#and also being like. the only people on earth who can understand each others trauma. and they start spending more time together

[worfsbarmitzvah]

unfortunately joel x mike is now growijg on me. im mentally ill bear with me

[purehoneyblossom]

astro observations rant post tbh

I don't think any other Venus sign truly deserves to be with a Scorpio Venus. Not a single one of you is up to par and you know it too. Scorpio venuses settle each and every time they get romantically involved with someone who is not also a scorpio venus (or at least has their Venus in 8H).

Capricorn placements love acting resentful towards you once they realized they can’t give all the things they promised to give you even though you never fucking asked them for anything in the first place. They just love messing up their own credibility sometimes. They’re the type to introduce you to a vibe they can’t maintain lol

this isnt a observation but why are yall making asteroid posts and not including the damn number of the asteroid in question??????

People only call Libras liars (lazy af at this point) because there is really not much else negative to say. But the gag is.. EVERYBODY lies. Every human who understands how human nature and human interactions work knows that you have to lie (and lie often) in order to maintain harmony socially. We lie to our friends, we lie to our family, we even lie to ourselves. So hang this take up PLEASE DEAR GOD.

Adding on to that, Libras truly are just mirrors to what people refuse to face about themselves. 🙃 If you were throwing the evil eye at them they gave you that mean girl energy for sure bc they knew something was up with you. If you came at them on some fake shit, they gave that energy right fucking back.

We all have a right to self determination... correct? With that being said its totally fine that some of us possibly won't experience love/romance/relationships in this lifetime. (Especially for the het girlies) Its fine that you can often see that in a chart. You don't have to try to appease to the girls with "harsher" aspects or placements in their chart. Plus, I see a lot of astrology girlies contradict themselves multiple times in their posts in the name of trying to bullshit around the truth. Some of us were put on this earth for self focus, growth and exploration alone. And that's okay.

A lot of us simply aren’t exciting enough to date Gemini/Sagittarius/Aries/Aquarius placements and that’s okay! Let ‘em date each other.

It’s hard getting to know a Scorpio moon because getting to know them involves knowing the trauma that they’ve endured because it’s probably 90% of their story and what’s made them who they are. And that’s a lot to drop on someone on a first date or when you’re first getting to know someone…. Or even the first year of knowing someone. TW Sorry they didn’t want to tell you they were sexually assaulted when they were a kid and that turned their life upside down for the absolute worst...

Libra placements don’t have mean girl energy, they have older sister energy. You know, the older sister who you wanted to be so badly, you wanted to look like her, dress like her, act like her, etc and she was “ mean” to you bc you were her little annoying ass sibling lol but every now and then she’d be nice and let you put on some of her makeup. It’s that kind of energy.

I take a lot of what others say about synastry with a huge grain of salt because its not the synastry placement or aspects that caused the negative outcome babygirl, the relationship was doomed from the start. You had to convince yourself to even find him attractive in the first place just because he showed you romantic attraction and a lot of yall just have very low standards.

Having an aquarius moon must be like naturally having SSRIs running through your synapses at all times... must be nice..

Cancer placements are not sensitive in the empathetic, feeling what others feel kind of way. They are sensitive in a "if you do something that hurts me I will crash the fuck out on you and take it to hell no matter the degree of what you did to me" kind of way. This could be applied to all the water signs but no one does it like Cancer.

Definitely not stamping this as a solid observation but i'm noticing that people tend to form quick crushes on people who have their sun sign in the sign of their venus sign. However, they do not last... let me find out that sun-venus synastry conjunction ain't all that...

IDK why people go back and forth about Beyonce not being a Libra rising when the writing is literally on the wall (pun intended lol). Mama is definitely a Libra rising. Aside from that Venus being in the 1st and her being absolutely beautiful and curvaceous, her scorpio moon is in her second house and miss thang is very hush hush about her finances. The most you'll get outta her is her being bragging a bit in her songs but other than that, she refuses to give any accurate estimate of her wealth lol Iktr

I think people are more obsessed with scorpio venuses being obsessive than scorpio venuses actually being obsessive themselves. When speaking of scorpio venus, people fail to mention that it is hard for this placement to even like or love people to the point they're obsessed with them. They rarely like people enough to even like them like that. Actually, you have more of a chance of them disliking or hating you than you do them being romantically liking you or being obsessed with you.

Virgo suns (tropical/sidereal) have such a short tolerance for stupidity or people acting confused lol They get irritated fast when people don't catch on quickly. Unevolved, they are the type to make you feel really dumb for not understanding something.

Y'all want libra placements to be jealous soooo bad lol that's not how emotions and characteristics work. You can't project an emotion you want an entire group of people to identify as to make yourself feel better about YOU feeling that way. I swear jealousy makes the girlies act like weirdos. It's okay to be obsessed, I promise. I am too 🙃

I'll admit it, I used to look at a lot of the sagittarius suns I would meet and interact with sideways for some of their viewpoints on things until I recently realized something about them. A pattern I noticed about them is that during their upbringing, others around them (usually adults) will project their own toxic/problematic beliefs onto them intensely. That Jupiter influence is kinda of dangerous, beneficial for sure but kind of dangerous too.

I'm glad someone else made a post about how ridiculous some of the astrology "observation" posts can get because some of you get really out of line. I try to give a lot of grace bc I notice that a great majority of you are younger than 22 and that frontal lobe is not even near done baking but I wish that y'all would really sit with some of the things you're writing before deciding to post certain things. I remember writing in my last astrology post about how some of you believe people with prominent libra placements are lgbt+... never got an answer 🙃

Keeping the rant going, can we stop with the mad specific ass observation posts. I feel like we've lost the plot on astrology observations. Like why the fuck are you posting observations about Neptune in Aquarius in the 8th house cusp in a chart with a Libra stellium and a grand trine.............. girl if you don't gtf! If you want to talk about someone you know or yourself just say that!

With all that being said, I feel that it is important for those interested in astrology to seek information and education outside of Tumblr. Specifically from older astrologers. Not to come across as ageist against young people who are into astrology but some of the takes you guys tend to have do come off as you needing to live a little bit more and get more experience before judging certain placements/aspects/signs.

"most people i know with [insert a random negative stereotype about a natal aspect based on a few personal experiences with ppl here]" okay... wtf do you want the rest of us with this aspect in our charts to do about it? Like what do you hope to accomplish when you make posts like this? Seriously....?

For the sake of time, I'll leave y'all with this video of an astrologer I truly respect with her viewpoint on astrology and the shit that we need to leave in 2024, all of which I wholeheartedly agree with.

Till next time hoes, happy new year!

[saintmachina]

One million dollar question: is it true that the Bible condems homosexuality? I had a discussion with two conservatives who sent me some verses that seem to confirm that but i don't know much about the context although i know this is important too

Let’s start here: why is this the million dollar question? Why does it matter what the Bible has to say about sex, or love, or human relationships? At the end of the day, it’s just a book, right?

Oceans of ink (and blood) have been spilled over not only what the Bible says, but what it does, how it functions. The course of empires, nations, and families have been shaped by the contents of this book, and from a historical and cultural perspective, it holds a lot of weight. But you didn’t ask about the sociological, you asked about the theological, so let’s explore. 

Different Christian traditions vary in their approach to scripture. For example: some Protestant denominations believe that the Bible is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. In this paradigm, God is the ultimate author of scripture working through human hands, and the resulting text is both without error and in no way deceptive or mistaken. Similarly, The Second Vatican Council decreed that “the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.” When a member of the clergy is ordained into the Episcopal Church they swear that they “do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation.”

Can you see how many of these points of doctrine overlap yet seek to distinguish themselves from one another? Theologians have spent lifetimes arguing over definitions, and even when they manage to settle on solid teachings, the way that the teaching is interpreted by the clergy and incorporated into the lives of the laity varies WIDELY. As much as systematic theology may try, humans aren’t systematic beings. We’re highly contextual: we only exist in relation to others, to history, to circumstance, and to the divine. We simply cannot call up God to confirm church teaching, and I think a lot of people cling excessively to the Bible as a result of the ache (dare I even say trauma) of being separated from God via space and time in the way we currently are.

God is here, but God is not here. God is within us, God is within the beloved, God is within the sea and sky and land, and yet we cannot grasp God to our bodies in the way we long to. In this earthly lifetime, we are forever enmeshed in God, yet forever distinct, and that is our great joy and our great tragedy.

So barring a direct spiritual experience or the actual second coming, we're left to sort through these things ourselves. And because humans are flawed, our interpretations will always be flawed. Even with the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives guiding us.

When engaging with any sort of Biblical debate, it is essential that you have a strong understanding of what the Bible means to you, an an embodied individual living a brief little awful and wonderful life on Earth. Otherwise it's easy to get pushed around by other people’s convincing-sounding arguments and sound bites.

Here’s where I show my hand. As a confirmed Episcopalian I believe that reason, tradition, and scripture form the “three-legged stool” upon which the church stands, interdependent and interrelational to each other, but I’ve also like, lived a life outside of books. I’ve met God in grimy alleyways and frigid ocean waters and in bed with my lovers. So my stool is actually four-legged, because I think it’s essential to incorporate one’s personal experience of God into the mix as well. (I did not invent this: it’s called the Wesleyan quadrilateral, but the official Wesleyan quadrilateral insists that scripture must trump all other legs of the table in the case of a conflict which...*cynical noises*)

Please do not interpret this answer as me doing a hand-wavey "it's all vibes, man, we're all equally right and equally wrong", but I do absolutely think we have a responsibility as creatures to weigh the suffering and/or flourishing of our fellow creatures against teachings handed down through oral tradition, schisms, imperial takeover of faith, and translation and mistranslation. Do I believe the Bible is sacred, supernatural even, and that it contains all things necessary to find one's way to God, if that is the way God chooses to manifest to an individual in a given lifetime? Absolutely. Do I believe it is a priceless work of art and human achievement that captures ancient truths and the hopes of a people (as well as a record of their atrocities) through symbols, stories, and signs? Unto my death, I do.

However, I am wary of making an object of human creation, God-breathed though it may be, into an idol, and trapping God in its pages like God is some sort of exotic bug we can pin down with a sewing needle.

Finally, we have reached the homosexuality debate. One of my favorite sayings of Jesus is Matthew 5: 15-17: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit." In other words: look at what religious teachings have wrought in the world. When I look at homophobic interpretations of the Bible, I see destruction, abuse, suffering, neglect, alienation, spiritual decay, and death. When I look at theology that affirms the holiness of LGBTQ+ relationships, I see joy, laughter, community building, thoughtful care, blooming families, creativity, resilience, and compassion. I see the love of Christ at work in the world. I see the hands of a God who chose under no duress to take up residence in a human body, to drink wine with tax collectors and break bread with sex workers and carry urchin children around on his shoulders. That's my limited little pet interpretation, but hey, that's all any of us really have, at the end of the day.

So, I am absolutely happy to do a play-by-play breakdown of why those passages you were given (we queer Christians often call them "clobber passages" or "texts of terror") don't hold water in a theological, historical, and cultural context. We can talk about Jesus blessing the eunuch and the institution of Greek pederasty and Levitical purity laws and Paul because I've done that reading. I've spent my nights crying in self-hatred and leafing through doctrine books and arguing with my pastors and writing long grad school essays on the subjects. Send me the verses, if you can remember them, and I'll take a look. But it's worth noting that out of the entire Bible, I believe there are only six that explicitly condemn homosexuality AND I'm being generous and including Sodom and Gommorah here, which is a willful and ignorant misreading if I've ever seen one.

In the meantime, I recommend books by people smarter than me! Try Outside The Lines: How Embracing Queerness Will Transform Your Faith by Mihee Kim-Kort, or Does Jesus Really Love Me by Jeff Chu, or Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians by Austen Hartke!

And take a breath, dear one. Breathe in God, in the droplets of water in the air and in the wind from the south. Breathe in the gift of life, and know that you are loved, now and unto the end of the age and even beyond then.

[peachyfnaf]

If you could say something to all TSAMS characters, what would you say?

WHOOH boy, that's a fuckin' question and a half, ain't it? i'm prolly gonna piss some people off with this, let's see... i kidnapped most of these characters from polaris' list lol

So I don't go off on tangents for each of em, i'm gonna try to limit myself to 1-3 sentences

Sun: You've been through a lot, haven't you? Find something to do in life, something that you love because you want to, not something that you love out of obligation or programming. You're smarter and stronger than you think, stop being held back by the past.

Old Moon: You have not changed as much as you think you have- you still have some very toxic and abusive behaviors. You are not irredeemable, but you are deeply flawed. Take time, work on yourself, and understand that while making up for your past might be impossible; it's not impossible for you to carve out a future where you and those you love are happy.

New Moon/Nexus: Oh, you poor thing, what happened to you? You fucked up, but you didn't deserve the hand you were given in life, no one in your position would. Please, let yourself feel again- the pain of losing it all- only then will you be able to come back out the other side ready to love again.

Earth: As you've grown and experienced life, you've become very immature. This isn't directly a bad thing, but it contrasts with what you try to be, and makes you an unreliable person to go to with mental health struggles. Don't take life so personally, and push a little bit harder, there's no need to be so soft on people who reject help who clearly need it.

Lunar: I am BEGGING you to show some vulnerability. I know it's genuinely so fucking hard after all you've been through, but if you keep acting like you're okay after every loss then eventually you'll become a shell of a man. ...And also, respectfully, humble yourself- you are incredible, but you are not the main character.

Solar: Take a break. Please, for the sake of yourself and everyone you care about, take a break. You can't save anyone if you yourself are dying- and the people you are trying to reach won't extend their hand to a dying man. Take a break.

Eclipse (V4 Specifically): ...What can I even say to you other than that I am so incredibly proud of you. And that I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for everything you went through, being compared to someone you're not. I wish people would leave you alone, as you so desperately want to be, you more than deserve that peace.

Bloodmoon: You're a lot more put together than people give you credit for. I'm sorry you were made the way you were, with the inability to live life without being consumed by your urges. You were born a monster, and no one gave you the proper chance to become anything but one.

Ruin: I'm sorry to say this, I really am, but even though the life you lived was horrid and tragic, that gives you no right to end billions of innocent lives in your quest for justice and revenge. You have my sympathies for the trauma you experienced, but my sympathies end there. Everything you experience after the massacre you pulled is your victims coming to bite you in the ass.

Jack: I love you, so much- I love you for trying as hard as you do. Remember, it's okay to say no. You are still growing and have a lot of it to do, be kind to yourself when you make mistakes.

Dazzle: Sweet girl, the most precious thing. Never change who you are, you are literally the shining star in the darkness that is this world. Never forget how much you are loved, for it is more than you could ever know.

The Creator: No matter how many machines you build, what scientific discoveries you make, how much progress you offer to humanity, you will always be alone. No one will ever love you, and it's all your fault. Remember that when you die alone, old man.

Monty: Your violence is not funny, at least not at the severity of which you do it. You lying to your girlfriend is not funny. Do better or fuck off.

Foxy: You try so hard, and I appreciate it, but learn that there are some things that you can not fix, and some places where you shouldn't stick your nose in. It's okay to be "a rubber duck", it's okay to be normal. Stop trying to be something you're not and embrace what you can.

F.C: I love you so much kid. You're a bit wild and off your rocker, but you've also shown so much unexpected maturity. Stop growing up so fast, yeah?

Puppet: I can appreciate all that you try to do, but please, understand that you acknowledging that you make mistakes does not nullify them. You have been hypocritical time and time again, and you need to learn and grow from those experiences, not just brush them off. You are capable of great things- just learn to do them.

AND THATS EVERYONE. YIPPEE. im gonna go eat shrimp now lol

[laugtherhyena]

@ninjagirlstar5 YEAH‼️Mary is straight up one of the nicest people in our cast i think? She's outward friendly to most of the characters as you can see in this silly chart.

Ramblings under cut tho maybe check out the cast post so that you know who I'm talking about (made by the same dude that made this chart template, hi avery)

So a thing about Mary is that she's really not that shaken with the whole termina festival thing? The horrors are the horrors but she's been struggling by her whole life to the point that she's desensitized to a lot of things + the insanity of the situation in Prehevil is a little beyond her comprehension, so even tho there are fucked monsters and crazy cultists running around while the moon tries to morph them into twisted versions of themselves she's watching that and sorta just going "Damn that's crazy" before continuing focusing on staying alive herself long enough so that the train passes by and she can leave (1st round survivors leave Prehevil by hopping on a cargo train wagon as it passes by the town)

She is one of the characters that keeps their cool through a majority of the festival and only moonschorches on day 3 morning after some nasty stuff happens. So pair that with her just being a nice person in general and you have Mary!

The worse people get in her chart is neutral + avoidant and that's because she's got a gut feeling that something's off about John and Hilda but she doesn't want to fuck around and find out so she just keeps her distance from them.

The other 3 she avoids are all people Mary does like quite a bit but none of them want to be around her for one reason or another; Damian and Claire are both rather reclusive people who have their minds set on escaping Prehevil alive and their own personal goals while Addison is kinda of a paranoid dude which makes him avoid a lot of people through termina in general. So Mary sees that and steers away not wanting to bother them (she is used to people avoiding her out of being disgusted by her presence seeing her as a filthy, stupid and untrustworthy street rat so this isn't anything new for her. None of these opinions applies to the dudes I just stated tho), which is kinda sad because she does like these people quite a bit. She is impressed by Claire and Addison's professions and would love to know more about those and has never been around a journalistic photographer or actor (She's seen tvs once or twice in random gigs she got over the years and was just absolutely mesmerized on how that little box has people on it), and she's heard a lot of good things about Damien from his brother.

She would have avoided Lola for similar reasons, she's nice to everyone but she's a bit of a cleaning freak so Mary's appearance bothers her quite a bit, but because Lola is not much of a fighter and is terrified of the situation they're in Mary sticks by to help. It's in the same vein as her being around Anatol and Ebba even tho they don't care much for her, she's seeing these 20 year olds with a lot of life ahead of them stuck in this hell on earth and takes upon herself try helping them even if she is aware of what they think of her.

Kit is a buddy tho, they're both people who grew up in the outskirts of society (albeit in wildly different settings) so they had a pretty harsh life which in turn means they got quite a bit in common :] she also chats and hangs around Matyas even tho she can't understand half what he's rambling about.

The 3 people left are the closest to Mary out of the whole cast, so much so that if certain events aren't prevented at least one of these people being alive is a requirement for her to make it out alive.

Mary and Amos both come from the orphanage, while they weren't necessarily friends back then, they did know each other during the time Mary still lived there, tho she can't remember that due to blocking out pretty much all her memories from her time in the orphanage out of trauma. What she can recall is really vague and hard to understand and the thought of setting foot there again terrifies her, this stuff is also the reason why she's afraid of the dark priests but she isn't scared of Amos due to the familiar feeling he evokes even if she can't remember knowing him prior to termina. They grow closer out of shared religious trauma and sorta look out for each other in a way.

As for Catherine and Leslie they're both people she's only met during termina that surprised her a bunch because she's so used to people with big important carrers like them to just ignore her existence entirely, so to see a doctor of sorts and a lawyer not only be unbothered by her presence but straight up like and treat her nicely it's just,, wow! "I never talked to someone so smart before!" Or "I never had someone take care of me before!" And I think she cherishes their company a lot through the festival.

[makeitp1nk]

2024 reflections

In stream of consciousness

This might as well be a journal entry

There’s some fandom stuff in blue

Necessity is a bitch, but she’s also the biggest teacher. Had I not needed so much, I wouldn’t have become a part-time handy man this year.

In the race to the bottom, companies no longer build things to last or for minimal repair and upkeep. Things are purposely built to break and be repurchased. They are consciously creating waste, and as a fixer, this disgusts me. My house taught me the extent of this nonsense.

I’m really fucking over the drive for profit > common sense. Greed.

I’ve also realized that I can only think of two people within my organizational hierarchy at work (a VP and C-suite exec) who don’t worry about money. My coworkers, my boss — everyone is convinced they need more for the basics. I earn less than half what my boss does. I’d be dying with gratitude if I had what he does. So when does it stop? When do we achieve satisfaction? When do we stop worrying?

It’s been a supremely lonely year. At times by choice but mostly by circumstance. In group settings, I’ve become okay with just being and not feeling obligated to socialize or participate. I still enjoy myself, and it’s liberating. I’ve come to understand that I crave deep connections, and I’m not someone who can achieve that with many. I’m too much for people.

IRL, I was not placed on this earth to be liked. It’s lonely, but coming to terms with this has empowered and liberated me tremendously.

I think this is reflected in what I write. Every concept and feeling is intrinsically mine. I love writing for a recipient, for one specific person, and that’s made being part of fandom the most satisfying. I miss being more active, I miss my friends, and I miss the chokehold my ships had on my life previously. That’s what I miss the most - the obsession that drives inspiration and connection.

Fandom feels less open and accepting than when I joined. It feels like there are groups of friends cheering each other on but not excited to make new friends. I love seeing the joy and enthusiasm those groups have for each other, it just feels lonely on the outskirts. Lonelier still when I don’t feel the spark and passion I used to.

That doesn’t mean I love my ships any less, it just means my horizons have widened and that passion has spread instead of concentrated. That expansion makes me want so much more - I want to learn Chinese. I want to thrift and up-cycle clothes. I want to spoil my cats more. I want want want want

I grieved the woman I would have been if necessity hadn’t turned me into a Type A person. Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s a trauma response.

I put myself last. Towards the end of the year, I started kicking my job lower in my priorities, but I will always jump on something that affects others before I take care of the things I need. This needs to change.

I’ve been giving people out in the world my brightest smile, and it feels really good. I think it takes them by surprise too. It feels like throwing confetti at people.

I feel like I was never allowed to be shy when I was younger, and I’m really leaning into it now. I didn’t realize how much I needed this space to figure out what feels like me.

I’ve developed this rare skill to move and change and influence. I didn’t realize how much power I had until very recently. It’s both validating and terrifying.

I knew going into 2024 that it was going to be a rough one. To be frank, it kicked my ass. My husbands’ too. It’s 2am on the last day of the year. It’s pretty much over.

It’s starting to feel silly, this way of marking time. But having milestones and times to reflect is nice.

On to the next one

If you want to reflect and open up, tag me - I’d love to read yours ❤️

[maxilsmaster]

i am not normal about these characters: shadow the hedgehog

shadow is special to me. he was the first character i was ever abnormal about. so today you all get to share in my abnormalness

now, if you’ve seen my previous iannatc posts, obviously we’re gonna get neurodivergent headcanons out of the way first. autism and ptsd. i don’t think i need to elaborate on the ptsd. shadow is hypersensitive, is hyperempathetic, has special interests, avoids eye contact, doesn’t understand social conventions, and has alexithymia.

ofc this motherfucker is hyperempathetic. he was created to be a companion for maria as well as to cure her. but he was also created to be a weapon, so he would have heightened senses as well. he gets overstimulated really easily when he’s not in a fight.

he has special interests in medicine/diseases/healthcare in general, motorcycles and bugs. i saw a comic where a bug got onto the ark and now i just think shadow really likes bugs and thinks they’re neat. i’ve explained that he knows medical stuff in a different post

shadow was raised on the ark. of course his ass doesn’t understand social conventions.

my guy does NOT understand his own emotions

shadow has a few different fears, mostly stemming from trauma. he’s especially afraid of heights (acrophobia), tight spaces (claustrophobia) and needles (trypanophobia). needles (and really any medical things) are made 10x worse when he doesn’t have any agency in the situation.

bc of the medical trauma, he strongly prefers colored/patterned bandages bc they feel less clinical/institutional.

he loves physical contact. he is a hugger. he requires kindness and affection. his love language is physical closeness. he does not want anyone to know about this. sometimes rouge will carry him around and he’ll pretend to hate it but he secretly really enjoys it.

shadow is agender (any pronouns, he/him used here for consistency). he learned about trans people and thought “how can anyone feel like a man or a woman?” he then went into a spiral about it (bc of self worth/dehumanization issues) until rouge told him to look up the term agender. this happened with him being aroace as well, except replace rouge with sonic, who is also aroace. sometimes i throw aplatonic into the mix for extra fun.

shadow does not officially work for gun. in fact, he actually got rouge to help him file a lawsuit for all the bullshit they put him through. they settled out of court, and now shadow gets a monthly sum of money from gun. he joins rouge and omega on missions though (rouge works for gun as an alternative to prison, omega wants to blow shit up), and he’s also more competent than any of the medical team, so he’s unofficially in charge of them. he and abe are currently working shit out with the government to get shadow an official medical license.

he lives with rouge and omega. they’re a weird little fucked up found family 💕

shadow is susceptible to hyperthermia/heat stroke. thick black fur gets hot in the summer, plus he’s used to the colder temperatures on the ark/in cryostasis.

shadow will always go see the northern lights if he has any opportunity to. he got to experience them on the ark with maria (yes, you CAN see the northern lights from space) and they both wanted to see what the lights were like on earth. they’re more beautiful than shadow ever could have imagined. he named his chao aurora btw.

sonic and shadow secretly get along, and even have movie nights together. in front of other people (or a camera) they’ll always fight, but they do actually enjoy each other’s company. tails and rouge see right through their facades. shadow also only pretends to have beef with tails when sonic is around. otherwise, he gets along with both just fine.

shadow has no preferred music genre. he likes anything from taylor swift to death metal. sonic got him into crush 40 tho lmao (see iannatc sonic edition)

shadow is a keanu stan. he watched the one spongebob movie solely bc he was told keanu was in it. his favorite franchise of all time is john wick. if he knew keanu voiced him in the scu he’d explode.

shadow thinks die hard is a christmas movie. (he is correct.)

thanks for sticking around lmao

[asocial-inkblot]

Things I Hope/d to See in the New ATLA Live Action Show

A source material-accurate Azula (duh) and Aang (the show's namesake!) with something extra added to both. See #7 and #8 for more on that.

Tweaked war-related plans that come across like they could reasonably be implemented in real life and which may be based on/allude to actual battle proposals from throughout history. I know little about these sorts of things but others have pointed out before that one of Sokka's plans, for example, may not have actually made much sense. And Ozai's plan near the end? Yeeaaahhhhh... I mean, I kinda get it in hindsight. But still. Let's have him come up with something better than that.

Appearances and clothing that call back to the ethnic groups and cultures that the show takes inspiration from (things are looking great on this front so far), but also

Eye colors like the ones from the original cartoon. This may seem petty but I find that it's actually important to use the right hues for each character and not just make everyone's eyes brown or black or gray (looks to me like that's exactly what they did). The reason being that, although I personally tend to dislike when non-white characters are given what I now call "white qualifiers" (meaning traits often used to make them still appeal to whiteness, such as light hair, light eyes, bone-straight hair, round eyes, etc.), in the context of the show, the eye colors are actually by and large ethnic characteristics and differentiators themselves. As I've noted before in a previous post from a while back: Ocean blue eyes = Water Tribes, brown and gray = usually Air Nomad or Earth Kingdom, amber or light tan = Fire Nation, with few exceptions for all of them.

Enough similarities for it to feel like ATLA but with enough differences that it's actually its own story. Again, duh, but we all know how often adaptations tend to get this part wrong.

An age rating that won't be used as just another excuse to shoehorn in as much violence, gore and sexual content as possible but instead to allow for the full illustration of the impact that war can have on a people and their society/traditions. We saw, imo, only little hints of this throughout the cartoon (when Aang found Monk Gyatso's remains is one extremely devastating example), but not near enough. I know the reason why, of course. However, things like that only helped sell the show short by not allowing it to fully flesh out into a world with true, viewable consequences.

An Azula who, from day one, is unquestionably made out to be exactly what she is: A child soldier who is also a victim of the war in a similar way to how the Gaang is. I want to see her allowed to show worry, even fear, either during or after a situation. Not because I don't love how kickass she is, but because at her age, level of trauma and amount of risk to her life everyday, she has all the reason to be more stressed from the get-go. Not to mention her family issues. I want Azula to clearly have anxiety or depression, something many of us can relate to. I also want that scene of her mental breakdown to STAY in some capacity, but be seen in-universe and hopefully—eventually—irl, too, as what it really was: A teenage girl pushed to her limits until she had no where left to step. Real, living people have had anxiety/panic attacks and meltdowns before and that didn't make them evil or any less worthy of sympathy. It only makes it that much more obvious how real Azula herself is, and how much she needed and deserved understanding.

I want an Aang who's allowed to cry, not once, not twice but over and over again as the weight of the burden of what it means to be a child avatar during a world war—and one who was out-of-commission for a century—start to take their toll on his mind, body and eventually spirit. After he reaches his breaking point, I want him to learn to forgive himself and even forgive others, and come back from it, stronger than ever.

A Toph who's tough but maybe a little less...umm... She should be/feel affected by the war too, okay? And have some level of guilt, fear or self-awareness at all times. So she should be like her original self, but deeper.

More Ursa pleeeaaaaaaassse. We know next to nothing about this woman and what we do know, still involves a lot of inferring. I need to know just what her beliefs were about the war and her family/relatives. I need to know if she...if she often feared for her or her children's lives!

A little less romance and a little more danger, planning and large platonic relationship growth as well as character growth.

Zuko actually learning something from his travels; early on, every time he meets someone/some new people, and on a regular basis. I also kinda want to see him have consequences for his actions. Not just that one time, where he was only a clueless 13 year old boy anyway. Doesn't have to be huge or bloody, but he needs to lose something every time he gains at the expense of another. The ATLA world (if not within the cartoon then definitely within the live action show) should have a real, tangible concept of Karma present, if it doesn't already. That would make so. much. sense.

If possible, a little more fleshing out of characters like Jet and the Freedom Fighters, Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors, Hama, Mai, Ty Lee, etc. And can we not demonize or shrug off victims anymore?

A still sexy Hakoda, Ozai and June. (I'm so sorry, don't hate me...)

An ending that won't make me break out in hives plez.

(That's it for now. I may come back here to add more.)

[uniquely-plural]

I am pretty sure I'm a traumagenic system (undiagnised because my parents just think im "moody" amd dont belive i have other people in my head) but I have so many questions.

Is it OK that I still think of me as me and my alters as other people? I see alot of people who say "us" and "we" but I feel like I can't speak for them.

Is it normal for, when another alter fronts, me to still see through my eyes and know what's happening, but not ve able to control or stop it? It's like my consciousness is only in the alter I consider "me" and then there are other non-me people in my head, is that weird?

Would it be weird for me to say that at some points I've had conversations with my alter out loud, and it was like i could feel a vertical split in my physical body as to which alter was where? They were sort of like a caretaker whenever I was at my darker points, so they would talk to me and I'd talk back and it allowed for physical contact like hugs, ect, but I've never seen anyone describe something similar

Also, how on earth do people figure out what alter is what? It's like my consciousness (me) is in the front park of a semi truck abd the rest are all in the back so I can't see them but I am really sure that they're there.

I havr so many questions and no one to ask T T sorry if this is too much

It's always okay to ask questions! We can do our best to answer.

There are a lot of frameworks we use to understand plurality, and I don't believe any one of them is inherently superior to another. So when you're asking yourself, 'is this okay?' - I would try to ask yourself, 'does this feel right to me? Does framing things in this way help me function better and be happier?'

One person, just as an example, could have DID and figure out that understanding their alters as completely separate people from him was holding back his trauma recovery. Understanding his alters as part of himself and developing compassion and acceptance for them could be therapeutic.

For another system, knowing they are completely separate people who just happen to share a body is the understanding they need to be respectful towards each other and work together.

So yes, in your case? It's totally okay, normal, and common to feel like your alters are other people and you cannot speak for them. Some people always feel this way, and then some people feel like that at the beginning, but their understanding changes once they get to know their system more, or if they work on improving disordered dissociate barriers.

We can speak as an unit because we have a monoconscious, median system core. In other systems, each member prefers to speak only for themselves. That's also perfectly fine.

As for still seeing through your eyes while another alter fronts, that does sound possible if you have no amnesia barriers and possibly co-fronting, in the sense someone else is fronting as in 'control of the body' while you are still in front as in 'awareness of the outside world'. You could look into possession and possession style switches.

In polyconscious systems, members have their own individual consciousness.

It's not weird to have conversations out loud, if that's what helps you communicate. And that link to the possession entry mentions how it can also be experienced as an alter taking control of part of the body, so it sounds like you might have been in control of one half and your alter was in control of the other one, which makes sense to me. I'm very glad to hear they took care of you.

Not being aware of a lot of information about your alters or system is very common. Developing a better understanding is often a process of trying things and finding what works for your system, and it can vary a lot depending on things like level of internal communication, what barriers are present, etc. This post on Mapping your system could point you towards some possibilities.

I hope you found that helpful, and thank you for sharing your experiences.

[kitkatt0430]

4,31,60 and whatever other ones you want for harrisco pleeease :)

4.) Which one is more protective? Who needs to be ‘protected’?

Harry is definitely the more over protective of the two. It caused friction in his relationship with Jesse and I could see that instinct trying to creep into things with him and Cisco too despite being well aware that Cisco can take care of himself.

I also tend to see Harry's 'she kicked me off my earth' reaction to Jesse getting upset over Harry's micromanagement and over protectiveness as evidence he has a bit of rejection sensitive dysphoria. And that also his instinct on feeling rejected was to seek out Cisco.

Whenever Harry starts leaning into that overprotectiveness too much, Cisco rather firmly tells Harry he needs to back it down. Sometimes they argue about it and it's them, sometimes there's shouting and the throwing of dry erase markers (not at each other). But Harry has trauma over losing loved ones and Cisco understands that and takes it very seriously. He isn't going to let Harry use that trauma as an excuse to be smothering or controlling, but it does help to remember where Harry's coming from when talking - or arguing - him down from a freak out.

Cisco can have a bit of an overprotective streak himself, though. And after the whole thing with DeVoe is over, Harry may have accepted what happened to him when it was essentially killing him but now he has to live with it and I think maybe sometimes the person he needs the most protecting from is from himself and his anger and frustration he struggles with while learning to live with the resulting brain damage. And Cisco really, really wants to protect him from that and it's the hardest thing to know that he can't make it all better. He can only really support Harry while he finds his way through.

31.) Can they sit side by side without touching the other or are they handsy? (lacing fingers, touching knees, etc.)

Oh they definitely are the handsy sort. Harry isn't the most touchy-feely of people, but when it comes to Cisco he's always reaching out. A hand on his shoulder, on his thigh, touching knees, arm around the shoulder. And he encourages Cisco to do the same. Not that Cisco needs much encouragement since he is a rather touchy-feely type.

By the time they start dating no one is surprised by this behavior in them, but when Harry started getting more demonstrative in their friendship before the dating started there was definitely some surprise. I think Jesse was very pleased to see it, though. The only person he'd felt comfortable being close with until then was her and now he finally had a support structure and a friend he was close enough with to be physically demonstrative with and tease about things? She was so very, very pleased. And even more so when Cisco and Harry finally got together.

60.) Who pulls the other closer when they’re sleeping?

Cisco expected this would be him most often. And certainly he does it a lot. But Harry is suuuuper grabby in his sleep. Holding on to Cisco like he never wants to let go.

And, barring trips to the bathroom where it is a pain to get free of those grabby hands, Cisco is pretty much fine with that.

[the-ultimate-tsbs-kin]

☆TSBS Kin Memories!☆

Foxy

- Dated Puppet

- First getting a crush on Puppet and denying it

- Half Hispanic

- Had a tail (like FC's but more worn out)

- House husband (sorta- I did work, but I did all the housework too)

- Straight (apparently have to clarify that-)

- Lowkey hated Monty (so did Puppet)

Castor

- With Pollux (by earthling standards, both platonic and romantically, but we didn't say things like "date")

- Extremely close bond with Pollux, neither of us ever felt anything remotely close to it with anyone else than with each other

- Pollux loved cuddling and all sorts of physical affection - I did too, but she usually initiated them

- Didn't have the same feelings for Lunar

- Being Gemini felt warm and just... extremely close, in a good way- hard to phrase

- Astrals had a different language, but we knew all the earthly languages so we could communicate with whoever we needed to

- Pollux loved flower jewelry and loved making them for me, so I usually always had a little crown or bracelet or something

- Had telekinesis (idk if that's mentioned or shown on the shows-)

Ruin

- Very flamboyant and fruity, just for fun

- Aroace

- Flirted with anyone and everyone just for their reactions (it was also a great defense mechanism!)

- Me and Bloodmoon weren't dating, but we had- something going on

- Don't know if I really had my own personality because I was almost always acting for my benefit

Killcode

- Very flexible

- Liked to climb up walls on all fours to scare people

- Regularly went on hunts with Bloodmoon

- Actually adored Bloodmoon, who was also very fond of me (I was almost as close to them as they are with each other)

- Had to deal with Bloodmoon throwing tantrums a lot

- Wasn't really fond of Eclipse, I tried to give him the same amount of care and understanding as Bloodmoon but he wasn't taking it so I gave up

- I could not change the smile on my face- it was stuck like that

- Fsr, Bloodmoon was in his newer model in my memories- maybe they were always like that?

Sun

- Had a big thing with Moon, very longstanding, very committed relationship! (Totally wasn't built on trauma-)

- When Eclipse first formed, he had a thing for Moon fsr and only started antagonising us after Moon rejected him

- Had OCD (not my cleaning protocol, I did little rituals for certain things). The main thing I can remember is the lights- before going to bed, I had to switch them on and off a certain amount of times and with certain intervals between switches before it was safe to leave them off. I also had a little mantra I said when I did it. Moon used to be really annoyed by it and I got self conscious and tried to force myself not to do it. Then when he came back after the whole thing with Nexus, he noticed I was still suppressing it and he helped me feel safe enough to do it again <3

- My rays did actually retract with certain emotions. If I got anxious or uncomfortable, they'd go in more. I could technically control it but it happened subconsciously. They didn't spin though

- Wasn't straight- don't remember what I was, but definitely not straight

- Very feminine

- Also house husband

- Always wanted kids

Lunar

- Still hate Eclipse, he unsettles me to no end

- Biggest crush on Gemini and Earth

- Pansexual and ambiamorous

- Actually did enjoy being small

- Age regressed sometimes

- Definitely a femboy

- Loved Earth's hair- very very soft and fluffy >w<

- LIVED off of nutella and ice cream

- Very emotional, never fully got my powers in check :(

[secretlythepits]

Love in Action, Love in the Stars

I’ve vacillated on how I feel about the idea of love languages. When I first heard about it, I was gobsmacked. Amazing! That was years before I even met my husband, when I was utterly single.

At one point in my marriage, when I was a bit frustrated, I remembered and tried to work with it. I told my husband about it, but he didn’t really take it in or care much. Still, I observed him and saw him give me Acts of Service. I mirrored him because I saw that’s what he liked. Mostly, whenever I wanted to bring us closer, I’d bring him beverages as a quick way to connect: Ice water when he was outside, a beer or coffee if he was watching tv. It sounds funny, but we’ve always been good at responding to each other’s small gestures. If one of us takes a step closer, the other does the same.

But he wouldn’t/ couldn’t speak to me in my love languages: Affection and Words of Affirmation. I continued to speak his language and mine to him, but he only replied in his. After a time, I started feeling resentful. I saw the feminist problem with love languages: that women are the ones who primarily read about and apply this idea, while men just keep doing what they always did. Did love languages con me into doing all the work in the relationship and trick me into giving him a free pass?

I stopped my Acts of Service campaign and he didn’t notice or make more of an effort, but things got less pleasant between us. I started speaking more frankly and harshly about my needs not being met. I learned about attachment styles and guess who is anxious and guess who is avoidant? There was a stale mate in the air as we needed to change but I was no longer willing to do my part without getting what I wanted in return.

And then I rekindled my long lost love of astrology. I went deeper than ever before, getting into planets and houses and transits. My husband is a Capricorn. My dear friend, who is both a kindergarten teacher and an astrologist, observed that my husband shows his love and devotion through action. That’s being a Capricorn, the cardinal earth sign. It is who he is and who he has always been and if I looked at just his actions, I would see a pattern of consistent effort demonstrating how much he loves me.

I am a Scorpio, the deepest water sign. In fact, I am a fixed water sign, so I’ll always want to stay in the deep waters of emotions. Words and feelings are ocean in which I exist.

For some reason astrology resonates more profoundly with me than love languages and attachment styles. All three thought methods explained our differences, but astrology taught me not to try to change it. Astrology invites me to just accept it. We are who we are and rather than trying to change each other, bridge a gap, or heal deep trauma wounds. I can just observe, accept, and appreciate our differences.

Right now, our house is project central. My husband is hiring people right and left and wielding chainsaws and screwdrivers to put our house in tip-top shape. He is taking care of our future needs as best he can, while he still has strength. It is love in action. It’s also the fear he can’t find words for. It’s also my practical earth sign being who he has always been and will always be: someone who takes care of business.

And when I bring him a glass of water, when I handle the serious talks with the kids, I am being who I am: the water sign who has the language and insight to flow into the gaps of silence and complete the understanding.

It feels so good to settle

into the stars.

[floral-incantation]

Seraphine’s Description

Physical Appearance

Seraphine is a striking young woman in her mid-twenties, embodying the essence of nature and magic. She stands at approximately 5'6", with a lithe and graceful build that reflects her agility and connection to the natural world. Her movements are fluid and purposeful, reminiscent of the gentle sway of trees in the breeze.

Hair:

Her long, flowing hair is a rich chestnut brown, cascading down her back in soft waves that catch the light like sunlit leaves. The hair has subtle golden highlights that shimmer when she moves, giving her an ethereal quality. Seraphine often adorns her hair with small wildflowers or delicate braids intertwined with greenery, symbolizing her bond with nature. These adornments change with the seasons—bright blossoms in spring, deep greens in summer, warm hues in autumn, and even frosted branches in winter.

Eyes:

Seraphine's most captivating feature is her eyes—an enchanting shade of emerald green that sparkles with intelligence and kindness. They are large and expressive, capable of conveying a wide range of emotions from deep empathy to fierce determination. When she looks at someone, it often feels as though she can see into their very soul, understanding their pain and joy alike. Her gaze reflects the wisdom of the forest and the warmth of sunlight filtering through leaves.

Skin:

Her skin has a warm, sun-kissed glow, hinting at her time spent outdoors among the vibrant flora of Enchancia. It is smooth and unblemished, with a natural radiance that seems to emanate from within. Freckles dust her cheeks and nose—remnants of hours spent under the sun—adding to her youthful charm.

Clothing:

Seraphine’s attire typically consists of flowing garments made from natural fabrics that allow for ease of movement while blending seamlessly with her surroundings. She favors earthy tones—rich greens, soft browns, and tranquil blues—that echo the colors of the forest. Her dresses are often adorned with intricate embroidery inspired by nature—depicting leaves, vines, and flowers—symbolizing her role as a guardian of the earth.

She often wears a long hooded cloak crafted from soft wool that drapes elegantly around her shoulders. The cloak is enchanted to provide warmth in cold weather while also offering protection against magical threats. When she walks through the forest or enters a village, Seraphine carries herself with an air of quiet confidence—a reminder of both her strength and grace.

Personality Traits

Compassionate:

Seraphine's heart is filled with compassion for all living beings. She has an innate ability to empathize deeply with others' feelings, making her a beloved figure in every village she visits. Whether comforting a grieving friend or tending to injured animals, she approaches each situation with kindness and understanding.

Resilient:

Despite facing profound loss at a young age, Seraphine embodies resilience. The trauma of losing her parents has shaped her into a strong individual who refuses to let darkness consume her spirit. She approaches challenges with courage and tenacity, never backing down from a fight when it comes to defending what she loves.

Curious:

Seraphine possesses an insatiable curiosity about the world around her. She finds joy in exploring new places—the rustling leaves whisper secrets about ancient magic; streams carry stories from distant lands; every flower holds a lesson waiting to be learned. This curiosity fuels her desire for knowledge; she constantly seeks out new experiences and insights that deepen her understanding of magic and nature.

Creative:

Her creativity shines through not only in music but also in how she approaches magic itself. Seraphine believes that magic should be an extension of oneself—a harmonious blend of intention and emotion. This philosophy guides her interactions with both people and nature; she sees beauty in imperfection and embraces spontaneity as part of life’s journey.

Optimistic:

Seraphine maintains an optimistic outlook on life despite the hardships she has faced. She believes in the power of hope and strives to inspire others to see the light even in dark times. Her positivity is infectious; those around her often feel uplifted by her presence.

Intuitive:

Seraphine possesses strong intuitive abilities that guide her decisions and actions. She can sense when something is amiss or when danger lurks nearby—a skill honed through years spent attuning herself to nature’s rhythms. This intuition helps her navigate complex situations both magically and emotionally.

Determined:

Once Seraphine sets her mind on something, she pursues it with unwavering determination. Whether it’s helping a village recover from disaster or confronting dark forces threatening Enchancia, she commits herself fully to any cause she believes in.

Playful:

Beneath her serious dedication lies a playful spirit that loves to engage with others through laughter and lightheartedness. Seraphine enjoys sharing stories around campfires or playing games with children in villages—reminding everyone that joy is just as essential as duty.

Wise Beyond Her Years:

Having experienced profound loss at such a young age, Seraphine carries wisdom beyond her years. She understands the complexities of life—the interplay between joy and sorrow—and uses this insight to guide others through their struggles.

Protective:

As a guardian of balance, Seraphine feels a deep responsibility toward those who cannot protect themselves—be it people or creatures alike. She will go to great lengths to ensure their safety, often putting herself at risk if it means shielding others from harm.

Magical Abilities

Seraphine's magical abilities are deeply intertwined with nature:

Nature Manipulation:

Seraphine can communicate with plants and animals on an intuitive level, understanding their needs and emotions.

Healing Magic:

One of Seraphine’s most profound gifts is her ability to heal wounds through song and herbal remedies.

Elemental Affinity:

Having learned from both parents, Seraphine possesses an affinity for elemental magic—particularly earth and air.

Musical Magic:

Music is Seraphine’s greatest tool; she weaves spells into melodies that resonate deeply with those who hear them.

Empathy Link:

Seraphine has a unique ability to sense the emotions of others around her—a gift that allows her not only to understand their pain but also guide how she uses magic to help them heal.

Nature's Guardian:

As a guardian of balance, Seraphine can draw upon the life force around her for strength during dire situations—channeling energy from trees or plants nearby when needed most during battles against dark forces threatening Enchancia.

[shootinwebs]

( Content Notes: sexual abuse implied, parent death, child death )

Headcanon that, if someone actually asked Alastor about his sexuality directly, he would have no idea how to answer. Not even if someone explained what asexual means, and the scope of the ace spectrum.

He doesn't understand anything about his personal life, because he's never had the space or support to work out his trauma. His mom was that person for him, and she died when he was fifteen -- he had no one to talk to on Earth after that, about anything personal. She was the only person who could've helped him figure himself out.

Very similarly to Angel, because of experiences with sexual violence, he has a hard time being able to tell when he actually wants to have sex with someone. For both him and Angel (except with Husk after some time), they can even say yes and go through the whole song and dance, before realizing later that they weren't entirely comfortable with it.

Angel did become someone Alastor talks to about sexual trauma and that cognitive dissonance, after one day when Angel accidentally sort of blew up at Alastor and told him and/or showed him something particularly gruesome about Valentino's abuse (something alarming enough that Alastor felt he had no choice but to help Angel calm down or at least stay with him). That's how they became close friends, and even each other's go-to person for talking about their personal trauma from sexual violence.

They have a lot in common in that regard: violent thoughts and impulses, extreme anger, wanting to have sex with someone one moment and wanting to kill them the next, having no idea what they want, isolation and feeling like no one knows them at all, and having a strong aversion to sharing anything personal about themselves.

And probably most troubling of all, feeling like they are what happened to them, and nothing else. That they have to invent these fake personas, because they feel there's nothing underneath those masks but the fallout of sexual abuse.

Angel knew he was gay from early adolescence, and it's largely because there wasn't much in the way of him being able to figure out his sexuality.

Alastor, on the other hand, feels he never had the chance to figure it out, because the abuse happened when he was too young to really know himself.

So, he struggles to know if his frequent aversion to sexual experiences (and even how his libido usually seems lower than that of most people his age) is part of his identity and the way he's wired, or if it's because there truly was never enough healing or closure from the violence he went through.

(He also had a daughter from one of these non-consensual experiences, who didn't even live to a year, and all of that very much had an impact on him in the sense that he outright refuses certain ways of having sex. He's very particular for more reasons than just personal preference.)

It's the same with the possibility of him being aromantic. He doesn't know if he's aro, or if he just lacks the ability to be able to connect with people so closely. To be able to give himself to them without fear.

[chairteeth]

Taking a closer look at memoriae

As per blog brand, this is about TouNemu again. I'm gonna be analyzing and pointing out a handful of things about Touka and Nemu's personal memoriae as well as their flower field memoriae. I ended up going on a biiiit of a ramble about the hospital trauma again which makes the Touka section look longer than it is, since the hospital trauma applies to both. Welp, enjoy!

The only memoriae of theirs where they aren't together are their personals, the obligatory flower fields, and one on each side which had reasons outside of their control that kept them apart, btw. Which is just. Yeah, talk about being joined at the hip. I won't be doing the dual unit's personal because it's kinda bland honestly? As in the text doesn't really give us much to talk about or even gush about, it's just a literal description of what happens in Christmas String. I will however note that it features a book (diary) like Nemu's personal, but has the exact effect of Touka's personal. We will also be looking at both NA translations and fan translations of memo descriptions for picking apart purposes (and because I do not trust NA whatsoever).

SO! A Freedom for Just Me (NA: My Own Freedom) is Touka's personal memoria and the description reads as follows

The earth orbits the sun? That's a lie. The world is a big place? That's a lie. Seeing it on TV, on the internet, how can you be so sure? The only things I know are true? That the starry sky, and the things around me keep spinning. (NA)

It's a lie that the earth orbits the sun. It's a lie that the world is this big. I don't know if what I see on TV or the internet is true, but the starry sky is spinning. It revolves around me. This is the only thing that's true.

NA chose a very funny way of translating that last thing and I think it makes more sense if you take the JP version, because well the sky and things in it do "move" from our perspective (we are the ones moving mostly but shh). Nitpicking aside, let me dig into This Thing.

Firstly the image itself is VERY indicative of how Touka feels. Hospital bed, with an IV included, the night sky, and that dome thing that looks an awful lot like a cage. Yk like the ones she also has everywhere in her room! The title of the memoria is also very telling, and I think people often forget just how tightly tied Touka is to the idea of freedom and the feeling of being trapped (in a gilded cage but a cage nonetheless). This is part of why she doesn't usually listen to others, too. Let me take a look at the visual elements before the text, it'll tie together nicely.

Going element by element... There's the hospital bed and IV. That's a very specific combination, and part of the "cage" Touka feels trapped in, the IVs like chains on her body. Her illness has probably had her bedridden and hooked up to a bunch of machinery before, we saw a glimpse of that sort of thing from Ui in the anime. And really what else to do but to look up to the sky and envy the stars, who are free and bright and real? Something you can see.

There's this whole thing about being an inpatient at a hospital, especially a child, that I've mentioned but have never really elaborated on I think, which is the part where things stop feeling real and you yourself stop feeling real, stop feeling like a person. I've heard about it from child inpatients when volunteering at hospitals and it can be a little complicated to understand for people who've never been in a similar situation. I'm not sure how familiar other folks are with the routine of a child inpatient, because that's a big part of what causes this. The hospital trio have mentioned it offhandedly before (I believe it was Ui who may have mentioned it while they were making Sakurako?) but:

It's grueling for the mind of a child to live in a place that is so... white, largely impersonal, you're never really always tended to as children need to be (the nurses will do their best but there is only so much you can do), you often aren't allowed to go outside or do a lot of the things you want to do, even inside, plus dietary restrictions can lead to Not Great relationships with food (or apathy towards it) whether during the extended hospital stay or after. The routine is also No Good Very Bad for them because while routine is helpful for mental development in a way, the "rules" and routines established at home still leave room for variety in a child's day, and normally they're always learning new things and gathering new experiences. The learning new things does apply to Ui, however not so much to Touka and Nemu, and the new experiences gathered are. Um. Well. None, for the most part, because that's kinda the point of a hospital—to be a controlled environment, for the safety of the patients. But really, when they say their routine is something along the lines of "wake up, maybe go to school (the hospital class) if you feel well enough, go to bed"... they mean it. They do nothing else. And not all kids are lucky enough to be in a hospital that prepares special events or activities for them, and even then sometimes those are not enough. They can't replace freedom.

There's a special kind of boredom and seclusion that sets in after a while. You need to understand, these are children. Not even teenager-children, children (for however long they were hospitalized, which is implied to have been a long time, at minimum three years if the anime is accurate to that, but I believe they were there even longer than that solely based on context clues). Kids are not adults. Kids do not have the experience that adults or even teens do. Kids don't know the world around them yet. It can get to a point where they don't even remember anything before the hospital, and see, that becomes really surreal really fast. I'm not sure how to explain this part but the child very easily can start to feel completely disconnected from "the outside" and their world becomes very very tiny. This is also done in part to protect themselves, because it hurts. It hurts a lot to know you're not allowed to do and experience so many things, while every other kid is, especially if you're terminal and are convinced you won't get better. It is implied that at least Touka and Nemu were of that school of thought, which is not great. So it's common, especially for neurodivergent kids (like TouNemu), to dissociate HEAVILY. The amount of sensory deprivation and understimulation in hospitals is insane. You see how Nemu in her quotes is constantly talking about taking in the sounds and colors? Yeah, this is why. Touka does much of the same, but doesn't directly talk about it. Now add onto the mental and sensory stimulation issues the fact that these two are child prodigies and you have yourself a recipe for Way Way Worse Than Usual! That's why the internet isn't quite enough. Because while adults and non-inpatients have the experience and firsthand knowledge of the world around them, these kids don't. So even if you read article after article and watch video after video, all they are to you is 1s and 0s. Text/images on a screen. Not real. Touka states it almost explicitly, and Nemu… well I could go on about the usage of literature to cope. It's not your world, you don't recognize it as yours (resentment goes brrr).

ANYWAY back to the Touka personal! So, Touka feels chained to that bed. Next up is a related element! That dome thingy above the bed. A lot like a cage, I'd say it looks a lot like the upper half of a hanging birdcage with the... thing you hang it from removed.

With the perch being the bed. This really is the exact same type of cage she has in her room... and we're talking about a character with a bird doppel... SPEAKING of birds, these kinds of cages are proven to be absolutely terrible for them (any cage that is too small for an animal is absolutely terrible for them), due to how cramped they are (notice Touka also calls her world narrow and cramped). If a bird was never let out of its cage and grew up for years inside that cage... well assuming the hypothetical bird has the mental capacity of the child we're talking about, its outlook would not be much different from Touka's. It may also represent the hospital as a controlled environment. Those who are "bigger" and "know better" control what's inside the cage, what happens to the being held inside, and care for the being's basic needs (this can also relate to diet things). Much like child inpatients, the mental stimulation of pet birds is often ignored, whether because the owner doesn't care or because they're ignorant.

Then, lastly, the night sky and a shooting star/comet (I'm gonna assume it's a comet?). The sky is universal, everywhere in the world anyone can look up and we all see the same sky. For a kid in Touka's position, the night sky can feel much closer and more real than any other thing beyond the white walls. Filled with glittering jewels that turn out to be not only pretty but fascinating, with incredibly variety and mounting complexity the more you look into the field, and constellations, asterisms, comets, odd stars and planets, long etcetera. The cosmos is an infinite expanse, the gift that keeps on giving, it gives and it gives without end, and it never takes, never asks for anything, never states a price beyond Touka's time (which, arguably, is one's most precious gift to give, yes something something the amount of time TouNemu spend together). In this way, outer space is similar to Nemu in Touka's eyes (she connects these dots way later down the line, even later than she connects the "oh, space to me is what literature/writing is to Nemu" dots). You can see why Touka may become hyperattached to the whole outer space thing and why it may mean so much to her (possible autistic special interests aside).

The girl was withering away, feeling like life was not worth the pain and suffering she had to endure from her illness and the consequences of it (such as the inpatient status), and the stars gave her something to reach for, something tangible, something she could know and know for good. It doesn't change too fast to keep up with, it doesn't feel like it will ever leave her behind, it doesn't take anything from her, and it's ever-present. The text corroborates my words, essentially, so I don't think I have to go into how the text applies to Touka. The starry sky is all around her, and she knows it well. Like a mantle of comfort and reassurance. I don't think I have to spell out why Touka is so linked to freedom and why she values it so much, do I? Also the part about defying authority and being all, unyieldy about things.

Anyway we are going to do Touka's flower field memoria next, then we'll go for Nemu's personal and flower field. I'm not even gonna use the NA title for this one, because the JP one is better: A Longing for the Beyond.

The end of the universe brings the dark and vast eternal world of time to my tiny little cramped world. The end of the universe also creates the flow of time. I don't care if my brain cells overheat, I want to know everything. I will cherish what I learn, and it will make me a kinder person. (NA)

“My small and narrow world and the dark and long eternity of time. It is the end of space that has expanded the world. It's the end of the sky who made time flow by. I don't care if my brain cells overheat, I want to know everything. It will become a nice possession for me. That’s how I can become kind.”

So okay this one, being a flower field memoria, does not have much to it visually, however the title and text are interesting. The part about longing, I think I've covered somewhat in the previous memoria's analysis. Plus Touka and Nemu are both INCREDIBLY yearny. They pine and long and yearn so much, largely because they have so much love to give, they love so intensely and that is often a feature of those who have been deprived of something they desperately needed/craved for a good chunk of their childhoods. But we will discuss that AT LENGTH with Nemu's personal don't you worry. I have covered a good amount of the text for this one honestly (I am pointing at Touka calling her world tiny and cramped and referring to the cosmos as the thing that widened her horizons and expanded her perception of reality, it's vital to have anchors to prevent severe episodes of dissociation), so let me hone in on two-three things.

"I don't care if my brain cells overheat, I want to know everything."

This line can be easily glossed over as oh Touka's doing the sciency word thing again, but Hey, Let The Child Express Herself And Listen. This is part of the very foundation of what I refer to as her gladiator behavior. Yk every time she and Nemu show dangerous levels of curiosity and fascination with things, and that curiosity alone is enough for them to take on impossible challenges regardless of risk, for no real reward (or no guaranteed one) besides victory? Yep, that goes all the way back to this, and there is a root to that behavior, that attitude. It's a little like living your entire life with clipped wings, and then one day, something (the stars in this case) changes your life completely. You're able to glide and fly for the first time since you can remember. It's only natural that you'd want to fly higher and higher, experience more of that no matter how many times you fall or how bad the bruise is. If you frame it a certain way, it's the tale of Icarus all over again. Wiiiiith the difference being that Touka was better at wing construction and she blew up her wings on purpose to successfully propel herself to the stars (Chapter 8 my fucking beloved). Her ego kind of connects to this in a certain way too. Since, well, she connects more to the night sky, above everything on the ground. She stands closest to the stars, therefore on a pillar raised above the rest. This is only a very small part of the ego topic though, it has many contributing factors. Also have you ever noticed that Nemu is just like the night, just like the stars. Quiet, subtle, with its complexity glossed over by the average person until you take the time and care to look closer- cough.

The part about cherishing what she learns is also very true for Touka, you'll notice she greatly values knowledge as well as learning, but see how the JP refers to it as a possession. I feel like that applies to space specifically and how deeply important and personal her bond with it was back when she was younger. As we saw in her quotes, she's much more willing to share now than she used to be, which is a sign of growth (also the fact that Nemu of all people, who hates and feels guilty for asking basically anything, feels confident and sure enough to casually ask Touka about something like space that used to be a landmine back in the hospital… Also Has Meaning, but I am trying not to gush too much here). And now I'm trying to figure out how to tackle the last line about becoming kind. I think I should fetch something I said on Discord while going through TouNemu content in my brainrot containment zone:

And then I said:

she's trying, she wants to help, she wants to be good. There are multiple reasons she thinks she can't though

really Touka's thing with kindness reminds me of this one episode of Supernanny where one of the little boys in the household was super troublesome and had ADHD, and after a tantrum he ran off to his bedroom and curled up on his bed. Supernanny Jo Frost very softly asked him if she could come in, and if she could come closer/sit on his bed, comforted him a little, and asked him about if he wanted to be good. The poor little boy nodded and kept saying he wants to be good with a shaky voice while sobbing, and you could just tell that he was trying his best but didn't feel he could be good

Touka wants to be kind. She wants to be nice. She just doesn't know how and believes that because it doesn't come in her "how to human" manual, she can't. She thinks if she keeps learning, if she keeps hoarding more and more knowledge, then eventually, surely, she'll figure out how to be kind.

... I talked so much about the personal memo that I don't have as much to say for this one- unless I talk about TouNemu and possessiveness that is. Because they do have a fun possessive streak! Over both things and people! But I will do that another day. For now, onto Nemu's personal memoria and flower field memoria!

An Unobtainable Thing (NA: Beyond My Reach) is hella depressing to talk about so buckle up! I spent a while picking at the JP translation. Description reads as follows:

What was I hoping for? What did I want? A newly released novel? An out-of-print book that sounded interesting? New clothes for a change of image? No, no, no. Those are all wrong. I just want to be told I'm loved. It's so close and yet so far. That is all I want. (NA)

What was it that I was looking for? What did I want? A novel that had just been released? An out-of-print book I was really interested in? New clothes to change my image? No, no, no, none of the above. I just want to hear the words that love me, the closest and farthest. That's all I want.

Nemu is more self aware than Touka is. Despite the fact that she suppresses that and her own feelings as hard as humanly possible which leads to… all of her no good very bad thought patterns basically. The visual elements of this memoria are a bit harder to pin down than Touka's because there's just, More Stuff In It™️ in terms of objects. I feel like the text here is much easier to go through than the visuals? But the visuals do a good job supporting the text anyway. Surrounded by piles upon piles of books, there's a notebook I assume for writing or notes, and the ground below is also written on. I'm not sure what the closed and piled vs open and laid out books could mean. Then there's the folded pajamas (basically hospital clothes) and the two figures in the distance, one taller one shorter, which you can assume are meant to be Nemu and her mom, or worse, Nemu's mom and brother. Which is depressing! You can interpret this as Nemu really really hoping her mom would take her back home, or you can interpret the clothes as the thing that represents herself and the piled books as a sort of fortress or shelter, while the two figures inevitably walk away and she is unable to reach them (seriously those piled books look an AWFUL LOT like a fortress, something something defense mechanism). As somebody else in my Discord containment zone said, the clothes, the books, etc are the things that Nemu does have, things she can acquire, while the thing she really wants, that being her family, are so far away as to be unreachable. The writing on the ground leads into the distance toward them, perhaps symbolizing her writing as her reaching out to what she really wants in the only way she knows how. Not to mention that the light shining through the clouds illuminating them from the background gives it a heavenly quality, pointing to her awareness that she will not live much longer and that the love she craves is what she believes is heaven.

As for the text though, I've gone on and on endlessly about Nemu's severe issues but honestly her personal memo is very blatant about the core of the problem, that being… that she just wants to be loved. It's that simple. Which I think really is the reason she agrees to go kaboom with Touka despite all of her talk of leaving a legacy and explicitly saying she doesn't want people to forget her. Since love is deep down all she's ever truly wanted (not wanting people to forget her, wanting to leave a mark, etc, are all things that in her case stem from not feeling loved)… well, once she sees that she finally has that, she doesn't really care about everything else that much.

The more enigmatic one might be the flower field memoria ngl because that one is weird for multiple reasons. Nemu, oddly enough, talks about her heart like three times or more throughout all of the content she appears in, which isn't much but it's odd that she's done it that many times. Like the religious undertones, I'd like to figure out what exactly she means by "my heart" but I think she just means her mind.

See Nemu's flower field memoria is Peace to this Battered, Dead Land (NA: Tranquility in a Wasteland), and it's already odd because it's the only flower field where it's nighttime and also the only one where we see "direct magic" being used? Iirc at least. The second thing isn't that weird but the first feels weirdly deliberate to me and I've been wondering about it for a long time.

Dramatically, it reads like this:

"Through written sentences, an interwoven world, or filled-in spaces, heartfelt stories flow quietly, gently, peacefully, and sometimes wild and frenetic, into the cracked earth of the wasteland, gradually filling up in a transient pool, to then become unique. If even one thread has a color, my heart will be at peace." (NA)

Let's write sentences, let's weave a world, and if the gaps are filled, the story will flow. Quietly, slowly, calmly, sometimes violently and madly, the story filled with emotions flows through the cracks in the dry land, gradually filling them and providing a tentative moisture. After that, all you have to do is get your personality. If you could give me even just one thread of color, my heart would be calm.

This one is very very fucked up if you consider one of the ways to interpret it. It's a metaphor for herself. She's the dry land. The cracks are the areas of herself that are "broken" or "damaged" (haha trauma), the hurt. She refers to her own life as a story in Arc 1 too, so this isn't a stretch. You can interpret this optimistically or pessimistically. The optimistic approach says that she's healing, the pessimistic approach says that she's essentially forcing things in there to appear put together and not be seen as problematic, bothersome, damaged goods, etc. It could even be both! It's interesting that it mentions quiet/slow/calm/gentle/peaceful and then also wild/frenetic/violent/mad, which I feel may be showing two sides of her (the calm Nemu we normally see and The Part Deep Down That Is Really Angry And Would Like To Go Apeshit). I mean there are many reasons that the way I portray Nemu in AUs can sometimes (often) be violent. I have the sadism from canon and more than enough evidence to argue repressed feelings, which, even if the feeling she's repressing isn't anger (which by all means it would be, other than sorrow and pain ofc), repressing it would lead to frustration which easily leads into anger. I think she has these issues in canon too, she just managed to not explode. Well, metaphorically.

Anyway so, where do I begin with Nemu's boatload of issues that these two memoriae just kinda graze lightly... I've talked a lot about it but usually if you look it is very possible that you will find More, which I'm sure is great for Nemu's self aware introspective philosophical author brain /s. However, a LOT of what I've said about Touka regarding a hospital stay applies to Nemu as well, and in some senses even more so, since Nemu is the type to overthink things when she's by herself (Touka also overthinks but in a different way, and she normally doesn't think about People™. Normally) but it might be interesting to dig into the early Ui era for this. By early Ui I mean after TouNemu met Ui but before they came to share a room and usually before the Christmas party (yk the one). The room sharing may have simply been a princess whim for Touka, but for Nemu, it may just have been life-saving. Or to be less dramatic, sanity-saving. Sort of. Because she's even said it before that she felt lonely. Imagine how much worse the isolation had been for her in a solo room. Heck one of my headcanons (based on her comments about and appreciation of "lively" people and places) is that she Does Not Like complete silence, or at least not when she's not very close to someone, which by definition can never be complete silence because you Will hear their breathing, them being alive and doing things usually, all that.

I said nurses try their best to take care of child inpatients. But nurses, even those who specialize in kids, have a lot on their plate. And the kids that take priority are the smallest ones. And also well usually they cannot really account for everything. Plus, in Japan I get the feeling things may not be as… warm if that makes sense. That is to say I would like to know when was the last time early Ui era Nemu got a hug. It may sound silly, but physical affection is actually really really important to children's development and can be particularly good at soothing them emotionally, similarly to adults but magnified.

However Nemu has this very funny habit (/s) of suppressing her emotions and not ever telling anyone when she feels hurt or lonely or anything of the sort unless she is confronted on it or absolutely has to. So there would have been no comforting chats with nurses nor any sort of tactile comfort (yes tactile comfort is a thing). Great going Nemu. If Nemu fell into a well she would wait there and not call for help so as to not inconvenience anyone else, it's That Bad. Will to live? What's that? (She even mentions the lack of a will to live when they're making Sakurako in the hospital and you can just see Iroha going D: about it). This is a common problem in hospital inpatients, particularly children, and it is rather disturbing/sad actually to hear a child placing so little value in their own life and even less worth in themselves as a person. I just have to point at Nemu's quotes and how often she's like "are you Sure you want to talk to me…?" "I'm boring, don't waste your precious time on me" etc. G i r l... So really I imagine the only highlight in early Ui era Nemu's day was literally Ui and Touka, and with her being a night owl and chronic overthinker, I cannot imagine the excruciating agony of everything after lights out. Yk. After lights out. When everything is dark and you are Completely Alone in your room.

Anyway Nemu is severely touch starved and affection starved please give her a hug. Touka that is your job. Oh though I guess they do hold hands quite a lot? But. Hug. Big close long hug. Nemu may or may not bawl if hugged that way and spoken to softly with loving words of affirmation. Gay babies.

[panlight]

Hello 👋 I like your stuff you are amazing ❤ I wanna say something . So every one is talking about how toxic Edward and belle's relationship but the only relationship ship that I can't tolerate is Sam and Emily. OK he imprinted on her and has no other choice because of his nature .he left leah and SM says that he still has feeling for her it's just that the connection with Emily is stronger like WHAT it's like saying he loves leah but he is forced to stay with Emily no matter what the reason is .and as for Emily she has no supernatural nature that force her to be with him so why is she being with him especially after he attacked her . For me this relationship is the most toxic and weird

I tend to believe the Sam/Emily problem is that SM wanted to show us an example of how 'random' imprinting can be, that it can force someone who was in a happy relationship to be with someone else, and also to demonstrate how risky it is for humans to hang around people with supernatural abilities.

I don't think she was trying to make a point about domestic abuse or toxic relationships and I would bet cash money in her mind Sam and Emily are soulmates and beautifully tragic and blah blah blah.

But, phew, man, she stepped in it with this.

If she wanted me to be happy for Jacob for finding his imprint in Renesmee (which, lol, was never going to happen but bear with me), then she absolutely should not have made this whole disaster our first taste of imprinting. Because why on EARTH would I think it was a good thing when the first example of it we see leaves the shifter wracked with guilt, his imprintee covered in scars, his ex-girlfriend heartbroken and bitter and, oh, HARRY CLEARWATER DEAD. In the books he died of a heart attack from the shock of seeing Leah phase; Leah being upset about the Sam/Emily situation was part of the reason she phased when she did, therefore, the imprint indirectly cased Harry's death. This is not a happily ever after to me, I don't care how 'perfect' Sam and Emily are supposed to be for each other.

I don't think she meant that Sam 'attacked' Emily; I think she meant it as a tragic accident; the consequence and risk of a human being involved in the world of 'monsters and magic.' Sam didn't try to hurt Emily, he just was too close to her when he phased and the wolf-form is bigger than the human-form so he kind of . . . instantly took up more space and his claws were in Emily's space. But I understand why people often see it as a metaphor for abuse or a partner's anger, that whole "he becomes a different person when he's mad" or something. I don't think SM MEANT that. But she certainly made it all too easy for people to read it that way.

I think Emily's fate is meant to be a warning to Bella. But this falls flat in a couple of ways--firstly, lol, like Bella is going to listen to anyone's warnings about being involved in the supernatural world. Edward has been warning her away since the get-go and she's just like NOPE so putting Emily, Sam and Leah through this to teach Bella a lesson that Bella is not going to take to heart AND won't even apply to her anyway (Bella gets to be a vampire in the end which erases all HER scars and even fixes her emaciated body) is just kind of a waste of everyone's time.

And secondly the optics of using her indigenous characters and their trauma to teach her white protagonist a lesson is not a good look at all. It also brushes up again the real issue of missing and murdered indigenous women, and in making Sam seem violent (even if she meant it as an accident), plays into harmful stereotypes about brown men generally and Indigenous men in particular.

Should have made Jared and Kim as our first look at imprinting instead.