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ajwritesworld · 5 months ago

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How to Create a Successful Patient Referral Program

Referrals from current patients can be an excellent way for dental practices looking to expand and bring in new patients. While competition in dental marketing remains fierce, these referrals offer an affordable and targeted way of growing your practice! An effective referral program not only attracts more potential patients to your practice; it also enhances your practice's reputation in the community and spreads awareness of who you are.

This blog will walk you through creating one that produces results, from understanding why these schemes work to offering incentives to people who refer others and finally starting it off successfully.

Referral Programs Are Essential in Dental Practice

Referral programs can be invaluable for any practice that wants to expand. By encouraging existing patients to refer their friends and family, practices can connect with new individuals who might need their services and build up their patient base.

Referrals are a great source of leads. When someone suggests their dentist to others, it usually means they had a positive experience themselves, making the referred individuals more open-minded to treatments. This is an invaluable asset to any dental office!

Referrals not only bring in quality leads but are also invaluable in marketing a practice. Word-of-mouth works like magic: when one person tells another about the great service or product available, suddenly everyone wants their piece! Referrals work well alongside other methods, such as online ads or social media posts, in spreading the word about the practice as widely as possible.

Cost-effectiveness is also key. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on ads that may or may not work out, asking existing satisfied patients to spread the word often costs much less but can bring huge dividends through strengthening existing relationships based on trust.

Dental offices can get creative with referral programs by targeting certain treatments or groups they desire as clients, ensuring those referred are consistent with the services being promoted at that moment in time.

Overall, dental practices seeking more growth should have a comprehensive strategy in place for patient referrals if they want to avoid breaking bank accounts with traditional ad routes alone.

Exploring the Benefits for Your Clinic

Launching a patient referral program at your dental clinic can do wonders. Imagine opening up access to new clients who already trust what you offer, making treatments more likely.

Referrals also bring another major advantage: your clinic becomes more visible online. When people mention your practice online, their words magnify its visibility, improving both its online reputation and making it easier for potential dental clients to find you first in search results.

Referral systems also strengthen your relationship with existing patients. By showing they trust you by telling their friends about you, they are more likely to remain loyal patients themselves.

By encouraging existing patients to share positive reviews about your practice with their friends and acquaintances, you not only get new patients through the door but also build a community of supporters who may come back over time. This strategy brings immediate gains and establishes long-term growth, creating an excellent local presence.

Referrals Are Vital to Practice Growth

Referrals play an instrumental role in helping dental practices expand and flourish. They are part of how practices expand their operations and can radically shape marketing plans for growing offices.

An incentive program designed to get patients to refer their friends is like killing two birds with one stone: both parties involved benefit. Those who refer get something special as thanks, while new patients learn about the excellent dental services available.

By adopting an organic strategy to attract new patients, your practice doesn't just expand; it forms a consistent flow of people coming in regularly. Your existing patients' referrals help attract individuals with similar dental needs, making the expense worthwhile!

Referrals not only bring in new patients, but they also drive your overall growth strategy forward. A strong referral program reinforces perceptions of quality at your practice and elevates its status in your local community, leading to steady expansion.

Implementing patient referrals into both your growth strategy and marketing efforts will ensure word of mouth brings many more patients in.

Before initiating a patient referral program, it's essential to lay the groundwork for its success. This means identifying your target market, setting clear goals, and choosing effective means for spreading the word about your program.

Locating your target audience allows you to tailor rewards for referring others and discuss your services to suit their interests and needs. When you know exactly who they are, creating programs tailored specifically towards them becomes much simpler and more likely to succeed.

Reaching specific aims when setting out goals for this referral scheme—like adding new patients or increasing appointments by a certain amount—is essential. Your targets will shape everything from how it operates day-to-day down to its setup process.

Selecting an effective marketing approach for this referral opportunity should come next. Whether it's email blasts, social media marketing, content marketing, or a mix of various approaches, finding the most effective tactics will ensure no effort goes wasted in garnering interest.

Locating Your Target Audience

A key aspect of creating an effective patient referral program lies in understanding your target audience. Your target audience includes those who will benefit most from your dental services and be likely to refer others.

To identify your target group, take an inventory of those already visiting you for dental work and look at age, gender, location, and the type of dental work they typically require. This helps reveal trends about which kinds of people like and appreciate your services and may tell their friends about them.

Consider what makes your clinic unique, such as specific treatments or services offered. Knowing this will enable you to identify an audience or niche ideal for what you offer. When these people hear about your referral program, there's a higher likelihood they'll spread the word because it suits their lifestyle perfectly.

Once you know exactly who you want to target with all this data, tailor how you make referrals so everything fits perfectly with their wants and likes.

Setting Goals and Objectives

Achieving success with patient referral programs relies heavily on having clear goals and objectives. Setting these can guide how you set up, run, and monitor the success of the program.

Consider what your marketing plans and growth ideas entail when setting goals for a patient referral program. Ask yourself: What am I hoping to gain from this campaign? Are you hoping for new patients, or perhaps more people booking appointments or using certain services?

Set clear, detailed goals to measure whether or not your referral program is working as intended by comparing outcomes against what was envisioned. For instance, if obtaining more patients is your aim, set specific goals such as increasing patient intake every month or three months to monitor its success.

Setting targets is important, but setting SMART ones is even more critical. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. This approach ensures goals are not just good intentions but something tangible that can be actively pursued and measured over time. SMART goals provide clarity, ensuring everyone involved understands what to aim for and how to achieve it.

Crafting an Attractive Referral Program

To attract more referrals for your dental practice, creating an appealing referral program is key. A good plan not only offers generous rewards for referrals but also utilizes clear and catchy ways of explaining it. These components combined will increase its success dramatically.

Rewarding friends who refer others could include anything from reduced dental care costs to gift cards or special deals designed specifically for them. When selecting rewards that resonate with those you want to reach out to, they are much more likely to tell others about your practice!

Communicating about your program effectively is also crucial. Use emails, social media posts, banners on your website, and posters around your office to spread the word so as many people as possible see what you offer.

By creating an attractive referral scheme with lucrative benefits and publicizing it through email blasts, social media posts, or other means, you can encourage patients to join and bring their friends along for the ride.

Determining Incentives for Referring Patients

Establishing incentives that entice your patients to refer others is essential to making your patient referral program a success. Your rewards must represent an authentic "thank-you" to them while fitting with both your marketing plan and available funds.

Providing discounts for both parties involved when making referrals is an effective strategy for driving new business and encouraging people to spread the word about dental services.

You could give away gift cards or vouchers that can be redeemed against dental services or items to demonstrate how much you appreciate their efforts in helping bring in more patients. These tokens show patients you value them being part of your practice's team!

Consider offering those who refer someone early access or special pricing at certain events. This way, they feel special and take ownership of what you are accomplishing together.

As you select these incentives, keep your target audience in mind when choosing offers that appeal directly to them. This increases the odds that they'll join in and refer others, bringing quality newcomers into your clinic.

Engaging Communication Materials

To engage more people in your referral program, creating materials that captivate them is key. Use various ways of communicating and ensure the messages you share are engaging so you can truly reach those you're targeting and get them excited to join in!

Email marketing campaigns are an effective way of spreading the word about your referral program. Send personalized emails to prior patients, informing them of what's new with the program, demonstrating any advantages associated with joining, and giving instructions on how they can sign up.

Social media posts also work wonders. With eye-catching pictures or videos, catchy lines, and hashtags that fit right in, your posts are sure to grab attention quickly. When patients share or tag friends in these posts, even more people learn about your efforts without much extra work on your end.

Content marketing is another invaluable weapon! From blog posts outlining why someone should join this incredible journey step-by-step to infographics showing benefits at a glance, sharing this kind of info on social media and other platforms can significantly increase visitor interest.

By creating materials that catch eyes and clearly state why participation in the referral plan will benefit them, you aim to attract plenty of participants, resulting in lots more referrals for your clinic.

Step-by-Step Guide to Launching Your Program

Establishing a successful patient referral program requires careful preparation and the correct steps. Here's how you can ensure it works effectively and yields great results:

Step 1: Establish Your Referral Criteria and Process

To kick start a successful patient referral program, the initial step should be designing your referral criteria and process. This means deciding who can refer others, who can be referred, and setting clear rules for the program.

As you create your criteria, think about how many referrals need to be made before rewards can be distributed; how long people have to make these referrals; and any special conditions, such as only patients who have been coming for some time can refer others, or new patients must book appointments within certain time frames.

Create clear guidelines so that everyone understands what's expected of them, both those making referrals and your team members. Document all details, such as what counts as a referral, how you'll track them, and any rewards offered in exchange. Communicate this info across emails, social media, and flyers placed around the office—wherever it will reach potential referrers.

Establishing clear eligibility requirements and process steps from the outset will create an easy-to-use system that encourages more people to join.

Step 2: Communicating Your Program to Your Patients

Once your patient referral program has taken off, the next step should be informing your patients about it. Email and social media platforms are ideal ways to do this and will keep people updated and interested.

Email marketing allows you to directly reach out to people, informing them about what's happening with your referral program and its rewards. Send emails that include easy steps on how they can join, making each individual feel special and connected to the cause.

Social media marketing and ad promotion are also effective strategies, providing another way of increasing brand recognition and participation. Create posts that attract attention by showing what people stand to gain by joining, along with easy instructions on how it all works. Utilize eye-catching images or videos along with catchy words and hashtags.

Effective communication about your referral program through both email marketing and social media promotion may lead to greater interest from patients, potentially leading to more people joining in.

Step 3: Implement Tracking and Management Tools

The third step to starting up your patient referral program successfully is setting up systems for keeping an eye on progress and ensuring everything runs efficiently.

Start by gathering tools that enable you to track who's referring who, the rewards they're receiving, and the overall health of the program. Software or online services such as Weave may be beneficial in tracking referral data and pulling up reports to better assess if improvements are needed.

Implementing both tracking mechanisms and management strategies ensures your patient referral scheme remains under careful scrutiny while operating at peak performance.

Step 4: Training Staff on the Referral Process

To make sure your patient referral program runs smoothly, it is essential to educate team members on how the referral process works. They play a significant role in making sure everything runs smoothly and that word gets out about your program; so they must know everything related to it, including rewards and how referrals should be conducted.

Training sessions or workshops can help your employees understand why referrals matter and demonstrate effective methods for talking about the program with patients. Providing physical items such as referral cards or brochures gives them something tangible to share. Additionally, listening to their feedback may reveal problems within your process that need fixing.

By educating your team about the referral process, you increase the success of getting more customers referred by satisfied patients in your dental practice.

Step 5: Launching and Promoting Your Program

Once your patient referral program is up and running and your team is trained, the next step should be spreading the word and inviting others to sign up. Strategic marketing moves are essential to maximize interest from potential participants and draw people in quickly. Here are a few important steps:

Develop an Effective Plan: Establish a comprehensive marketing plan using various ways to reach your target audience.

Leverage digital tools to promote your program: Make effective use of digital tools, including advertising on social media platforms, sending emails about it, and placing online ads.

Give back: Offer rewards or perks not just to those referring new patients but also to those being referred, generating excitement around joining.

Track Referrals: Have a system in place to keep an eye on who refers whom, ensuring those responsible are thanked appropriately.

Share success tales: By recounting stories of actual patients experiencing great results from your referral program, you can motivate others to enroll.

Launching an effective patient referral initiative within dental practices like yours offers considerable potential for growth and draws in newcomers who might become part of your care community through recommendations from existing members.

Monitoring and Optimizing Your Referral Program

Optimizing and monitoring your patient referral program are essential to ensure it continues to function effectively over time. Regular checks and necessary modifications are vital to maximizing its potential. Here are a few areas to focus on to ensure your program runs smoothly:

Assess performance by reviewing referral numbers and conversion rates to see which referrals become actual patients.

Monitor ROI by comparing costs against the revenue generated from new patients.

Evaluate patient satisfaction through feedback to gauge the success of the program.

Conduct a marketing analysis to determine which strategies garner the most referrals and prioritize future efforts.

By regularly reviewing these aspects, you can make data-driven decisions to guide improvements and streamline marketing initiatives to bring in more customers.

Adjusting Strategies Based on Feedback

Listening carefully to what patients and staff say about your patient referral program is crucial to making it more successful. By seriously considering their advice and revising plans accordingly, you ensure the program does its job effectively. Here's how to use feedback for adjustments:

Collect feedback through surveys, interviews, or regular communication.

Identify areas for improvement based on feedback and address any issues patients or staff might be experiencing.

Make changes based on suggestions, such as altering rewards, adapting marketing strategies, or revising program rules.

Monitor the progress of these changes and seek additional opinions to see if improvements are occurring.

Keep people updated on changes to maintain interest and support for the practice.

By listening to feedback and making necessary adjustments, your patient referral program can become one that works efficiently and expands significantly.

Conclusion

For dental practices looking to expand, patient referral programs can be tremendously useful. By setting clear goals and offering attractive rewards, clinics can maximize growth through word-of-mouth referrals. Engaging material and effective tracking tools are essential for the program's success. A great referral program enhances your dental practice's visibility, builds trust, and strengthens customer loyalty, leading to a high degree of referrals from existing patients.

If you are looking to promote your clinic through digital marketing, contact Luminary Software today!

#referral program for patients #dental referral program #launch patient referral program #referral program for dental clinics

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evilmortys · 3 years ago

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okay, so, here are my thoughts on the finale,

i’m gonna start with the things i didn’t like, just because of who i am as a person! my feelings are mixed, but... looks lovingly at evil morty. he truly was the only exception as usual ♥

i’m not going to lie, this whole thing felt. rushed. although some of rick’s meta commentary about not touching citadel shit because it was canon and he and morty were supposed to be going back to lighthearted one off adventures, and “the second he reveals that he’s evil, we’re out” made me laugh, it also felt very disingenuous and ham-fisted. having him do all these fourth wall breaks honestly took away from the impact of what this episode could have been, but whatever.

i just got the vibe that they wanted everyone to stfu about the citadel and evil morty, so they quickly stuck together this episode that dealt with fans’ demand in one fell swoop so they could move on from the existence of both plotlines. i honestly thought it was a bit wasteful since tales from the citadel resonated with a lot of fans and it was an interesting bit of worldbuilding with compelling narratives going on.

you already all likely know how irritated i am with morty’s character degrading so much once again. this entire season has been building him up to becoming so much more capable, only to wrench it away from him again by instead having his co-dependency with rick ramped up to the point it was literally out of character. this has come out of nowhere. at no point in the show’s entire run has morty ever been this needy with rick.

again, i feel like this may have been written around what eventually ended up happening at the citadel, with the revelation that mortys are ‘bred for forgiveness.’ it would have been far more compelling for our morty to have continued to go down the path of being decidedly unforgiving of rick’s bullshit, thereby making him deviate from the norm in a similar way to evil morty himself and implicating that the cycle of a morty going to these extremes is going to be repeated once again.

rick did not deserve or earn voicing the recognition that his dynamic with morty was toxic, and abusive. are you fucking kidding me? the smartest man in the universe only JUST clocked onto that? bullshit! he’s known all along, and he’s been using it for his own gain! he doesn’t get to just say it with that regretful voice as if he’s been clueless / oblivious to it this entire time. they just wanted the audience to feel sympathetic for him by throwing in this tidbit and a tragic backstory, as if that even sort of makes up for everything he’s put his family through.

abandoning the people you’ve hurt is ALSO abusive and toxic behaviour! he’s done it time and time again! how is acknowledging the fact that you hurt people, that you hurt your family, the people that love you despite the fact you objectively don’t deserve it, then ditching them once again instead of staying with them and improving as a person and helping everyone heal from what you’ve put them through, ANY BETTER?? he never changes!!

i also couldn’t really process the fact that rick just handed morty his portal gun like it was nothing-- i feel like him topping it off and using it behind rick’s back should have been a bigger deal than what it was. also, morty would not break a guy out of a mental asylum without a second thought. he simply wouldn’t do that.

we’ve fallen right back into the status quo of morty being stupid and rick being the smartest one in the room who always knows what’s going on, even when he actually shouldn’t for the sake of a few meta jokes. which is more annoying than i can put into words tbqh

obviously i hated all the parallels they were attempting to make between rick and morty having a romantic relationship and “breaking up.” never has morty behaved so uncharacteristically in any other episode of the show. it honestly felt disrespectful to all the growth he’s had as a character to reduce him to something so pathetic.

i guess this is less of a thing i disliked, and more of a commentary on rick’s character? but once again, his hypocrisy really leapt out at me once it was revealed that he always has a hand in bringing together beths and jerrys in order to ensure that more mortys will end up in the multiverse. i find it unbelievably sad that he’ll willingly ensnare the two of them in the throes of a relationship that he knows is likely to become toxic and cause the both of them to be miserable throughout their time together; they’re rarely happy / compatible together and always end up sticking it out for the kids. it also makes his constant shitting on jerry even more egregious and almost serves to call his love for his daughter into question for me. he’s using her as a means to his own ends by manipulating situations so she’ll meet jerry and they’ll likely end up together.

don’t get me wrong, i actually really loved the fact he had a hand in founding the citadel he now loathes so much, and i think the constant creation of mortys as grandsons ‘bred to forgive’ ricks is so fucked up and awful in the most intriguing way. it’s akin to him fiddling with the concept of keeping mortys in constant pain to cloak his comings and goings around the multiverse (on paper, morty, on paper!), except this time he did it in reality.

evil morty. oh my god, evil morty. my saving grace. my ray of light. i’m so, so, so�� pleased with the way he was handled. while i admit i was looking forward to more of a slow - burn thing, getting a bit of insight into his presidency and possibly exploring a dynamic with him and c-137 (we’ll get to that)... i honestly still really loved what ended up happening with him, even though i still believe on some level that they just wanted to tie up his narrative thread so fans wouldn’t remain fixated on him.

of course he did. of course that motherfucker rick created a boundary within the infinite multiverse that ensured he’d always be the smartest man within it as far as mortys and other people in his life were concerned. i’ve always found it odd that such universes were never brought up even in passing; the nature of infinite possibilities always dictated that someone smarter than him must exist out there, and that worlds existed where he was nobody special.

him being morally gray. i could cry. i was clinging on to the hope that it would be shown he hates ricks more than he looks down on mortys, and it absolutely was. while he was okay with killing and hurting mortys to achieve his own “selfish” ends, it’s clear that he’s unhappy with the cycle of abuse from their infinite grandfathers that pushes him to these extremes, loathes the concept that mortys are not supposed to defy their ricks. “if you’ve ever been sick of him, you’ve been evil morty too.” he hates ricks FAR more than he does mortys, and you can pry that from my cold, dead hands. he believes mortys are beyond help because of the way they stick by rick-- the fact they’re literally created with being yes-men for rick in mind.

he didn’t seek to make changes for the greater good of other mortys within the citadel. i think he understood on some level, it was impossible. i think he has this belief that other mortys are part of the problem, because they perpetuate the cyclic dynamic of toxicity and harm-- they don’t move to break free from it the way he does, and so he feels no guilt leaving them behind while he breaks into the aspect of the multiverse where rick has no power. it’s honestly heartbreaking that he’s come to have a mindset like that.

i think seeing c-137 reach out to help rick up once again instead of accepting what i hope and pray was a semi - genuine offer to join him as he departed was just yet another instance of him witnessing a morty doing the most to save the man who makes their lives a living hell. if he was truly unsympathetic, he’d have made no such offer. if he thinks a morty is capable of pulling away from the hold ricks have on them, he wants them out of this shit just as much as he himself wants to break free from it. i think he has the mindset that i know they tried to play it off with “haha the other seat’s a toilet,” but i don’t think that was the case and they were once again just undermining the moment for no good reason. SCREAMS!! don’t get me wrong what he did WAS selfish and evil. but in a way you can understand where it derives from

again, it REALLY irritates me they’ve undone so much of morty’s character just to ensure he wouldn’t end up taking evil morty up on his proposition. if morty had retained even a tenth of the character growth he’s been having from late season four until towards the end of season five, wherein it began to unravel, he’d have left rick. undeniably.

the yellow portal. oh my god............

it made me so fucking emotional to see that. he’s won. he’s free.

#rick and morty #evil morty #okay this isn't even all of them but it will do #alex talks!

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subwalls · 4 years ago

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i simply think a sensory deprivation curse on c!dream would be like. hm.

raising a world seed into a full-blown server requires some negotiation. it’s not hard, because the universe loves each and every player that exists, but the voices are pickier about it, so it’s still a process.

dream is very good at it. he has to be, to spawn so many little worlds for manhunts and the like. this time, though, he’s asking for a lot more than he normally does: every natural feature the universe has to give, enough room for those he loves, every barrier to keep out those he does not, and enough power to administer justice as he sees fit.

the universe sings in eager delight. the voices twist closer, curious but skeptical. the starlit glimmer of their speech curls around him, staying just clear of the wishing seed he cradles between his hands.

now, hold on. the structures you seek are many. whose eyes will it be to appreciate them, even if they lie at the edges of the world, even if their gifts are not worth the trek taken?

mine, the player says.

the vast space you seek is heavy. whose shoulders will it be to hold the weight of it, when the world becomes too burdened to sustain its own place in the universe?

mine, the player says.

the protection you seek is unyielding. whose hand will it be to carve every permitted callsign into its most protected chambers, to tame the roaring blaze of its defense so that some may pass unharmed?

mine, the player says.

the power you seek is heady. whose body will it be to anchor the soul that must bear that responsibility, which will cave to the rebellion of the world against the will of its soul, if it must?

mine, the player says.

there is silence as the voices contemplate this. they drift away and draw near again, intelligible static moaning quietly from their unseen throats as they discuss amongst themselves. and then, at last, one addresses him again.

this is much to put on you and only you. but you have accepted this. do not forget.

you make this for the joy and laughter of your friends—this is easy to see, young dreamer. do not forget.

a server world is a world that serves. it will serve your friends. we will not tolerate anything less.

we will not tolerate oathbreaking. the world will not tolerate abuse.

you are its vassal.

you are its to punish.

dream says, i understand.

and the universe says, i love you, and the seed cupped in his palms pulses gently, and then fiercely, boldly, life blooming under the sworn promise of someone who will tend to it, and—all at once, the void is forced back. land shudders into existence in a rushing wave that reaches far and wide, and the core of it purrs to life into dream’s heart.

the wind whistles along the plains, laughing through the trees and their countless leaves. lakes lap gently at their shores at the base of mountains that stretch up to the sky, high and waiting.

and dream has his server. he inhales the sweet air and runs his fingers along the grass, curling his fingers along the soft petal of a flower and feels nothing but love and anticipation for what the server is and what it might become.

he lifts a hand and the protective borders of the world roar to him, walls of flame rushing past his senses before a shimmering white list coalesces before him. it is empty until he carves a few callsigns into it. just three, for now, but there is room for many more.

his friends arrive, after that. they play, and they relish, and they ask for more. who is dream to deny them, in a world meant to be theirs? he carves more names into the list. they arrive, they play, they ask. he carves more still, and then more, and more.

there is as much room as dream needs.

they skirmish and play-fight. it’s an easy thing, running rings around each other while shrieking for mercy or blood, building ugly things of wood and faith and cobblestone and friendship, playing pretend without a care in the world.

at least, it was easy, up until—

wilbur soot says, “this is a different server, independent of dream smp.”

wilbur soot says, “you and yours are forbidden from stepping foot here.”

wilbur soot says, “this is l’manburg, and this is mine, and we will stand our ground.”

wilbur soot, whose father is the winged angel of death, who could nearly call the blood god his own family, whose bloodline is so entrenched in the dealings of voids and voices that he must know what dream had to do to turn a world seed into a haven of a server, this wilbur soot is the one who meets dream’s mask with a wide grin and an open taunt, daring him. mocking him.

and dream, remembering the responsibility he swore to take on as his own and no other’s, the word mine in echo through his soul, says, “no.”

and they war.

(you know this story.)

but it’s odd. it’s odd because after dream’s arrow sinks into tommy’s heart and dashes his soul against the rocks, he tastes ash in the back of his throat. it does not go away when he rinses his mouth out in the clear rivers of his land, nor when he gulps down a bucket of milk, nor when he bites into the cake his allies make to celebrate their victory.

the pastry melts on his tongue with what must be copious amounts of sugar, but he cannot tell that it is meant to be sweet.

dream tastes nothing but ash.

he laughs past it. there is an inkling of fear in his gut, but compared to the rib-shaking thunder of his heart when he’s low on health on a manhunt, it is easy enough to overlook. especially when tommy comes to him.

tommy offers a trade and dream is intrigued enough to accept. he figures that if tommy was willing to give up his most treasured items for this, for what is little more than a name and an toothless claim, then maybe this nation deserves a... chance.

in name, at least. not true independence—no more than a flower can be independent of the land it is rooted in—but there is no need to overreach his control when he’s already proven that they cannot do anything to him and his.

he lets them play. that’s what this server is for, in the end.

(the end. that should’ve been the end, but it’s not.)

not long passes before the fake nation festering like an unwelcome cancerous growth on dream’s land suddenly wants to make itself realer than before. it turns words to action with an election that goes sideways at its peak and buckles under itself. by the close of the day, its new leader has driven out its founding members, lighting the fuse to its own destruction.

dream, overlooking the chaos of it all, sighs.

this nation will never be anything more than a mistake, it seems. whether it is l’manburg or manburg does not matter; it binds its population by excluding something else, and thus by definition is a sin against a world made to be shared.

in the aftermath, dream curls a little tighter around his family, but it’s too late. the first crack has already been made and everyone is all the more fragile for it.

when a few more decide to take leave of the heartland, they do not tell dream. he finds out by the empty houses and unfamiliar flags, and he...

they...

... it’s fine. they did not like the fighting, is all. of course they would rebrand and skirt the violence.

it does not mean abandonment, surely.

dream does not raise his sword against his inner circle, no matter where they place their allegiances. he instead focuses on the one he’s certain is rotten to the core, and he’ll sing l’manburg’s praises if it means that piece of land will finally stop inciting war after war after war.

“its name is l’manburg, not manburg,” he says in the dark ravine of pogtopia, and wilbur cheers and tommy raises a brow and dream feels sick to his stomach.

tommy mumbles something about carbon monoxide poisoning and complains about the smoke from all the torches and campfires and lanterns they use to light up the place. wilbur rebukes that they cannot ventilate the smoke without giving themselves away, and so they bicker, but it occurs to dream that he hadn’t noticed the difference.

the stale smoke-tinged air smells the same as the fresh winds outside.

he’s handed a baked potato as he leaves. he holds it to his face for a beat before tentatively biting into it.

ash. dust.

the lack of taste, he’s grown used to. but his sense of smell is gone now as well, and that inkling of fear strengthens.

he remembers what he promised to the voices. his body will cave to the rebellion of the world, should he stray from its intended purpose. but he has yet to break an oath or abuse his powers. he doesn’t understand.

is it the side he’s on?

if the server vies for him to join manburg, then of course he will flip sides for it. of course he does. he even conspires behind their backs, ensuring that if pogtopia wins l’manburg still does not win.

he was right to, because the day of reckoning comes with the failure of manburg’s leader.

he was wrong to, because dream’s fingers go numb on the handle of his axe when he brings it down on his rival’s shield, and the feeling never returns. something in his chest sours with frustration.

(something cracks, deep inside, ripping apart hairline fractures into something more serious, more troubling. his soul quakes. the universe wails, but nobody has touched the server’s End by law decree, and the void goes unseen.)

dream rips off his helmet and lets time run out the invisibility running through his veins. he yields to pogtopia’s glaring victory with ease, because it was never the nation he fought for but his responsibility to the land it sat on.

and because he still wins, in the end. the ground ruptures as a blast consumes the remnants of manburg, and yet even then dream is the last to move away from it.

he knew it was coming, but reacted last, and not only that but overbalances along the way. he nearly tips sapnap into line of fire when he meant to pull him free from it.

they laugh it off later, but. sapnap looks over his shoulder more often. dream does not meet his gaze, instead contemplating the ground and how he did not feel the rumble of the earth before it blew.

he needs to sort this out. so he goes to find an open field.

he spends hours and then days in that field, figuring out how much he needs to pull back a bow to loose it swiftly. how tightly does he need to hold a weapon before he cracks its hilt? how roughly can he handle his own armor before the thorns bite back at him?

(elsewhere, an entity realizes it can touch, and it does. it uses that touch to kill those who kill on its sacred lands. the rules of the world must be followed. it does not know anything else.)

later still, a mushroom house burns.

dream looks to the smoldering remains with something tight and knotted and insufficient between his ribs, and then he looks to george, upset by the loss but upset more by dream taking back his crown, and he says, “it’s to keep you safe.”

his words leave his mouth, and the world falls silent.

dream blinks.

it’s not silent. he knows this because he can still feel the flames that should be crackling behind them, because george’s jaw is moving, because sapnap is nodding in agreement.

but they are silent. the world is silent.

no, the world is not silent. the world louder than it has ever been in its rebellion and his body is caving to it as he promised it would, and dream—dream does not falter, despite the sudden knowledge that the server he raised loathes every step he takes. he does not stammer.

he repeats the words he cannot hear but knows have left his lips, turns, and leaves.

he does not look back. he does not know that sapnap is calling after him, that george pauses mid-turn, that among the vitriol thrown at his back there is also a worry and a question. but there is no way for him to know, not with the server itself in uproar, devastatingly loud in the utter silence it inflicts on him.

fear claws up his lungs and he breaks from a walk to a jog to an outright run, and he runs and keeps running past all the structures he knows and built until it just forest and land and silence. safe, far, and alone, he digs his hands into the grassy dirt and says is this not what you wanted? is this not what i swore to do?

why do you hate me?

selfish, his precious world accuses. it is not a sound because there is no sound he can hear, but it is a hiss in his marrow, a keening in his soul. selfish, selfish. you leap for control you oughtn’t take and will burn them for it.

they burned me first.

did they? what did they do but till the fertile land? speak. speak. what did they do but flourish as you bid them to, wished them to?

they took from me and would not return it and struck back when i came to them. you are mine. i raised you.

and did you not freely give? is that not the purpose this world serves? do not forget. do not forget. do not forget.

dream does not so much pull back from the foundations of the world so much as it throws him out with teeth bared in warning and talons pressing down over his ribs, the ever-fragile beat of his heart cowed in its cage. it is a thought rather than a feeling, thankfully; just as it is the force of an arrow nearly knocking him down that makes him aware of the two others sticking out from his shoulders, once he lifted his arm to see what it was that had bumped into him.

his blood trickles down his arms as he yanks out the arrows, unfeeling.

fine, he thinks.

and dream, creator and administrator and player who cares too much and brought too much on his own shoulders, takes the injured confused uncomprehending thing so soft in the back of his mind, and puts it out.

enough is enough. his world is his server is his, and it will be brought to heel. even if it does not want him, and he does not want it, it is his to raise or raze and he will not have this haven ruined at the hands of the clumsy and unknowing.

who do you love, he asks it bitterly, yanking a netherite axe out of the air.

all of you.

who do you love, he asks again, and this time he finds his own answer in the way the events churn around one person, one survivor, one person who moves the server with a word and turns it against itself with another and leads every storm that rages: tommy.

all of you.

if you will not be mine, he says, then you will be no one’s. and he knows that this is a dangerous line to walk, and he has seen wilbur walk it to its bloody, deadly end, but he has right where wilbur had only words and songs. dream made this server for a reason and he will not give that up.

so he walks back.

he walks back, and he thinks, sourly, that maybe this is a blessing. the world takes his senses but he is stronger without them, really. who has need of taste or smell on a battleground? he can fight better like this, unfeeling, unburdened by pain.

it is easier to talk over their protests when he cannot hear them to begin with.

“exile tommy,” he tells tubbo, carefully shaping the words on his tongue, “and i will forgive you.”

and tubbo sputters and tommy rages and the world claws at him from the inside out, no, no, why are you doing this, this is not what was wanted.

he is calm, because their words pass over him without ever reaching.

he is calm, because they’re running out of time, and they will agree to him or die failing to. night is coming; shadows fall over them.

and then:

—nothing.

(nothing?)

nothing.

dream blinks. the void stares back at him, unblinking, stars aswirl and dancing, and just as he realizes that maybe night hadn’t come and maybe the void is not rising around him and maybe it’s just that his last sense is failing and maybe the world has rejected him for the last time and maybe everything he swore to do thinks he’s broken them and—

the silence breaks.

why why why why did you break what you swore was yours to uphold why did you lie why do you hurt and abuse and break. you were warned. you were told.

i didn’t.

you did. a server serves and you got in the way. do you not do this for your friends. why give them a beach to build on if you’re only going to punish them for using what they have. why. why why why.

... ,,uhhh honestly i don’t. know where this would go from here but because dream gets stopped early he still gets a chance to be better. the exile arc doesnt happen because dream just like collapses mid-negotiations lmao and even tommy feels kinda weird about stabbing him while he’s unresponsive. but i think i would like for the conclusion to be something like—

the universe says, i love you.

the world says, i love you more.

but it’s the the players holding him to their chests, hearts thumping in syncopation, tugging him from the brink of an edge that might have killed his love in a month’s time, who say, “i love you most. come back to us. come back.”

#my fics #dream smp fic #dream smp fanfiction #idk it's just a concept to toss around

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demonicheadcanons · 4 years ago

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Pact Headcanons

Okay bear with me because I’m starting this post on mobile at 4am but I’m thinking about pacts.

I’ve had a headcanon for a while that, after the MC makes a pact with Beel, they start to get hungry more often, and tend to build up muscle easier. So I thought I’d go ahead and just, write random pact headcanons for each of the boys?

I have tried not to include any clear spoilers, but if you haven’t yet made a pact with a specific brother, you may want to skip over them.

Some of the information may be considered dark, as a warning.

General Headcanons

The stronger the demon, the more potent / powerful the pact.

However, pacts will also get stronger the closer you are (relationship-wise, but this can also be proximity based) to a demon. For example, if you’re very close to Mammon and not close to Lucifer, your pact with Mammon will overpower the pact with Lucifer and amplify the effects brought about by Mammon’s pact. For a demon further on down the chain you would really have to hate Lucifer and be incredibly close to the demon to overpower the pact. For Mammon you only have to be friends, and close friends with Levi, etc. You can measure how close one of the brothers considers you by examining the effects you feel from your pact with them.

If two pacts interact (e.g. Levi’s envy and Lucifer’s pride), the stronger one will win out, or it will reduce the effects of both pacts. Ergo, you could balance out the negatives of one with the positives of the other by carefully adjusting your relationships with the parties involved.

All pacts have good and bad effects. They’ll vary from person to person, depending on their personality, but with the brothers their sins are the main influence of the pacts.

Having more pacts will reduce the rate at which you age, meaning Solomon is essentially immortal. Again, having pacts with stronger demons will amplify this, so having a pact with 7 of the most powerful demons in the Devildom would heavily slow down the rate at which the MC ages. If you make a pact with Diavolo, you’ll stop aging. Who knows what would happen if you somehow made a pact with his father? ((Note: if any pact involves selling your soul, the aging process will begin again, as you presumably need to die eventually for the exchange to be made))

Pacts create a weak empathy bridge between the demon and human. It’s not perfect, and it’s easy to ignore, but if you’re feeling down then the demons you have a pact with will be aware of it. The reverse is also true.

Even without a pact, the brothers can ‘feed’ from their sins. If you feel proud, Lucifer can gain energy from that, etc. For the MC, its weak initially as the brothers’ powers don’t work on them. However, once a pact is formed, it becomes a source of energy and power for them - this can be dangerous with demons who don’t know how to control themselves, as they may amplify the negatives of their pact as it means they can feast on their sin (or, for other demons, on whatever their influence is). More responsible demons, like the brothers, know how to balance it so that they’re able to feed without harming the MC, as this means they have a more stable food source for longer, and because they won’t want to cause harm to the MC.

Let’s get to the specifics for each brother:

Lucifer

Advantages: When you make a pact with Lucifer, you immediately become more confident. His pact is the strongest of the brothers, him being the eldest and most powerful, so there’s no waiting time for the pact to take effect. Essentially you’ll find it easier to be proud of both yourself, and others. His pact interferes with Levi’s - it counteracts the jealousy that you’d feel, and replaces it with pride, as a pact with Lucifer holds more power usually. His pact also grants an easier understanding of your surroundings and the people around you - whether it’s due to the confidence boost, allowing your anxieties to relax and to let you properly take in a situation, or just part of the pact is debatable.

Disadvantages: Pride easily leads to arrogance. Strangely enough, if you were already a confident person, you’ll find it easier to control yourself and not become too arrogant. But if you were struggling before, you’re going to swing wildly between completely adoring and despising yourself. Because the pact is so potent this can be dangerous, and you might need to distance yourself from a Lucifer and slowly build up a relationship again to be able to adapt to it.

Pact marks: Lucifer is a bit 50/50 on this. He’d like the pact mark to be in clear sight, because his pact was made to demonstrate a control and ownership over the human. However, because of how pacts usually work, he might fear that it would be perceived as being the other way about. Pact marks in clear sight are fair game, but perhaps somewhere where you could easily cover it up if needed would be preferred, so that he can see it when he wants to without it being on show constantly. He wouldn’t want it on show when you’re at RAD, honestly. He’d prefer for it to be on your back, hand if you’re willing to wear gloves, or neck if you cover it up with a high collar or scarf. Like most things, it all depends on his mood. He’ll adapt and make it clear that he’s no one’s pet no matter what you decide to do.

Mammon

Advantages: We’re already told that if Mammon likes someone, money comes easily to them. His pact partially influences this; if you want something, you’ll find that you’re able to get it much easier than before. This works best for material things, but if you’re very close to Mammon you’ll find that you’ll be able to win over people easier. It isn’t the same kind of charm that a pact with Asmo would grant, but still works fairly well. A pact with both brothers would boost the effects heavily, and you’ll find that you have most people wrapped around your finger after a simple greeting.

Disadvantages: Like Mammon, you might end up stealing to satisfy your greed. Getting everything you want is all well and good but it starts to lose its charm, whereas stealing still has some kind of buzz to it. At the same time, you may not even consider it to be stealing; it will start to feel as though everything already belongs to you. You’ll also become greedy for attention and feel lonely quite quickly. If you weren’t greedy before the effects won’t be as bad.

Pact marks: Mammon is possessive. He wants his pact mark on show - his number one spot would likely be on the back of your hands, so that when you’re holding hands he can rub his thumb over it, and so that its visible when you’re writing in classes or if you raise your hand to your face.

Leviathan

Advantages: Levi’s pact doesn’t necessarily offer many benefits to some people. If you’re willing to step back when you feel jealous and look inside yourself, its perfect for self-introspection and personal growth. It would be best combined with other pacts (especially Lucifer’s), and mostly works as a way of dampening the disadvantages that stronger pacts may offer by preventing you from becoming overly arrogant. It also helps to balance out Mammon’s pact, but does so by lowering your confidence in yourself so that you don’t seek attention or material possessions as much.

Disadvantages: You’re going to feel jealous constantly. If you have low self-esteem, it will present like Levi’s - you’ll believe that the world is unfair, that others are better than you. If you have a higher self-esteem, this will mix in an unhealthy fashion with the arrogance granted by Lucifer’s pact to make you simultaneously believe that you’re too good for everyone, and that you deserve better but can’t reach it because people are in your way. Overall, his pact is the most likely to isolate you from others.

Neutral: Depending on how you view it, this could be a good or bad thing, but Levi’s pact makes people jealous of you. This means that they tend to view you as being someone better than them, and might offer you some opportunities, but it can also make it difficult to form meaningful relationships and will likely isolate you in the end up. This will also have an impact on Mammon and Asmo’s pacts - if Levi’s pact is stronger, it will make people more likely to bend to your will, whilst also disliking you more as they feel unreasonably jealous of you whilst also being drawn to you. If the other’s pacts are stronger, it will lessen obsessions that have no base and will make it easier to form decent relationships that aren’t so superficial.

Pact marks: Anywhere. He doesn’t mind where it is, but if its smaller or less obvious than his brothers’ pact marks, he’s going to feel upset and not know how to deal with it. It all depends on your reasoning, but if you appear to see him as equal to or better than his brothers, he really won’t mind at all. When he’s feeling less awkward, he’ll want to trace his fingers over it, so preferably somewhere he can easily access. Number one spots would be on your shoulder, neck, or wrist.

Satan

Advantages: His pact, oddly, is a good confidence boost. More specifically, it makes you a lot less likely to put up with unfair and unjust behaviour. You’re more confident in speaking out against the things you don’t agree with. You’ll likely end up reading a lot more and educating yourself on everything so that you have the most concrete knowledge on any topic of discussion.

Disadvantages: If you’re not careful, discussions can become arguments and can lead to bad blood easily. You’ll be less forgiving than before, less willing to let things go. And you’re constantly, constantly angry. You’ll have to find a healthy outlet for this quickly, or it’ll consume you. Some relationships may end up tainted by the feelings his pact creates.

Your relationship: Your relationship with Satan is going to be strange. You both act as a comfort for each other, and when you’re around him both of you will be less angry. However, if Satan is in a bad mood and in need of a quick energy boost, he might decide to make you angry so that he can feed off of it. He sees it as being a short term risk; he can soothe you after, if he decides to, and if he believes you’re close enough that you won’t hold onto it. The problem is when he doesn’t. He likes seeing you angry, although preferably not at him, but in the end it really won’t matter so long as you’re mad at someone. Relationships can quickly become unhealthy, but your relationship with him will swing wildly if the two of you don’t sit and talk things over and work out a good balance; the best results would be if you were to go to Satan when angry about something else and let him soothe you by drawing out your anger. That way he gets a boost and the two of you remain relatively calm, keeping your anger in a safe and controlled space.

Pact marks: Back of the hand. He wants to see it when you’re reading. He already builds up a tendency to kiss you on the back of the hand, and he’d like to be reminded of your pact when he does so. Its a softer gesture that he doesn’t offer to many, and he gets to offer it to someone who accepts him no matter what, with a visible reminder of that.

Asmodeus

Advantages: People are going to like you. You’ll be able to charm almost anyone (exceptions being people who are immune to the demons’ powers, and anyone with more power than you). Even if you can’t charm someone, you’ll likely to be able to mildly influence their opinion of you. You’ll also become better at reading people, and will be able to guess at their desires. With enough popularity, you may end up influencing the worlds’ beauty standards to more closely match how you look (if you decide to do influential work in the public eye).

Disadvantages: Whether you try to or not, you’re going to attract all kinds of people. This can put you in dangerous situations and can easily build obsessions. You’ll find the human world to be a much more dangerous place, and will have to be wary of the people around you. Eventually you’ll be able to better influence how much people like you, so that it won’t become an obsession, but you’ll need some form of protection at all times in the human world for quite some time after the pact is made.

Pact marks: Asmo doesn’t mind so long as he gets to see it when he wants to. He wants you to be happy and confident in yourself. That said, he does want to feel like your first priority. Like Levi, he wouldn’t want his pact mark to be smaller or less obvious than his brothers’ marks. His favourite places would be on your chest or the top centre of your back.

Beelzebub

Advantages: Beel’s pact gives you an iron stomach. You can eat anything and as much as you want without it having much of an impact on your weight, although you will end up building muscle a lot easier. Your health will improve, and become as ideal as it can be. You’ll find that you don’t get sick very often and have a stronger immune system. Any dietary needs will become less prominent, from allergies to intolerances. Overall, his pact offers a lot of physical benefits.

Disadvantages: You’re going to feel hungry almost all of the time. Beel’s hunger influences your own, so when he’s hungry, you’ll be hungry too. Not only will eating take up more of your time and focus, but you’ll also have to spend a lot more on food. You won’t be anywhere near his level, but you’ll probably be hitting somewhere around triple the normal recommended daily intake.

Pact marks: Beel wants you to be happy, like Asmo, so you can put the pact mark wherever you want. He won’t pay much notice to it unless he’s feeling particularly low or possessive, but even then just having you around calms him down. He doesn’t need the pact mark to be a reminder of your relationship - he’s got you, and that’s more than enough for him. He’d probably like for you to have the mark over your stomach, if you’d be content with that - it’s an amusing idea to him, and it just feels right. Also, if he wraps his arms around you from behind, he can rest his hand over it.

Belphegor

Advantages: After resting, you’ll function better. You’ll be able to focus better, you’ll be more perceptive, you feel healthier, etc. On good days, you feel well rested after quick naps. His pact is a huge boost to your brain and body, and your mood will benefit from it too, leaving you feeling happier and more capable.

Disadvantages: More often than not, you need to sleep more than before, and on bad days, no amount of rest will be enough. You’ll also easily slip into bad habits in which you end up sleeping instead of actually taking care of yourself. Like Levi’s, his pact can be isolating as sleeping can often seem more appealing than spending meaningful time with people. A controlled sleep schedule is necessary to keep things under control.

Pact marks: Where you put the pact mark is your own decision, and he’s not going to make it for you. That said, he’d prefer for it to be somewhere you can easily see, so that you remember him and think of him often, and he’d rather you didn’t cover it up. He views the pact mark as a lasting reminder of him, and feels betrayed if you don’t view it the same way. The most ideal place would probably be on your hands or wrists, but he’s more likely to have places he hates (e.g. your back, where you couldn’t easily see it) than places he likes.

AN: Sorry for rambling and if this is disorganised ;u;. Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!! Feel free to ask any questions you have ^^

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me headcanons #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #my headcanons #my writings #long post #i considered splitting this up into two posts but i wanted to post them all together. sorry its so long!!

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violetren · 4 years ago

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My first theory for volume 9 while the second half of volume 8 is fresh in my mind!

Volume 9 is gonna be the therapy season, but in the most traumatic you'll need different therapy afterwards kind of way. Instead of paying a therapist they're all just be bargaining with the universe like "yo I've had this trauma for a while, and I'm feeling pretty done with it. Here you take it back and uhhh I'll take a new guilt complex. Maybe a fear of falling? IDK, fuck me up bro."

The foreshadow-y Alice in Wonderland-esque fairy tale Oscar told to himself/Oz while in captivity is my guide post here.

Aaaand this is gonna get long so! 10 ideas of shit that's gonna go down next volume beneath the readmore, each one about 1-2 paragraphs each.

In the fairy tale the girl runs away from her problems into a new land, but because she never learned from her problems they just followed after her. Yeah? So first--second? First discounting the volume therapy theme theory.

FIRST BIG THEORY: The girl from the fairy tale was real, and she used the Spear of Creation. And like Weiss and the crew, she was fucking smart about her wording. She offered up materials that'd last even after someone else inevitably used the staff. IDK what materials she woulda used. Maybe there's a story about a missing continent we just haven't heard of yet? Maybe the Brother of Light's pool, since Salem seens to have claimed the Brother of Darkness's one but no sign of BoL's these days. Maybe there is a reason the land beyond Menagerie is so uninhabitable beyond desert + grimm? idk. Point is, it's a thing that happened, and since Ambrosius can't destroy/directly kill she's still in her wonderland. For themes sake I'm gonna call her Alice from here on out.

So Alice made a pocket dimension to flee from her problems from.

SECOND BIG THEORY: Her problems were relic related. She needed to hide em, and hide herself from Salem. Tbh I'm not sure how into this one I am. Maybe she had other shit going and some version of Oz was like "hey you don't want to be here, I have some property that I don't want to be here, lets make this happen!" THE POINT IS, the little pocket realities the relics are in, are aalllllll places in her pocket reality. When the team said "hey Ambrosius just make the middle ground into one of these type places" that's what he did, cause that's how he do. What better way to make sure it works like those places than to be kinda connected to em?

THIRD BIG THEORY: Ambrosius was buds with Alice once upon a time, but knew staying in her pocket world ultimately drove her crazy. He knew his middle ground worked like the pocket dimensions because it touched em or something, so he gave a vague ass warning not to fall, because he knew where they'd fall to.

Back to the fairy tale. It's implied Alice was never able to leave/give up her wonderland because she never learned from her mistakes.

FOURTH BIG THEORY VERSION 1: RWBY + Jaune can't figure their way back to reality until they adress a major personal issue and break out of whatever cycle it's got them in. This one I feel is shaky because they all have such different issues and are in very different places with each of them, trying to do one big arc on em would be too much of a mess. Plus it doesn't account for saving any of the many civilians that may have survived the fall.

FOURTH BIG THEORY VERSION 2: nobody can leave until Alice either leaves, dies, OR is convinced to let them go. As we're following good kind people this means we watch the kids try to give someone else therapy that THEY need. RWBY+J work through their shit through variations & combinations of witnessing mirrors of their struggles in Alice/other wonderland inhabitants, and just having time and space to slow down and breathe whether they want it or not.

FIFTH BIG THEORY: Alice is the "antagonist" of the underworld because she is the obstacle to overcome.

What about Neo you may be asking. Well I want her to let go of the revenge schtick, or at least redirect it back onto Cinder thus calling a truce with Ruby. However it's more than likely she's gonna be on team keep Alice as an obstacle at least as long as it takes to kill Ruby, and so Neo will be the "real" Antagonist™ within wonderland.

SIXTH BIG THEORY: Neo because of her unwavering determination to enact revenge is gonna die this volume. She'll be the comparison against which RWBY+J will be measured. As they grow and get closer to leaving she'll become more wrapped up with whatever strange classic wonderland logic this pocket universe has. Potentially depending on how things go with helping Alice, Neo may just end up trading spots with her, and end up trapped while everyone else goes back. But dead or trapped, I have a sad feeling this could be our last volume with Neo. My only hope of her surviving at this point is that she like Emerald switches sides, and in doing so joins Winter as a Cinder foil. While Neo grows and lets go of revenge and thus survives, Cinder stays dedicated to her own desires for revenge and other self serving instincts ringing her own death toll for either the end of the volume, or maybe somewhere in vol.10.

SEVENTH BIG THEORY: Ruby is gonna be grieving and maybe even getting full on angry about being expected to fix everything just because she's the optimistic one. She shouldn't have to deal with this brand and advanced level of childhood stealing just because she wanted to do what was right and won(lost) a genetic lottery for magic powers type anger. Jaune is going to have SO MUCH GUILT to work through, mostly the survivors kind. The bees will be experiencing couples therapy, they've both been pretty solid about individual growth leading up to this, Underworld will be them learning what it means to them to be partners now that they are so different to who they were. Weiss is different. Weiss is at first gonna feel like she's there just because it was a way to really shove all the other Schnee's into their therapy arcs and gave RBY+J neutral presence to rely on. Weiss is gonna go in the most stable of the bunch. But then, slow boil style, she'll start to realise how fucked up basically her whole life has been, especially upon realising that her "good years" with her new family have been spent getting sucked into being the last line of defense against the apocalypse, but will be too busy helping the others, so at the end of the volume when everyone else is actually doing pretty good and refreshed for the fight against Salem she'll only just be beginning her breakdown.

EIGHTH BIG THEORY: All this therapy shit is gonna be mirrored back on Remnant by the others grieving the percieved loss of the hearts of the team. Both sides of these story are gonna deal with some heavy shit, but the Remnant side is gonna be the depressed side, at least as long as it takes for Oz to tell them maybe the other's aren't dead leading to desperate attempts to get the staff OR the make desperate attempts to get the relics back anyways and inadvertently find out from Ambrosius what is up. But anyways. Winter is gonna be dealing with survivors guilt and the loss of both her little sisters (friends are great but Penny was little sister zoned and it's a hill I am prepared to die on. good sisterly relationships are friendships too). Nora is gonna be doing her self discovery thing. Ren is gonna be building on his end of vol.8 developments. Oscar will continue his grappling with the merge stuff. Qrow and Willow might get forced into AA. Whitely is gonna learn his own definition of being a Schnee instead of what his dad taught him.

NINTH BIG THEORY (OR FOURTH VERSION 3): The other way they get out is QORN obtain and use the staff to bring them home, potentially by trading enemy lives for them.

BONUS CONSPIRACY THEORY: QORN if presented with needing to trade for their loved ones & lost civilians have a lightbulb moment and decide hey why not trap Salem in a pocket universe since that is a thing Ambrosius can make? Like, if this bitch hasn't budged on her not learning to appreaciate life and humanity or whatever (which I'n pretty sure is the other way to break her curse instead of stopping remnant from turning) then she's a prime candidate for shoving into a personal reality that you can only escape if you can face your problems long enough to break the cycle they have you in. It'd be really fucked up but I think it might actually be possible to run the place using her as her own material component. Like kill her over and over and redistribute the energy to make the pocket world, but because god given power + Ambrosius can't actually destroy she just reforms anyways. MIght take a few hundred thousand deaths but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Or use the BoD oasis/grimm pools to make a world that mirrored the one she chose to live in on Remnant really make it hard for her to break that cycle....

Anyways.

TENTH BIG THEORY: Working on the idea that the relics are actually hidden in secret protected pockets of the underworld RWBY+J are gonna have a secondary quest of trying to get the relics from this side, and either finding a new place to hide them ages away from their vault doors. If you wanna make it a FOURTH VERSION 4, they're specifically gonna seek out the sword of destruction (HOLY VORPAL BLADE ALLUSIONS BATMAN) either with the intent of cutting their way out underworld--ahem wonderland--or with the assumption that someone is inevitably gonna have to open the vault door, because that's just how things be these days and they'll be able to cross to Vacuo from there.

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ohheyitsokay · 3 years ago

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softly

can be read as a sequel to “slowly” or as a stand alone

pairing: Jack Daniels (Agent Whiskey)x (f) ace!reader

wordcount: 1.6k

warnings: implications of sex and related topics

summary: growing and navigating a relationship is a joy with the right person

notes: again, obviously this is a wildly personal topic - I fully understand that asexuality looks different for everyone. For full disclosure, in this story, the reader knows they are somewhere on the asexuality spectrum but is not aromantic.They are also on a path of self discovery and are open to learning about themselves - in this chapter they engage in sexual and physical acts with Jack. This IS NOT saying asexuals who are like this are growing “better” than those who are not interested. Asexuals who do know what they do and don’t want are perfect and do not need to change or compromise as part of their personal growth. This is not everyone’s story, or the “right” way, this is just... one story.

I hope you all enjoy, and happy pride month!

Transitioning from friendship to dating Jack was like leaving one dream and entering another.

The relationship was sewn from cotton clouds, delicate and lovely and full of whispered promises and potential.

Jack had always been surprisingly gentle with you, for how rough and tumble he normally was. It would have made sense, to someone in another life, for him to have become even more so – touches filled with longing and hesitation and light as feathers – but it didn’t happen. It wasn’t him.

Instead every touch was firm, solid, deliberate, as though he was trying to show you that he was being intentional with each and every one of them, like he’d thought about them for a week before. To him, you weren’t fragile at all, you didn’t need to be treated like you would break, he just wanted to show you he cared about every point of contact. Show you he could be more than in control, and still make you weak in the knees.

It was unreal, being courted by him, a strangely swirled combo of careful cotton candy chivalry and crackling confidant charisma, as blended as ice cream flavors at the fair. Some moments he’d be standing his full height, pressing almost into your space, grinning that slow crooked smirk, spewing words like he’d never been more sure of himself. It made you want to press him back, to tweak his nose and just see if he could take what he doled out. But it also made you want to swoon a little, to bat your eyelashes and blush and bite your lip, a little bit bashful. It was frustrating, choosing which without being awkward, but you were sure he liked to see you flustered, regardless.

Other moments, Jack turned off the charm, and was so sweet that if it weren’t for the genuine adoration in his eyes you would’ve thought he was faking it. It made you want to believe him when he had said that to him you were everything. He, with his overgrown eagerness, his passion, and larger-than-life laugh, was your world, and you were his.

More than anything, it must have been the intimacy of knowing him like the back of your hand. Beautiful people came and went, could make you look a moment longer, but they never made you feel like this. Is wasn’t heartaches and warm cheeks, most of the time, it was just … knowing him, that make it good. You weren’t enamored with just his face, or overcome with desire to have his body on yours, it was simple and lovely to learn about all sides of his soul, and to have every single part be as dedicated to you as you were to him.

They melted together over time, and it was by far your favorite, feeling him find who he was with you, feeling safe in turn.

“This okay?” he asked again, hairs on his upper lip tickling your neck.

“Yes,” your confirmation was all he need before continuing his path down your neck. It was the third time he’d asked since you’d climbed into his lap and asked him, boldly earnest and determined, if the he would make out with you.

At the time, you had felt sort of silly, like a schoolgirl trying to earn her stripes, but the urge had honestly surprised both of you, and you hadn’t wanted to risk it leaving while you figured out how to organically make it happen. So you’d taken the risk and it had been perfect, in it’s own right.

Anyone, anything before Jack were irrelevant. These moments with them were riddled with nagging, itching self doubt or anxiety, but not with him. He was the only one.

And Jack kept checking in with you, he was so attentive to you that he knew your boundaries the moment you did, if not before, and kept them without a question. The thickness of him, the roughness of his jeans and the circle of his arms were solid and sturdy, creating a little world for the two of you.

Had he always been your best friend?

You didn’t have time to contemplate it. His mouth on your neck, hands on your waist, and thighs under your hips were altogether delicious and overwhelming.

It had been wonderful to kiss him like this. To sit in his lap and trust him and mold your mouth against his like the two of you were the only things that mattered. But the longer it went the more strange it felt, and slowly your mind began thinking again, unable to let yourself get lost in him. Focusing on his body more than him wasn’t quite right.

Wondering if you were being unfair, you gently tugged on his hair, pulling him away, telling him with your eyes what your mouth hadn’t found the words for.

Little creases on his forehead appeared, a testament to his ability to read your mind. Even concerned, he looked at you like you were Venus in all her glory, like even the curve of your nose and the bump of your chin were sculpted just for him.

“I heard you say yes,” he said, slow, neither a defense nor a blame – simply an offering. His hands were consistent on you, reminding you again how conscious and in control he was, how naturally he communicated with you.

“I did,” you murmured, pecking the lines, trying to smooth them with your thumb before sliding to sit next to him. “It just… changed.”

Nodding, he didn’t push it, just held you close to his side, and leaving one last kiss on your temple. He flicked through the movies before settling down and you waited for a deep, longing sigh, but it never came.

The stinging memory of a previous encounter, when your partner had left to cool off in frustration, was slowly being scrubbed off your soul. You felt it momentarily before Jack’s low drawl was sharing a story from work, bragging about his talents over the movie heroes. And the memory faded, replaced by something sweeter.

It was strange, to be so completely loved.

Jack wasn’t normally the type to need affirmation, confirmation after a round with his lover, but he couldn’t help himself.

“How do you feel, darlin? Good?” he looked for your eyes as he asked, proud of your lowered lashes, but still seeking truth. You nodded, and he could see you thinking, so he waited.

You absolutely deserved the best, he believed that with every fiber of his body and as hard as it was to admit, figuring out what that meant required acknowledging he wasn’t sure. You had asked him, wanted to try, not out of need but with determination. The whole afternoon he had dedicated himself to you, going slow, hitting all the points he’d tried and tested before. The two of you had talked about it for awhile, making a game plan to keep you as comfortable as possible, so you both would enjoy it – no matter how it ended.

It was a relief, trusting you.

Never in his life could he have adored someone so thoroughly, who he wasn’t absolutely sure would keep communicating with him. Talking, checking in, updating during lovemaking came so naturally, he almost wished he could brag about it to his younger self.

“I’ve got a girl who loves me so much she never fakes … well, anything.” Not just pleasure - smiles and laughs and tears and all of it, all of you was open to him. “We love each other so much, mind and soul – not just body,” he would tell himself, and the younger man would have been in awe.

Really, even now, he was in awe of what the two of you had created.

It had been perfect, the intimacy of placing your hearts in each other’s hands, building up and up and learning every step of the way. It was like the process of sorting through pages and pieces and pictures to make pancakes the very first time. Awkward moments, messiness, navigating and even back-tracking was part of the adventure- sweet and silly and soaking in the thick, warm layer of love.

You were on your back, still half under him and his hands wandered over your skin. The blankets were all over, folds softer than even the flag he loved in the wind, and you at the center. Beautiful. Hair a mess, a sheen of sweat not yet cooled from your skin, and that was the only thing that he could think. You were beautiful.

Finding the words you were searching for, your fingers grasped at his.

“It was good,” you confirmed, again, and he swelled with pride and relief, even though you hadn’t finished. “It wasn’t… better, per se, than the walk to the lake we took last night, though.” Your eyes were apologetic but he felt even more proud. He had done that for you too, after all.

“It was a different good,” you shrugged, and he nodded, before leaning in to stop your apology before it started.

Kissing him back was hard as a bubble of laughter filled your mouth.

“No apologies, little lady,” he said insistently, scolding you. You should have known better.

“I’m good,” he said, firmly, before laying back and trying to swap your positions. You laughed again, but you could tell he was being honest. There was no lingering arousal in the air, no longing seeping out of his skin, and you’d almost never seen him so content.

It was easy, to relax against his chest.

taglist:

@fangirl-316 @scribbledghost @0celestialbitch0 @writeforfandoms

#agent whiskey x reader #agent whiskey x you #jack daniels x you #jack daniels x reader #ace!reader #ace reader #maybe i don't know people

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xoruffitup · 4 years ago

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Sexuality In Neon Genesis Evangelion: Adolescence & Violence

(I’m literally 20 years late to the party here, but if anyone still cares for NGE metas, this hasn’t left me alone...!)

It takes only a few episodes into NGE to sense there’s some form of unrest beneath its surface. A palpable sense of unease and malcontent shadows the characters, seeping into the bleak cityscapes and following Shinji’s listless drift from one battle to the next - creating the unrelenting sense that this show has no intention to coddle or comfort you. Much will not be explained, or even directly addressed. Most of that unease you’re feeling as a viewer will be left for you yourself to decipher – probably in a manner uncomfortably and bracingly personal. I would call this a mark of artistry, in that the viewing experience becomes something deeply intimate and unique from person to person.

The obvious narrative explanation for all this dark ambiguity is the evocation of Shinji’s troubled psychological state. He mopes in his dark bedroom, rides the train alone with his headphones in and no destination, and accepts the role of Eva pilot only when his refusal would make him feel yet more despised. He is utterly directionless and thus helpless – caught in a paralysis between his pathological need for external affirmation and his crippling fear of being hurt. He craves kindness and care from others, but is both unwilling and unable to forge such positive connections with others because he presupposes doing so will cause pain. Therefore, he makes few self-motivated choices and rebukes all notion of the driven, intentional protagonist.

Shinji’s rejection of the traditional mantle of the hero’s journey, and his repeated regression into unassertive self-hatred also signals an unorthodox approach to storytelling - where the narrative flows around the inhibited, apathetic characters rather than through them. We as the viewers do not become invested in the narrative progression as an extension of Shinji’s own investment. Rather, a central part of the narrative becomes the self-aware exploration of its own impact upon Shinji and the wider cast of characters. Shinji, Rei, Asuka, and to a certain degree Misato and Ritsuko, do not determine the narrative direction through their own choices and thereby set events in motion; they are instead passive, reactionary presences drawn along by the provocations of seemingly inevitable series of events. (Angels attack – characters respond; Gendo or Seele give some unexplained order – characters react; Instrumentality begins – Shinji reacts)

As the curtain is finally drawn back from the human instrumentality project in the show’s final act, we realize Shinji was not simply whiny or poorly-written: His constant struggle between the fear of pain and need for intimacy is in fact the defining tension of the show as a whole. The “Hedgehog’s Dilemma.” This dilemma saturates each character’s personal trauma, fears, and desires, and finally elevates the characters’ internal reckoning in the face of instrumentality to create the show’s climax.

The show’s indirect yet masterful depiction of Shinji’s depression and undefined malaise is, in fact, keenly intentional and central to the story’s purpose. In a show defined by endlessly rich even if agonizing ambiguities and a narrative style that reveals itself only in subtlety, no minor detail is inconsequential. And so, I repeatedly found myself trying to discern the purpose of a recurring element that could be neither accidental nor innocuous. I am referring now to the show’s consistent and blatant preoccupation with the sexualization of its (female) characters and the infusion of sexuality into inter-character relationships.

The sexualizing and/or objectifying gaze is applied far too often to be anything but an intentional layer generating narrative meaning. In a show that elegantly weaves together psychological, religious, ethical, and technological allusions to construct a cutting inspection of the human psyche, this preoccupation is not a mere trope or “fanservice.” The recurrent reference to characters’ sexuality and their depiction as sexual objects cannot be a neutral or peripheral element of narrative meaning. Beyond the impossibility of this element being unintentional or divorced from the show’s narrative purpose, we are also obliged to make ourselves aware of the gendered lens through which this depiction of sexuality is filtered, and the power balance or imbalance this depiction enforces upon the characters involved. Consistent nudity to the point of fetishism and sexual inferences to the point of defining character cease to be superficial and become something pernicious.

Below, I will explore two different frameworks through which to interpret the show’s sexual overtones. The first framework – adolescence and the fear of adulthood – aligns with my initial response to the anime, while the second framework – sexual violence –reflects my more troubled response to the End of Evangelion film.

Framework 1: Shinji’s Adolescent Fears of Adulthood and Intimacy

Lest we forget, Shinji is only the tender age of 14. His internal struggle with self-worth and identity is exacerbated by its intersection with puberty and Shinji’s fraught understanding of his own budding sexuality. Shinji’s characterization of being highly dependent on the guidance and praise of his elders highlights both his adolescence and his own inability to confront his growth to adulthood. His unwillingness to navigate the perils of adulthood (as well as its corresponding sexual relationships) is probably evoked most clearly in his Episode 18 conversation with Kaji. After Kaji opines on men and women’s inability to understand each other – let alone themselves – Shinji merely replies dismissively, “I don’t understand adults at all.”

Given his 14-year-old perception of adulthood as something impenetrably mystical, it follows that his own budding sexuality acts as both a source of anxiety and a central aspect of his journey through adolescence. The often discussed parallels between Shinji’s relationship with Asuka and Misato’s relationship with Kaji further cements sex as something firmly belonging to adulthood; just as Asuka’s eagerness to present herself as sexually mature reflects her desire to appear independent and “grown.”

Coming to terms with one’s sexuality is of course a commonplace metaphor for the development from adolescence to adulthood. However, the characters’ understanding and comfort with their own sexualities also plays a key role in their internal reckonings and decisions which occur within instrumentality.

During his moments of metaphysical introspection, Shinji’s confrontation with his deepest fears repeatedly presents itself in the form of sexual temptation. We see him translate this need for external validation into unconscious sexualization and desire for the women around him. While fused with Unit 1 in Episode 20, Shinji is questioned by imagined specters of Misato, Rei, and Asuka. He reaches his breaking point when, after admitting he only pilots the Eva in hope of earning others’ praise, he cries out for someone to take care of him. After pleading, “someone be kind to me,” all three women appear to him naked, asking repeatedly, “Don’t you want to become one with me? In body and in soul?” In this imagined ordeal of self-examination, Shinji’s deepest, most fundamental need for approval and warmth from others is coded into the prospect of understanding and intimacy associated with sex. At a subconscious level, he perceives the offering of sexual union as the highest form of acceptance. Shinji therefore feels varying degrees of conflicted, guilt-ridden desire for the women around him, in the most primal form of his craving for acceptance.

In this scene, the offering of sexual intercourse is also a direct foreshadowing to the prospect of union with all during instrumentality, and either the acceptance or rejection of that union. In End of Evangelion, Shinji’s crucial choice during instrumentality is again presented in the same terms: Asuka, Rei, and Misato’s voices all asking “Do you want to become one with me, body and soul?” Shinji’s mix of attraction and repellence (for he fears intimacy as intensely as he craves it) when confronting this question indirectly depicts his struggle to decide between a solitary but self-defined existence, and the sacrifice of his autonomous self to total union. Thus, Shinji’s repressed desire for sexual intimacy becomes in and of itself a key facet of both his decision to ultimately reject instrumentality, and his conclusive creation of an independent and capable identity.

In line with my earlier reference to Asuka’s desire to appear sexually mature, the anime consistently uses sexuality as a means of revealing character - often probing at characters’ deepest vulnerabilities. Misato is likely the most direct example. It is through her sexual relationship with Kaji that she confronts her conflicted feelings towards her father and their profound impact on her. During instrumentality, she also admits she enjoys sex as an escape mechanism from pain and a way to prove she’s alive. She seems to perceive sex in the opposite perspective from Shinji – who on some level finds it threatening. This could be attributed firstly to Misato’s maturity in age and correlating comfort with her own sexuality. Secondly, this speaks to the show’s use of sexuality to build character in ways beyond Shinji’s troubled adolescent shame. The show’s focus on its characters’ sexuality can therefore be viewed as a means of prying into the inner conflicts they each seek to hide from the world. Note it is also through the reveal of Ritsuko’s sexual involvement with Gendo that we understand the reasons for her troubled relationship with her mother, her dedication to NERV, and her knowledge of its secrets.

Though sexuality is used as a sometimes literal, sometimes symbolic, but often effective vehicle to portray abstract concepts and internal, non-physical conflicts, this does not fully explain or justify the show’s gratuitous use of the male gaze. Though the depiction of sexuality often serves the purpose of character development, this depiction is exceedingly gendered. Though Shinji is shown naked, his nudity serves comedic effect (when he runs out from the bathroom in Misato’s apartment in Episode 2) or appears highly stylized (embracing Rei’s equally naked form in End of Evangelion). By contrast, Rei and Asuka’s bodies practically serve as set pieces. The pilot suits and contrived “camera” angles incessantly present their bodies as aesthetic objects for consumption.

Furthermore, early appearances by both female characters immediately define them as objects of sexual focus. The first time she appears, Asuka tells off Toji for looking up her skirt; Shinji ends up sprawled on top of Rei when she’s naked while first trying to get to know her in Episode 5. If we apply the interpretive framework of sexuality as a means of navigating adolescence, then it is exclusively Shinji’s journey towards adulthood with which the show shares its perspective and identification. It would therefore follow that Rei and Asuka serve merely as signposts or attractive obstacles along the path of Shinji’s development. Their bodies are exploited as tools through which to challenge and probe at Shinji’s psyche. While Shinji’s sexuality bestows him personhood and agency, Asuka and Rei’s often seem to do the opposite – instead reducing them to only the means towards Shinji’s end. Yet, even the justification that Rei and Asuka’s objectification may serve Shinji’s character development falls short, given that the girls are still depicted in a lewd and hyper-sexualized lens even when there’s nobody but us, the viewers, around to witness.

Using sexuality as a key vehicle to convey the male protagonist’s psychology creates an inherently gendered narrative – one in which a male protagonist acts out his conflict upon female bodies. This uneven and highly exploitative depiction warps what might have been an adolescent journey of self-discovery and growth into something far less constructive and much more unsettling.

Framework 2: Pervasive References to Sexual Violence

As I argued previously, Shinji’s repressed and conflicted sexuality can be viewed as a mirror of his character-defining struggle between the desire for love and the fear of pain. In this case, Shinji’s exploration and acceptance of his own sexuality becomes in and of itself a central element of his character development and, by extension, the show’s narrative resolution as a whole, given that the outcome of instrumentality rests on Shinji’s shoulders alone. It then becomes crucial that Shinji actualize his latent desire for sexual intimacy and ultimately master his own sexuality – as the chief expression of his internal development towards accepting his relationships with others and the co-dependent process of creating his own identity, self-worth, and reality.

In the abstract, this idea seems relatively healthy. However, the “Don’t you want to become one with me?” scenes and essentially all of End of Evangelion left me with a distinctly uncomfortable impression that couldn’t have been more different from that of a guileless adolescent navigating puberty. Seeing the “Don’t you want to become one with me?” question repeated to Shinji in the End of Evangelion context made me circle around one key question: Why is this imagined physical offering by the women in Shinji’s life presented as temptation? Why does the timing of this sequence reappear while Shinji is experiencing instrumentality? Or rather, why is the experience of instrumentality itself presented with the air of sexual temptation or seduction? This all culminates into the depiction of sexual desire for the female body as something needing to be tamed or conquered – given that it is only through Shinji’s repudiation of these offerings that he ultimately also rejects instrumentality. This supposition implies an adversarial relationship between Shinji and the object(s) of his sexual desire. This implicit hostility paints sexuality now as a struggle for control and/or dominance, rather than a source of self-discovery and growth.

I’ll note now that most of the observations and criticisms explored in this section speak almost exclusively to End of Evangelion. In my view, this implied hostility embedded into the exploration of sexuality is much more present in the film, whereas the show largely maintains sexuality as a means of fumbling adolescent growth and complex characterization. To frame what might be seen as an extreme interpretation, I’ll begin my closer reading of End of Evangelion with this Catharine MacKinnon quote:

“Once the veil is lifted, once relations between the sexes are seen as power relations, it becomes impossible to see as simply unintented, well-intentioned, or innocent the actions through which women are told every day what is expected and when they have crossed some line.”

The crucial dynamic supporting this darker interpretive framework – a dynamic much more palpable in End of Evangelion – is power relations. Referring back to my previous point wherein the persistent objectification of Asuka and Rei undermines their personhood to the same degree that it enhances Shinji’s – End of Evangelion takes this imbalance still further. Rei and Asuka’s sexualization not only serves Shinji’s development, but becomes the main stage upon which Shinji’s fight for self-determination plays out. This is to say that Shinji’s actions and key elements of the film’s narrative as a whole are acted out upon women’s bodies as both battleground and symbol. End of Evangelion resorts to a mode of storytelling that is explicitly gendered, portraying its conflict through a starkly male lens. Through the film’s imagery, brutality, and indulgence in the explicit, Shinji’s narrative is acted out through the depiction of women’s bodies as objects either with destructive power or being destroyed themselves; and as threats which much be conquered.

The Shinji we see in End of Evangelion experiences highs and lows far more extreme than his anime counterpart. EoE Shinji is shockingly depraved, powerless, and violent – in that order. His experiences in relation to the navigation of his sexuality take on a tone of violence and aggression. If he cannot act out his sexual impulses – if he cannot subdue the tormenting yet desired female body to the point that satisfies his desires (even if not always sexual in nature) – he resorts to violence to assert his will. During the kitchen scene within instrumentality, it is at the point when Asuka coldly rebuffs his pleading for her help that he first strangles her. Thinking back to the above quote re power relations – is this the “line” beyond accepted behavior where Asuka becomes deserving of male violence?

Violence takes many forms – all of them an embodiment of power relations. Yes, Shinji masturbating over Asuka’s stripped, unconscious form in the first scene is unequivocally an act of violence. No matter how “fucked up” and past sense Shinji may have been in that moment, he is still a man demeaning a woman and taking pleasure from the act – her inability to consent and even her comatose state all fueling male sexual gratification. Aside from the considerable shock value, this scene sets the tone of Shinji’s actions towards women throughout the film as relations of power and dominance. This scene further establishes repressed sexual desire and thwarted sexual frustration as the latent foundation of Shinji’s interactions with Asuka throughout the film; thus creating motivation and tension with the potential to drive him to further forms of violence.

In EoE, Shinji shares some type of sexual experience with all three women to whom he’s closest. First, his repulsive descent into depravity at the film’s very start. In this moment when he’s at his lowest, it is his most base and yet powerful instinct that takes over. He exacts pleasure, comfort, and distraction from Asuka’s body despite its fleetingness and her lack of consent. Second, Misato realizes that physical intimacy is the only thing that will get through to Shinji in his shell-shocked state. With a heated kiss, she delivers on the show’s hints of sexual interest between the two. Demonstrating just how well she understands Shinji, she promises him “We’ll do the rest when you get back,” knowing the promise of this ultimate physical act of approval and care is likely the only thing he will fight for. To put this in blunt terms: Shinji is promised sexual access to a woman whose praise he values, and this prospect of sexual fulfillment is what motivates him to finally enter Unit 1. While he isn’t imposing dominance over Misato here the same way he did to Asuka, this keeps with the film’s overall gendered perspective wherein Shinji’s triumphs or rare moments of purpose are marked by his access to women’s bodies.

Third, Shinji’s interactions with Rei/Rei-Lilith within instrumentality. It first must be noted that Rei is depicted naked for practically the whole movie. Sure, this might be necessary for the initiation of instrumentality, but it also serves to complete her objectification. I can by no means see it as mere coincidence that the advent of instrumentality and potential unleashing of the cataclysmic Third Impact is all represented by a giant, naked female form. What would be the greatest threat from the perspective of the male-gendered narrative? Precisely this – a female body that is overpowering, unconquerable, and unfathomable. By extension, I also don’t believe it’s coincidental that Shinji’s attainment of self-determination in his decision to reject instrumentality happens concurrently to his sexual union with Rei. She explains to him that no, he hasn’t died, “everything has just been joined into one.” This “joining” is depicted utterly literally, without any of the subtlety by which the anime presented sexuality as representative of total union within instrumentality. Thus, the resolution of Shinji’s character arc and the film’s climax as a whole occurs when Shinji finally attains fulfillment of the sexual desire he has harbored since the film’s beginning. The following shot of him and Rei naked with his head in her lap resolves the crisis of instrumentality with an unmistakable post-coital essence.

After these three encounters, we have the much-debated final scene of Shinji reuniting with Asuka after emerging from instrumentality. By this point, Shinji has taken advantage of her comatose body and strangled her, but she still has not shown herself amenable to his sexual desires as Misato and Rei have. She remains beyond his ability to either control or dominate. And so, while Rei’s giant, naked, and broken (read: conquered) body rests in pieces behind them, Shinji asserts his newfound will to attack the woman who has resisted his desire and refused the gratification he sought – both physically and emotionally.

This scene left me possibly even more disturbed than the film’s opening. To me, this ending implies that along with Shinji’s discovery of self-determination comes the male’s unfettered triumph following a struggle defined by sexual violence. In this final scene, we see the resistant woman subject to yet more violence at the hands of the protagonist – until at last, she no longer resists. In my view, this final scene was the occasion of Asuka’s capitulation. She is finally subdued to the point of acceptance and affectionate response even when being subjected to violence. She responds to Shinji’s aggression not with retaliation, but with a loving gesture. Her final words of “how disgusting” reminded me immediately of the hospital scene, and what Shinji had asked of her there: “Wake up, help me, call me an idiot like always.” Now, the man’s desire is at last satiated.

Beyond the narrative reliance on sexuality as a form of power relations, EoE also engages in gratuitous degradation of female bodies. They are either imbued with threatening, destructive power (Rei-Lilith), or experience destruction themselves (Asuka in Unit 2 and Rei-Lilith at the film’s end). Both Rei and Asuka’s bodies are subjected to extreme violence throughout the film, even while still being depicted as sexual objects. While suffering horrific, graphic injuries during her fight in Unit 2, Asuka is depicted writhing in agony in the entry plug with a disturbing sense of the erotic. After her body becomes the apocalyptic vehicle of instrumentality, Rei’s giant naked form is depicted crumbling to earth, stripped not only of her clothes but any sense of the human. Her split-open head rests beside the sea of LCL – a symbol of the male protagonist’s moral and psychological “victory.”

Framework 2: Counter-Arguments

Though I was disturbed by the rampant and dehumanizing sexualization in EoE, there were also plenty elements of the film I admired and remain deeply fascinated by. I don’t wish to seem overly disparaging, so I’ll briefly mention two counter-examples to this more critical framework.

1. Rei denying and rebuking Gendo and asserting her own will, while depicted as naked. It’s hard to overstate the enormity of Rei’s decision here. After existing as a seemingly unfeeling clone created for the purpose of realizing Gendo’s desires, Rei brings his plans to a crashing halt right at the pinnacle moment. The scene metaphorically traveled from 0-100 very quickly. It began with the insinuation of Gendo joining with Rei in a vaguely sexual sense, and his hand sinking into her breast in an unconventional bodily invasion while she showed discomfort. But then she asserts, “I am not your doll.” Her nakedness seems transformed from vulnerability to power. She is no longer the passive instrument of a man’s realization of his desires. Instead, she asserts her personhood and makes the individual decision how to employ the power within her. In so doing, she decides not only her own fate, but practically that of the whole world.

2. Shinji and Kaworu’s dynamic could be seen as refuting a binary reading of gendered power relations. Taking Shinji for bisexual has the potential to revise my interpretation from ‘Shinji subconsciously desires sexual access and control over women’ to ‘Shinji subconsciously desires sex and control’ period, without the emphasis on women as the subjects of his struggle. If this gendered binary is removed, then his growth and self-actualization need not come at the expense of the female characters around him. Extending Shinji’s repressed sexuality to encompass desire for Kaworu also alleviates the connotations of dominance and confrontation embedded within heterosexual sexuality.

Writing all this out was largely my personal means of resolving the million jumbled thoughts in my head after finally diving into this stunning masterpiece of a show. I’ll say again - what makes this show such a timeless work of brilliance is its highly personal resonance in the minds of its viewers. In the end, it isn’t a story about robots, aliens, or even sex at all – it’s a self-reflective act forcing you to wake up and confront your own role in creating the very reality in which you live. What kind of world have you made for yourself? Have you trapped yourself in confinement of your own making, or have you imagined every possible version of your world and liberated all the possibilities hidden in your creation of self? Evangelion can mean something different to every one, and no single interpretation is more correct than any others. So that said – a hearty thank you to anyone who actually read all the way here, and I’m always eager for discussion! :)

#Neon Genesis Evangelion #Evangelion #End of Evangelion #NGE #Evangelion meta #Evangelion analysis

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practicalmagicintuitions · 3 years ago

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HC+DG business relationship, career reading

DISCLAIMER: If you will send me an Anon, I will answer in the same tone as your ask, opinion is written.

All information and statements made in this reading or any other post of mine are all alleged until proven to be fact and for entertainment purposes & usage only. All information stated is based on my intuition and my tarot cards. Opinion only. The readings have no intention to cause any harm to the individuals, people featured in it.

Disclaimer 2 : I always always want to give you insightful, detailed readings but I had to be short with this because it’s a sad reading. I hope you will… well… enjoy or appreciate it and if you have questions go on, but I physically and mentally couldn’t go deeper in this.

The foundation of the relationship?

6 of Pentacles, 7 of Swords, The Magician.

Let’s start with the Magician. The Magician is the first numbered Major Arcana card (the Fool is the 0). This is the manifesting, the I am doing card. On the card, the Magician is raising his one hand to heaven and with the other hand, he points to the ground, to earth. This refers to the Wiccan prayer “As above so below” This means mind and matter are reflections of each other. We are part of the universe and the universe is inside us. The Magician creates a future with a word. Words and acts should match.

As a career choice, he is someone who is self-employed, who is on the stage, who wants applause, who wants to perform…

This card is also about to reveal, like a magic trick.

7ofS is trickery, mind game, lying, walking on eggshells, sneaking.

The foundation of this relationship is codependency. The promise that they will do something huge and meaningful, build a new future together, but this is not true. That promise is not honest, there are lies and sneaky things beneath the surface. 7ofS has a meaning that someone doesn't want to lie but he has to. On the card the figure holds 5 swords and 2 are in the ground, he looks at those. This could mean he wants honesty but he cannot know how. (I have a few unpublished readings and this card is coming up more and more frequently).

What keeps them together?

3 of cups rx, 8 of cups rx, 4 of wands rx

What keeps them together? The fact that he basically feels he has no option. He cannot go right or left because the options are horrible everywhere for different reasons. He fears change. 8ofCrx is fear of abandonment, emotional weakness. On one hand, he lost touch with his friends(3ofCrx) or they just grew apart, but they are not actively in each other's life. It could mean he is left out from their former friends’ group or they are not happy for his success. So he is lacking that friendly, supportive energy. (disclaimer: this is such a sad row in this spread, I am trying hard, but I am struggling to write what I feel and see, I hope you will understand what I want to say). This also could mean false friends, who are gossiping and bitching. I do not think he genuinely feels friendship towards DG or her towards him.

In my previous reading, I repeatedly got cards that mean one certain thing, but I chose to ignore that meaning, because, Nah, it’s not important. But this card(3ofCrx) means it so strong, I have to mention. And do not put words in my mouth, I am not stating anything but I have to mention it now. This card very strongly suggests some problems with alcohol and over partying. I am NOT saying he is an alcoholic, I am NOT saying that. What I am saying is that he perhaps has a tendency to drink more than he should and more often than he should. And if this becomes habitual… could be a problem. I’ve gotten this since I’ve started reading on him, and this is the point where I have to mention it.

And top of that…. the 4 of Wands rx also mean he feels himself cast out - or just not belonging- on the home front. Think about it… all of his brothers have their own family. And probably his parents are feeling good themselves too. I mean my parents have been living such a full, exciting life since I grew up and I seriously started my own life separately. It doesn’t mean they don’t love him, but he could feel left out nevertheless.

So what I am getting at is that he is sticking to her, because he is emotionally immature and just doesn't want to change because of fear. He feels he doesn’t have a supporting family background. He cannot go back home emotionally for support, he chose to stay in a false friendship because he feels he is cast out from the warmth of the home and from real friendships. There is no business or project card in this spread… What keeps them together is not really work or business-related.

Where is his career heading?

Fool, The Emperor rx, 5 of Pentacles

( I just want to sob, this whole reading is so depressing…. I cannot….)

He has new options, directions in his life but with the Emperor rx he almost has a tyrannical approach to them, and I think this behaviour will cost him a lot. Cost him roles, investments and money. Those new opportunities will go away, and he won’t change, just continue this behaviour.

The Fool not necessarily mean foolish behaviour but here… I think he believes in himself too much, he thinks the new opportunities gave him a right to be controlling, overly authoritative, bossy, demanding( Emprx). He is also someone who is not taking responsibility for his actions. On the card the Emperor sits on his throne, but because it’s rx he falls off from it ( or he was pushed). He lost his kingdom, the love of his people etc. This is the tyrant who is weak card. Overly judgmental. Probably he will always find something in the new offers, beginnings which are not good enough for him.

And this will lead us to the 5 of Pentacles card. This card is a very negative change mostly financially, but I said before, pentacles are about resources. For now, I will describe the money part of it.

On the card, you see 2 baggers, one of them is hurt, it’s winter, outside of a church. They are poor, have nothing, the walls of the church don’t protect them.

I think his behaviour, how he sees the new offers and his roles and involvement in them, how he wants to control everything will lead here. He won’t be a literal bagger, but he will suffer dearly. Doors will be slammed into his face. Maybe he couldn’t keep his lifestyle at the level he used to. As an investment, it means bad decisions, bankruptcy, etc.

In the spread, the 5ofP is under the 4ofWrx. Both mean that you are cast out, left out, and don't belong.

On a very concrete level 4 of W rx and 5 of P together could mean some serious money loss because of a real estate deal or because of renovation, etc.

I also have to mention that both the Emperor rx both the 5ofP means you are lacking spiritual growth and overly focus on material things.

How does he see his career?

8 of Pentacles, 6 of Swords, Wheel of Fortune rx

Normally 6 of S is leaving behind some troublesome time, situation and seeking a safe harbour somewhere else. When I saw this card in the row I felt this, moving away not his decision, something which is forced on him, but this is just an intuition.

8 of P is the success card and he leaves this behind for some reason, maybe seeking an even bigger success, but he is heading towards the reversed Wheel which is usually the bad turn of events. The bad luck.

8ofP is total focus on your task which needs time to bloom, but this card is very still. And the 6ofSw is a moving card. It could mean he wants something more exciting, to make things move, not just stand or sit still and focus. Maybe he doesn’t realise lack of movements doesn’t mean things are not evolving, and he wants to leave this aspect behind. This seemingly stagnation period. Problem is, it seems, he abandoned success to take a risk. Maybe part of this already happened and he knows now he has to rely on luck now. I think he felt he needs to push himself more and this won’t have the desirable outcome. Good thing is the Wheel is as life itself is in constant motion. Up, down, up again. It’s up to him how to react to this.

Look, I get it, now it seems, he has oh, so many offers, roles, opportunities… his name has been circulating a lot lately. But this reading had a very stable energy. It’s not a what will happen in the next few months reading. I will still check on him and NV, like a monthly spread, but for a while this is my last bigger reading on him. I will do short readings on others and I want to write about tarot in general a little bit, but I am still open to conversations and I won’t close my asks.

#pmitarotreadings #henry cavill #tarot #alleged #opinion #tarotreading

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satohqbanana · 3 years ago

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Some Lambert and Eddel story time

Mother-bereft Lambert was a pathetic, overeager boy who girls and women often took advantage of, while orphan Eddel was a human trafficking victim with burns and scars all over her skin. People made fun of them behind their backs, but people also took care not to say anything to their faces - because of Lambert's father and Eddel's abilities.

The two entered Shadwood simply because of their talents. They often got compared and contrasted. Their professors think they have great potential as a sorcerer and a sword singer respectively, but judging from how they build (or not build) relationships, Lambert and Eddel seemingly don't have bright futures ahead of them.

At first, they didn't care about each other. Lambert wasn't interested in seeking comfort from someone who seemed to carry heavy burdens, while Eddel thought of Lambert as a perverted casanova.

One day, Eddel got into a scuffle against other sword singers, who became envious of her and her potential. She was legitimately thinking of unleashing her full fire power on them, but Lambert stepped in to diffuse the tension. Lambert's actions at first made Eddel suspicious, but when he mentioned that he wasn't romantically interested in her at all, she began to change her mind about him.

"Is it because I'm ugly and scarred all over?"

"What are you talking about? You walk around the school with your eyes on the floor all the time! You got a lot of stuff to take care of, don't you? Why are you worried about how I think of you?"

"...what do you mean?"

"Look, I know how you - how all of you - look at me, okay? If it gives you peace of mind, I'll let you know, right here, right now, that I don't want anything from you. Is that clear?"

Since then, Eddel started hanging out with him. Lambert didn't really mind; he didn't have a real friend, anyway. People either hated him or looked down on him because of his vices.

Having Eddel by his side convinced people that he might have gone crazy and decided to commit. Lambert wasn't too fond of the idea, while Eddel told him not to confront them. Instead, she amused him by helping him imagine and fantasize how they'd take their revenge on those who hurt them. The two indulged in their delusions quite often, and it helped them show growth in their magic.

Over time, Eddel started to accompany Lambert to Villa Tenobor. Lambert's father Ludwig was happy to have Eddel around, because she offered good insight about the world and kept an eye on his son.

Over time, Lambert and Eddel swore to be with each other forever. They learned to love each other, even in a non-romantic way. And it brought them comfort to know that the other person would never be in love with them or see them in a different way. A romance between them would've ruined everything.

However, Lambert still pursued relationships. Eddel did not fill in the hole in his heart after all, because she fulfilled a different role in his life. He still sought the company and love of a feminine figure.

His mistakes would lead him to become a father at age 15. Lambert was, of course, unprepared and scared. When Eddel learned about it, she gave him a lengthy lesson about responsible parenthood. She did not want Luxen to grow up like her - to grow up with uncaring parents, to be uneducated, helpless, and worthless, to have practically nothing but dreams of a peaceful life to hold onto.

"Do you know how dehumanizing it is?! To be stupid, to be pathetic, to be nothing?!"

"Eddel, I…"

"Lambert, this here in your arms is a breathing, living person. So what if you're too young for this? Well, own up to it, you idiot! Get up!"

"I, I don't think I can do this!"

"You're not going to do it alone, you sweet summer child! We'll raise him together with your dad. You won't be alone in this. And neither will this baby be!"

Lambert's father named the baby Luxen, and from there, Eddel and the Tenobors juggled their schedules to take care of the baby. There were times Eddel and Lambert had to bring Baby Luxen to class, which earned them a lot of ogling, raised eyebrows, and meetings with the Headmaster. Eddel didn't care, and Lambert fought his own urge to turn tail.

And then, Grandpa Ludwig discovered Baby Luxen had an enormous amount of innate power. The power was, in one way, rather destructive, and Baby Luxen could unconsciously manipulate time with this power.

Alarmed, the family took a leave of absence from the Academy and the Army to seek help from the Oracle. Eddel disdained the Oracle for giving her such a sucky fate, but she was willing to cooperate to help Baby Luxen. Through the Oracle's guidance, the squad faced different challenges (including Baby Luxen blasting them through time portals...) to find the baby's mother, make her spit out the truth, and do what they could to seal the power.

They found the mother, who was dismayed to find them. Lambert demanded she follow through with the responsibility, but the mother disagreed, as she had an agreement with Grandpa Ludwig. Naturally, Eddel threatened to burn the mother's face off 500 times over, and in fear, she eventually agreed to seal the power into her baby's eyes.

From then on, Lambert swore to himself he'd never date again. (He still did, anyway, but he set more boundaries for himself.)

Lambert and Eddel would proceed to graduate their class with honors and enter military service together. Together with Grandpa Ludwig, they would raise Luxen to be a fine young lad, and stay in the Eastern Empire for the rest of their lives.

And they always, always stayed by each other's side.

#lambert tenobor #annelaurant ocs #eddel blaise

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langernameohnebedeutung · 3 years ago

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ok so i'm mid-episode-7 right now and I'll just try to take a little break and wrap my head around all of this a little and collect my thoughts before I move on (spoilers!)

So far, episode 6 and Amenadiel's storyline is my favourite because it had actual emotional impact for me. I actually wish they had started this plot in the very first episode of the season so that we could spend more time on the problem.

Overall, I feel like the show really lacks the established structure it had since the beginning. Which were the murders and solve them. Most episodes were contained by one case with two sides: The actual police work which is where Chloe had her time to shine and then Lucifer dealing with whatever issues he is tackling in that episode, doing his projecting thing and maybe undergoing some personal growth. So we get a fully story per episode while the stakes of the season arc become higher and higher in the background. With Chloe and Lucifer no longer solving cases, this structure is gone. It feels like we're just spending time with some characters going this way or that at random, moving from plot-point to plot-point with very little pay-off. Everything just...blurs.

The stakes aren't really getting higher at all so far, there is no rising action as far as I can tell?

Like, in season 5 everything hit the fan constantly - Lucifer is actually Michael! Chloe gets abducted! Big battle at the precinct and God is there! Mojo switch! God is retiring! Vulnerability is gone! Lucifer is goign to become God! Dan dies! -- it was actually too much for me, towards the end, to the point where everything felt meaningless because the stakes were high beyond the frame of comprehension the show gives us, but this time...it's just seemingly not moving towards a climax.

In fact, they seem to be going down.

Rory is introduced as this big, bad mysterious figure who really, really wants Lucifer dead - and now it feels like she's just been an emo teen hanging out with him and Chloe for weeks? months? doing random stuff - until she remembers that she's pissed at Lucifer again and stomps off and it kinda f eels like it's been going on for ages. Which is okay, I actually like her but it kind of falls flat from her original introduction.

I could live with that if they gave me something to actually worry about. Show me Rory actually getting used to the world around her, finding out things about the people she thinks she knows - or thinks she knows. Going back in time, that's a gigantic premise! I actually really loved seeing her talk about Trixie and knowing immediately where she would hide her chocolate - I would love more stuff like this. I would love to see more stuff about what it was like for her to grow up knowing her father is/was the devil! About growing up as a half-angel. About Charlie who is also a half-angel but actually has a father. Stuff like that.

Then we have the "becoming God"/"becoming Queen of Hell" thing that the entire last season build up to, the biggest fattest finale they ever had- that was a really huge deal. But now both Maze and Lucifer just kinda decided they'd rather not do that and found reasons to hang around. And when a frog started coming from heaven and Ella says she can't feel god anymore and Lucifer runs to Linda so that she can teach him how to care- I thought things are building up now and we're going to have some WandaVision style reality collapse at our hands, I was hyped for that - buuuut nah, they're just all kind of hanging around.

Actually, pay-off in general seems to be kind of a problem. For example, Rory not calling Maze 'aunt' and not knowing Amenadiel appeare to set off an exciting little mystery - and considering that we're now no longer solving crimes, I would love if they really delved into the celestial side of mysterious. I would have loved to figure out some time-travel sheningans - buuuuut it was a joke.

See, I love Dan but honestly I'm kind of at odds with how to deal with his characterisation rn? Because he's been in hell for a thousand years, hanging out with demons and stuff and it's been a thousand years down there, that is torture even without the torture and I would have expected a bit more anything. The same thing with Chloe and the blade, tbh, I feel like this could have been so much bigger?

Overall, I feel like there are missing so many opportunities that I think the show would not only not have missed in seasons 1 or 2, but would have actively used:

The whole thing was always Lucifer projecting his problems on the cases and (maybe) learning something about himself on a good day. Now, let's take the Jimmy Barnes episode. I loved when Chloe looked at the throne and was like: "It looks so lonely" and Lucifer says "it was" - that was such a great moment. - because so far, Chloe doesn't know hell. She doesn't know the reality of hell or what it meant for Lucifer to rule over this place and it seemed like a great set-up for her to finally see his world and to understand what it meant for him to leave this place - but also to be sent back down there again and again. And also for Lucifer to actually see one of his most painful experiences acknowledged by the woman he loves and to actually...talk to her about that. After all, this is the big reversal: So far, Lucifer was the consultant on Chloe's cases, and now Chloe became the consultant and helping Lucifer tackle his celestial issues. So to see her go to hell and actually learn about the place seemed like a really cool start - and then we learn that Jimmy Barnes' backstory is about a son left behind by a parent! And Chloe even talks about how horrible and alone he must have felt! And let's not forget Chloe's own backstory - her father didn't leave, she lost him because he was killed, but she also once sat at home and realised her Dad wouldn't come home and then she got a phone call and realised he would never come home - but for entirely different reasons than Lucifer who was cast out or Jimmy Barnes who got left behind. It seemed like exactly the kind of threads that this show would bring together and have the character discuss and reflect on at the end of the episode. But they didn't. They...rarely do that, this season and it just feels like something is missing from the format - and its emotional impact.

Sometimes I actually used to feel like the show had a tendency of spelling out too much, being too direct - but this season around it's not like they're less subtle. It's just not really acknowledged and it doesn't feel organic.

Another example is in the episode where Lucifer seeks out his old lovers to find out whether they're Rory's mothers.

This obviously gave me vibes right from Stewardess Interruptus which is one of my all-time favourite episodes.

Stewardess Interruptus is one of my favourite episodes because it told us so much about our characters. Also, our characters learn about each other and themselves here: Along with Chloe, we learn Lucifer isn't just a person who really likes having a lot of sex, but that he actually has a pretty dysfunctional relationship with sexuality. We also learn how much Chloe, while actually trying to date Lucifer, struggles with the sex-life he has because for her its symptomatic of their very different lifestyles and it makes her wonder how compatible they are. We go from Chloe asking Lucifer's ex-partners whether he "basically used you for sex and then moved on" to realising that actually...it's kinda the other way around. Lucifer is the one who's letting himself be used because he doesn't know how else to connect with people. That was a good episode - - - now that we went on a similar journey in the season 6 episode, I was actually very interested! Especially now that Lucifer is in a proper relationship and I would have loved to see that brought up - for example if Chloe had been presented with the "meaningless"-thing again and we actually had a moment where Lucifer and her talk about what it means to have a "meaningful" relationship. Like, Chloe tells him that it's okay if he had a relationship before her or loved one of these women - which yes! of course it is! - actually, it would have been interesting to see them discuss what it means that he didn't have that kind of connection before despite being almost old as time.

I was especially interested in Esther as a character - who says she became a Rabbi because of Lucifer which is...something really, really interesting. For one, because this show has such a long history of acting like Christianity is the only religion in the world or at least as if the Christian take on the devil is universal (Amenadiel even says in the first season that "every religion has its version of the devil" and that he's always a "rebellious son" which...no. That's not true. At all.) when really, it's not. (I actually remember reading a really good fic once about Lucifer meeting a Rabbi and discussing the different ideas of evil but that's a whole different matter.)

In this episode, Lucifer is now confronted with someone who didn't find the encounter she had with him meaningless at all - she literally changed her life because of it. Also, when she says she became a Rabbi because of him and he's like "oh yeah guess I got that from your desires..." - much like in the Jimmy Barnes episode, I prepared myself for the classic twist at the end of the episode that the show would usually have had. The moment where Lucifer's immediate assumptions would be challenged. I was expecting that by the end of the episode, she would say something: "Hey, it was not actually your mojo, but ---" and we would learn something about her and have Lucifer reconsider his assumptions - For example her saying he seemed lost and that it inspired her to take on a role where she could offer people guidance. Or it would have been interesting if, like Father Frank, she actually realised at some point that he's really the devil and that made her think more deeply about her faith. That could have been really interesting. Like...I feel like in the first seasons of the show, this would definitely have lead to some emotional twist and impact, even in one of the weaker episodes. Some revelation or insight. Something memorable. But here...it's not.

In a similar vein, that kind of emotional twist is something I would have loved to see in Lucifer's interactions with Rory.

One of my favourite moments in the show was when Maze gave Linda that blanket for Charlie - and says that she got him something that she wished she had as a child.

That was so simple! So effective! Strong story-telling! We understood and learnt so much about what made Maze into Maze in just a few lines of dialogue! It's heart-wrenching! It was amazing. - and honestly, it would be so simple to give Lucifer and Rory a similar moment. Again and again we hear Lucifer insist that it cannot be true, he would never abandon his child but it's very "tell" and not much "show" - when Lucifer tries so desperately to find something that he can give Rory it would have been a really strong moment between Christmas-es and driving lessons and parties, if we had a scene where Lucifer tries to do something similar to what Maze did for Charlie:

Have him actually talk to Rory about what he felt like being abandoned by his father and try to give her something that he would have wanted or say something the would have wanted to hear. We would have learnt more about Lucifer, we would have more of an emotional impact beyond him just saying over and over again that he wouldn't abandon his child, we would actually see some development in the relationship between Lucifer and Rory, Rory might actually get a similar opportunity to shine when she reacts to that - giving her more depth and illustrating her pain in a new way rather than just the same thing over and over again. Their relationship has been seemingly stagnant for ages now. It would have been good.

Another example: Adam kidnaps Linda, Maze and Eve work together to get their hands on Adam because they have no idea what he did to her - and then get a really, really long scene discussion their wedding and relationship and stuff. And then, right at the end of the scene they're like: "oh uh btw we have to find Linda"- that one was...almost funny, because it was so bad and weirdly paced. This is Maze we're talking about! Maze who throws hands with everyone who even looks at her friends funny! And who just recently learnt what it felt like to lose a friend!

I feel like there is a similar tell vs. show problem with Eve and Maze and her family. I really, really liked the dinner-scene in the first episode of the season where Linda keeps asking Eve about what she was going to do in hell, about what her role would be, how she sees hell - and Eve keeps being really light-hearted and seemingly naive about it.

Because Eve's entire character flaw (by which I don't mean that it's "bad" or "evil" - but that it's actually something that causes Eve a lot of pain and holds her back) is that she always 100% adjusts herself to her current partner. That she wants to back them completely and be perfect for them. That is what made her so great in season 4: She was neither "the mean new woman ruining things between Chloe and Lucifer >:( " nor was she someone dangled over Chloe as "here is how you are a really good girlfriend to Lucifer" - no, the reason why she was seemingly perfect for Lucifer was was because she was making herself be perfect for him - to the point of self-negation where he cannot get her to break up with him, because she keeps and keeps and keeps adjusting to him. That is why their relationship was dysfunctional and eventually toxic. When she says in season 4 that Lucifer and her will simply go to hell and keep the party going there - that was the pinnacle of her self-deceit, that was the shining moment where we could tell just how desperate she is for love and acknowledgement and companionship that she's literally willing to go to HELL if that's what it takes.

When the dinner scene in 6.1 started, I was very excited to see this issue build up and then be resolved between Maze and her. I was looking forward to see Maze realise what Eve's actual issue is and to come to some clever solution over the course of the season, but so far...that's not really happening.

And yes, Eve wants to get to know Maze's siblings while Maze keeps saying that no, demons are evil - which would also be a super interesting conflict but it's again lacking the emotional impact because we know so little about the demons on the show and what the world-building is. It's much like with God and the fam in the last season: Up to that point, they were really, really wrapped in huge mystery but that's really why it falls kind of flat. But whereas God and especially the angels fell flat for me because I had them build up in this big, uncanny celestial mystery and they couldn't live up to that once they appeared in the flesh, here it's the opposite. I know so little about the actual horrors of hell that I struggle to sympathise with Maze's fears. If I knew literally any demons' thoughts on Maze being the new queen or having a human royal consort or anything, there would be real stakes. But this way, they can just shake anything out of their sleeves and that's it.

#lucifer season 6 #lucifer season 6 spoilers #fandom #lucifer #this is just stuff that I noticed and I didn't really like #this is not to say these are all my thoughts on it or that I completely hate it #it's just me trying to point out the things that don't work for me

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danzinora-switch · 4 years ago

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Typing the Turtles (ROTTMNT) Part 2 - Donatello

This started out as an investigation into the turtles’ insecurities, because one thing the show does so well is demonstrate that they are still teenagers. And being a teenager is a confusing experience - there’s angst, drama, exploring one’s identity, a lot of growth, and overall figuring out who you are. That’s a messy process, too! And we see this mess in our turtles: they mess up, they’re learning, they self-doubt, they have fears and insecurities, but they’re also discovering their strengths and how to overcome their inner obstacles.

So after thinking about all this way too long, here’s my psychological breakdown of each turtle (I’ll be referencing MBTI and the Enneagram, but will include links for more general information on those if you don’t know what I’m talking about).

Donnie: INTJ, 5w6

The Architect, the Investigator, the Problem-Solver, the Observer

Firstly, getting into this analysis means that we have to step away from the stereotype that all INTJs are cold, aloof, and unemotional. INTJs, especially Turbulent ones, do express emotion, and we’ve all seen Donnie’s dramatic ‘theatre kid’ side. I’m not going to ignore that. He manages to be both thanks to the INTJ’s tertiary function Introverted Feeling (Fi). Extroverted Feeling (Fe) really allows one to connect and empathize with others’ emotions. Fi, however, is a more internal experience of feelings, and has trouble connecting with others without having been in their shoes. I happen to think Donnie is in a strong Ni-Fi loop, as well, which would make sense because fighting bad guys every day while trying to save the world after discovering a Mystic City which upbends everything you ever knew is pretty stressful. https://www.psychologyjunkie.com/2017/06/21/intjs-loop-understanding-ni-fi-loop/

And it’s super interesting that he often expresses his emotions by literally saying them. “Evil laugh! Relishing chuckle! Gasp!” (Mind Meld) and, one of my favorites, he literally says “Sad face emoji” in Many Unhappy Returns.

So while we DO see Donnie experience and display his own emotions, we also DON’T see him all that affected by other people’s emotions. He’s still pretty stoic in Mystic Mayhem after the delivery guy gets mutated, cracking a joke about imitation crab. He’s unaffected by Todd’s puppies in Repo Mantis, and the only one immune to Warren Stone’s sob story in Warren & Hypno Sitting in a Tree. Pizza Pit shows it best when he’s unaffected when Mikey’s favorite pizza place collapses until the same thing happens to him. Fi at work vs Fe.

As for Donnie being a 5w6, keep this core motivation in mind: “[Fives] Want to possess knowledge, to understand the environment, to have everything figured out as a way of defending the self from threats from the environment.” https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-5

Donnie at his Worst: Donnie vs. Witch Town gave us this gem of a line: “Because I’m the science guy! If mystic powers can do everything I can do, but better, then why would you guys even need me?” And while people have pointed out his need to be needed, I argue it’s a little more accurate to say he has a need to belong. His role in the group is the Brainiac, the Science Guy, the Smart One, and so his very identity is tied into fulfilling that role. A 5’s core fear is of being useless, helpless, or incapable. Mystic powers rendering his tech redundant, and thereby him useless, would be a pretty big threat to the security of his role in the group (that 6 wing kicking in). And remember a 5’s core motivation: to understand the environment as a defense. And he still doesn’t understand mystic energy. It’s pretty infuriating, so he’s pretty insufferable about it.

[Note: seeing mystic power as a threat probably didn’t kick in until their fight with Shredder in Many Unhappy Returns. Prior to that, his brothers were still learning how to use their magic weapons, but Donnie already understood his tech well enough to use it effectively (see their first fight against Baron Draxum in the pilot). But against the Shredder… all his tech was useless. Only the hanky, the hanky, was even marginally effective. His brothers’ weapons were now way more capable than anything he had to offer… core 5 fear. And to cope? Learn all you can about your fear/threat. Except he still hasn’t figured it out; we see even in Air Turtle that he calls Draxum for the mystic expertise instead of formulating his own hypothesis].

We’ve seen this insecurity about his place in the group before. In Mind Meld, as his brothers become more like him, his role is challenged. “Hey, you’re trying to get rid of me, that’s what I do to you!” “But, I thought purple was my... my thing.” When he first meets the Purple Dragon he immediately wants to join them because he sees them as tech peers. In Man vs Sewer even though he professes that it’s his day off, he doesn’t react well whenever Leo does ‘his thing’: analyzing the situation and drawing a conclusion. His self-worth seems to be tied to what he has to offer the group, and we hear that even in his song in The Mystic Library about proving himself.

Besides his insecurity, Donnie is practically allergic to blame. (Interestingly enough, he’s more okay with being wrong and others being right sometimes… sure he’ll deflect, but it doesn’t seem to get under his skin the way being at fault does). He will repeatedly deny fault and shift the blame to someone else when something goes wrong. He denies creating AlBearto in Al Be Back, says the incident with the Purple Dragons in The Purple Jacket is entirely April’s fault (she is not amused) and puts the blame for ditching Todd off on his brothers in Todd Scouts. The one time we see him own up his mistakes is in Mind Meld when no one (except Shelldon) is around to see it. “Yup. I beefed up.” This is definitely an area he needs to work on.

Average Donnie: Donnie cares for his brothers, but that doesn’t always get across in the best of ways. Take the episode Donnie’s Gifts, for example. Donnie never actually got a chance to explain how the gifts work, but we can see protective elements in each of them. Raph: please use your head and don’t just blindly rush in! Mikey: ohmygosh that is so dangerous, please be careful and don’t get hurt! Leo: stop poking the bear, Leo, it only makes him angrier! It makes sense that a 5 who has external fears of the world and has their own protective equipment (the Battle Shells) would extend that to his brothers. And Donnie was able to recognize that even though his brothers got the wrong message, he could move past that and call for a group hug. In the Purple Game he is super anxious to make sure his brothers are okay and not mostly hurt. Insane in the Mama Train also reveals the invention of the Panic Button… and who designed that?

Donnie also seeks a lot of validation. He takes pride in his work, and when his work is appreciated he gives that appreciation back tenfold [such as when he shows off the Turtle Tank to his brothers (Fast and Furriest), or when Splinter says he’s proud of him (Turtle-dega Nights: the Ballad of Rat Man)]. The flip side is that when he’s not getting the validation he needs from others he’ll create it himself, which comes off as arrogant and egocentric. See Smart Lair, when Sheldon 1.0 plays messages of Donnie’s self-worth all night, and is programmed to favor him. Or when he takes full credit for defeating a bad guy: the silverfish in Donnie’s Gifts, and scaring Draxum away with his disco ball in Shadow of Evil. When he gets the recognition for all his hard work from the right people, though, it inspires him to do great things. There is danger in getting validation from the wrong people, however, as we saw in Big Mama’s case in Bug Busters.

Donnie at his Best: Donnie’s at his best (and most relaxed) whenever he’s learning or building something. He gets super excited and happy attending April’s school (The Purple Jacket) or going to the library (The Mystic Library) and wants to attend college someday (The Mutant Menace). The INTJ/5 seeks to absorb information and he’s constantly energized by it.

He’s also energized when he can put that information to use, such as when building something. Did Albearto need a total tear-down in War and Pizza? No. But Donnie had fun making him ‘dazzle!’ How did Donnie cope being in the woods in Todd Scouts? By building an impressive tree fort. Donnie’s projects actually relax him, because he’s exercising his strength and capabilities.

This also works for his method of attacks and plans: Know Thine Enemy. He studies Warren Stone in Newsworthy when they meet him and is the only one who remembers he regenerates by Warren & Hypno Sitting in a Tree. Donnie and Mikey are able to successfully scam Repo Mantis in One Man’s Junk because they know how he thinks. Donnie thwarts everything the Purple Dragons do and can bring Shelldon home because he knows how they operate (The Purple Game, Breaking Purple). He can restore his brothers to their rightful minds in Mind Meld because he knows himself.

Also: music. The fact that one of his Battle Shells has a music mode (Mascot Melee), that he remembers things in song form (The Mystic Library, Donnie vs Witch Town), and that he likes to dance (Stuck on You) is so pure and adorable.

Donnie Relationships:

(while Donnie does see his brothers as dum-dums at times, he admits they’re fun and pretty great to have in Mind Meld)

Raph: We really need a Donnie and Raph episode, but even without one there’s some moments we can look at. I already discussed in Raph’s analysis their general similarities. Donnie doesn’t think Raph always has the brightest ideas, but still has soft moments with him such as giving him $20 at the end of Mind Meld, designing the ‘captain’s chair’ of the Turtle Tank to Raph’s lumbar settings, and appreciating Raph’s pirate accent in Snow Day. They are both protective of their brothers, Raph with his fists and Donnie with his tech. It’s interesting that (I believe) they’re the reverse of each other on the Enneagram: Raph is a 6w5, and Donnie a 5w6. So they both understand the risks involved in what they do (mostly: Donnie still ate poison and Raph still goes on ‘smashcapades’). I really want to see a team-up between them.

Leo: I’m all for the Disaster Twins trope, but to me an episode that epitomizes that isn’t one like Lair Games, where they’re at each other’s throats, but Operation Normal. They’ve apparently done the grandma-getup before. They wind up playing as good cop, bad cop in Fast and Furriest. Sure, one’s high-strung, and one’s laid-back, which can get on each others’ nerves, but there’s also a lot of making up. Brotherly betrayal passes back and forth between them, but never crosses a line. And the numerous times they unconsciously mirror each other can be found with a simple search of the Disaster Twins tag. I’m interested to see more episodes where they work together, even in the background, just because they can get up to wild shenanigans.

Mikey: Mikey’s probably the turtle Donnie most gets along with. They’ve had several episode team-ups: Repo Mantis, One Man’s Junk, Turtle-dega Nights: the Ballad of Rat Man, Breaking Purple, etc. Donnie may be the team academic, but Mikey has strong emotional intelligence. They get along pretty easily, making plans together (One Man’s Junk) and protecting each other (we see Donnie protect Mikey in Repo Mantis and Bug Busters, but we see Mikey protect Donnie by pulling him out of the way in Smart Lair). Donnie helps Mikey focus on the goal at hand, and Mikey helps Donnie communicate better with others. They’re a good team with a pretty solid foundation.

Ultimately, Donnie’s an inventive turtle who wants his brothers to be safe but is still wrestling with a lot of insecurities and unhealthy stress levels. I’m excited to see how he grows into real confidence and utilizes his strengths as an integral member of the team.

For more information on the INTJ and Enneagram 5 personality types, click here:

https://www.16personalities.com/intj-personality

https://www.crystalknows.com/enneagram/type-5-wing-6

https://thoughtcatalog.com/heidi-priebe/2016/01/mbti-and-the-enneagram-2/6/

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #donatello #tmnt donatello #tmnt donnie #tmnt 2k18 #essay #personality #mbti #myers briggs #enneagram #teenage mutant ninja turtles #INTJ #enneagram 5 #5w6 #i spent way too much time on this #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt donnie

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lavendermilkandhoney · 4 years ago

Text

2/22 The Chariot – V’s Journey ?

In Game

The Chariot is always charging ahead despite being pulled by its steeds in opposite directions. The rider who steers it constantly reins in the light and dark sides of the soul with the help of Reason. To ride in The Chariot is to experience highs and lows – ups and downs.

Location

The Chariot is found on the wall next to Tom's Diner in Little China.

Misty’s Reading (After the Heist 1/2) - Upright

“You’re ready for change, ready to seek the truth about yourself. And to help, you’ll have… Someone from your family?”

Zodiac Sign : Cancer

The zodiac sign Cancer is matched to The Chariot tarot card indicating movement in the form of growth, change is indicated by this card and for the sign of Cancer, the Chariot reflects the signs ability to use intuition to move to a higher emotional perspective.

In Tarot

UPRIGHT: Control, willpower, success, action, determination

REVERSED: Self-discipline, opposition, lack of direction

The Chariot Tarot card shows a brave warrior standing inside a chariot. He wears armour decorated with crescent moons (representing what is coming into being), a tunic with a square (the strength of will) and other alchemical symbols (spiritual transformation). The laurel and star crown signals victory, success and spiritual evolution. Although he appears to be driving the chariot, the charioteer holds no reins – just a wand like the Magician’s – symbolising that he controls through the strength of his will and mind.

The charioteer stands tall – there’s no sitting down for this guy, as he’s all about taking action and moving forward. Above his head is a canopy of six-pointed stars, suggesting his connection to the celestial world and the Divine will. In front of the vehicle sit a black and a white sphinx, representing duality, positive and negative and, at times, opposing forces. Note how the sphinxes are pulling in opposite directions, but the charioteer uses his willpower and sheer resolve to steer the chariot forward in the direction he wants.

Behind the chariot flows a wide river, symbolic of the need to be ‘in flow’ with the rhythm of life while also charging ahead toward your goals and intentions.

UPRIGHT

The Chariot is a card of willpower, determination and strength. You have discovered how to make decisions in alignment with your values with the Lovers card, and now you are taking action on those decisions. When the Chariot appears in a Tarot reading, take it as a sign of encouragement. You have set your objectives and are now channelling your inner power with a fierce dedication to bring them to fruition. When you apply discipline, commitment and willpower to achieve your goals, you will succeed.

Now isn’t the time to be passive in the hope that things will work out in your favour. Take focused action and stick to the course, no matter what challenges may come your way – because, believe me, there will be challenges. You may be pulled in opposite directions and find your strength and conviction tested. Others may try to block you, distract you, or drag down the pursuit of your goal. But the Chariot is an invitation to draw upon your willpower and home in on what’s essential to you, so you can push past the obstacles in your way.

If you are curious about whether you have what it takes to achieve your aim or complete an important project, the Chariot is a sign you will be successful so long as you keep your focus and remain confident in your abilities. You need to use your willpower and self-discipline to concentrate on the task at hand. You can’t cut corners or take the easy route, or you will fail. Instead, see this endeavour as a test of your strength and conviction, and recognise that victory is within reach, but it’s up to you to follow through.

The Chariot calls you to assert yourself and be courageous. Be bold in expressing your desires and laying down your boundaries; otherwise, you will not get your way. You need to have faith in yourself and know fundamentally who you are and what you stand for (thus building off the personal belief systems and values established through the Lovers card).

In a very literal sense, the Chariot can represent travel, especially driving or taking a road trip. You may even be considering selling your home and buying an RV so you can head off and roam the country!

REVERSED

Upright, the Chariot is a green light to move ahead with a key project and push past any obstacles that might impede your desired outcome. Reversed, however, the Chariot tells you to ‘back up the truck’ or, as we Aussies say, “Chuck a U-y” (AKA “do a U-turn”). You might bang your head against a brick wall, trying to push a project forward when really, you ought to back off or change direction. Or you might have lost your motivation and no longer feel as committed to the outcome as you did when you started. So, if something is not moving forward as you planned, re-evaluate the situation and check in to see if it’s a sign that you need to change course. Then ask yourself: Is there a deeper reason things have become more challenging? What lesson can I learn here?

At times, the reversed Chariot is a warning that you are letting obstacles and challenges get in the way, preventing you from achieving what you set out to do. It’s all getting too hard, and you don’t have the will to go on. If that resonates, stop for a moment and think about the things that matter most to you and why you want to achieve this goal. Will you allow other people’s opinions to sway you or give up as soon as the going gets tough? Or will you follow through on your commitment?

Before taking action, the reversed Chariot may be a hint that you are focusing your energy and attention on your internal processes, such as self-discipline, inner determination and personal commitment. You may home in on the intentions that align with your Higher Self. Or, you can use visualisation and meditation to make sure your energy aligns with your goals. These internally focused actions are essential so that when the time comes to act, you will be ready.

If you are someone who likes to have command over your destiny and know where you are heading, take this opportunity to tighten the reins and become more disciplined in what you are doing. While feeling a loss of power can be quite demoralising, the key is to look at what you can control and what you cannot. Do not allow yourself to worry about what is out of your grasp as you cannot change it now. Instead, focus your energies on what IS in your control. Examine what you can do to improve the situation.

Similarly, the Chariot reversed suggests that you may be trying to manage every minute detail in your life – but in doing so, you feel even more out of control. Loosen your grip and let things run their course. Be open to offers of help and then be grateful for what you receive, even if it’s not perfectly aligned with your expectations. You do not always have to be in the driver’s seat!

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Thank you so much @cybervesna for the polish traduction from the official guide book and its associations with the characters!

#cyberpunk2077 #v #journey #tarot #the chariot #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 tarot

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imthepunchlord · 4 years ago

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Do you think because Adrien and Marinette’s designs are meant to evoke yin and yang respectively that they exemplify the traits of them? Like does Marinette have traits of yang and Adrien yin?

With their designs, yes.

Adrien, as a civilian, is meant to represent yang with mostly white in his design and the black shirt underneath, for yang is white with a black dot, representing a little bit of yin within it. Marinette is the opposite with her black blazer and white shirt, representing yin with a little bit of yang within. And their hair color can be a nod to day and night.

So in design, they mirror that aspect, but in personality and dynamic... not so much.

Like, technically, they do, but at the same time don’t.

The biggest thing with yin-yang is balance, and its a cycle that is always going. Yang becomes yin, and yin will become yang. Its like, day and night, its always going, circling each other. And to properly represent yin and yang, and to be personified versions of it, they should represent both, having aspects of both to be balanced. And that goes with consistency, being truly who you are for no person is just one thing. A fully developed and well fleshed out character has many aspects to them.

Marinette, between the two, is the most balanced, she has the least amount of differences between how she behaves as a civilian and how she behaves as a hero. The biggest difference in her behavior is being more focused and assertive as LB (being in a situation that calls for it), but ultimately, she is who she is. She wins with her mind, but is capable of being aggressive when required. She’s capable of being assertive and a defining leader, but can also go with the flow and let others take charge and follow them. The only thing that keeps her from being balanced is that she loves and cares more for others than she cares for herself. But between the two, Marinette has a dual existence. She has highs and lows, she’s not always going to win with just her mind alone, she’s not always going to want to be the leader that everyone has to answer to, she can get physical and aggressive when required and is able to follow someone else.

Adrien is less balanced in comparison, and that’s more of a lack of consistency in his character. Not to say there aren’t similarities in how he behaves as a civilian and hero, but they aren’t as... persistent. While he technically matches in the dual set up, but its more of... jarring opposites.

Take a set up that the show didn’t reveal that Adrien is Chat, with how differently the two behave, it could’ve been easily believed that there was a possibility that they were two different characters. Adrien could’ve been a popular theory, but say we also had Felix present before the reveal that Adrien was Chat and then that’s up in the air on who Chat could be. In that set up, based on what you see with Adrien as a civilian, can you believe that he’s Chat?

Chat likes to goof off and crack jokes and create levity for the more critical situations. We don’t see Adrien trying to make things fun for others, no cracking jokes around civilian friends or goofing around. When interacting with Ladybug, Chat is very forward, flirty, and at times outright pushy and invasive. As Adrien, he’s a lot more control, gentle, and soft in his approach, and allows there to be actual distance between them. The most we get is soft looks and slight flusteredness around LB.

Taking these two examples and looking at them without watching the show, can you believe their the same? How can we when we don’t see Adrien openly being a goof around others or if we don’t see Chat just staying soft with LB and not flirting and being direct? Or Adrien being flirty and direct?

I know why its set up this way because Marinette pays attention to Adrien and his he acted like Chat more often, that gives her the implications that Adrien could be Chat. Adrien though doesn’t pay attention to Marinette, can we even say in confidence that they are even friends? Because of this lack of attention on her, she can largely be herself and Adrien won’t realize that she is LB.

Its also set up to work with his character. Adrien as a civilian is the “controlled self”, behaving how he’s expected to, and Chat isn’t so much as his “true self” but just more of an outlet for all the energy he contains, allowing him to go hog wild and not care about the consequences of his actions. Which is fine for his set up, the issue is that he should be growing to become who he truly is, and that line between Adrien and Chat should truly blur, but its not because the creators don’t think he needs that development and growth.

Then there’s factoring in how these two work off other, for to be a good nod in symbolizing yin and yang, you need a balance in the partnership, you need similarities but differences. One of the best symbols for yin-yang is the tiger and the dragon. Both are fearsome beings with a lot of power and capability to them, both are regarded as symbols of royalty, and are truly equal in battle, neither the dragon or tiger can overpower the other. Along with these similarities, there’s differences to an extreme. The dragon represents the spirit and the heavens while the tiger represents matter (the earth, the body). The tiger seeks to bring change and challenge how things are, while the dragon seeks to keep order and keeps things as they are. The two can never overpower the other, and while they sometimes may not think it, they can’t exist without the other. Order is needed for stability, but change is also needed to move things forward and for growth, which creates a new order and will create a new change and a new order and its a never ending cycle of balance.

To have a pair that represent yin and yang, themes like this should be kept in mind. They are to be equals that balance each other out, similar, but different to an extreme. Able to make up for what the other lacks.

Now to be a true yin-yang pair, in my opinion and view, the biggest thing needed is: both need to be able to step up as a leader. They need to be true partners and equals, Chat needs to weigh in on the plans and offer his own input and ideas and not have it all just come from LB to plan, and he needs to step up and lead more often. Not to say he needs to be the leader half the time, but he can step up far more than he does, and help relieve some of the pressure on her.

But he doesn’t. Sometimes he even puts more weight on her, like when he makes (largely pointless) sacrifices, leaving her alone to deal with being partnerless and needing to plan for herself when she doesn’t have anyone else to rely on.

Its to a point that, by the s3 finale, where are Marinette and Adrien, emotionally?

Adrien is over all happy, and probably going to be dating Kagami and having a girlfriend and just able to roll with life. He has nothing to worry about, outside being uncertain of who he wants to be with but it looks like he’s leaning for Kagami.

Marinette is mentally and emotionally exhausted, feels alone and tired, and is going to do her best to prepare for what comes, feeling like she’ll largely be in this fight alone (which she essentially is going to be).

For a duo that’s supposed to represent yin and yang, this isn’t it. The weight of responsibility is far too divided, nor is there a true equality between, not just in the leadership role, but with what they deal with. Now if this was a story building up to becoming a balanced duo, that would be fine, but that would involve calling out Adrien and giving Marinette a break. That is extremely unlikely to happen in this show.

For them, the creators seem to strictly go off the idea of opposites: leader and follower, serious/focused and goofball, prioritizing others and prioritizing yourself, acting with a plan in mind and acting through pure reaction. But yin and yang aren’t simple opposites, there are similarities too. And its about circling and mirroring each other, making up for what the other lacks, being equals and balancing the other out.

Marinette and Adrien aren’t equals. Not with their role as heroes, not with how they are treated or handled. Not with how things are now.

Honestly, back when Felix was Chat, things were a lot more balanced. He may not have reflected the yin-yang theme in design, but in who he is, he matched it better in personality and could be a better counterpart to Marinette. Like her, he is a planner, but can be direct and aggressive when required. Unlike Adrien, he initiates and involves himself, he’d plan with her and take charge when required, and follow her when required. He’s also far more ready to work solo if it ends up in that, if LB got taken out, how likely is it for Adrien to even succeed? Chances are extremely thin for him, even the incompetent HM knows this, which is why he doesn’t prioritize Chat between them. He takes care of LB first, Chat will fall not long after for he lacks the same capability as her. And that is a big issue for this partnership. It all strictly comes down to her to make sure they succeed, and Adrien can’t be relied on to secure success by himself if it comes to it, for he’s always the follower, never the leader.

So, for Marinette and Adrien, the most they have as a pair representing yin-yang is their design. Nothing else to them works as a duo representing yin-yang.

#ask Punchie #miraculous ladybug #slight Adrien salt

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yossariandawn · 4 years ago

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Send a character: Scott Fuller! Abed Nadir and Britta Perry

Thanks so much for the asks @sandalaris, for giving me another opportunity to go on about some of my very favorite characters! 💖💖💖

Scott Fuller:

First impression: He didn’t really leave much of an impression on me right off the bat, to be honest. He was so quiet, and seemed very much not invested in what was happening. He was cute and a bit obnoxious the way brothers and boys that age can be, but if a character doesn’t seem to care about what’s happening, it’s hard for me to be all that interested in them. The first moment he really jumped out at me was probably in Let’s Get Ramblin’ (S1E4) when Richie stuck the gun in his face for the “f you look” speech. Watching him simmer with rage, seeing just how close it came to overpowering his fear and how badly he wanted to act in that moment really caught my eye, and made me look at him in a new light. His “power shifts” speech in the RV was the moment that really cemented him as fascinating to me.

Impression now: Scott is, without a doubt, one of my favorite characters in the show. He may not have had as many strongly centered POV storylines as Seth, Richie and Kate did, but following both his on and offscreen journey is so interesting. Recently I've been thinking a lot how very black and white his world view is, and how much that leads him further and further down a path that in the end, he didn’t want to be on. It’s a complicated and grey world out there, and Scott had to learn that firsthand, and even then, he still struggles with knowing it. Scott is extremely observant, but his focus often stays on threat assessment, not motivations, and the fact that he struggles to see nuance, to grant people the complexity of emotion he himself feels so strongly, impacts so much of how he moves through the world, how he views both himself or other people, and why he makes so many of the choices he does. It’s so telling that his fears of being unaccepted by his family always come out right after he himself tries to use force to change them, and if they don’t want to be changed the same way he has? Then in his eyes, he never was a part of the family! Oh Scott. It’s all or nothing, love and acceptance OR hate and rejection, saved or damned, or saints or sinners, as his song goes. Seth’s line about him wearing a black hat resonates with him, I think. Not that he is evil by any means, but in his mind people do wear black or white hats. It’s bullies or victims, innocent or damned. And once he decides to see himself as someone who eats people, someone who can’t be saved, he decided to GO ALL IN on the black hat thing. He doesn’t just stop feeding off cats, he crucified his classmates! He doesn’t believe he can have both the swords and the music, so leaving the band means destroying it too. The lack of middle ground is a real problem for him, and it has extremely high stakes for everyone, which is just neat, ok? How many teenage rebels end up joining a bloody revolution to deal with their angst on belonging and identity?! Not enough, I say.

Favorite moment: Right now, it’s Scott returning to Carlos in Bizarre Tales (S2E06) in that above gif. The callback to Carlos sending him to find out who he is using the symbolism of the crossing an ocean as a journey towards self discovery, his almost flippant rejection of that, and all that symbolizes on it’s own, even fact that even his defacto pledge of allegiance to Carlos comes with so much insolent attitude. PERFECT.

Idea for a story: I very much want to read or see Scott after season 3, forging ahead on his path. I would love to see him sometimes teamed up with Freddie! I think there is a ton of unexplored stuff there that would be just neat to see play out. They have so much in common, They're both adopted loners with complicated relationships to their past and what it means for their future, they both have to live with one foot in two worlds, and they both struggle to find balance while doing so. They are both prone to righteous anger, and have a certain restlessness to them that gets them caught up in the broader machinations of destiny more often than they like. They also have really interesting relationships to rule following and rulebreaking. I think they could learn a lot about themselves while learning more about each other. Plus, Freddie could use a mentee, and Scott is always looking for a mentor. So win win!

Unpopular opinion: That’s not a ton of Scott stuff out there, which is a shame! I’m sure that’s partially due to the fact he doesn’t really get a ship, and we know how fandoms gravitates towards the most shippable. The Scott tag is thankfully pretty Pro!Scott., but I have seen some downplaying of his choice to rejoin Carlos after 205 that I think inadvertently robs him of his agency in an attempt to defend him. And I get that desire to defend him, trust me. He both is and feels so very young and vulnerable, a lot more than Kate does, though they are roughly the same age. But the show is all about people being messy, it has victim and victimizer often coexisting in the same person in interesting ways, and Scott is no means immune to that. Scott is still very emotionally immature, he’s strongly influenced by his emotions in the moment and struggles to see beyond that, and that makes him so vulnerable to outside forces, but the things he does and the choices he makes aren’t happening in a vacuum, they very much effect other people and the larger world, and they matter! It’s trite to say, but it’s also true: Power comes with responsibility, and Scott, whether he is prepared to handle it, does wield a greater power now than he did before, and is also seeking more power to boot. His culebra status is an excellent metaphor for the transformation into an adult, because it gives him the power of life and death (or change) over others. And his choice to go back and get involved in culebra politics means that what side he picks matters beyond his own personal choice. Carlos may represent himself as the underdog fighting for his people, and he may even believe that himself, but everything he wants and is working for will sow so much more misery and destruction and death, not just for humans, but for culebras too. And joining up with a megalomaniac who is building his new empire on even more blood, rape, violence, and subjugation is not something that can be brushed off as only a teenage act of rebellion, or as someone just trying to find himself. Do I think Scott understands the full scope of what he’s mixed up in? No, and that’s one of the reasons Kate’s death is such an effective wake up call for him, to see and experience firsthand the price that not only he, but also others caught in the crossfire will also have to pay.

Favorite relationship: Kate! Look, I love the Gecko Brothers and their codependency, it’s interesting and heartbreaking and also very much NOT the norm for most people, ok? So I really love that this show also gives us something much closer to what siblings look like for a lot of people, while keeping the stakes just as high and the love just as powerful. The messiness of adoption stuff isn’t brushed aside, but it’s also never treated as if they aren’t a real family either, even if they don’t share blood (or fangs, for that matter). It’s just so damn important to see siblings who love each other, who would follow each other to the literal Gates of Hell (or a Bloodwell, or into the deeper into the depths of a Labyrinth, depending on the season) who then learn they can still walk their own paths afterward. Sometimes love is also about letting go, and their journey is about being able to do that without fear or anger, to let each other find their own way, to not have it mean rejection, but acceptance and love and understanding instead. Scott’s offer to let Kate come with him is very sweet, and a big sign of his own growth, made with love (and not a small amount of guilt) but it’s not an offer of partnership either, and the fact that they want different things, that they are different, doesn’t mean they aren’t family. It’s not the end of them either, as I have no doubt Scott and Kate will stay both in touch and in each others lives, but I’m just happy, in a show that prioritizes both family and finding where you belong, and the hard road to get there, it ends with a loving parting of the the Fuller Siblings, an excellent contrast to all their previous goodbyes.

Favorite headcanon: I think Scott stays on the move, maybe even going from town to town as a mysterious figure who comes in and sometimes cleans up some of the more heinous predators he runs into. I’d personally love to see his righteous anger blossom into a defense of those who are more defenseless. I think that would be a very cool full circle on his anger at the bullies of the world, and would give him purpose and guidance too. Also, I just think he would love that so much, both the mystery and the heroics. Personally I don’t want him getting too mixed up with any one faction of Culebra politics, and I’d like to think after the Carlos stuff he will be more distrustful of charismatic leaders and false prophets and movements in general. I think he could do a lot of good as a free agent, traveling through different territories and countries, crossing borders and learning about how other people and cultures function and bringing the best of it with him. It would give him such a unique perspective! Also, he for sure keeps making music, and becomes something of an underground legend in that world too

Abed Nadir:

First impression: He was the character I first connected with! I love overly passionate people, the kind of people who get so worked about the thing they love everyone else just kinds of stares in amazement when they really go going, and I love well done meta, and I LOVE storytelling, so: I LOVE ABED. His analytical mind and deceptively calm and disengaged demeanor only makes his passion all the more interesting, and watching him move through and sometimes meddle with the world around him through pop culture, tropes and references is just a ton of fun. As someone who also spends way too much of my time caring and thinking about fictional worlds and fictional people, I can relate.

Impression now: Still love him! And I’ve really grown to appreciate how complex the show let him be, he’s not really ever the butt of the joke or the resident weirdo, but his brain and his history, all his quirks and way of coping them do have an effect on both him and his relationships, just like everyone else’s do in the show. His different way of looking at the world is just different, not good or bad. Sometimes it gets him closer to the truth then the others, but it never hands him all the easy answers either.

Favorite moment: I loved the moments he let his guard down, like during the Lava Game when he admitted to Troy he really couldn’t stop, even though he wanted to. Hm, I also loved anytime he got to play around as a character, his Han Solo was so much fun! And one of my favorite lines from him was during Anthropology 101, when he demolished Jeff with “I can tell life from tv, Jeff. Tv makes sense, it has structure, logic, rules, and likeable leading men. In life we have this. We have YOU.” Don’t push Abed to far, y’all.

Idea for a story: I don’t read a lot of fic in the Community fandom, actually! I never shipped any of the characters (excluding a very brief flirtation with Jeff/Britta in season one) and the show itself feels like fic in the best way at times, so I never went looking for more outside of the show. I suppose I would love to read or see a Troy and Abed reunion, or something that dealt with how their friendship continued post show as they both grew up and faced new challenges and stages of life.

Unpopular opinion: I’m not a Troy/Abed shipper, myself, though I do understand the appeal.

Favorite relationship: Troy, obviously. Platonically, unless the show comes back and says otherwise, which I could buy, but will stick with just Lifelong BFFS untill otherwise. I love that it was something they had to work on too, they just weren’t BFF’s and then it was smooth sailing, they had to maintain and evolve what that meant, and sometimes that meant campus wide pillow fight wars, and sometimes that meant one of them actually sailing off with LeVar Burton on a yacht . Other than Troy? I liked the Secret Service Agent as a one off relationship. Abed/Meta is my OTP though.

Favorite headcanon: I do think he finds work behind the camera, hopefully in tv, as that will be much more rewarding for him them movies. And I’m sure variations of the study group will end up in things he makes too, little bits of Shirley, Jeff, Britta, Troy, Annie, and Pierce in the characters he shapes, so other people can grow to love and understand them and their value. And the Dean! Oh, the Dean.

Britta Perry:

First impression: WAS SO WRONG, and I am so glad to have been wrong. I honestly thought she was going to be the Standard Cool Girl Love Interest, Unattainable until Earned for Jeff, like a human progress bar on his growth as a person.

Impression now: She’s one of my all time favorites, and always will be. I don’t even know what to say to her that I haven’t said here, but if you want a perfect summary of what I love about her, Everything Is Wrong by Laura Shapiro says it better than I ever could in a pitch perfect music vid.

Favorite moment: Oooh, that is a tough question. Actually, I’m going to cheat and list 3 of my favorite Britta storylines episodes: The Science of Illusion (S1E20) Geography of Global Conflict (S3E2) and Geothermal Escapism ( S5E5) She would be proud I fought the system, I hope.

Idea for a story: Shoot, again, don’t really have any story ideas. OH. I take that back, I would read the HELL out of a Richie/Britta crossover fic. I blame you for that @sandalaris. edit: my headcanon too

Unpopular opinion: Hmm, I don’t know! I’m not really in the Community fandom, tbh. It’s not something I’ve read a lot of fic for, and while I’m always happy to see it come across my dash, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything I disagree with on her! I think she’s the best, if that matters.

Favorite relationship: I really love her Broship with Jeff so much! And I always love watching her interact with any of the study group. For one of her romances, her relationship with Subway™ was probably the one I enjoyed the most. Is there a more perfect torrid love affair for Britta than the one she had with a man embodying a sandwich corporation? I think not.

Favorite headcanon: I hope she gets to travel the world more after the show ends. I don’t think she ever settles fully into any career, always bouncing from job to job and passion to passion, because that’s what Britta’s true passion in life is: finding things to be passionate about. I also think she keeps in contact with all the group too, no matter how far and wide they go. She’s the type of friend who shows up out of the blue one day to crash on their couch, and gets outraged on their behalf on all the little compromises life has forced them to make. Maybe they didn’t even see those compromises, or had accepted them as part of being an adult, but she will shake things up and there will be hijinks and upheavals, and forcing confrontations and truths in her own Britta way. And when the dust settles, they will feel renewed in some way, more themselves, and she will be off to the next adventure.

#Scott Fuller #Abed Nadir #Britta Perry #fdtd #Community #asks #asked and answered #replies #this took days but here it is! I got sucked into the Scott feels and was having to sneak in time to write it out #sandalaris

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