#and i will always always live by these beliefs

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Conceptions of Death

Adult conceptions of death require the ability to grasp abstractions considered beyond the cognitive scope of young children. These abstractions include:

Futurity. Time is independent of our own experiences and desires. Things will change. We will change. Time will give and time will take away.

Inevitability. Life will end no matter what one thinks, says, or does.

Temporal uncertainty. One is always vulnerable to death, and death is certain to occur, but the time is uncertain.

Universality. All that lives will die.

Personal inclusion. It is not just that everybody else will die, I will die, too.

Permanence. The dead stay dead.

Each of these concepts requires a degree of cognitive maturity and experience that is not present in early childhood and that is not granted to all adults.

Furthermore, it is necessary to coordinate all these separate concepts to achieve the basic adult construct of death.

Acceptance of the basic adult model of death requires more than cognitive maturity: It also requires the willingness to surrender faith in magical control.

Observations suggest that, even among adults, this surrender often is not complete.

Stressful circumstances may lead us to revert to the belief that we can alter unwelcome reality through denial and the substitution of wish-fulfilling fantasies.

Research has confirmed the propositions that children’s understanding of death is related to their general level of cognitive development, age, and experiences with death-related phenomena.

Age is a helpful but rough guide to charting children’s ideas about death.

Source ⚜ More: On Psychology ⚜ Children's Death Comprehension

[purpledemonlilyposting]

I also kind of want to address people being mad at me for "wanting Lily to still have a platform". No it isn't to make money off her, ever since the I Wani Hug That Gator streams lead to me becoming the "unofficial official voice of Olivia" I think I've proven people come to my channel for me.

And there's a few things you gotta understand about me: I'm autistic, I've lived with a severe anxiety disorder my entire life, and I'm a staunch utilitarian secular humanist.

For my cognitive and mental issues I have a system of thought, logic and control in place to regulate these things. I have to adopt certain disciplined modes of behavior to keep my anxiety and anger issues under tight control and in order to avoid the magical thinking that often accompanies autism. This coupled with medication and copious amounts of cannabis is what makes a Sai.

Yes on the surface and when I perform on stream I'm a ha ha funny goofy goober. I'd love to actually be able to be that carefree all the time.

I don't usually get into politics or social philosophy because that's just not what my platform is for and I don't think I have the knowledge or expertise to speak on it at length. But when it comes to my principles my goal is always to apply them evenly. I fiercely believe you can't bend your ethics just because you don't like someone or find their actions reprehensible. Even the worst criminal in the world still needs to be given a fair trial in our justice system and a defense lawyer. If we want a governing or social system to work it has to be consistent.

And I want to be consistent in my belief that robbing someone of an income over personal issues with them is wrong. That's a terrible precedent to set.

However, once Lily copyright struck Anthony and I it was basically out of my hands. She had done and continued to do something that could get her channel terminated. That would be on her and not on me. He and I have tirelessly exhausted every avenue we could to try and get YouTube to investigate her. These things aren't going to happen overnight if they happen at all.

[simpforsolas]

So my biggest problem with Solas x Mythal isn’t that I’m “jealous” of their relationship or anything like that. In fact, I really like the concept of her being a toxic and abusive relationship he has to let go of to be able to move forward and find true happiness with the inquisitor.

My problem is that it cheapens Solas’s motivations and seems to make his only reasoning for tearing down the veil be loyalty to Mythal. It also, to me, downplays the significance of the inquisitor’s influence on him. This was disappointing because in Inquisition, we were introduced to Solas as this very wise, idealistic, and thoughtful person who cared deeply for his causes. Justice for Mythal was one of his motivations, but I never interpreted it as his main motivation. I thought his main motivation was always to make a better world and fix his mistakes.

I truly believe that he’s not wrong about some things. The veil IS a wound inflicted on this world. It was made by him; it’s not the world’s natural state. It’s falling apart and broken. It creates a class divide between mages and non-mages, and by separating spirits from the physical realm, it makes them more susceptible to corruption into demons and makes people scared of them. There are tons of instances through DAO - DAI where weak spots in the veil lead to mass demon possessions and death. It made a world where elves die instead of live forever, and where they either live in slums or as shadows of their former glory in the woods. But DATV didn’t address ANY of this. It painted Solas to be this lovesick pup whose motivation was purely emotion-based, and it didn’t help that this game didn’t go into Thedas’s socio-political climate so a new player wouldn’t understand that the world of Thedas is seriously messed up, and that Solas’s plan would resolve a lot of the issues in need of fixing.

The problem is, and always has been, the cost. Solas restoring the natural order of the world would cost thousands of lives, and destroy the current world and all the good it has to offer. In order to abandon this plan, Solas needed to not only be released from Mythal’s service, but to let go of the world of the past. He needed to acknowledge that the world he loved is gone, that a new world that he also loves has taken its place, and that it deserves a chance to live. It’s sort of implied that he goes through this shift in belief in Trespasser, but it’s not enough at the time, and that’s okay.

Anyway, with all this in mind, this is how I’m choosing to interpret Solas’s entire redemption arc. Solas did have his reasons to tear down the veil that he passionately believed in, but through his interactions with the inquisitor and rook, the only reason that truly remained was that he didn't want to fail Mythal. They changed his perspective on the world, and showed him that it’s a world worth preserving, even if it’s different. He didn’t want to do what he had to do, and by the end of DAI and/or Veilguard, the only thing keeping him tied to his course was duty to Mythal. So she has to free him to allow him to move on.

However. If Mythal had released him from his service at the beginning of inquisition, because Solas hadn’t gained any affection for the new world, it wouldn’t have mattered. He would’ve been like "cool i'm doing this anyway because I want to.” Changing his course required two things: having his heart changed by the inquisitor, and Mythal allowing him to move on. Unfortunately I feel like the game is a little sloppy with this and makes it feel like freedom from Mythal is all that matters, but my dear friends, she is not. It was a team effort all around, and Solas’s redemption would not have been possible without our beloved inquisitor. 💜

[lugarn]

Deradicalization--that's what you're doing when you convince people away from their radical beliefs--is a very specific type of work. It's work that is measured in decades more than years. It's work that most people are not suited for because it requires that you see the humanity in a person as they, for years, say terrible things about you and people like you.

It is a career-long effort to deradicalize people. See this from someone who is public defender for many of the January 6th defendants in order to understand deradicalization in a real way:

There are always people out there who are good at deradicalization, but none of it begins with telling someone how they should live according to you. None of it begins without acceptance of the current person as they are and deep effort to meet them in that place.

Deradicalization is hard work, but if you're the kind of person cut out for it, you can do some good things. If you're somebody not cut out for it, you can drive people's harmful beliefs in deeper by giving them someone specific to rail against.

Please have respect for deradicalization by not pretending that it's something easily accomplished. It's not, and the attitudes of 'you're bad/wrong' are ones that actively make deradicalization harder.

Yes, this is unpleasant to hear, I know, that the things you've been doing have been causing people to dig in their feet! Right now the best thing you can do to deradicalize people passively is to humanize them and to try to invite them to participate as isolation, disconnection, and fear are huge motivators toward radicalization.

If you want to get involved in intentional deradicalization with groups who know what they're doing, the easiest version is something like Alternatives to Violence Program or something similar where the people you're working with have self-selected to be ready to change as people.

If your vision for the deradicalization of right-wing men begins and ends with "other men telling them that that's gross and to stop it" then I'm sorry, you do not understand how masculinity works.

"Men who hold patriarchal status" and "men who are feminists" are two groups who overlap less than you want them to. I'm sorry. That's not solely because men are so happy with patriarchal status that they don't want to risk it by policing misogyny/queerphobia/racism, It's because being misogynistic, queerphobic, and racist, end expressing other forms of toxic masculinity(and often abusively so) are part of how people establish and maintain patriarchal status. The men who have the ability to stop this via nothing but peer pressure are the very people who are doing it. That's by design. And engaging in feminist intervention is, in and of itself, usually the abrupt end of that status and its associated power to persuade misogynistic men.

Like, I have worked in blue collar jobs as a notably queer person. It was pretty much a constant deluge of verbal abuse. In my experience, most blue collar work environments are exploitative, abusive, and bigoted, and very gleefully so. On the occasions I have spoken up about someone saying something that was super fucking out of line (asking me which of the girls walking by was hottest. We were installing a portable classroom at a middle school), believe it or not, they completely failed to be shamed! Because nobody else on the crew gave a fuck. *I* was the weird one. They ghosted me. A full blown company ghosted me. I suddenly didn't have a job anymore because they just straightforwardly stopped telling me where the next job site was.

Like, this doesn't mean that it's your job to do it, but this vision you have of these big groups of men where everyone is on the fence and there is precisely one shit stirrer who can be shut down by a brave feminist man who can single handedly set the example for all these other guys...you are high. You are describing an "everybody clapped" level absurd scenario. Most of these truly virulent misogynistic guys either have zero friends, because, you know, our society is atomized to fuck, or they are in a group where the feminist guy is actually the weirdo who can be shut down and ostracized much, much easier than the misogynists, because there is no such thing as a man misogynists respect who stands up for women.

You might be saying "well, we're talking about longstanding personal relationships, actually. Like, they need to have to want to spend time with you and then, as a side effect, you can mind control them out of being a threat to us."

Problem with that being:

1: Many feminist men also have no friends, see the atomized society above.

2: Feminist men already stopped hanging out with men who make rape jokes because why the fuck would we want to spend time with them.

3: That isn't just because we respect women so hard. We are in many cases talking about men who are also deeply queerphobic, heirarchical, violent and abusive to other men. What initially drew me to feminism and women was a lack of heirarchical squabbling and constant bullying, and the ability to be openly queer. A lot of men who came to feminism did so because they knew that the patriarchy was not a place they would find success or acceptance. These are not the men who are gonna be able to change right wing minds.

4. Men do not view themselves as a monolith. There is no universal brotherhood of men. The actual meaning of the term "Fragile masculinity" is that men are constantly expected to prove that they are deserving of the status of being a member of their own gender. There are large swathes of men--including most of the men who you'd look to as examples of good, feminist men who you want to undertake this project--who are considered failed men, sissies, f****ts, soyboys, ect. They are. Not. Going. To. Convince. These. Men. Of. Jack. Shit. Much less successfully *shame* them. Jesus.

I know all of this sucks. I know it would be cool to be able to just point at a group and have them be responsible for the work. But nah. It's gonna have to be a societal project, one that will probably outlast all of us. Sorry. The thing you want these men to do is, absolutely, the morally correct thing to do. But presuming that it would be effective is, and once again I am so sorry about this, just ignorance of how these social groups function.

[the-rebel-archivist]

Finally finished Veilguard a few days ago and took some time to process and put my thoughts in order. In brief: 8/10 game as a whole, a really fantastic gaming experience, but 5 or even 4/10 as a dragon age game since it does no meaningful exploration of any nuance or moral complexity and seems to have forgotten what made Thedas distinct. My thoughts, critical and positive, coming from a place of love for the series with little to no spoilers:

Thedas has always been special to me because it was a nuanced world. Different groups had different opinions based on their pasts. City elves and the dalish had divergent histories. Injustice against magic was common, but you could understand the justification for it even when you didn’t agree. Now, the worldbuilding is flattened. A mageocracy is fine, it’s only bad apples. Slavery is never addressed. City and dalish elves are basically the same but one lives in the forest. There’s no conflict about what’s best from each individuals’ perception, all groups are monoliths.

“Elves won’t follow the gods just because they’re elves,” yes they would, in past lore. Perhaps not all but some would - these are their Creators. The game refuses to deal with religious belief in any meaningful way, to the point that I don't know if its impact is fully understood. Dalish religion is as much about cultural preservation as religion and it would be CRUSHING to lose that connection to the past when it had been all you could cling to for thousands of years.

And no, seeking out relics of Arlathan would not make up for the foundation of your society shattering and what that would mean to the dalish. Bellara being guilty that her gods are evil is not the takeaway I expected when I thought the dalish would explore that everything they believed was a lie. I'd also like to briefly comment on how an elf can comment that they weren’t raised dalish but adopted their tattoos. Their closed practice tattoos. Closed even to city elves unless they fully joined a clan. Removing cultural boundaries didn’t make the material less 'problematic', it just created a new blind spot.

“They’d never sanitize the Crows” I said before release. Assassins who walked the line between murderer and hero depending on perspective. But in this game they give you absolute truth: they’re freedom fighters. Responsible government who, the mob is benevolent and that is never subverted. They see themselves as the 'good guys' and so they are.

“They wouldn’t put powerful mages in charge of the shadow dragons” I said. “Surely they will explore the nuance of Neve having the privilege of magic in a mageocracy even when she comes from a lower class beyond ‘everyone is welcome in the shadow dragons’.” “Surely if Maevaris is connected her intersectionality as a magister and altus and trans woman will come up - not what Tevinter expects, helping with change, but still privileged and upper class. Surely low class non mages and slaves would be leading the Shadow Dragons, not the powerful being benevolent.”

But no. All factions in the game are black and white, good and evil, no moral complexity. The bad people want power and collect bad people who want power and only bad people do bad things. The antagonists I liked most were the ones with a motivation beyond simply power and they were few.

And that’s setting aside the fact that all of the mystery and fantasy was removed from the setting by the end. The things that mattered before, the religious conflicts, the approaches to history? All false or meaningless now that we know absolute truth. Everything that set Dragon Age apart from generic fantasy was flattened. All of the lore for the world that I had spent hours, days, years in and creating fanfic for became simple groups of good and bad, subjectivity replaced by objective truth. It’s not a world I want to unravel and explore anymore.

That hurts more than the slap in the face that was every cameo and past reference. If they wanted a soft reboot, why include them at all? Every time I saw or heard about a past character or event I felt hurt and angry and it actively harmed my experience of the game. When the choices are pared down to only do something "meaningful" with them and then that meaningful thing is a codex that had been so disdained in dev comments? I do feel pretty let down. Especially when that codex isn’t even personalized.

They never use Rook or the inquisitor’s first name in text once. Vocal I get, but no codex? The Inquisitor, a person depersonalized into a symbol, signing off “Yrs. The Inquisitor” when we input their name in CC was a twist of the knife I didn’t expect. It’s like every time I lower my expectations to grant grace they need to be lowered yet again.

Similarly, the romances in the “most romantic game yet” are paper thin throughout the game depending on your choice, with few chances to truly connect on an emotional level and have deep conversations in some routes. It’s not all about kissing but having the chance to say how you feel, or try to.

But that’s part of a larger problem, that this is a “found family” but Rook is the outsider in it. Rook isn’t asked how they’re handling things or about who they are or what they want except by Solas. The team needs them to fix problems but has little interest in giving back. The companions are lovely, but I can’t help wishing they were friends with me and not just each other. Or wanted to romance me and not just each other, as they begin to flirt before I can and have more banter comments than the player romance. At least if no one got me I know Davrin got me.

These last comments are the reason it’s 8/10 as a game rather than 10/10 for me - the lore I care about but others won’t. The lack of connection is a genuine issue, along with how unbalanced it is depending on romance. I just feel sad at the lost potential to reflect and gain support from companions.

On a positive note, this is the most fun Dragon Age game I’ve ever played. The gameplay is top notch and combat is so fluid and fun. I felt excited to fight rather than dreading the next battle. Really getting into the roleplay of a slippery rogue

The environments are so gorgeous. Lighting, animation, level design, sound design, all spectacular. I’m bad with maps and yet I never got lost and always managed to find my way around. Secret passages to treasure were just the right length to be satisfying. The puzzles were exactly the right amount of investment for the reward. I never felt frustrated by them but also not disappointed by the simple ones, there was a good balance. I had a lot of fun uncovering them. So many areas looked like a perfect representation of thedosian places I had never been to and wanted to visit.

Every time I was in the necropolis it felt like coming home. Maybe it’s because the lore was the most similar to past lore, maybe it’s just because it was cool, but I loved being there. I loved the wisps most of all. And I loved Emmrich’s journey and sympathetic exploration of death. The Hossberg Wetlands were also a standout area. Absolutely horrible (complimentary). Evka and Antoine my beloveds and the environment storytelling was fantastic. Like a hideous combination of the Fallow Mire and Chateau d’Onterre and I was so there for it. Davrin’s story broke my last flight loving heart.

The set pieces and narrative flow in the major battles and main story missions is really wonderful. I also did enjoy the faction reactivity, even if there were few chances to explore the intersectionality of being a particular lineage with a particular faction. I’ll make our House proud Viago!

It’s such a fun game that when I play I can almost forget all of the things that I dislike until a codex or cameo punches me in the face. It has such great gameplay that I can finally discuss DA with my partner who refused to play the other games in the series. But what a monkey’s paw. I know from their previous work that they can foster nuance. From the art book that their instincts were there from the beginning. But somewhere after multiple reboots they made a world with contradiction and complexity removed, more reactive to fan discourse than to telling a complex narrative.

It kills me because if the nuance and subjectivity and moral complexity had been there, I would have considered this the best Dragon Age game ever made. It will always be the most fun. But it is legitimately more fun for people who don’t know lore than people who do, and that is soul-crushing. It's the most beautiful Thedas has ever been, and the least like Thedas it has ever felt.

I’ve played it once. I already started a replay. I enjoy the game a lot when I am playing it, overall. But I miss Thedas, and I miss that the “world worth saving” that I cared for is a slate wiped clean and this new world is a more simplistic place.

[mythalism]

Wait.. so when anon said we traded a few thousand deaths for millions in southern Thedas, are they suggesting that lifting the veil would only cause a few thousand deaths ?

IIRC from what Solas says In trespasser and later shown in the DAV artbook (showing what would happen if rook fails to stop Solas and Solas successfully removes the veil), then taking down the veil was supposed to lead to widespread death across all thedas at minimum OR just straight up kill everyone except the ancient elves.

If it comes down to numbers then losing southern Thedas is still less than what they would've lost if Solas lifted the veil.

However, I still think we should've seen the veil getting removed. If not as the true ending then at least as a game over / fail state in the game. It's been years building up to this moment so at least show us what would happen!

the games have been dodgy and inconsistent about exactly the level of casualty the falling of the veil would cause. based on what solas says in trespasser, i always interpreted "the death of your world" or whatever to be more metaphorical as in the death of the world as we know it, a complete change in reality, a permanent change in peoples way of life, a dissolution of current beliefs and systems, etc. maybe that was me giving both solas and bioware too much credit LMAO. i never really thought of it as "literally everyone is going to die because demons".

but veilguard really did lean into this interpretation (snore.... boring!) with what we see in the prologue. rook also does confront solas in one conversation and estimates the deaths at "hundreds? thousands?" and im pretty sure solas affirms that it would be in the thousands, but that the deaths would be on his conscience. i think they went this route to justify why it was going to stay up in the end, but imo its bad, lazy, and completely contradicts everything we learn in trespasser. literally the point of trespasser is to show us the horrible catastrophe that the veils existence caused in the first place.

solas's decision to bring down the veil and kill "thousands" as collateral damage from demons is not just being weighed against the collateral damage cause by the blight in the south and the evanuris's interference across thedas, he is weighing it against the mortality of every single elf that has ever lived and ever will live, the life of every spirit corrupted into a demon both in the past and forever (something we know he considers to be a fate worse than death, according to his memory of his battle where he sacrificed spirits) and the life of every single mage lost to demonic position, both now and forever. he is also not weighing it in terms of literal deaths, but general suffering. the veil is also responsible for the enslavement and poverty of all elves, on top of their mortality. its responsible for the existence of the mage circles, every single abuse that occurs within them, and every single mage tranquilized. its actually ridiculously unequal. solas literally invented death. of course a few thousand more lives are meaningless to him? what is a few thousand against the literal millions already on his head? trespasser makes this clear as we walk through the vir'dirthara and witness the final memories of the elves that were crushed under falling buildings throughout the empire. veilguard..... hopes we forget that part.

its truly the most cranked to the max, fantasy version of the trolley problem. i think the question pre-veilguard was intended to be analogous to anders decision to blow up the chantry to incite the mage rebellion. its not necessarily should you pull the lever and direct the trolley, or even if the ends justify the means. i think it was intended to be about whether or not he himself had the right to make that decision for the rest of the world, especially considering he is Pride manifested. its less about the cost-benefit analysis of mass casualties to create major societal change and more about an exploration of the things that drive people to the point of such radical action. why did anders feel he had no choice but to blow up the chantry? why did solas feel he had no choice but put up the veil? why does he feel he has no choice to tear it back down? what has driven him to be able to make such impossibly awful moral decisions with such callous ease? and the answer to both is that they were pushed to the limit by the evils their societies were committing. were they right to respond with further, indiscriminate violence? no, of course not. but its a story. we can sympathize with the way they were pushed to the edge and lost themselves in the process.

it comes back to the dehumanization of leadership theme that is all over inquisition and has foundations in veilguard that are never actually realized. solas literally tells rook they never had what it takes to make the sacrifices that leadership requires. and its kind of presented as a villain monologue but HES RIGHT? rook barely makes any difficult decisions in comparison to the inquisitor or solas, even the sacrifice of a single city is a drop in the bucket compared to what solas has done, and rook does it without question and with little remorse. a decision had to be made, and they made it. just like he did.

inquisition was all about how leadership or participation within a corrupt institution makes monsters of us all. leliana struggles with the callous killer she's become at divine justinia's behest (actually a wonderful parallel for solas x mythal now that i think about it), bull has to struggle to unlearn the teachings of the qun by choosing his friends over his duty to his people, cassandra grapples with the horrible truth of the seekers and vows to reform them, thom rainier confronts his literal war crime and accepts responsibility for not just killing a family, but for ordering others to carry it out and bloodying their hands in the process. the INQUISITOR is forced to SIT IN JUDGEMENT and possibly SENTENCE PEOPLE TO DEATH OR TORTURE FOR THEIR CRIMES. what gives them the right?????? divine approval from andraste???? what about when you find out thats all a lie and continue to proliferate the rumor anyway because its politically helpful???? what about in hushed whispers? when the inquisitor destroys an entire world to return to their own without a second thought? its wrong, bad, it should never have existed. you erase it from existence without a single thought towards all the lives that will cease to exist and not one of your companions bats an eyelash. what gave you the right to erase that world? what if the people living in it really liked it? you wouldn't know, you didnt ask anyone other than leliana. i truly am starting to believe that veilguard was designed to deliver on this and then had to pivot for whatever reason (EA perhaps, according to those tweets). the natural conclusion to this story would have been the veil coming down, but not by solas's decision alone, or by him at all. even if you are right, you cannot change the world alone, or the process will break you. you cannot make decisions that weigh the lives of millions without losing your humanity in the process. we saw it happen to anders. ghost-varric even has a line about this in veilguard where he says something about solas seeing his attachments as a weakness, when really they are a strength. the lesson solas needed to learn was not that the veil should actually stay up and he should move on, but that only gods made decisions like the fate of the world, and as he always says, he is not a god. there could have been a better way, if he trusted those around him. the regret demon in the callback actually says this nearly verbatim, which is part of the reason i think this was the original intention. i genuinely think the plan was that the veil would come down but by rook's hand and that the good endings would have involved using your faction connections to figure out how to take the veil down safely and build a new thedas, without the veil but also without the elvhen empire of old bc that shit sucked. it would have taken the entire world coming together to figure out the best way forward, and would have freed solas from the burden of leadership that was actively polluting his spirit into pride, while teaching him the value of teamwork, as cheesy as that sounds. this also is the fufillment of his role as a trickster god - he needs to catalyze ragnarok. i genuinely think this was the original intention because it is so obvious in his writing its insane LMFAO. but him not being the one to usher in that change would be another way to release him from the mantle of trickster god that he didnt want in the first place. the bad ending could have been that without faction and community support, you aren't able to find a peaceful way to bring it down and rook, in a moment of desperation, ends up sowing the same violence and destruction that solas did, the perfect mirror. the lesson should have been that such foundational change and dissolving our current structures is terrifying, but we can build a better world - together, not alone.

its crazy to me to think that legend of korra book 4 pulled this off with opening the spirit portals and dragon age failed to LMFAOOOO.

[burningcheese-merchant]

Thinking about the Yandere Beasts, Mystic Flour is the one that seems more volatile. She's not only crazily in love but denies it. Which means she might do more to prove it and hurt Dark Cacao more, then maybe feeling guilt and trying to "make it up to him", but then feeling disgusted with herself. It's very complex and crazy and I love the idea.

It can be argued that it's that same denial that, ironically, makes her worse than the others, at least in a sense. I explained in a previous post that Mystic Flour is the only Beast who possesses any self-awareness; she KNOWS she is behaving irrationally, she KNOWS that this is fucked up and downright sick. She despises it all. She despises her friends for allowing this disease to infect their minds and hearts; their words and actions disgust her on a visceral level and she wants nothing to do with any of their shenanigans regarding their respective heroes. She despises Dark Cacao for casting this spell on her; for undoing all of her hard work, for making her take back every single step she took towards enlightenment, for forcibly tethering her to the material world once again and making her feel emotions she'd discarded (or thinks she discarded) ages ago: anger, envy, longing, selfishness, attachment. Dark Cacao has done the unthinkable: he has destroyed her apathy. No longer is she free from those meaningless notions; now she is as trapped and burdened as all those selfish beings she always sought to do away with.

...But she's burdened with self-awareness, unlike the others, and so she knows that, ultimately, this is all her own fault. Thus, Mystic Flour despises herself most of all, for it was she that chose to succumb to these feelings. It was she that chose not to act when Dark Cacao brought this burden upon her (really, he did nothing of the sort. She brought this on herself). It was - is - she, Mystic Flour, that allows herself to love and obsess over this man, this thief, this living affront to her beliefs and ideals. And in a desperate attempt to lighten this burden, she denies its very existence. She denies any attachment to Dark Cacao, even if it's clear as the pale fog that it's real and already unbreakable at this point. She denies it because she honestly cannot think of any other solution to the problem. She clings to what remains of her apathy because she sees no other way out.

...Yet still, in this selfishness of hers, even combined with her denial, she wants him. She longs for his company. For his touch, for his voice, for his handsome face. The Ivory Pagoda feels emptier than ever without him around. She does not seek him out - doing so will only make it worse - but she longs for him nevertheless. She selfishly hates those he cares about, for they take a spot in his heart that she selfishly believes belongs to her. She selfishly desires Dark Cacao in his entirety, only for herself, and no one else ever again. She selfishly places her anger onto others - her friends, Dark Cacao's loved ones, Dark Cacao himself - in a vain attempt at self-soothing. She selfishly wishes she could retaliate against Dark Cacao for all of this nonsense; for this godawful dependency she's developed. Then she shakes her head and chastises herself for this selfishness.

Love, deny love, get angry, seek retribution, regain clarity, feel self-loathing. Then start back over again ad infinitum. It's like a very bizarre cycle of grief, in Yandere Flour's case. And she only ends up succumbing to obsession and madness further with every completed loop.

(Yandere Flour is fun to think about and flesh out haha. thank you for the ask, I enjoyed your thoughts/commentary)

[thepenguinflash]

Look, I'll start by saying I DO NOT HAVE outdoor cats, and I WOULD NOT GET outdoor cats. But I do live in the UK, and grew up with outdoor cats.

(it was not my choice to let them outside. I was a child)

1. We kinda... Really don't have ecosystems (this is hyperbole). I mean of course we do have wildlife and stuff, everywhere on the planet does. But remember this is an island that's been inhabited by the english for centuries. The historical belief was that nature was a vicious beast to be tamed and that culture hasn't really changed. Most of our ecosystems are already fucking decimated from centuries of shitty english landscaping. A lot of the UK is so devoid of biodiversity the ecosystems really won't be hurt by mittens hunting some field mice and small birds for funnsies.

2. The serial killer thing... Kinda proves that it's pretty low risk here. Like. If you had thousands of dead cats in a 4 year timespan that'd be WAY too many to attribute it to one dude. The fact a serial cat killer was a genuine possibility with the numbers we were dealing with proves it wasn't THAT many in the grand scheme of things.

Of course it is still pretty grim to find cat shit in your garden (and potentially dangerous). And this is NOT me saying it's harmless to let your cats outside unsupervised in the UK. Like I said, I personally wouldn't get an outdoor cat. But if there is anywhere on this planet it's ok to have an outdoor cat, it's the UK. And while I still wouldn't do it, it's very easy to see why so many people do.

Personally I think it's a little selfish to let your cats outside unsupervised here, but it's not some moral failure, or a product of pure ignorance. It's possible to do it relatively safely (for the local area and for your cat), but it's always going to be safer to keep them in. But that may be too much nuance for this site I fear.

talking to outdoor cat defenders like

[fairyminnie444]

˖ . ݁𝜗𝜚. ݁₊ ENDING the cycle of main frequent doubts that arise in our minds once and for all ˖ . ݁𝜗𝜚. ݁₊

— How to continue persisting in your desired reality if in 3D everything seems to be backwards?

A: When the world around you seems to contradict your desires, that is when persistence in your desired reality becomes most powerful and necessary. Controlled and directed imagination is the key to shaping your experience, and true change begins within you.

Imagine your desire as already realized and feel it intensely, regardless of the evidence of the outside world. What you see in the three-dimensional, or 3D, world is only the reflection of your past steps; it is not definitive, nor does it represent the ultimate truth.

Continue to return, night after night, to the state of consciousness in which your desire is real. By doing this consistently, you plant the seed of this new reality within yourself, and in time, the external world should align with this inner vision. Trust that 3D will follow your inner state, for reality is malleable to those who have mastered the art of guesswork.

— Is there an average time that the subconscious starts to believe in your imagination or do we always have to fight and ignore 3D even if problems occur?

A: The time it takes for your subconscious to accept a new idea depends on how intensely and consistently you hold that vision. There is no set time frame, as each person has their own relationship with their inner beliefs and their desired reality.

The secret lies in repeating the imagination until it becomes a state of natural conviction. Over time, the effort diminishes, as repeated imagination transforms into a feeling of certainty, and your subconscious accepts this new reality as true. At that point, there is no more struggle, only trust.

As for problems in 3D, do not ignore them, but do not treat them as definitive either. See them as temporary effects of old beliefs, signs of what needs to be transformed internally. Accept these events as temporary and remain faithful to your desired vision. In this way, external reality will be forced to mold itself to your new understanding.

Persistence is not a struggle, but a continual surrender to what you already are in your imagination.

— And those moments when i see other people with my desired reality and doubts start to arise or I start to feel down/insufficient?

A: Feeling insufficient is the trap of external judgment. When you look at others and measure your own worth by their reality, you give your power away to the external world, forgetting that you are the one who creates your own reality.

Your only job is to live in your imagination with the conviction that you already have what you desire. This requires an inner vision so vivid and complete that the need for external validation disappears. The truth is that you are already enough. When you see yourself through the eyes of your desired reality, you realize that everything you seek is within you, and as you embrace this truth internally, the world will respond to it.

Resist the urge to seek out the world for what you can already give yourself. Allow the feeling of completeness and fulfillment to grow within you, and it will spill over into the reality around you, without the need for comparison.

[woobiedoovo]

AYO DO Urm... have any more thoughts about erm ,....... pregnant stan . hehe .. -journal420

Hello Journal420!!! Yes, I have many more thoughts about pregnant Stan.

So, Stan honestly really enjoys being pregnant. Mainly because of how much Ford panders to him during the time. He mentions how his feet hurt, Ford is already peeling off Stan’s shoes to give him a foot massage. Stan mentions a craving he has at 3 a.m. ? Ford is marching to the nearest convenience store, eager to get Stan whatever he needed.

Of course there are plenty of things Stan doesn’t enjoy. His weight, something he’s always been insecure about, has skyrocketed. It makes sense, of course. It happens when you’re pregnant, but no matter how many times Ford explains to Stan that it’s completely natural and it’s actually healthy, Stan feels embarrassed by it. Ford on the other hand LOVES Stan’s weight gain. His love for big hairy men is something the Stancest community talks about all the time and I heavily subscribe to that belief.

Ford thinks Stan looks absolutely beautiful. His skin is glowing, he looks happier and happier everytime the babies move, and Ford just can’t help but fall a little more in love with Stan everytime he goes on a rant about how pricey baby supplies are.

When the twins are born, Stan and Ford are over the moon. Stan is crying, Ford is crying, the babies are crying, everyone is crying.

They name them Evangeline (Ford’s pick) and Elodie (Stan’s pick). Then they all live happily ever after!

(This is making me think about Stan having to breast feed��� 👀)

Now I know what all of you were REALLY waiting, so here’s some kinky stuff :)

Ford 100% has a breeding kink. This is his dream scenario come true, and he lets Stan know that every time they have sex. Which is a lot more often now that Stan is pregnant because his hormones are going wild.

(Ford is just always horny for Stan, so it’s a win/win situation for him!)

He refers to himself as “Daddy,” and Stan as “Mommy,” much to Stan’s displeasure. But it’s hard to complain when you’re being fucked within an inch of your life by your horndog brother.

Stan is able to completely embrace his pillow princess behavior and just lay down and take it.

While Ford is rutting into him like a madman, Stan gets to lay on his back, hips supported with pillows, and enjoy the ride.

Ford makes it his mission to get Stan to see how beautiful he is, so he makes Stan repeat compliments to himself.

“Say how handsome you look, Stanley.”

“Aw, come on Sixer. Let’s not do this right now.”

“Say it Stanley.”

“I look… handsome, I guess.”

“Don’t worry Lee, I’ll just make you say it again until you believe it.”

If Stan’s not crying then Ford isn’t done. He needs his gruff baby brother overwhelmed with love to the point of tears.

[davetheswat6]

(I have something I'm working on similar to this in lore but with significant changes. And out of a desire to share that story's story I'll work some here to the best of the prompt.)

The three races always had some skewed perception of the dominant beings that seemed to have lived before they ever came into fruition. The Akri and the Nöt-beasts always believed themselves to be descendants of this ancient race now known as "humans". But the way they each took that belief was drastically different.

The Nöt-beasts believed that they were responsible for the world thanks to the fact many could take on the traits of appearances of the beasts that roamed their Forested and plained lands.

The Akri however believe that because of their descent, they deserved a claim over the land. Taking this so far as scavenging, repairing and reverse- engineering old human tech for their now militaristic expanse, laying waste to anything that dare stand in their way, with even the Nöt-beasts not being spared from this bloodshed.

Yet the last race, the Dracogni believes the opposite.. They didn't believe themselves to be descendants of humanity, logically speaking, how would a human turn into an eastern dragon? And that belief would be further cemented into their minds as they studied what remained of humanity's claim on the planet, Their old fortresses, cities and bunkers, all of brutalist concrete with little to no semblance of uniqueness, at first a strange sight until the Dracogni unearthed something that not even the advanced Akri could.. Human records, all detailing a war, a war without cause, warning or end.. one that left the big blue planet utterly devoid of any life at all.

The three millennia old records showed empty deserts of sand, cement and ash, a stark contrast to the blue flora and forever rainy skies that overwhelmed the planet..

All of this just further pushed the Dracogni to separate their own creation and descendance from humanity..

The records revealed something else as well, faint whispers about 18 devices, all called "stasis chambers". All but one of these were left the first 5 didn't work, with two failing to save the human before they were strangely turned to ash while the other three failed, leaving the humans within to their fate for the rest of time.. and as for the rest they all perished.. none of them adapted or even remotely prepared for this new world... One born from the nuclear deletion that humanity cast upon itself...

Thousands of years into the future, the many fantastical species of the world, such as flavours of Elves, Dwarves, Goblins, et cetera, all discover they're the genetically modified descendants of Humanity. Chaos ensues at this revelation, especially when a single, ancient stasis tube is found..

[urfictional]

what doesn’t kill you… `𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 - 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘤𝘰

Summary: The one where it all started with betrayal. A meeting that later grew into a partnership no one expected. In the end, they both will have their Nation of Zaun. Or will they?

Warnings: Arcane spoilers, drug use, blood, violence, typical Arcane stuff.

Pairing: Silco x f!reader

series masterlist

Dear, Silco.

Before I begin, you should know how difficult it is for me to put my feelings into words. So, please accept my apologies if this letter does not come across as sincere as I had hoped.

I'll most likely be long gone by the time you read this letter. And the most important thing you should know is that it was not your fault. The events of the previous few days had had a profound effect on me. Every day, something happened that made me question my beliefs, feelings, and power that I held.

It all began when we went to see Ren. God, that little girl. She was the one who started it all, and everything went downhill from there. When I saw Marcus's body on the bridge that day, I realized Ren will be alone. And that was something I wanted to change.

Remember how many times have I told you how scared I am of not knowing how to raise a child? Since you brought Jinx with you that day, every day I feared that I might do something wrong. Perhaps this is why she grew up to be your daughter rather than mine. You were always better at this than me.

But with Ren it was different. It was as if all of my fears had vanished, and I knew exactly what I needed to do. Now I'm wondering if it was all meant to be. Perhaps Marcus was meant to die so that I could care for Ren. She changed me. She changed me completely and I am sorry. Believe me when I say that it was never my intention to leave you on purpose. And, as you are aware, we do not have the ability to stop the river from flowing into the sea or stop the sun from setting. The same was with me. This was something I couldn't stop.

I know what you're thinking right now. Why was I so upset that you chose Jinx when I was willing to give up everything for the Sheriff's daughter? Well, accept my sorry. It's just that when I realized you weren't going to hand her over, something in me snapped. I was enraged that you could jeopardize our dreams for the sake of a girl. Only after our argument did I try to put myself in your shoes. And now I understand.

Because I would do it too. I couldn’t give up Ren. Not for anything.

Silco, I hope you can find the strength to forgive me. After all, we both gave up our lives for girls who were left alone in this world. We appear to have more in common than we previously thought.

There is only one thing I need from you. Please do not come looking for me. I'm sure you could find me if you wanted to. Please, don’t. Regardless of how angry, disappointed, or sad, you are.

Zaun is your world, it’s where you’re supposed to be. You fit there, and I don’t.

Someone once told me that when they first saw me, they thought I was a Topsider. I'm not saying I was too good for Zaun; you, of all people, know that's not the case. But maybe this wasn't the right city for me. After all, it has brought me only grief and suffering.

I want you to know that I believe in you, Silco. I never stopped. Continue what we started, there will be plenty of other opportunities. Create the ideal Zaun, just like in our dreams. Meanwhile, I’ll be on the other side, always thinking about you.

And remember,

I love you.

y/n

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[lh44girl]

“A Fateful Encounter in Dubai”

It was a warm morning in Dubai, and Lewis Hamilton was enjoying a quiet, low-key brunch at a cozy Egyptian restaurant with his friends and his beloved bulldog, Roscoe. Just days before the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, he was savoring this rare moment of calm—a break from the flashing cameras and roaring crowds. The scent of cardamom coffee and spiced falafel filled the air, and laughter drifted through the open windows.

As they laughed and ate, Roscoe, usually as calm as his owner, suddenly perked up, his ears twitching, eyes fixed across the terrace. Without warning, he bounded up, surprising everyone, and trotted over to a nearby table. There sat a young woman, enjoying a simple breakfast, absorbed in her own world. Roscoe reached her, sat down at her feet, and looked up at her with a steadfast, almost knowing gaze, as if he’d been waiting to meet her all along.

Startled, the woman looked down at him, then broke into a gentle smile. She bent down, scratching him behind the ears, and Roscoe seemed delighted, his little tail wagging with pure joy.

Noticing the unusual scene, Lewis quickly got up and walked over, a little concerned. He knew that dogs weren’t always welcomed in some cultural contexts, especially among Muslims, who sometimes keep a respectful distance due to religious beliefs. As he approached, he saw the woman’s face light up as Roscoe continued to nuzzle her leg, refusing to leave her side.

“I’m so sorry,” Lewis said, chuckling nervously. “Roscoe doesn’t usually, well… he doesn’t usually take to people like this.”

The young woman looked up, her eyes bright with amusement. “It’s alright,” she replied, laughing. “I don’t mind , I love dogs. He’s really sweet.”

Lewis grinned, surprised but relieved. “He’s usually a great judge of character, so… you must be something special.”

She giggled, brushing a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “Well, thank you, Roscoe. I guess I’m honored,” she said, giving Roscoe another affectionate pat.

Lewis was intrigued; something about her was magnetic, though it took him a moment to really take it in. Her laughter was light and genuine, her smile easy and warm. Her aura was calm but full of life, a quiet beauty that seemed effortlessly charming. Roscoe, typically indifferent to strangers, sat glued to her side, as if he’d found a long-lost friend.

“You’re not from here, are you?” Lewis asked, feeling a strange eagerness to keep the conversation going.

“No,” she said, a bit coyly. “I’m actually here visiting friends . I am living between London & Cairo but I’m originally from Egypt.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” he replied, nodding. “The Egyptian restaurant and all.” He gestured to her untouched coffee. “May I join you for a bit?”

She smiled, nodding. “Please do. I could use some company.”

As they talked, Lewis found himself more and more captivated. She was easygoing, intelligent, and had a warmth that felt different from the world he was used to. There was no need to impress her with his fame or his trophies—she seemed genuinely interested in who he was, not what he was known for.

Roscoe remained beside her, happily lounging at her feet, his eyes content and half-closed. For Lewis, it was a sign, something beyond coincidence. He’d always trusted Roscoe’s instincts, and the little bulldog’s approval felt like fate nudging him forward.

As they laughed and shared stories, Lewis found himself thinking that this wasn’t just a random encounter. Maybe, just maybe, he’d stumbled upon someone who was more than a fleeting moment. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d met someone truly rare—a woman with a kind, open heart, someone who, like Roscoe, seemed to recognize the good in him right from the start.

[apk02]

It is my month's goal to convince any one of my friends to watch a magical twink and a himbo prince dancing around each other.

And also to convince anyone who'll listen (internet or otherwise) that Sirius was the best part of Harry Potter.

[frou-frou-deserved-better]

[Image: screenshot of a Reddit post from r/parenting reads "6:30 AM conversions with an ADHD kid (before meds kick in)

Her: mom, do you think there are sniffing cats? Me, who hasn't had the fucking chance to pour a cup of coffee yet: uh? Her: yeah, like you know how there are sniffing dogs at the airports, do they have sniffing cats? Me: I have no clue but i don't think so. Her: ok.

20 secs later Her: mom, do adults loose their teeth? Me (screaming in my head and glancing at the bottle of vodka "it's always 5 o'clock somewhere"): no, Sof, only children loose their baby teeth. Her: why? Me: cause they are temporary. Her: why? Me: i dunno, cause that's what happens Her: ok.

Another 20 secs later Her: mom? Me (" omfg, kill me now!): we have to go NOW, or we are gonna miss the bus!

Is it 5 o'clock yet (here in Michigan)?" /End ID]

I have watched my late diagnosed ADHDer partner dissociate for days on end because he forgot to fold a towel the way I like. When we first started dating, he thought I would break up with him because he spilled something on the floor.

He is one of the kindest, smartest, coolest people I know and I love seeing when his brain sparks. He has supported me through recovery from being hit by a car, a toxic workplace taking away all my joy, and the symptoms of multiple severe disabilities, but I know he still worries deep down that I'll stop loving him if he leaves a cup out one too many times.

Reading these posts makes me disgusted and devastated. Every one of those kids deserves better, and the way those parents speak is not blowing off steam. Talking shit about our disabilities is a love language in many of my friendships, but I couldn't imagine thinking the way those parents do about my loved ones even on my worst days.

Also, this kind of trauma is insidious. You are communicating to your child how much you hate them, but they don't have the social of emotional maturity to recognize it. There's no need to weigh and compare childhood trauma, but this self loathing is a belief that will be reinforced silently for the rest of their lives. Every breakup, every friend that stops texting, every job they don't get will be framed through this.

To parents like this: please get help. You are quite literally traumatizing your children in a way they will struggle to even explain.

To the kids: you deserve so much love. You are valuable to the world (there's literally research backing up how ND people make groups better). There are people who will absolutely adore you. It can be so much better, and no one should treat you this way.

I ended up on r/ADHDparenting (a subreddit about parenting kids with ADHD, not about being a parent with ADHD) and Jesus fuck.

[endusviolence]

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.