters, everything in the films made it very clear that they're the good guys. And it's a lot easier to pick up on the real themes of the story and the way the films are telling it when you start from that conclusion.

So, for me, when I was first reading those essays about what attachment meant in Star Wars and what Lucas had said about it, it didn't feel like I was getting a whole new understanding of the story so much as things were FINALLY slotting into place with what I'd understood as a child. My feelings about the Prequels and the story I'd gotten from them had never really aligned with what everyone else seemed convinced was true, but I'd never met anyone else who saw them positively before, so I'd just assumed if I liked them then it was because I'd watched them incorrectly, that I only liked them because I'd been shown the Prequels first when I was really young whereas everyone else had watched the Original Trilogy first. For me, reading these different interpretations of the Prequels that showcased a very different story than the one most people knew about wasn't NEW (not precisely anyway), it was just VALIDATING. There was a REASON I'd liked them before, a reason I still DID like them as an adult, even though everyone around me seemed to hate them and believe unequivocally that they were terrible films.

So is some of the dialogue weird? Sure, it's clunky sometimes, and there are things that aren't made clear enough, but I don't think Lucas was RELYING on his dialogue to get his story across. He's said before that in some ways he views Star Wars as silent films and the dialogue that's in it is more like music. The story isn't told through the dialogue for him, it's told through the visuals and the dialogue itself is secondary. And this works out fine when you're a kid who's used to dialogue sometimes not being understandable anyway and so you're more reliant on visuals and music to help you figure out the story, but the adults who were watching it were more used to relying on the dialogue to tell them everything they needed to know and so these films fell short. So while I do think the dialogue was flawed, I don't think it really hinders understanding of the story Lucas was trying to tell, but popular fandom interpretations of the films becoming the ONLY interpretation of the films DOES hinder understanding of that story.

[dirty-bosmer]

From the edgy oc asks, for Nim <3

10. What's an AU that would be interesting to explore with your OC?

13. If you met your OC, would the two of you get along?

25. What is your favorite thing about your OC?

Sneaking this one in during work hours, heeheee. Thank you for the ask <3

What's an AU that would be interesting to explore with your OC?

Oooh, I got asked this one a month ago, and I still think about those alternate endings a lot. I have two:

1) Nim joins Mathieu in destroying the Dark Brotherhood, Lucien dies at Applewatch (she joins in the effort LOL it's✨cathartic✨), kills the rest of the Black Hand, and gets her happy ending with Lorise and Raminus and a happy family :)

2) Nim decides to be Listener, moves to Bravil, has a full blown affair with Arquen. Lucien still goes crazy because the power has been completely shifted and he can no longer control her. After a year or so, she gets extremely bored tho and fucks off to the Shivering Isles with no warning, leaving everything in shambles :)

I have some really stupid modern AU texts between Lucien and Nim that I've thought about posting before. I might draw them eventually. We'll see...

If you met your OC, would the two of you get along?

Honestly, idk XD I think it depends on the context that we met in. If we were drunk in a bar bathroom or university roommates, I think we'd be really good friends. We'd go to parties together, study together, probably would have made each other's college lives feel less lonely by just... being alone together, if that makes sense. Doing our own things but knowing someone else is there when we need them, which is how the relationship with some of my closest friends are. We're all pretty introverted until we're not lol.

But if we met while she was elbow deep in her Dark Brotherhood shit, I'd be like girl you are stressing me out!! There are some rancid vibes wafting off of you and I am trying to write my thesis! I have my own neuroses and cannot handle another person's self-destruction right now!! Also I have a really hard time sitting idle and shutting my mouth if I know my friends are doing dumb shit/fucking around with trash people. I'd tell her to get her shit together and I don't think she'd like hearing it 😔

What is your favorite thing about your OC?

Probably her resilience. Despite how painful her life has been, it's never broken her spirit or stopped her from scrabbling toward happiness. She goes through a lot of traumatic stuff over the course of her life and the events of the fic, but I never wanted it to strip her of hope. In fact she's kind of delusionally optimistic that things will somehow work out in the end despite her inability to stop making terrible choices lol, and I guess I respect that even though she knows she's doing awful things, it doesn't stop her from helping out those she can.

[dropespeon]

the thing about making an isat orv au. is that like obviously siffrin as yjh is the obvious choice. they're both stuck in the time loop and have to learn to ignore the urge to redo things when something goes wrong. siffrin can't remember his past, and yjh didn't exist before the scenarios; their lives both kind of just. started at a certain point. they will both put themselves through the same horrid events over and over again just for the people they care about, just for one chance to meet them again (yjh) or stay with them (siffrin). secretive plotter and loop are Right There

the problem with making an isat orv au is that literally no one else is emotionally stunted enough to be kdj. no one other than siffrin has the right brand of mental illness. they would not do the shit kdj does. like... i can see!! parts of it working!! mirabelle canonically finds catharsis in fiction and her imposter syndrome would be devastating if her favorite messed up novel came to life. isabeau struggles with believing that, were he to show the parts of himself that he's hidden away, people wouldn't love him. etc etc. but they would not pull the shit kdj does. and i can't see any of them Needing the wos equivalent if that makes sense. they could live without it. siffrin could probably make do but like they had Nothing pre meeting the party. i am now going to explain in excruciating detail the (very loose) roles i gave to everyone in my own orv au

some small context first: this au takes place in the in stars and time setting. everything that happened in isat up to the island disappearing is exactly the same, with the only change being that certain characters were well. characters in a novel. it's more of an orv fusion than a proper au. also it really really doesn't follow the plot of orv that loyally. what does happen in it? well you see [i am carried away by government agents]

- siffrin: kim dokja. a good while after waking up on the shore ala canon, some things (not elaborating) happen and siffrin reads a novel about a housemaiden of change stuck in a time loop at the end of the world. they grow deeply attached to this novel, reading it again and again (re-experiencing the same things over and over again!! i sure hope that doesn't become relevant!!). and then that novel comes to life. and siffrin is the only one who knows the ending to this story.

i chose siffrin for this role because well. man where do i even start. the guilt, the self hatred, the dependence they have on their family vs kdj's on wos, their inability to accept that they could not be loved if people knew what they were really like. the martyr complex. but where does loop come into this? well you see [i am carried away by governme]

(orv fans can definitely guess who loop is but. well. let's just say things happen pretty differently)

- mirabelle: yoo joonghyuk. put that fella through the horrors!! mira is the protagonist of the novel siffrin loves. she was a normal housemaiden of change until uhh. the world ended, and she was forced to repeat the same events over and over again. it uh. fucks up her relationship with change a whole lot. what if, no matter how many things you changed, it didn't matter, because it would all just get reset anyways. what if you changed. what if you didn't want to.

mirabelle was!! actually the main reason i made this au? i find her relationship with the change belief deeply interesting and i just really wanted to delve into that in a very mean way. yjh's story contains a lot of themes of determinism and what it means to be a Protagonist, and i feel like mirabelle's does too. they're both really interesting explorations of tropes. and they're both just guys!

- isabeau: han sooyoung. i will not elaborate.

isabeau... yes i know this is a weird choice. odile would be the obvious choice for hsy and i was originally gonna go with her but i thought about it a lot and. i feel like isabeau's character has a lot to explore in the ways of Being Seen and Understood and him being a writer is an interesting angle to explore that from. i do not think he could doom the world for one person in the way hsy did. what is his motive? well [i am carried away b] i have a lot of other reasons i chose him but they would be pretty huge spoilers for my Evil Plans. also this is at least partially because i wanted an isamirasif qpr and also because i had other ideas for odile

everyone else does not directly take the role of orv characters (because this is not intended to be a 1 to 1 story and i like playing with my touys) buttt. i can still give a rundown on who they are:

- odile: I'd most closely compare her to a combination of yoo sangah and jung heewon. she understands siffrin better than anyone. her story is pretty similar to canon, just that she was also a fictional character. she will do horrible things to protect her family!

- bonnie: closest to lee gilyoung. little kid who is achingly similar to the protagonist. little kid who is so dependent on the protagonist but also gets hurt by their acts of sacrifice more than anyone. still figuring out if them and nille are novel characters or not

- claude: yeah she's here also. i needed more novel characters and i like her!! still figuring out the specifics but she was one of the main characters of the WOS equivalent

- euphrasie: heh. well lets just say. namgung minyoung

- nille: see bonnie. joins the party a lot later than everyone else

- the king: heh. well lets just sa[i am carried awa]

- change god: [i am carrie]

- loop: [i am c]

[woodblxssomcrowned]

You can turn this into whatever you want but..

What abt hc of how the Uchiha and/or Senju would differ depending on education? Like would one clan be better at say; science, or math, or literature, etc.

Or what about the little things? Y'know things like what are some of the social etiquette rules that each clan would follow?

Sry I'm rly ecstatic that there's someone who is eager to go into the deep dive of lore behind a story when there is little to no info!

oof, I'm afraid I'm not very good with comparison as I suck at writing headcanons for the Uchiha, and there are plenty others who are great at that. Not that i feel super confident about my Senju headcanons either most of the time...

But I can say this: I don't think they were very different in terms of education, and you really can't note one clan as being better at one thing compared to another.

In my mind, shinobi clans were overall considered lower class members of society as a whole. Upper middle-class at best. 

They were mercenaries. Highly skilled professional fighters with unique abilities.  Being professional soldiers was their job, and they had to do it well if they wanted to make sure their clan thrived.  And I think their education would reflect that occupation as well as the state of the clan at the time and the resources available. So during the WS era, when there was no organized academy system and likely not any public schooling available for shinobi children, the clans educated their own members with what means and knowledge that existed within the clan and probably had their own ways of doing it.

I do think that being literate and having at least basic math skills was very valuable knowledge to have so that would likely have been among the first things they'd learn.  And we do know that both Madara and Hashirama were able to read and write by the age of like 12-14.

Again, the shinobi were mercenaries. Soldiers. Fighters. Not nobles, scholars or artists. And they lived short lives. Skills and knowledge that first and foremost served and made it possible for you to survive and do your job as a shinobi well were prioritized, and that was true for most clans.  

Aside from just grueling physical training, these fields of skills and knowledge could include : Tracking, hunting, fishing, survival training, basic medical skills/first aid (not medical ninjutsu), identifying plants and knowing their various purposes, making and caring for tools and equipment, map-reading, understanding social structure, setting up and taking down camps efficiently, undermining enemy fortifications and understanding military organization, language and strategy. Mental and emotional endurance and focus against pain, loss, or fear. The ability to think fast and act quickly, perceptiveness, see opportunities and take initiative, efficient cooperation with others as well as independent action and thinking.

Although respect, loyalty and discipline was important, blind obedience and inability to think for themselves was discouraged, as it made for inefficient soldiers that wouldn't be able to act unless they were continuously given clear and explicit orders.  The shinobi of this time had to be able to act and think on their own if needed, and the choices they made would reflect on their clan.  They prided themselves on being high-quality fighters, and being mindless fools who would falter and lose all manner of discipline and focus if they lost their commander was not how they maintained a good reputation. 

'Humanities' like artistic expression or literature were not among these fields that shinobi would prioritize. The warring states period wasn't a flourishing time for these fields I'd imagine, and for shinobi they were rarely useful in practice.  (If they wanted they could engage in these fields when they had free time, or during the winter when campaigning often took a pause and left a bit of room for leisure.) 

Ofc there were those who found their strength in books and scrolls, in experimenting and developing new tools and techniques, in digging deep into what was known and pushing the boundaries of what was possible. But pretty much all clans prior to the villages being developed were terribly limited in their resources, so there was only so far one could go in research before hitting a wall. 

The Senju valued learning, and sharing knowledge, a great deal. Teaching and training younger members of the clan was an essential task that pretty much all adults would do to some extent at one point or another, everyone held responsibility to ensure the next generation had the skills and knowledge necessary for a life as shinobi, as professional fighters. The younger members of the clan were encouraged to see all their elders, regardless if they were just a year older or several decades, as teachers, and respect them as such.

They were the clan of a thousand skills after all, and to ensure all those skills that existed within the clan would survive they needed to be passed down.

If knowledge was exclusively passed down from parent to child then the width of knowledge and skill sets would quickly become limited. Individuals who might have an undiscovered talent for a certain skill may never reach their full potential because they were never exposed to its existence. Some skills could even be lost completely if that family-line ended, which was always a risk since many died before they had children of their own.  Hoarding knowledge within a family-line was deeply frowned upon.

So to prevent this, young members regardless gender and of roughly the same age would from the age of three be trained together in groups, but they could come from many different families and bloodlines. Still, for almost two hundred years leading up to Hashirama becoming clan head, these kids would usually be sent out on missions before they were anywhere near fully trained or educated in truth. It was idiotic and impractical, but a persistent remnant from a period where illness and war made it necessary to have even the younger members of the clan fight. Some groups would be completely empty before any of the members had even turned eleven years old.

Even if young Senju, who were often in a league above many others, were learning quickly and efficiently and having the strength and stamina of their genetics on their side, when they ended up in a life-or-death fight against an adult shinobi (or even non-shinobi) with decades of experience, the odds were overwhelmingly against them. And those who would have been pretty average shinobi, those who despite carrying the Senju name, in a different time would not have gotten very far and might have gone on to dedicate themselves to other tasks that would support and keep the clan running smoothly, were often the first to die. You were either strong or you were dead. 

In my continued warring states verse, since Hashirama became clan head he set a strict  line on when young Senju are allowed to get anywhere near a potential battle.  Before fifteen, no Senju was given missions.  They are to focus on training and studying. On growing. On flourishing and settling into their unique strengths.  And even at fifteen, they are still not allowed into open combat.  The Senju's coming-of-age milestone was sixteen, and only at that point were they allowed to fight in open combat, if they were deemed to have sufficient strength and ability to be capable of it. 

Because of this, the number of fighting Senju did drop for a little while, but the ones that then entered the field when they became eligible were far stronger, thoroughly trained, educated, and competent, and had a much higher survival-rate. 

Now, as I said I generally don't feel super comfortable writing headcanons for the Uchiha, I find that very difficult so I rarely do it. But, I do sort of imagine them teaching and training their young members much more centered within individual family units. Parents teach their older children, and the older children teach their younger siblings. Close cousins, aunts and uncles might be involved too.  And I like to think that Madara implemented a similar age-restriction for the Uchiha as Hashirama did for the Senju.

---

Honestly I don't think the Senju have very unique mannerisms that are specific to their clan.  They are sought after as mercenaries and as such have had to adapt to the social etiquette of the class they usually serve so as to not offend their employer.

But here’s some general brainstorming on both big and small things, not sure its what you were thinking of bet here it is. Again, for the Senju.

- Don't settle for 'good enough'. Always strive towards perfection and precision. Don't leave things half-finnished.

- Honor and respect your parents, your elders and offer prayers to your ancestors. 

- Do not speak ill of or disrespect the dead.

- Honor your clan. Wear your crest with pride and dignity. When you wear your clan's crest, you represent it, so never act in a way that will bring shame upon it and all others who wear it, have worn it and will wear it in the future.

(Note :: The shinobi's view of shame and dishonor is different from that of say samurai and most of the world, which is also why so many look down on them) - If possible, do not use your last name when speaking to strangers. - Be mindful of social ranks outside of the clan and within it, and act appropriately when in the presence of those that are higher rank than you.

- Life is fleeting and impermanent, and death is an inevitable part of life. Everything ends one way or another. Accept this irrefutable truth. Train hard, and fight with discipline and vigor and with the anticipation of death, and seize and enjoy the time between. 

- Don't speak without thinking, and speak only when you have something worth saying. Speak clearly. Senju can be considered blunt, but overall  sincere. 

- Do not overindulge in alcohol

- Treat and love all your peers as your brothers and sisters.  Get along, be respectful of each other, and stay close. Love and support each other for life. Senju put a lot of emphasis on camaraderie, promoting relationships of trust and devotion between peers over strictly familial or filial ones.  - Although no self-respecting Senju would be caught dead in a brothel, Senju overall have a very openhearted, or uninhibited according to some, view on sex. They are often known to be unabashed flirts, both towards other Senju and outsiders, and do not seem to strictly limit themselves to their marital partner, and premarital, recreational and casual sex is normal. Some non-Senju find it alluring and enticing, others are appalled and see this behavior as lecherous and inappropriate. The Senju however take a certain pride in being excellent lovers, seeing sex as a form of entertainment and socialization and not something that is exclusively for procreation between a husband and wife. They often also think other clans are too stiff and restricted in the way they are allowed physical expressions of love and sexual fulfillment.  Life is way too short for that.

- Some acts of disobedience are more acceptable than others, and it is usually rather a matter of if you get caught doing it. For example, if you get caught sneaking out of the house at night you'll get scolded or disciplined for being caught, rather than the act of trying to sneak out itself.

- Do not waste food or drink. If you really do not wish to eat or drink what you are offered for some reason, accept it politely but leave it without eating or drinking it. Food was frequently scarce during the WS era, so refusing food was not only impolite but also just plain wasteful. 

- Shinobi children often had many siblings, and parents that could be away from the home for extended periods of time or die suddenly, so being able to help care for their family by performing domestic and household tasks and being self-sufficient was important.  This responsibility particularly falls onto the oldest child, but everyone is expected to pull their weight when needed and however they are able.

- Maintain good hygiene. When in the field, take all opportunities that are offered to wash up. 

- Keep your clothing and equipment clean, neat and maintained as well. Treat your belongings well, or they might fail you when you need them, and they may not be easy to replace. Treating your belongings poorly or having a dishevelled appearance can not only be cause of disapproving looks, but even disciplinary action.

- A shinobi will have to do and endure terrible things, you are expected to be relentless, cold, and uncompromising in battle, but you must keep the one you must always be on the battlefield separated from the one you are at home. You have to learn this. If you get consumed by anger or pain or grief and can't function off the battlefield, or start engaging in antisocial behaviour, you are a burden to the rest of the clan.

- Treat guests with respect and hospitality.  Although the Senju rarely bring outsiders into their settlement, they are excellent hosts when they do. And once the village was founded and you visited a Senju household, you would always be offered to at least sit down and have some tea before you left.

- (I have a full post on HCs about Senju clan Love, sex and marriage coming up soon)

[raayllum]

to build on your recent ask, and just to pick your brain a little (gross metaphor, I know), when you said:

"To me, the coins could never have been permanent, otherwise there's very little reason to have them exist. After all, if the parents can't be freed and/or come back, why not just kill them? It'd effect the story the same way... unless they come back." I wonder, in your experience and education in literature, do you think it is feasible/would be an effective avenue of storytelling for the writers to use the (theoretical) inability to free the coined elves as a plot device to teach Rayla about moving on, and that she can't save everyone? she is portrayed as a very determined--and sometimes obsessive--character, and I can recall the writers bringing up her strong devotion to freeing the elves as something that should be questioned (though I do believe this will involve her allowing herself to let Callum/the others help). But, nevertheless, what are your thoughts?

The thing about Rayla is that her determination, and her wanting to save everyone isn't a Flaw, per se. If anything, it's the best thing about her, and the story points that out time and time again (1x03 with the boys, 1x05 with Bait, 1x09 with Zym, 2x07 with the dragon, 3x05 with Nyx): "You have true courage, and a big heart" / "It's because Rayla is a hero. Rayla's brave. She saves people. She does what's right [....] That's what makes her a hero. That's what makes her Rayla."

It's just not only a virtue, as like real people, most of TDP's cast's best qualities are also their worst ones, depending on the circumstance. Callum can also be obsessive with magic, after all (1x04, 2x01, 2x04, 4x02) but that doesn't mean him being a mage isn't his path, or not a Good path for him, particularly when it comes to primal magic. But his persistent, perpetually pushing nature also means he can be impulsive and bite off more than he can chew, unknowingly getting in over his head before it's too late. (Whereas Rayla tends to have a better cognition of her bad odds, but just less concern over them.) If Callum's 'bad path' is being a dark mage, Rayla's 'bad path' is being a loner assassin who takes everything on alone, y'know? Those paths are both from the same places, but there are always more options than the roles they've had enforced on them or have taken up because it feels like they don't have any other choice in war, even if they have/had good intentions regardless.

This also comes back to like, Rayla's relationship with letting go vs holding on. If anything, Rayla has a laser focus on moving on - "We have to keep moving" (1x09) / "Fine, one extra day. One" (2x01) / "Rayla, you're pushing us to move too fast" (3x02) / "I'm fine, Callum, like I already told you [...] We walk away and this never happened" (3x04) - that operates to her detriment, because it's usually when she's ignoring her own pain to prioritize the mission, or putting the mission above most things (other than the boys). If she doesn't linger on her pain/mistakes, she can pretend more easily that it doesn't exist (not "I don't want to talk right now" but "There's nothing to talk about," if you will). Illusions and erasure and all that - very Moonshadow

C: So, uh, yesterday must've been a hard day for you. R: Not really.

We see this even when she comes back in S4 and her attempts to "get things back the way they were" and even her almost complete prioritization of how Callum feels, and very little regard to how she feels (outside of being nervous to see him, which 4x05 quickly reveals is the least of how she's been emotionally damaged).

And this, of course, is because Rayla is very bad, actually, at letting things go. She holds on mistakes, she repeats the same patterns of herself and others who loved but hurt her, and that's why all her self deprecation talk is very similar across the seasons

I messed up. I know I did. (1x02) / You should cut yourself a break. Everyone messes up sometimes, or in my case, all the times. [...] Right up until moment when it really matters. That's when I just, poof, mess it up... And the next thing I know, I've failed. / I dropped it. This is all my fault. I let you both down. I let the world down. (1x09) / I need my friend to trust me, and he doesn't. And I think it's my fault. (2x02 / But every time I tried, I would mess it up, and the next time it was harder, and-- (2x03) / I failed them. It was my fault we were discovered. (3x03) / It's me, and it's all my fault. I failed them. I let them all down. They were right to reject me. I'm not good enough and I never will be. (3x04) / Oh no, I messed up again! [...] This is all my fault. I left him alone. I shouldn't have-- (4x06)

Rayla is someone who is selfless to the point she doesn't know how/when to be selfish, which causes her to be selfish in ways that are extremely detrimental to herself and to the other people around her. In a lot of ways, her inability to move on is an inability to let go of her negative self perception of herself: she fears that failure for her is inevitable ("I'm sure it would've flopped when it was my turn"), she's so terrified of being alone yet continually isolates herself because that seems safer, and because of these negative perceptions, she unfairly punishes herself. For her own mistakes, and for others.

Harrow: I recognize that I may pay the price for our mistakes. / I won't hide in the body of another while someone else pays the price for my decisions. (1x02) Rayla: It will just get tighter and tighter until I lose my hand. But I'm ready to pay that price. (1x06) / But if I die, I'll just be paying the price they should've paid a long time ago. (3x08)

VS

Callum: But you didn't run. They have it all wrong. Rayla: Does it matter? (3x03) Claudia: We're not going to the dungeons, Soren! We didn't do anything wrong. (3x02)

So Rayla wanting to prioritize something over the mission that's not for the good of someone else (Callum, the dragon, Nyx, etc) but for something that she personally wants is a massive departure for her and gives her all sorts of room to grow. However, it remains to be seen if Rayla will view it like that. I could see her see saving her parents as a form of 'redemption' - even though she didn't fail them like, at all, but again: it's Rayla we're talking about. Turning it into a duty would be very on brand. "This is a journey for redemption" and all that, even if like... she doesn't Need to redeem herself.

There's layers there then, of her being 'selfish' (wanting something for herself, it being her family) and of being too 'selfless' again, semi similar to her choice to leave in TTM. Because Rayla's inability to let go is unable to be separated from the way she continually punishes/loathes herself; that's what she can't put down, the mistakes and failures she feels responsible for that she'll destroy herself to try and correct, to ensure she pays the price so that no one else has to. That's why she's obsessive about Viren (protection, punishment, self-martyrdom) and prepared to stay behind at the Storm Spire.

Her choices to save and protect Zym are a little different. She, like the princes, wants to make up for her parents' mistakes, yes, but it goes deeper than that - she truly believes that this is right and has the power to change the world for the better, to break the cycle rather than perpetuate it. To make a difference, not as a trauma response, but in the vein of healing.

TLDR; to summarize, I think Rayla's parents, particularly Runaan, have a great capacity to help her unlearn the harmful patterns they've passed down, whether because she's grown beyond them and can help her parents do the same, or in seeing their behaviour and correcting hers, or in having them realize how they messed her up, and saving her right back.

None of this really touches on how TDP's hero side is staunchly big on protecting the value of the individual, and their right to exist/thrive without prejudice/expectation, by laying yourself down (as opposed to offering up others' lives), but I think that's absolutely a component as well. TDP's hopepunk theme - Breaking the cycle, working towards harm reduction, reconciling rather than reinforcing binaries - are all in favour of saying "you can't save everyone, but you should still always Try" (hi Ezran in 3x04) and I don't think they'd toss that out, either. In a world with magic, they could've taken the concept of the Moon Nexus and Rayla wanting to see them again for the same end (which, in TTM, Rayla doesn't think she can save her parents per se - she just wants to know if they're actually dead or not), but uh. They didn't so yeah, particularly because Runaan living means all sorts of messy feelings for Callum and happy gay reunion elves, them living absolutely holds the most merit for the narrative, tbh

[friendofcars]

“what he wanted was to know what he wanted.” for the quote ask thing. such a cool idea!

thank you - it's been so fun answering these!

my guess: incredibly dream thieves era ronan sentiment. i think this is when kavinsky is teaching him to dream and says something like "you have to know what you want" or "you have to go after what you want." not sure which chapter but maybe in the 40s?

the answer: well. this went well for me.

(which is tdt, chapter 41!)

my thoughts: this phrase is the key to ronan's arc in tdt imo (or at least the first part of it. he has to know what he wants but he also has to lean how to obtain/achieve it). "what he wanted" refers, beyond controlling his dreaming, to his repressed feelings for adam/his second secret, the path in life he wants to take, whether he wants to follow the example of kavinsky or gansey, whether he wants to live, and whether he wants to stop hating himself. by the end of the book he makes his choice(s), but it takes time for him to realize that the choice isn't strictly kavinsky or gansey, it's himself/his life (and through his realization of his own self-esteem and self-love, adam. he basically also chooses gansey, but that's a whole other story.). he has to choose himself before the second secret becomes clear. interesting that he also has to choose himself/his human life/humanity in greywaren. i think ronan wanting to know what he wants is not the same as him interpreting all of his intense emotions as (or replacing them with) anger, but there's a common theme of his own thoughts and feelings being inaccessible to him.

this line also contrasts ronan with adam, who has a long list of conscious wants (many of which are basic survival needs). this also makes me think of adam (as all things do) because of ronan and cabeswater's clumsy attempts to communicate with adam (in ronan's dreams and in adam's visions) which i think is in league with ronan's inability to articulate feelings. i'm trying not to write a novel here but this arc leads me to ronan learning to ask and cooperate with cabeswater to pull the replacement camaro out of his dream, as well as his use of the puzzle box at the end of the book to ask cabeswater "please" in dream language, and as we all know, ronan saying "please" in the presence of adam is !!!!!!! there's something in here about kavinsky's strategy of being a thief and taking what he wants (and also the way he treats ronan, kidnaps matthew, etc. it literally just hit me that kavinsky is a dream thief not only because of the way he dreams and carelessly drains cabeswater, but because he kidnaps matthew, who is a dream.) versus ronan's requests to cabeswater to work with and support his dreaming. i'm sure there's something to be said here about art forgery and original work as well as attitudes towards natural resources/the environment and other such things.

and a bit more about kavinsky: kavinsky forges ahead in the conversation without ronan responding. his wide smile = hunger (which is greed, desire, maybe even insatiable loneliness). the mitsubishi is described as voracious earlier in the book. we know that ronan looks for someone to lead him since niall cannot teach him how to dream from the grave, and kavinsky is a compelling option to him for their shared experiences and kavinsky knowing what he wants and how to take it. but as ronan follows kavinsky down the rabbit hole of thieving (doesn't kavinsky erroneously reference a white rabbit in chapter 6 or 7?), he understands how this hurts cabeswater, so he concludes that kavinsky is not the kind of dreamer he wants to be. gansey is the kind of leader he wants to follow and protect. and ronan doesn't know it yet, but gansey = cabeswater anyway. so kavinsky does teach him how to figure out what he wants- but what ronan wants is in opposition to what kavinsky wants: for their relationship or lack thereof, for the ley line (and adam, and noah, and cabeswater, and all that depend on it or are tied to it), for themselves, etc.

[rainbowsky]

HEY RB, I have a weird ask which I’ve been thinking about for the past few days, what to do when you like the creative content of a persons blog but the rest of the stuff they post is off-putting? would you continue to follow them for the content you like or unfollow for the stuff that really puts you off?

Hi Anon,

Well, a lot depends on how off-putting it is, but in general, if I find someone's takes off-putting, it's a no-brainer. I will not follow them. In some cases I will even block them. It doesn't matter what other things they're posting that I might like.

I feel that the more we expose ourselves to things we hate the more resentful we begin to become, and it shifts not just our experience of fandom, but also our attitudes and the threshold of what we will accept/put up with from other people. It can really deepen divides and distort our perception of what the fandom is like.

If we give something real estate in our news feed we are giving it real estate in our heads - space that could be taken up with something else. Something more positive, more aligned with what we are into.

We should also consider the impression we are giving others about who we are and what we're into. If someone is liking and reblogging posts from a TERF, others are going to get the impression they, too, are a TERF or are OK with TERF attitudes, even if the content is just a pretty illustration of a puppy rolling in a field of flowers.

There's that old saying, "You are known by the company you keep." (As unfair as that might sometimes feel.)

And the thing is, steeping in things we dislike can really distort our perspective of the fandom. If we're seeing a post or two every day or even week of something we truly hate, that gives us the perception that X percentage of the fandom is like this. It can artificially inflate our perception of how prevalent those attitudes are.

Which has an impact on how we feel about the fandom, has an impact on how much joy we have, has an impact on how we start to feel about the people who have those kinds of takes.

I know, for example, that there are people out there with really offensive takes about DD's personality. In reality the people with those takes are pretty rare, but they're out there. If I followed those people I'd be seeing those takes regularly, and I'd start to think the fandom is just full of that attitude when actually it's not.

I really feel that a lot of the intolerance of other people's approaches to fandom - a lot of the inability to 'live and let live' - ironically comes from opening our experience to things we hate. Comes from people's unwillingness to curate their online experience, and cut down on their exposure to things they dislike.

They stew in a bunch of content they dislike and it makes them bitter, whereas if they just cut that out of their lives then on the rare occasion they did stumble across something like it, they'd find it much easier to scroll past, and they might not be as hateful or judgmental toward the person posting it.

When we're regularly exposed to things we dislike, we start to focus on it more, we start to think about it more, we start to hate it more.

When I talk about 'staying in our own lane', that's not just about staying out of solo spaces. It's about staying out of any space where we are not among like-minded people. Staying out of any space where negativity is bred, where conflict stews, where bitterness takes root, where our souls are shaped toward hate.

Anyway, this is just my take on it. Of course, everyone gets to pick their own approach and make their own choices about these things.

My advice to you is to listen to your body, look for any tension or discomfort. It will tell you if this is the sort of thing you want in your life. Listen to your heart. What is it telling you about how exposure to that content is changing you or changing your perspective?

You might also find my fandom survival guide helpful.

I also talked a bit about how what we focus on shapes who we become here.

[okthatsgreat]

i am GRABBING YOU and SHAKING YOU. did you know your mikane is the craziest. did you. did you know that. last chapter drove me so far up the wall i am still yet to calmndown...... poor mikan. imagine ur emotionally repressed gf runs away again only for two children w the exact same problem to come barging through your door.

i have so many things to ask........ but i shan't ask them all. please please tell me anything about ur ideas for mikane in general or in oppdmh bc they're the most crazy insane yuri ever. OH RIGHT YEAH AND. the actual question. obviously opddmh mikan still struggles with anxiety, but how do you think she's changed in mentality and issues after everything that came after danganronpa? any issues outgrown or gained? morphed in some way? love ur work so much every time. u made me pause my utena rewatch and that is such a big compliment u do not even know

GRABS YOU SHAKES YOUSHAKESYOU SHAKES YOU SHAKES YOU

talking about this fic, as always putting the answer under read more for people who dont wanna read lol!!!!!!!

OHHH MY GOD IM INSANE ABOUT THEMM. went into this fic knowing that i wanted mikan and akane to have their own povs because i thought theyd bring different perspectives, especially in comparison to makoto's pov. i knew what i wanted mikans story to involve and i had a vague idea about akanes (fun fact rantaro was originally gonna be kaito LOL) and then like two chapters into writing mikans point of view i was like waiiiitttt a minute. wait a minute hold on. what if they were in love. and what if they were so not normal about it

it made so much sense for the story i wanted both of them to tell that immediately i went into my notes and started pivoting a few things LMFAO. i just think that their relationship (or their pining at least lol) is able to neatly underline some of their core themes/issues in this fic, whether that be for better or for worse. through the lens of their relationship im hoping to convey mikan's sheer capacity of worry and insecurity, how she finds it difficult to move through life without another person to rely on even if she has done a bit of growing since the simulator and how that dependency affects her. and then of course akane's emotional repression is highlighted through their relationship (her forgetfulness, her inability to communicate, LEAVING all of the time), but also it's a great reminder of just how protective akane can get even if she isn't there. not to mention how worried she gets about mikan despite her absolute refusal to worry.

they care about each other to the point of unspoken codependency and while it is absolutely making both of them feel safe and happy it is still a reminder of their underlying problems. akane would do anything to avoid somebody thinking she is weak enough to be cared for. but all mikan can do is care and care and care about her. both of them are so willing to shoulder the problems of the other but neither of them want to be seen as burdens, so all they end up doing is silently dance around their issues until eventually somebody caves. INSANE YURI MOMENT

mikan still absolutely has anxiety LMFAO and dare i say..... she's...... kind of better????????????????????? or maybe not actually. going into this i had to think about how to write these characters in a way that felt true to who they are but also remembering that they have GROWN, even if danganronpa really makes them feel as if they havent lol. this is a mikan who has likely endured years of therapy, even if that therapy is SHIT at best. this is also a mikan who has been shoved into the spotlight rather forcibly and has basically been given the choice to adapt or die. so i probably shouldnt say that shes "better", it's more that shes had to modify herself to fit this new lifestyle of hers. she hasnt been given much of a choice, and i imagine shes had a few years to really fuck up and struggle before reaching this point. she is constantly in the spotlight and basically always under scrutiny, so ive sort of swayed away from her wanting attention and focused more on how she reacts to this attention-- shes grown bitter from the negative and she doesnt think she deserves most of the positive. it's this hurricane of problems with mikan and a lot of it involves her own struggle to view herself as a good person, which stems heavily from the insecurities she already had in her game and intensified by what happened outside of it. years of being seen as this iconic chapter three killer has absolutely worn her down a bit, but there is still a part of her that yearns for control over her life and the people surrounding it. she is still SO anxious, ive tried to really hammer home quite a few recurring symptoms with her like her nervous tics, sickness/lack of appetite, hair shedding, etc!! and she is extremely bitter about how shes been treated, too, which im hoping to elaborate on further on down the line. however she really, REALLY can not be passing out in front of cameras or throwing any fits about the exploitation shes endured since shes been a teen because the company she works for wont accept anything that isnt on brand. and underneath it all shes still that scared little kid that desperately wants to please

she's an older mikan but she is still very much hurting, not necessarily any less but in a way that's a bit different if that makes sense :)

you are SO FUCKING NICE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <33333333333

[emilyryann]

Prudence: An overlooked virtue

Pictured above: A painting of a woman that embodies the idea of virtue, with a snake in one hand representing wisdom, and a mirror in the other representing clarity.

Prudence is one of the four cardinal virtues that Aquinas wrote about and I believe it is an often overlooked virtue. Prudence, as I would define it, is using common sense and having the wisdom to make a decision that is good for you and others, not just what brings a good feeling or happiness at that moment. To quote Aristotle, prudence is recta ratio agibilium or"right reason applied to practice." Having prudence requires one to have the wisdom to look at their own experiences and the experiences of others in order to make a reasonable and informed decision. Cultivating prudence is difficult because it requires wisdom, which is something that comes with age and experience. In order to grow in your own prudence you must seek the counsel of those wiser than you and those who have more experience. One can also cultivate prudence in their life by getting to know themselves better and reflecting on what is good for themself and what is not. That way when the time comes for decisions, you will know yourself and will be able to make a more informed decision. Anscombe writes in her article modern moral philosophy that "in fact rather generally it must be good for anyone to think 'Perhaps in some way I can't see, I may be on a bad path, perhaps I am hopelessly wrong in some essential way'" and I think the idea of self-reflection and logic being applied to every thought and action is what prudence is.

It is difficult to pick a role model for prudence because everyone is very flawed and often times people's flaws stem from a lack of prudence and an inability to use practical wisdom. I have chosen to look into the fictional realm in search of a model of prudence and a character that came to mind was Samwise Gamgee, the companion of the Lord of the Rings protagonist Frodo Baggins. There are many fictional characters that exercise prudence but I believe Samwise is a particularly good example because J.R.R. Tolkien writes his character to be a voice of reason throughout the novel. He understands what is best for his life and the lives of those around him. Despite some insecurity and irrationality from his companions, he fulfills his purpose. This may be seen as fortitude to some, but I see it as prudence because while he is completing his goals despite adversity, it is because he is making wise choices and using reason that he is able to complete his journey. Throughout their journey, Samwise is concerned with not only the struggles at present but the struggles to come and makes a calculated decision based upon that. This is a perfect example of prudence in my mind because it is logical thought and self-governance in a time of difficulty, and one who continues to make wise choices while having every reason not to is an exemplar of prudence.

As far as models of human flourishing, I think the virtue of prudence best fulfills the independent esteem need on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Prudence is the ability to make sound choices for yourself and this allows for one to achieve success and well-being without depending on someone or something else to motivate you to make those smart choices. It is hard to fit prudence into just one category of human flourishing on any of the three models (Maslow, Seligman, and Galtung) because some degree of prudence is needed in almost every category. For example, in Seligman's PERMA model, you need good judgment to form positive relationships and to be able to find meaning. In Galtung's core needs model, you need prudence to make decisions to better your well-being and take care of yourself. I do think that prudence extends beyond physiological needs and survival though, it is a virtue that cultivates a higher level of well-being. You don't necessarily need prudence to have your physical needs met, you need some decision-making skills maybe, but not as a virtue. If one has prudence it allows them to make the difficult choices that allow them to grow into a better person. It is a clarity of mind that is needed as you develop self-actualization, freedom, and identity.

Pictured above: My placement of prudence in Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Galtung's table of basic human needs.

"Entering the forest" in terms of prudence is another difficult task. I think when we look for prudence throughout history we should look for the mundane people who made a difference not by surmounting great obstacles but by continuing to live and do the right thing for themselves and others. I think "entering the forest" for prudence requires one to enter not a war or major world event but at a person who listened to reason and made logical choices when faced with troubles. Prudence is a virtue that is not as often displayed in modern media, but it can be found throughout history in everyday people who do great things just by having practical wisdom when others do not.

Note: Underlined phrases are hyperlinked to web pages with more about that topic.

[euthanasia-enthusiast]

new theory i just thought up abt psychological damage from multiple choice testing. the way i learned how to pass my classes in like fuckin 2nd grade without doing any work or paying attention in class was to like,, focus only on the end of grade tests bc a 100 would bring a f to like a d or c. and i def wouldnt study but i would work backwards based on the options for answer and fucking just learn enough to pass based only on the test itself somehow??? for certain classes i would read the textbook like it was a novel if i felt compelled to for whatever reason, or if the teacher had taken away all other possible distractions and my thoughts werent interesting that day. but anyway now i really fucking struggle with any information or decision or record keeping/journaling situation that is not a multiple choice question.

if someone asks me what i want or says something like "im here for you if you need anything" or "tell me about yourself" or "how are you doing" or "what are you into" or any number of vague but extremely common questions/statements, my mind goes completely blank, i have no idea how to answer without having at least an example of the type of answer theyre expecting. i feel like im missing something, like i only heard the last word of a sentence, like im missing all of the context required to answer. i know its usually dependent on the exact circumstance but i have no way to determine what the circumstance is and what options are available/acceptable in that circumstance without being told. there are infinite possible answers that are true and infinite more that would be an acceptable bending of the truth but determining the relevance of each is impossible without the prior knowledge of what is relevant to the question and what the person had in mind when they asked, and there are also infinite ways each infinite answer could be misinterpreted!!!

open honest communication is a myth

writing blog posts is a fucking struggle and i hope that somehow doing it badly anyway will strengthen something in my mind to make it not quite as difficult. at least thats what im telling myself to justify the compulsion to word vomit nonsensically for several hours and post unedited to the sideblog where i usually just talk about killing myself.

the stupidest and most annoying struggle that somewhat inspired this theory though, is my inability to pick a video or tv show to watch without there being something particularly interesting in the recommended section. i genuinely cannot on my own think of anything i would be entertained or interested in, even in vague terms specific enough for a search term.

i believe there are many more examples and the words ive written dont really portray the issue accurately but the very issue prevents its own analysis, as i could not think of the words to document the experiences so i dont remember enough to analyze, and i have no clue what the possible conclusions could be so i cannot work backwards to determine which is most likely

but i believe i lack some type of mental infrastructure required for converting abstract thought into something that can fit into an established framework like language or action, or some type of inability to process and understand abstract thought. (im not honestly sure i even understand what a thought is, and what differentiates it from a feeling or belief or "hearing voices in your head"), often when im journaling i will write out the objective facts of whatever event, with the intention of extrapolating how i think and feel about it, and just draw a blank. maybe i think of a few possible interpretations of the events, some feelings that would make sense, the feelings implied by compulsions i felt, but the act of determining how i feel and believe and desire in a specific situation feels like what a fucking ai chatbot does, just guessing the most likely next word based on past data, with no method for determining the accuracy of the statement.

maybe i just smoked too much weed or i have brain damage or its some kind of psychosis/dissociation or maybe its the autism who fucking knows. its probably completely unrelated to the us education system idk what i was on about i barely remember how i started this rant

[scribbleheaded]

Loneliness; to be silent or to be unheard

I've been reading a book on loneliness, an expression of it like a city, and an experience seen through the lens of visual art.

Loneliness, it seems, is a wispy feeling, incommunicable yet felt. Seemingly both universal and wholely, inescapably, within one's self. Something that can't properly be spoken or shared, but cannot be sat with alone. A juxtaposition of the soul, which cannot ease its own pain, yet knows that no one else will bare witness. Something when faced, will always be run from, starving off any hope to ease this feeling through shared suffering. By nature the suffering only recognizes one singularity of itself, isolating the isolation.

This juxtaposition seems inherent to something which craves recogniztion but runs from sight. It aim is understanding and yet it holds firm in its inability to be shared in monadic truth by any form of expression. Cutting off the one fundemental constant of human existence;community. Community forming from the communicability which it's existence is dependent upon.

Communicability, thus, implies language by nature; an expression of experience which relies on sociality, yet the precursor to any solitary thought. I think therefore I am, but am I able to think if I was never taught how to talk? Will I still BE without such thought?

There is something inherently very transient about this sort of existence, self-proclaimed yet naturally dependent. And it is this which makes me think of my own expression.

I've spent so much of my life bubbling around with excess exuberance in the sharing of my experiences, yet always was this feeling of misunderstanding. I tried to master speech and profess myself perfectly, but this of course only brought me farther from being understood. The more I gave the more material there was to misinterpret. As I strove more and more to serve up the intended interpretation, the more it seemed ungraspable to those who received it.

I think of this, of course, because of all the words I've left you. Explainations, biographies and portraits, as if somehow my words themselves will cross this newfound and ancient gulf between us and finally make you see me. Instead the speech crumbles like ashes long burnt and meaning evaporates into more unintellible mist. The addendums and clarification I add adds only more to the blanketing fog disguising my existence, until even I cannot recognize my own sight. The unheard only proliferates the disquietude. Those words, unknown and unresponsive, I must wonder if their meaning ever had any tangible reality in the first place, or if all their power was formed out of reception. Like letters never delivered, the hold only emptiness in the absence of response.

Without recognition they bubble up and form vast streams, treading new paths brought on by only one small snag away from the norm. But it all flows and flows into the sea of unknowable and inseparable, and I can do nothing but join them or rot inside myself.

And this I think, is what loneliness exhibits as. It will either force me to choose to hide and destroy myself, create a statue unchanging to control interpretation of me, in which I lead the charge of misunderstanding. Or I can hold on to the uninteligble self-hood in my grasp and it will eviscerate every conviction I have of any true understandable meaning to be found. I must choose to never be seen or to craft myself into a sight which would never be me. And in the end, it is the same; even the choice is a falsehood.

Loneliness is, through these eyes, a recognition of the breeching chasm which will always lie between oneself and the other, and in loneliness is the pitiful acceptance that any attempts to cross this gap will only create a further distance.

And it is this which finally frees me from you.

[burning-sol]

Thinking abt themzt. I feel like I never rlly talked abt the general concept for the eldritchstrings au, so I'm just gonna do a little ramble here while my brain refuses to focus on anything else.

The way the story starts is pretty much exactly the same and everything is about the same until Rumi and Peter meet Thanatos. In the original work, Rumi and Thanatos are able to find some common ground that gives way to them fighting side by side without issue. In the common eldritchstrings au, the single force that completely alters the timeline is Rumi not being able to establish chemistry with Thanatos. Rumi doesn't agree with Thanatos' ideology, and moreover Rumi is already feeling a complete incongruence between their visions and reality that's making them react very not normally. They're able to defeat the first blight together, but Rumi feels disillusioned/confused/troubled enough by the circumstances that they politely part ways with Thanatos, and take Peter with them - the one who Rumi is most sure they're meant to be with, the one who agrees with them, their emotional support.

Rumi doesn't know if parting with Thanatos was a good choice or not, and being even further off script than intended will create a big internal conflict going forward.

Thanatos will continue to proceed as he had in the original narrative, but Rumi and Peter are going about their adventure differently. They take frequent stops and meet other people, which actually puts them *ahead* of Thanatos since they usually end up knowing where to go. This is also incredibly self-indulgent for Rumi, since performing for others boosts their own morale and helps affirm their identity which they're very in need of (and later this is to affirm them of their morals too). However, this is pretty much the only benefit of them separating from Thanatos.

Since there is no longer a third member to make the party stronger, Exandroth has become an unavoidable and essential part of the cast. Rumi *cannot* ignore Exandroth and *cannot* undermine her like they'd done in the original story. Rumi and Exandroth are weaker so they actually have to talk and strategise, and their intense dependency is highlighted by the fact that every god fight from now on is going to nearly KILL them. This will cause Peter to have a very depressing character arc as Peter comes to think of himself as being completely worthless, as seems to be proven by his inability to fight like Exandroth, so yeah the structure of the team really does its own work in shaping the narrative.

That is everything that sets up the eldritchstrings au, that's how I have come to imagine how the eldritchstrings dynamic could even be a conceivable thing. From here there's a lot of different decisions you can make abt how you want the story to go, but yeah that's the set up.

I could rant abt a lot of things from here, but like you know. I just find it to be such a brain worm to think about how Rumi ends up falling for Exandroth. All the interactions and the dependancy building up to, "shit, I actually like Exandroth," and Rumi then has an absolute mental breakdown over it. Rumi doesn't like Exandroth, Rumi doesn't approve of Exandroth's existence, Rumi hates Exandroth for what it does to Peter, but Rumi being forced to interact with her makes it undeniable that Exandroth is its own whole entity. Exandroth can say things, feels things, Exandroth can be funny, and it's incredibly hard to maintain a b&w view of Exandroth when Rumi is forced to confront its humanity ig. It's a brain worm to think about Peter's own quiet emotional struggle in the face of everything, his desperate longing to feel wanted, and although Rumi tells him he's wanted he just can't feel that when he (feels) *knows* he has nothing to give. Peter has nothing to give Rumi that'll help contribute to Rumi's goals, so Peter can't even entertain the idea he has value. And Exandroth.. Well, Exandroth is so fucking wild. I don't even have the brain capacity to get into her rn.

Also, shoutout to Exandroth and Rumi maybe killing Thanatos. Holding up a flag that reads "doom" on it like wow. You have selected the bad ending for this adventure. "Are you sure you want to kill your old companion, definitively turning away from idealistic path you had initially longed for, as well as proving your unwavering will to become god no matter the obstacle in your path?"

As I think I put succinctly in a prev post...

Rumi is trying to be so nice and explain that they're the god slayers and they're the good guys and that you should put your trust in them then Exandroth says loudly, "GIRL, WE KILLED THANATOS". "No. No we didn't. Exandroth loves to joke around ahahah cause you see he's a celestial so Exandroth doesn't really know what human humour is like so don't mind him-" "GIRL WE HAD A DRAMATIC DIALOGUE AND THEN VERY DELIBERATELY KILLED SOMEONE WHO YOU SAID WE WERE DESTINED TO KILL THE GODS WITH. I THINK WE'RE FUCKING EVIL OR SOMETHING." "We are not evil." "WE ARE FUCKING VILLAINS." "We are not villains." "WE ARE GOING TO BE THE SECOND WORST THING TO HAPPEN TO THIS EARTH."

[dearestones]

Twisted Wonderland Matchup: Azul Ashengrotto

Warnings: Fluff. 

Anonymous Request: hello! i have like to request for a romantic matchup from twisted wonderland. my nicknames are yu/yuki because it is similar to my real name, my general appearance is described as emo 💀/tired/emotionless/minimalistic. i play the violin and piano, i like drawing, sewing and reading especially theories, analysing MVs or characters. my fav is actually epel but ik you don't write for pomefiore. i do like unpredictable characters with a hidden side to them. to describe myself: best- sensitive, imaginative, calm, quick-witted, well-mannered. worst- quiet/shy (like very...), perfectionist, forgetful, insecure, jealous.

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After going through the description given, I believe that you best pair well with Azul Ashengrotto!

First of all, when Azul first meets you, you can bet that the two main reasons he will speak to you are because a) he wants a deal or b) he was forced to talk to you because of societal convention. Depending on how useful you are (according to him), his resulting conversations with you will vary in how polite and engaging he is. 

Sometimes, he will try to trick you into a contract while other times he might be trying to weasel information out of you (so you can make a contract with him later). 

Despite the hiccups the two of you will run into during the early months into your acquaintanceship, one day, you will have Azul indebted to you. Perhaps you’ve accidentally given him a tip on one of Professor Trein’s exams or you found some missing money from the register. Whatever the case, now that he finds himself in debt, Azul has no choice but to seek you out to repay his debt.

Depending on how you react, your trajectory in this relationship can go either upwards really quick or meander into territories the both of you will not have foreseen until much later.

Regardless, the story of how the both of you got together (because of your perceived kindness and his inability to be in debt to someone!) will definitely get you giggling for years to come. 

Regarding your personality, Azul finds you an interesting conundrum. On one hand, he rather likes that you are quick witted and polite—he needs someone to keep him on his toes. Plus, it’s nice to see someone who is not a magician be as imaginative as you. However, even he can’t deny that emotionlessness can be something that puts Azul on edge. For a person who has spent most of his life since childhood trying to cultivate a demeanor that is charming and charismatic (traits that he uses as impenetrable armor), he finds it somewhat off putting that you can freely be yourself while he has to put in so much effort so as to not be ridiculed by others. Despite that, the longer he knows you, the more he becomes interested in you.

Eventually, he’ll see that you are charming in your own way. 

When he learns that you like playing the violin and piano, he’ll eventually ask to hear you play. He won’t lie, at first when he hears how well you play, he’ll be consumed by the need to have you play on stage. Sales will go up, revenue will practically come swimming to him, and he’ll get to listen to you play more often! If you refuse, he’ll be disheartened, but that’s all right. If he spends more time thinking about it, he would rather keep your skills to himself than flaunt it in front of others anyway. 

If you ask him really nicely and if he’s feeling up to it, he’ll let you sit beside him on the piano bench as he regales you with classical tunes from the Coral Sea. Sometimes, if the both of you are up to it, you’ll play a duet. As much as he likes to portray a sense of perfection and sophistication no matter what he does, he finds it amusing if there are mistakes when you duet with him. He’s not sure, but it feels that it becomes more genuine, less like he’s playing for a pretend audience and more like he wants to spend time with you. 

Azul appreciates your analytical personality. That’s one of the things that he likes about you, that you want to fully understand and extrapolate from the context given. For him, your mind is something that can be so beautiful and so intelligent—these are traits that he likes to find in potential partners. 

Banter with Azul, amaze him with your smarts. He may never admit it, but he likes it when people argue with him, but with you the feeling becomes ten times better. That said, if you ever win an argument with him, he will become pouty because he’s supposed to never lose! (It’s okay, you win both times because his cute little pout is too adorable to ignore). 

As for your shyness and insecurities, Azul understands where you’re coming from? As the lone octopus mermaid who had so many flaws (he was so chubby, not smart, clumsy, slow), he was also plagued with the traits that you find negative. If you’re embarrassed about these traits, Azul will offer to help… for a price of course! (It’s okay, you can negotiate terms). When he takes you under his wing, you’ll find that you’ll become more confident in yourself. Remember, you are lovable and important! If you keep that in mind, Azul knows for sure that you will become your best self in time.

As for your jealousy… Azul will never ever leave you, not unless you want to break up with him. He is absolutely smitten with you once you’ve wormed your way into his heart (all three of them if he’s in his octopus form!) and he’ll be reluctant to let go of you. When you’re in a committed relationship with him, he will never let his eyes stray. For him, you are his one and only. 

Overall, as long as you play nice with Azul, he will treat you like the royalty you are. However, don’t play nice too often, because he’ll like it when you fight back. For the most part, you balance each other out and you’ll be happy together.

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If you want to donate a Ko-Fi, feel free https://ko-fi.com/devintrinidad.

TWISTED WONDERLAND MASTERLIST 

[some-creep]

I was fighting for my life to remember who reblogged this because I wanted to add on this little thing I wrote to go with it but it's not worthy of its own post

Ariane lets slip that their relationship is sexual, and the information makes your skin crawl. But you say nothing for there is nothing you can say to dissuade her. After all, she had been trapped in that metal coffin for over a decade, drifting aimlessly through the stars with no one for companionship. A choice you had encouraged her to make. You had been so proud of her acceptance letter, and now you can hardly stand to look at her.

You were ecstatic to hear of her return, something you were made to anticipate being impossible. You wasted no time writing to your sister that her daughter was back after so many years. The letter will take time to arrive, but you hope you can celebrate her return together at some point. But there is nothing to celebrate. Ariane spends a few weeks in the hospital before she is unceremoniously kicked to the street with no fanfare and no recovery plan. No one contacts you about her discharge so you do not know it happens until she arrives at your front door shivering in the arms of a Replika model you don't recognize. You are surprised when the Replika who carries her inside does not leave. It introduces itself as LSTR-512 and gives you a brief rundown of its functions. None of which include prolonged at home medical care.

She is still a young woman, yet she is thin and frail like a woman three times her age. It's rare that she speaks to anyone but the LSTR unit who seems to operate effortlessly as her shadow. Your attempts at conversation always elicit only vacant stares. Worse yet, it is often the Replika who replies on her behalf, though on rare occasions it does prompt Ariane to speak. You can't stand its voice. Its flat responses in place of any meaningful exchange with your niece. But there's nothing you can do. You tried, once, early on to separate the two. You wanted to speak with Ariane without that thing looming at her side but all you had accomplished was making them both frantic. You realized quickly your attempts at social rehabilitation were nowhere near the kind of professional intervention Ariane desperately needed. And Ariane had dismissed any and all assistance in exchange for keeping the LSTR unit.

You hate the way they share a bed. You hate that when the Replika told you it needed to stay by Ariane's side because of her inability to walk without assistance you didn't have any kind of response. Even if you had told it to sleep on the floor, neither of them would have listened. So, instead you find them in bed together every morning clinging to the other as if one of them might vanish. You feel sick every time you check on them only to discover Ariane’s clothes discarded on the ground. She isn't a child, and it isn't your place, but you can't help how it makes you feel, and so you say nothing. Partially, you understand your niece's emotional dependence on the only other Gestalt-esque thing she had lived with in isolation. But the opposite you cannot fathom. At times, you catch yourself considering the LSTR unit’s feelings towards your niece, the possibility they exist at all. You are quick to remind yourself that Replikas are not designed that way, and no matter how physically affectionate they may appear together at times when they think you aren't around, there is no warmth in the gestures.

It's easy to blame Elster. It makes everything hurt less. You can look at her and see the marks that brand her as property, as a tool of the Nation, as a symbol of the Penrose Program. Elster is strong enough to shoulder your guilt for you. She's an easy target because she doesn't complain. In fact, you've never heard her complain about anything. Elster diligently cares for your niece with an unquestioning devotion. She helps her dress, clean herself, feed herself, and even carries her around when Ariane doesn't have the strength to walk on her own. And you find that you trust her to do all of it. Maybe it's because you don't have any other choice. You still need to work, after all, and it isn't as if Ariane is in any condition to accompany you. Or, maybe it's that you know Elster has followed this same routine for longer than you care to think about. Ariane didn't become like this overnight, wasting away as a ghostly shell, that, were it not for Elster, you might not be convinced Ariane was still in there at all. You wonder how long she was sick for and your heart aches every time. This is your fault.

Elster calls you “Mrs. Yeong” even though you're married and that isn't your name. You never bother to correct her, first because you don't like interacting with her, then later because you know she's just trying to be respectful. She understands you're Ariane's family member, and seems to assume you should have the same family name.

You find you make assumptions about Elster a great deal. You struggle to get a read on her from her nearly expressionless face, her flat affect, to her generally stiff demeanor. But sometimes you think you catch her smiling with Ariane although you can never be sure. On the rare occasions she does communicate with you, Ariane tells you the things Elster likes and dislikes, or the mood that she's in. Your first impulse is to say she's personifying her and that Elster probably doesn't feel anything about anything, but you don't. It won't help. It's the only topic Ariane seems comfortable with anymore and you don't want her to shut you out entirely. You take whatever you can get.

While it's seldom you are alone with her, at times, Ariane will fall asleep in a chair and Elster will leave her there to rest, never straying too far away. Perhaps, it is because she is a Replika that she has such a drive to keep busy, but she never wastes time trying to make idle chatter with you. Instead, she occupies herself making repairs around your small apartment without being asked. There's not a broken light or wobbly table or leaky pipe to be found now, and you're grateful. It's one less thing to worry about. You can't help but wonder, so you ask her one day while she's busy adjusting an uneven cabinet door, why she feels the need to do all of this.

“Because,” she says, not looking up from her work as she checks whether or not she's managed to level the door or not (you wonder if she'll notice the wall is uneven, not the cabinet itself), “it's what I'm used to.”

You expected the response, but you can't help but press a little further, and so you say, “I don't want you to feel obligated.” It feels odd to say, you think. Could a Replika even feel a sense of obligation? A sense of duty, perhaps. A purpose. But an obligation?

Elster doesn't respond and you decide to drop it. You watch her finish up another unnecessary repair and carefully put away her well worn tools she'd managed to bring back from her deployment. To your surprise, she speaks again, and her voice, unprompted, makes you jump.

“I do it for Ariane,” she says, and you believe her.

i didnt post it on here but i talked about it on discord but au where ariane and elster do make it back from the penrose mission not for any of the reasons people usually want that but because i think by that point they'd be so dangerously codependent and weird they literally could not function in normal society and i think that's a fun idea

yknow stuff like ariane finds herself watching those same movies with elster that they did on the ship still because it's the only thing that feels familiar and safe anymore because oh wait the regular world has a LOT of stuff and now it's a sensory nightmare and i thought i wanted this but now its too much too fast and nothing makes sense now

ariane not responding when people other than elster talk to her and staring right through them because she'd gotten so used to hallucinating family members near the end she just assumes that's what's happening now so she doesn't even bother replying

elster doing everything for her and being unable to be separated from her for very long before she starts to freak out and worry something bad has happened to her. plus ariane being physically unable to care for herself at that point anyway from the frostbite she definitely has or whatever other injuries you want to give her.

neither one of them ever saying something like "were you talking to -me-?" it's always "were you talking to -us-?"

idk i just like to give them problems <3