#and ive just been stagnating in general

[devotion-disorder]

recently I've received a couple of anons asking about a tutorial on how I render stuff. While im really happy that some of you might want to learn from me, I'm hesitant to answer them because I don't think I'm qualified to be teaching anyone about rendering/coloring! I mean, hell, I post a rendered artwork, like, once a month LOL

I think the way I colour is still extremely amateurish, and I've got a lot to learn myself in terms of actual theory and stuff. And to tell the truth, my process is mostly intuitive - hence why its amateurish and sometimes straight up Not Good my dawg!!!!!!!!!

The only advice I can give is that there's a lot of great resources online for free, especially on youtube. Also you can study your favourite artists' work in detail, try to pinpoint specifically what is it that makes their work appeal to you. Eventually you'll develop a sense for this kind of stuff I think!

[lullabyalikpoptarot]

Aespa Thoughts on Being an Idol

Now to continue with some recommended girl groups to do. Let's look into Aespa and what their thoughts are on being an idol. Hopefully it isn't as difficult as the one with IVE. Let's see what we get here.

Karina

What she likes? (The Star) The hope, the optimism. This is something she has maybe wanted and hope for. The fact that she can inspire others and live to her full potential or have the ability to show her potential. It was like this was what she was meant to do. She enjoys the spotlight and attention on her. It is cleansing and purifying for her. Not sure why that would be, but okay girl, whatever makes you happy, do you.

What doesn't she like? (The Chariot/The Moon/5 of Pentacles) She gave me a lot here. This may be telling a story. I am seeing that her dream wasn't what it was cracked up to be. She went in very confident. She was ready to dive into it all, but there are illusions here, a lot of uncertainty, fears and worries. There is a sense of lack here or scarcity. Maybe not as much money as she may have thought. There is a lack of support and may not as much money put into them. Is the company in debt or broke? Like they flex more, than they really have. Interesting.

What she has experienced/learned from the past? (Rebirth/3 of Swords) Like what she wanted from childhood wasn't what it was cracked up to be. There is a lot of hurt and frustrations here. She is kind of stunted, she is infantilized. She is kind of stuck. She may have expressed her hurt and frustration in the past as well. It is like she was a child again, maybe reborn again. It is hard for her to grow up, it is like they won't let her mature or be independent. Oh, she got some interesting sh** to say.

Thoughts on fans? (Ace of Pentacles) Well, this is interesting. I mean she sees fans as an opportunity for her to advance and build her career. They are a gateway to that. I asked for another card and got The Sun, she seems to like the attention the fans give her. Does she have any Leo in her chart? It is like they awaken something in her. They bring her joy and happiness. They fulfill a childhood dream.

Okay, she was interesting, let's see if we get something from the others.

Giselle

What she likes? (The Chariot/The Moon) She is giving me a like for what Karina didn't like wtf. She may like stepping into the unknown, the mystery of it all. She may like the challenge of being an idol. There is a sense of wanting to defeat the odds, she has a fighter, confrontational mentality here. She likes that she is able to face her fears with being an idol. It is like she is willing to face the good and the bad of it all.

What she does not like? (7 of Pentacles) That she is molded to fit a standard of the company and maybe the public. There is a sense of stagnation, and inability to grow. She may find aspects of her career boring or there is a lack of passion here. She is a bit stifled here, similar vibe to Karina in this aspect.

What has she learned/experienced in the past? (5 of Cups) That she will face disappointments or just be disappointed in general. There may have been missed opportunities she regrets in the past. Maybe the fact that she didn't enjoy things when she should have. There is this focus on what she lost or doesn't have, but she struggles to look at what she does have and has achieved. There is a struggle to look at the bright side of things.

Thoughts on fans? (10 of Wands/King of Cups) She may find having fans can be a burden, physically exhausting to appease them, or she has to do a lot to please the fans. She may also see them as carrying a lot of burdens and overly tired, she may see them as draining. She may be someone who gets drained with being around a lot of people and maybe they are draining. Do they have a lot of male fans? Not sure why I got the KOC's here, but maybe she protects her emotions around the fans. She adores them, but also knows how to keep emotional boundaries. She cares for them, and she may want to help them emotionally. She may also see them emotionally stable, or she tries to be emotionally stable around them. That was kind of all over the place, but not sure which direction to go here, it may be all the above. She may also like to offer emotional support, or they do the same for her. They may also help her emotionally deal with her exhaustion.

Winter

What she likes? (Queen of Pentacles rv) Girl, why is this reversed? I don't know; she may like not having her financial independence. She may like having others handle her career for her. That she doesn't have to do it alone and she has others to help her. I don't know if she just isn't good with money or taking care of her own needs. There is a sense of dependence she has, and she is comfortable being taking care of by others. It is like she likes that they take care of everything.

What does she not like? (The Shadow/9 of Swords) The first time I got this card. I was expecting to get this card a lot, and this is now the first time I got it. The shadow card is similar to the Devil card in the regular Tarot deck. So yeah, she doesn't like the trickery, interesting word that popped up. The dark sh**, the negativity, the stress and fears, the sleepless night. The obligations she has. She doesn't like the dark side of this. It can be a very stressful and dark place to work. She doesn't like being restricted and chained to things as well. Lots of obligations she may not like to do.

What has she learned/experienced in the past? (Knight of Swords) Ugh, don't like this energy. Basically, she has to learn to be silent, not speak up for herself. She can't express how she truly feels or defend herself at all. She learned she has to keep things to herself. Ugh, I hate that for her and other idols. It is like sit down and shut up.

Thoughts on fans? (The Sun) Love this, they bring her happiness and joy. They brighten up the dark sides of the industry for her. They give her a reason to enjoy being an idol. She feels seen when she is with the fans. She feels successful and maybe she can be a bit of herself with the fans. She also feels like her inner child comes out with the fans. She enjoys the attention they give to her.

Okay, also likes what she has to say.

NingNing

What she likes? (5 of Wands) She likes the chaos lol She may like the competitive energy. She may have a competitive spirit and likes that about being an idol. She may like different energies coming together. She likes the passion, the aggression and maybe the intensity of being an idol. I am getting she likes the competition and fighting her way to the top. Interesting take here.

What doesn't she like? (The Magician) Makes sense, her inability to show her skills and her full potential. To not say or do the things she wants. She has many talents but cannot showcase it or she is shut down. It is like she has a lot of creative ability, a lot of different things she can do, but can't. It is likes she can do a lot of things. She is multi-talented, but can't show that, or it is suppressed. There is a lack of communication as well.

What has she learned/experienced in the past? (Th Druid) This is like The Hierophant card in the Regular Tarot. She learned to follow orders. That she will be limited in what she can do. That the powers that be hold the power and she follows along. To just listen and do what she is told. She is kind of limited and confined. She also learned that she will be put up against another. I saw this for my Riize reading on this topic, so SM may like to do that, but pretty sure every company does that with their idols. It is like they are taught to always be in competitive mode with one another.

Thoughts on fans? (The World/Knight of Cups) This is cute! She loves her fans all around the world. She would love to meet all her fans. She seems to enjoy the variety of fans she has and would like to learn from them and vice versa. She adores the fans and loves pouring her heart to them. She may express and show a lot of love to them. She opens her heart to them. She may also enjoy giving them loving advice and support and she may feel they do the same.

Okay, this was much better. I agree with the anon that requested this. They are much more open and chattier. I really enjoyed this one.

[sonic-adventure-3]

I accidentally drew the same goddamn pose 3 times lmao. Why is posing legs so hard i always fall back on posing them in the shape of a 4. Also, new freak!! Her name is Jerryjack. More about her + individual images + couple other things below the cut vvv

I don’t think I’ve posted any drawings of her other than her first, but i’ve been drawing rig a lot more like this rather than that first one. More graphic head shape, more upright ears, one eye hidden, mouth hidden by scarf, what have you. I think she looks cooler and is way easier to draw like this, but is a little less sonicy, im sure I’ll find a balance sometime. Rare carrion non-blep, this pose is cool but i did not even try cleaning this up lol.

And jerryjack!! She sucks so bad i love her. They’re Rig’s best friend, known each other since they were kids and learned the trade (killing) under the same mentor. She’s 11 months older than Rig, so she’s about 25ish. She hates consistency, commitment, seriousness, kids, stagnation, compassion, anything boring, and many many other things. She loves anything fun, stirring shit, lying, inflicting blunt force trauma, herself, lockpicking, and money. She’s purely self-interested and does everything she does for funsies. She’s not a part of the postal crew cause she thinks it’s boring and is allergic to commitment but hangs around and ‘helps out’ sometimes. She’s a hitman on her own, and has way more connections through that than rig, occasionally floats jobs her way. Also sometimes places bounties on her when shes mad. Or just cause.

Unlike Jerry, Rig is a very routine and organized person. She wakes up every morning at 6 sharp despite not being a morning person. Miraculously, she and jerry lived together for 2 years and during that time rig ate microwaved oatmeal every single morning and got groceries on tuesdays. All this is to say Rig is very methodical and likes routing and things that are expected. So Jerry lost their shit when rig called them randomly and casually told them that she’s starting a non-euphemistic postal service and also spontaneously took in a couple kids. Naturally, she’s very wary of squabble and carrion, especially the latter. Assassin recognizes assassin, silly recognizes silly, they try to kill each other and then become besties (who still periodically attempt to kill each other). As for squabble, she’s surprisingly fun to interact with, so jerry warms up fairly quick and becomes a truly awful influence on her.

Here’s the first drafts and base. She’s obviously a jackalope but calls herself a hare for some reason. Is part of that reason because i couldn’t think of a pun name other than jack like jackrabbit and ‘jack the jackalope’ sounded a little too stupid for my taste (as if ‘jerryjack’ isn’t stupider)? Ummmmmmm.

Anyway, i decided to nix the asymmetrical antlers cause theres a limit to how much asymmetry i should stuff into a set of characters, carrion’s already got the lopped off ear and etc. the back and tail marking is supposed to emulate ribs

I’m still super duper undecided on jerry’s outfit and colour scheme. Every outfit ive thought up so far feels way too simple or untethered to reality in comparison to the postal crew’s, however i think the postal crew is a bit too complicated (or way too complicated in squabble’s case) and too grounded for sonic, so. Idk what to do abt that. And as for their colour scheme, as seen above her first drafts have the same red and green of the postal crew, but seeing as she doesn’t work with them it’s definitely the better choice to diverge from that. Saturated orange is the most tense and unsettling colour to me so i think it suits her off putting nature, but the white and orange combo reminds me intensely of like. 1960s egg chairs. WAIT and ulala space channel 5. And various stupid tech startup kitchen gadgets. Just generally a combo with a lot of nonthreatening and safe associations rather than the warning sign i want. Idk man i’ll workshop it eventually.

Also, cloak rig. Her previous red coat was stupid. Not sure how much smarter this is but it looks cooler. Still doesn’t usually wear it other than in towns to hide her wings or when it’s cold. Also also this is the same fucking pose again

[pure-ablution]

I've just wanted to say how valuable your writings and blog posts have been for me. I've been stagnating for such a long time due to so many different reasons, but your advice and even the little life vignettes you share with us motivate me so much more to find beauty and happiness.

I'm referring to your latest posts here the most, but I believe it to be true of the totality of it. Self-improvement always tends to take this masochistic perfectionistic tone of self flagellation to achieve what they perceive to be perfection. And I'd argue that your life generally falls in line with what they celebrate, but you seem to approach it so differently. You seem like a deeply happy person, or at least someone that really wants to be.

On the whole, after a lot of self reflection and contemplation, I find this happiness deeply moving. That one Jordan Peterson Tweet, "There are cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see", "Today is everything there is", the beauty of your writings and the warm weather might be the things to finally pull me out of the rut.

Enjoy the mountains! I haven't been in years, but I still remember the night sky and being dazzled by it. I'm sure it's as beautiful over there.

Thank you, Ives, for such a beautiful message! It’s lovely to hear from you, and to know that there’s something in my little ramblings that’s touched you.

The tension you’ve described is, unfortunately, far too frequent, I think, and it’s a strange way to perceive something as natural and as good as growing into oneself as being built so fundamentally on shame and punishment. I’m not one for the idea that if we just suffer enough, control enough, deny enough, then we’ll finally emerge as the person we were always meant to be. It seems so counter-intuitive; you don’t starve flowers into blooming, after all. You can’t beat yourself into beauty—the end result will be so bent out of shape. We not only deserve to be nourished, but really, it’s the only way.

I’m not always happy, but I really want to be, and I try to chase happiness down like it’s holy. I make the effort every day to live in a way that notices the good and the beautiful, that chooses warmth when it’s offered, and forgives when it isn’t. It matters to me that I make the most of the nourishment life gives, and sometimes that nourishment waxes and wanes, but there’s always a little something to take, and something else to give, too, no matter how small.

I can’t say how glad I am to know that you’ve found something in my writing that has helped to light the way a little. On my last night in the mountains, the night sky was dazzling as ever, full of stars, like coins deep in velvet. I hope that you can see one again, soon—and I really hope that this is the beginning of something kinder, and more beautiful, for you.

[jozor-johai]

Revisiting the Rat Cook part 9 of 9: The Sons of the Sons of the Sons

The final part of the series. This part be read alone, even if you haven't read any of the series so far, and explores legacy, Lannisters, and Dany's reign in Slaver's Bay.

If you want to read the series and fully explore all of the symbolism I'm building on here, you can find links to the full series here. I hope you enjoy reading this part, and if you've read the series, thank you for taking the time and I hope you've enjoyed reading my analysis.

To anyone who is reading this part first, "Revisiting the Rat Cook" is a series built on the understanding that GRRM's use of metadiegetic legends provide a "road map" of symbols and meaning, used in their abstract form, which we, as readers, can use to better understand the relationships between symbols, motifs, and themes as they recur throughout ASOAIF as a whole. The Rat Cook story is about a rat which eats rats, or a cook who serves kings; The Rat Cook story is about fathers and sons, about cannibalism, about trust, about vengeance, and about damning one's legacy.

The Sons of the Sons of the Sons

Through this whole series, I’ve examined how a certain power dynamic plays out across ASOIAF, exemplified in the “Rat Cook” story. Meals, vulnerable and human, reveal the true intentions of the parties present. “Rats” may kill Kings, but it’s only in response to the Lords employing their dogs to enforce their absolute rule. In cannibalism, all is revealed at once—food and violence and power wrapped in one.

At the end of the last part, I pointed out that regardless of how many rats get skewered, roasted, hunted, and cut down, there seem to be more rats to replace them. Such is the reality of the Rat Cook, as Bran relays in ASOS Bran IV:

He had roamed the Nightfort ever since, devouring his children, but still his hunger was not sated.

An endless supply of rats replaces the insatiable hunger of the Rat Cook. His curse is not just his own, but his entire bloodline’s, forever after.

As Old Nan reminds us, the Rat Cook had a right to vengeance, and therefore he too must have been wronged. The implied past of that deserved vengeance and the known future of that curse point to the true scale of the story: the events around the Prince-and-Bacon pie are only one part of a much longer, ongoing struggle.

In that regard, the Rat Cook’s punishment does not only mirror his crime in eating children, but also in that same endless, infinite fate of self-replicating violence. The conflict between the cook and the King existed before the cook ever killed the prince, and, as the story goes, the ramifications of that act carry on for the rest of time.

To tell this story of the next generation reaping the violent, unwanted rewards of their predecessors’ actions, the Rat Cook story employs a metaphorical cannibalism of one’s past sins and one’s future legacy.

If this seems like a potent image, return to Arianne from AFFC The Soiled Knight:

"Have you ever seen the arms of House Toland of Ghost Hill?" He had to think a moment. "A dragon eating its own tail?" "The dragon is time. It has no beginning and no ending, so all things come round again.”

The arms of House Toland are the diegetic version of ouroboros within ASOIAF. The dragon eating its own self signifies the endless cycle of death and rebirth, of history repeating itself and creating its own repetitions. Like the dragon of House Toland, the “Rat Cook” story, too, has no beginning nor ending—the King eats his past sins in his son, and the immortal Rat Cook eats his future forever.

-

We need only to look at Dany’s story to see how the ouroboros imagery connects even more directly to the rat symbol from the Rat Cook story. After all, rats and dragons are usually quite different (although in the last part, I pointed out how those allegiances can change).

After Dany burns the undying—another avatar of immortality and the stagnation of time—Xaro Xhoan Daxos tells Dany of the chaos that she has caused:

Ghost grass grows in the Garden of Gehane, phantom tortoises have been seen carrying messages between the windowless houses on Warlock's Way, and all the rats in the city are chewing off their tails.

Rather than dragons, we see Dany leave in her wake rats reenacting the ouroboros pose, rats eating their own tails.

That image stays with Dany, as those rats reappear in her thoughts in ASOS Daenerys V:

I am the blood of the dragon, Dany reminded herself. Her thoughts were spinning in circles, like a rat chasing its tail. Suddenly she could not stand the close confines of the pavilion another moment.

Even without literally devouring themselves, the visual imagery repeats. Outside Meereen, Dany’s spinning thoughts are like a rat-ouroboros, head chasing after its own tail.

Interestingly, Dany’s rat-thoughts, in the same way as with Tyrion, show a shift in her mentality. In the last part, I argued that Tyrion becoming “a rat scuttling through the dark” was first preceded by rats replacing his wits in ASOS Tyrion XI:

“You'll have to help me with my last words, my wits have been running about like a rat in a root cellar.”

When Dany’s thoughts turn into rats, Dany leaves her pavilion—symbolically stepping away from her place of power—and it is immediately afterwards that she conceives of her plan to take Meereen with her “sewer rats.”

-

It’s fitting that Dany be consumed by thoughts of this ouroboros of rathood, as that ouroboros is her story.

Rhaegar, Aegon VI, and Rhaenys were all killed in vengeance for the reign of Mad King Aerys II; Daenerys and Viserys, in turn, are driven by force of legacy to retake the throne in their father’s name from the “Usurper’s Dogs.” But Robert Baratheon is dead, as is Ned Stark, as is Tywin Lannister, Hoster Tully, Jon Arryn. Who is left to answer to their actions but their “princes,” when these dragons-turned-rats return and fire the ovens?

Like the Rat Cook’s children, though, this fate is Dany’s curse, not her glory.

She struggles with her place in this ouroboros of legacy in ADWD Daenerys X:

You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros. "It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl." No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words.

Dany was “made to be” the queen who would use war to return to Westeros and to her forebears’ legacy. That onus is her blood, though, is not her wish.

All Dany wanted to do was plant olive trees—and trees escape this cycle of time, as Lord Brynden tells Bran in ADWD Bran III:

Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak.

Rather than be the dragon of Toland, these olive trees would represent a different future for Dany, one where she escapes the cycle, staying unmoved against that river of time. Like the Rhoyne in The Sorrows, that river would otherwise bring her back to the very place she came from, and in the flow of this river, she would avenge the vengeance her father deserved to suffer for, and so repeat the cycle.

But, as Dany reminds herself, dragons plant no trees. Dragons burn trees down.

If we trust House Toland, dragons are as bound to this cycle as the rats Dany sets off in Qarth, as the Rat Cook and his children, as the King who ate his son.

Dany knows that dragons are the wrong tool for peace and for breaking the cycle. She knew it as early as ADWD Daenerys II, faced with the prospect of an endless legacy, represented here, just as in the Rat Cook story, by endless numbers of children:

She was the blood of the dragon. She could kill the Sons of the Harpy, and the sons of the sons, and the sons of the sons of the sons. But a dragon could not feed a hungry child nor help a dying woman's pain.

The Rat Cook took his vengeance, but he leaves behind a legacy of rats, the Rat Cook’s sons, and sons of the sons, and sons of the sons of the sons. Dany could use force to eradicate this iteration of the rebellion against her, but there are thousands more rats to kill, and thousands more that will be created in their wake.

Consider the futility—and cyclical nature—of her administration’s response to the Sons of the Harpy. Confronted with an anonymous, faceless, vigilante group of pro-slavers terrorizing her rule, Dany concedes to the Shavepate’s horrible suggestion to respond in kind with a practically-identical counter-force of anonymous, faceless, masked militia. Of course, the result of this response is only for each side to mutually succeed in continuing the cycle of death. Dragons can kill, but hunting all of the rats does not remove the Rat Cook’s curse.

The misery of her people cannot be burned away, it is a void demonstrated by being hungry enough to eat rats. Compared to Dany’s realization about the sons of the sons of the sons, the “Rat Cook” is telling the exact same story. She can kill this generation, and the next, and so on forever, but it’s futile to attempt to protect her people that way; the Rat Cook has been eating his children for one generation after another, but has never been sated either. The dragon of Toland, too, can eat its own tail for all time.

-

This story of cyclical action and reaction, of vengeance and revenge, is being told and retold throughout ASOAIF.

Dany must return to Westeros to take up her father’s place, but she’s not the only rat-child left seeking vengeance for her family’s death. Oberyn Martell arrives in King’s Landing in ASOS Tyrion X searching to avenge Elia, Aegon, and Rhaenys, and upon his arrival Tyrion also realizes how infinite this cycle is:

It all goes back and back, Tyrion thought, to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance on in our steads.

Hoster Blackwood, well-spoken and bookish lad that he is, gives Jaime a history lesson about the Blackwood-Bracken rivalry that offers a sober insight into the nature of this cyclical conflict in ADWD Jaime I:

We've had a hundred peaces with the Brackens, many sealed with marriages. There's Blackwood blood in every Bracken, and Bracken blood in every Blackwood. The Old King's Peace lasted half a century. But then some fresh quarrel broke out, and the old wounds opened and began to bleed again. That's how it always happens, my father says. So long as men remember the wrongs done to their forebears, no peace will ever last. So we go on century after century, with us hating the Brackens and them hating us. My father says there will never be an end to it.

It’s fitting, too, that the Blackwoods are represented by a weirwood which died to the Bracken’s poison. A tree—a weirwood especially—might have been unmoved by this cycle, but their tree has been poisoned by revenge. The Blackwoods and Brackens are thousands of years deep into the kind of conflict that Dany wants so desperately to avoid.

Even if the King wronged the cook first, the cook now killed his son; even if the Rat Cook took his vengeance, the Rat Cook leaves behind children to bear the memory of his grudge forever. The tale of the Cook and the King are simply one moment in a history and future of cannibalism and counter-cannibalism, just as much as the Bracken’s siege of the Blackwoods—and the Blackwood’s rat-eating resistance—is only one moment in the endless cycle of wrong and counter-wrong between those families.

As is evident in Robert’s Rebellion and its aftermath, when the formerly-royal Targaryen dragons turn to rats for allies, even the roles of King and rat may switch, but the cycle of conflict remains.

-

The Rat Cook did have a right to vengeance. Nevertheless, the Rat Cook is still unequivocally responsible for dooming his entire bloodline and legacy to a life as rats scrabbling in the dark. The King, too, suffers the same fate and the same responsibility, where he, too, consumes his own son-and-legacy as retribution for his own wrongs. For both sides, it is the actions of the father which result in the father consuming his own children.

Tyrion himself arrived in King’s Landing as a King’s Hand and left as a “rat,” as mentioned in the last part. As Tyrion himself says, though, he is only a puppet dancing on the strings of those who came before him, and the Lannisters as a unit replay that same timeless story of the sins of the father borne by the children.

I’ve covered almost all of these quotes before, but it’s worth revisiting these moments as a chain of cause and effect where the crimes of the father result in the rat-dealings of the son, starting with Tywin Lannister giving the order to burn the Riverlands in AGOT Tyrion IX:

Tell them I want to see the riverlands afire from the Gods Eye to the Red Fork.

Burning the riverlands sends smallfolk fleeing to King’s Landing for shelter from the war… but the Lannister children hold King’s Landing, and have to deal with the refugee crisis and starvation that Tywin’s brutal methods have caused.

As we saw, eating rats signifies this starvation in ACOK Tyrion I:

What little produce he did see was three times as costly as it had been a year ago. One peddler was hawking rats roasted on a skewer.

Struggling to control a city that is devouring itself, Tywin’s children turn on each other, just like the Freys, just like the Rat Cook eating his children. Tyrion imagines Cersei as a master of rats in ACOK Tyrion X:

If Cersei has someone stalking me tonight, he must be disguised as a rat.

Cersei, in turn, imagines Tyrion a rat as he escapes with Varys in AFFC Cersei I:

She imagined Tyrion creeping between the walls like some monstrous rat.

The imagery that she imagines, Tyrion the monstrous rat, also evokes the Rat Cook “as huge as a sow”, off to punish the Andal King by feeding him his own son. Although the son kills the father this time, Tywin “loses” a son in the process, as he says in ASOS Tyrion XI:

“You . . . you are no . . . no son of mine.”

This, too, is the Rat Cook story, and the ouroboros: Tywin, the Hand, dies at the hands of the Hand he created in his cruelty. The lion eats its own tail, too.

Of course, Tyrion is eating himself alive by killing his father as well. All the power that Tyrion knew came from his father; his gold, the influence of his name, and even his Handship was his father’s. In the end, Shae proved the truth of that, because if all she wanted was a sound place at court, Tywin was the fount of that security, and Tyrion was just dancing on strings.

Even Tywin’s “funeral pyre” in AFFC Cersei III is poisoned by his children’s distrust of one another:

“If the gods are good, the fire may smoke a few rats from the rubble." Jaime rolled his eyes. "Tyrion, you mean."

While the Hand’s tower burns, any honor that Cersei means to give Tywin’s memory is undermined as she imagines herself outpacing Tywin’s legacy as the Hand who ruled the King:

Cersei thought of all the King's Hands that she had known through the years… …her father, Lord Tywin Lannister, her father most of all. All of them are burning now, she told herself, savoring the thought. They are dead and burning, every one, with all their plots and schemes and betrayals. It is my day now. It is my castle and my kingdom.

As Dany well knows, though, fire can kill, but not change the course of the river of time.

Despite what Cersei desires, Tywin’s legacy cannot die with him any more than the Rat Cook can die. Instead, his children continue to reap what he sowed, even after he is gone and the fires have gone out. Jaime faces this in AFFC Jaime IV in the fields his father burned:

They will be eating rats by winter, unless they can get a harvest in.

Simultaneously, Cersei suffers humiliation at the hands of the smallfolk uprising fueled by religious zealots displaced out of the Lannister-burned riverlands… a humiliation that echoes Tywin’s legacy, too, as it was identical to the one Tywin himself forced upon his father’s lover.

Irrespective of the Lannisters’ victory in the war, they are now cursed with the weight of Tywin’s actions, and each of his children are now in the company of the vengeful rats that Tywin’s actions birthed. Tyrion rides down the Rhoyne with one child survivor of Tywin’s massacre during Robert’s Rebellion, and travels to Meereen to join with another. Jaime has been cornered by the “rats” that have infested the burned riverlands, and Cersei’s power has been “stripped” by the sparrows who flew from Tywin’s fires.

-

Appropriately for a queen who began her conquest of Meereen with her mind a rat-ouroboros, Daenerys spends her reign struggling against the same cyclical trap like the one we see the Lannisters in.

Even as she frees the slaves in Astapor, Dany finds that she cannot free the city from the cycle of cruelty. In her absence, Astapor reinvents its former slavery, as Dany hears in ASOS Daenerys VI:

“King Cleaver's thugs have seized every highborn boy in Astapor to make new Unsullied for the trade, though it will be years before they are trained."

All that happened in Astapor was the exchanging of roles, not unlike the Targaryen dragons left in the dungeons below the Baratheon throne. The highborn became the low—and so here too the sons of the slavers pay for the sins of their fathers—but the violence has not changed nature, only subject, and the dragon has not stopped eating its own tail.

Dany immediately thinks that she’s seen this all before:

The thing that surprised Dany most was how unsurprised she was. She found herself remembering Eroeh, the Lhazarene girl she had once tried to protect, and what had happened to her. It will be the same in Meereen once I march, she thought.

Dany left rat-ouroboroses in her wake when she left Qarth, and Astapor, too, devours itself and repeats its own history. Dany shocks herself with her jaded recognition of the familiarity.

But if it was a mistake to burn the slavers of Astapor, not burning Yunkai the slavers of Yunkai was worse—and those failures compound on one another when the remaining slavers of Yunkai massacre the people she left behind in Astapor.

Or, as Dany reflects a book later in ADWD Daenerys V:

"And all I did in Astapor was make ten thousand Eroehs."

-

Dany tried to rescue Eroeh during Khal Drogo’s raid on the Lhazareen settlement in AGOT Daenerys VII. Only a few steps above a slave herself at the time, with very little agency to take advantage of, Dany could only save Eroeh by invoking Drogo’s authority as Khal:

"I will not have her harmed," Dany said. "I claim her. Do as I command you, or Khal Drogo will know the reason why.”

The Rat Cook’s story is only one instance of vengeance in a history that stretches through time, beginning with the subjugation of the cook and continuing through his rat-children. Dany’s ability to save Eroeh, too, only lasts for one moment as part of a much longer cycle of violence.

As Mirri Maz Duur explains for her own case, in AGOT Daenerys IX, stepping in for one moment does nothing for the past:

"Saved me?" The Lhazareen woman spat. "Three riders had taken me, not as a man takes a woman but from behind, as a dog takes a bitch. The fourth was in me when you rode past. How then did you save me?”

As Dany discovers, it may mean little for the future too. The violence was inherent in the system before Dany saved Eroeh, and since the only tool she had was the promise of the Khal’s systemic violence, the violence remains afterwards, too.

The Khal’s authority is a poor tool to stop abuse with because that same authority is what enables the future Khal Jhaqo to rape and kill Eroeh once Drogo dies, as Jhogo reports in AGOT Daenerys IX, an early mirror of the report of Astapor:

"Mago seized her, who is Khal Jhaqo's bloodrider now," said Jhogo. "He mounted her high and low and gave her to his khal, and Jhaqo gave her to his other bloodriders. They were six. When they were done with her, they cut her throat."

If it was the force of the Khal which could stop Mago, that same preserved power-of-the-Khal allows him to deliver Eroeh to an even worse fate now that the Khalship has changed hands. Dany could not break the system, nor Eroeh’s fate, so long as her power derived from the Khal, and the Khalhood derived from that cycle of violence.

In Slaver’s Bay, Dany has the force of her dragons, which gives Dany more power, but more responsibility too—and Dany fears that Eroeh was Astapor on an interpersonal scale. Dany can use that force to intervene for one moment, but should her power ever waver, the systems of violence would return tenfold, because Dany does not know how to use dragons to break the cycle behind it all.

-

Dragons are an especially powerful image in Slaver’s Bay because, on an even larger scale, the injustices plaguing the entirety of Slaver’s Bay result from cycles that have repeated in generations upon generations back. The same way that Daenerys is only the latest puppet dancing on the strings of the Targaryen legacy, the Targaryens were dancing on the strings of the Valyrians before them, and Dany is dancing on those strings, too.

Slaver’s Bay knew Valyria, remembers Valyrian dragons, as Dany considers in ADWD Daenerys III:

The cedars that had once grown tall along the coast grew no more, felled by the axes of the Old Empire or consumed by dragonfire when Ghis made war against Valyria. Once the trees had gone, the soil baked beneath the hot sun and blew away in thick red clouds.

The entirety of Slaver’s Bay in its current state was post-Daenerys Astapor only four centuries prior. In the past, Valyria defeated Ghis and made its people into slaves, and even after the fiery destruction of their former overlords, the region remained so damaged that the whole of Slaver’s Bay had little choice but to recreate their own abuse and reinvent the Valyrian’s slavery.

Even the tree metaphor is the same as Dany’s olive trees. Valyria burned their tall cedars and, without them, the very ground was cursed.

Although she won’t say it outright, the Green Grace comes close to explaining how the abuse of their culture wrought unto them into the abusers they have become:

"It was these calamities that transformed my people into slavers," Galazza Galare had told her, at the Temple of the Graces. And I am the calamity that will change these slavers back into people, Dany had sworn to herself.

Puppet that she is of Valyria’s legacy, Dany’s only tools in Astapor are the weapons of slavers past, just as her only tool in Drogo’s khalasar was the Khal’s force. She desperately wants to plant trees, but she has no idea how to use these weapons to break the cycle she’s caught in, if she even can—there is no way that a “calamity” could ever “feed a hungry child” or “ease a dying woman’s pain.”

Too much force leaves a precedent for force and an Astapor ruled by King Cleaver, but too little leaves a Yunkai intact with slavers and armies. In Meereen, she tries to use no dragons at all, believing that might break this pattern, but having no tools at all leaves her impotent.

All these factors and more Dany understands as early as ADWD Daenerys II, but she also knows that dragons are all she has to hold Meereen and protect her people:

Mother of dragons, Daenerys thought. Mother of monsters. What have I unleashed upon the world? A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones, and it rests on quicksand. Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros? I am the blood of the dragon, she thought. If they are monsters, so am I.

When Dany comes to Slaver’s Bay, she tries to solve the issue of slavery with the weapons and force of Valyria, slaver empire. It’s as if she tried to replant the Riverlands using only swords and torches.

-

The truth of Dany’s thoughts—that you can kill the sons of the sons of the sons but never feed a hungry child—warrants revisiting the Rat Cook story once again.

The Rat Cook may have had a right to vengeance, and no one would punish him for taking it, but he had a full kitchen of tools and ingredients—”onions, carrots, mushrooms, lots of pepper and salt, a rasher of bacon, and a dark red Dornish wine.”

All Dany has are the knives and ovens, and she desperately wishes for more. She might have a right to avenge her bloodline, but if she had a full kitchen, she would only feed the hungry under her care.

The Rat Cook’s cardinal sin, rather than the vengeance, was violating guest right. Dany’s tragedy is that she wants to feed the hungry, but she only has the tools to kill. The Rat Cook promised to feed, and killed instead.

-

And so the Rat Cook is cursed, and the sons of the sons of the sons try to run away from their father even as they are tied to their his curse like Tyrion’s puppets on strings. The Lannisters burn the riverlands and so ruin King’s Landing even as they claim to defend the city. Ramsay torches Winterfell to overthrow Theon and undo the Starks, only to be stuck defending a ruined and freezing castle during the onset of winter. Cersei grants swords and axes to the Faith Militant, who return to capture her.

Dany wants to do something else, something different than her forebears. Valyria left eddies of abuse in its wake like the tail-chewing rats Dany left in Qarth, and Dany wants to stop those cycles, but how can she? Dragons are flaming swords that cannot be reforged into plowshares.

-

It makes me appreciate the Gravedigger. The Hound dreamed of killing his brother to avenge the burned face that his brother gave him, but the Hound died, and Sandor has a chance to escape that cycle.

[natsmagi]

Do you ever feel bad about your art? I've tried drawing before, but it never looked good so I just quit

OUGH SOMETIMES TBH....... though id kinda say thats part of the drawing process 💔💔

for me theres two types of "feeling bad" abt my art; the first being more imposter syndrome-y where i just kinda feel guilty over the amount of recognition i get when theres so many artists that i think are better and deserve it more than i do and other things along that line

the second one (and probably more universal) is, ofc, the feeling that ur art kinda sucks sometimes. honestly its very rare for a drawing to turn out the way i had originally envisioned because i simply do not have the skills to pull it off, which sucks!! and honestly, alot of the time i just try pushing through despite me hating the way the drawing looks. usually ill still post it even if i hate it, because in a way i think its kinda important to let myself be bad at art, and my blog was never meant to be used as a portfolio anyway, so why not post the things im less proud of aswell? especially since the communities im part of are rather niche, and i feel as though even if the quality is bad, someone might still be happy to see it!

so i let myself not be perfect with my art, as i feel being stuck on the same piece is only going to stagnate my growth and make me frustrated. not to mention the drawing usually only ends up looking Worse the more i try to fix it, and me posting a drawing is basically me putting a full stop to working on the drawing, forcing me to move on to something else and try again

art doesnt always look good!! and it most DEFINITELY is never perfect, but i also kinda find beauty in that yknow?? especially when uve been drawing for a while, its always fun to look back and see ur progress! its fun to see ur missteps and how u managed to improve! ive mentioned it before, but the sole reason i even created this account was so that i Would improve my art. i didnt really have much going on so i thought id genuinely try my hands at art again, which i had grown less passionate about the years prior. this blog is me sharing what ive created, no matter how amateurish it is, no matter my ups and downs, because i believe that will help me grow in the end! ive posted numerous attempts at various styles (moreso rendering styles) to see what i think suits me and what i find most pleasure in, aswell as my art style in general being rather stylized (the simplistic faces for example), figuring out what ways of drawing made me happy and what didnt through trial and error!

the first step is always the hardest, but its better than no step at all! so if you wanna draw, just go for it! its ok for it to look bad! keep trying various styles and methods until you find one that makes you happy!! its ok to be inconsistent!!

[irradiatedsnakes]

Im sure this is a question you've gotten and probably a question with a simple answer ive overlooked but um!! When your drawing and like,, suddenly nothings coming to mind? Like poses and whatnot.. what do you. Do? Its something thats been frustrating me lately but I cant figure out a way around it and im wondering if you know any ways!

not sure if it's super helpful... but i generally just default to drawing headshots of designs that i enjoy. my furry teru, timeskip mob, and normal ritsu are some of those defaults. i also like doing screenshot/panel redraws if poses or expressions are eluding me, but that only really applies to fanart of visual media. if i feel REALLY stuck/stagnated, i do some figure drawings with line-of-action's tool.

[thefinalwitness]

14. is there a sound that drives them crazy? ( like the sound of nails on a chalkboard, styrofoam rubbing together, cardboard boxes, etc?)

(SORRY IM SO LAAAAAATE ive been fibro hurty again v_v)

l'aiha actually really hates the sound of snow crunching underfoot! it irritates the shit out of her. it might be slightly informed by the fact she hates snow and the cold in general, but trekking around in coerthas and garlemald were incredibly unpleasant for her, and that sound didn't help. :'D

aside from that, she doesn't like it when people chew with their mouth open, or tap their pencils on desks and tables and such... lots of little every day noises can get on her nerves when she's in a bad mood. she has extremely sharp hearing, so everything is intensified in a way that's sometimes difficult to deal with. she's learned a weird trick where she 'charges' her aether, internally, without releasing it—this is something she learned as one of her exercises to help it not stagnate, but it also produces an internal sound, not unlike blood rushing, that allows her to 'drown out' irritating external sounds.

y'shtola can visibly see when l'aiha does this because of her aethersight, and thinks it's INCREDIBLY funny. especially in situations where someone is talking and pissing her off, and l'aiha just starts ignoring them by churning her own aether. similar comical effect to when somebody tells the guy on the tv to shut up and mutes them.

tangentially related, but i think l'aiha has a bit of an auditory processing disorder too. she can't mentally 'filter' sounds based on importance, so she hears everything at the same volume—and because her actual hearing is so good, that's a lot of stuff! it means it can be hard to reach her in loud or crowded spaces, but it also makes her REALLY GOOD at picking up new sounds through the din.

for example, she can hear people moving even in the middle of busy conversations; so she's really good at picking up sneaky intruders even at moments when she should be too busy to hear them. or, an example based on my own life with an auditory processing disorder: she can hear linkpearls and other electronic alerts go off, even when others in a conversation don't. (the number of times i've let people know a timer went off mid-conversation because i was the only one who heard it LOL.)

[tyranitarkisser]

i don’t remember if ive sent u anything or not 😭 anyways sometimes if you ever have time/motivation, would u mind drawing little tuna and sollux together? like only if you’re up to it ofc i saw you mention you had finals and all lol

and in general do you have any tips on improving on art? i feel like ive been stuck in the same place for years 😔

-🐝

Oh I dont know if Im the best person to ask... I never really draw with the express purpose of improving on any technical level i just draw pictures to spark joy for me and sometimes other people like them too. They always say you need to study real things and youre not a real artist if you dont know the rules to break them first but I dont know about that. If you feel that youve stagnated maybe you can take a break and really focus on what it is about other peoples art that you really like? And look at other things that you like, not just in art but in the real world... I think having an observant eye is just as good as drawing from life. Im sorry that you feel that way though :( Im sure your art is good too and if you dont feel so good about it maybe it really is time to take a breather?

[urcharactersclasspect]

idk if reqs are open so sorry if they aren't lol. if possible, I was wondering if you could classpect analyze Cell from DBZ (or just major DBZ characters in general lol) I would forever be in your debt. my brain decided to get attached to a shitty bug man sorry

Sorry Im not getting to all these in a timely manner - but yes. Requests are basically always open at any time. Never be afriad to send things in, even if they dont get awnsered for awhile; trust me, i will get to them.

I just do things leisurely on this blog and dont get to everything very fast. Since its just a fun blog to do these sorts of things on. Not to mention, i get requests of things Ive not watched or seen sometimes, so I'd need the time to dive into whatevers requested.

That being said, I know not much about Dragon Ball in general, actually. But Cell popping up in the series was an arc I watched a few eps of because I liked how creepy he was as a villian. Cell gives me the energy of a bitter Heart player. Hes made from the aspects of several others, and while he knows alot about them, and he knows his own weaknesses and himself a lot, he seems to be called narcissistic often in things describing him; but really that sort of set of traits boils down to somebody who believes they have no control, so they try to push down others scheme for characters like these. Somebody who will try to gain the control they feel they lack by force. Not only this, but if Im remembering correctly, Cell sucks the life force and organs of living beings to get stronger and to change forms to look more imposing (?) in a way, hes soul sucking others. So Cell is possibly a Thief of Heart, gone down an extremely unhealthy route.

Heart aspect is about the Self, knowing the inner workings of a persons sense of self and their egos. And its also about the soul, and the possiblity of growth or stagnation as a person. Cell having been artificially created (?) brings up a lot of possible issues he has internally with his sense of being a fully formed being. Which if we are getting pyscho analytical about a dbz character here for a minute, cause be the cause of why he feels like he HAS to do things he does and why he behaves the way he does. He feels he has no true inner self thats beyond whats there in front and center. which means hes weak, in his own mind. he cant be seen as weak.

Basically, consider how Vriska acts; "Im totally the best! nobody can beat me!" but in reality she feels like she lacks spotlight, lacks attention, she craves it, is insecure about it and thats unacceptable so she goes to extremes to become "the main character" of the light aspects main theme, that being the narrative.

But coat it with a splash of Heart player themes of the physical or inner sense of self.

[murdercorpse]

BENT / CROOKED

independent. mutuals-only. triggering & 18+.

canon-divergent kilgrave from netflix's jessica jones.

THEMES OF: the past haunting the present, the call is coming from inside the house, a parasite incapable of regulating his emotions, a waste of human potential, obsession, stalking, stagnation despite everything.

GET WELL, BUT DON'T YOU TRY TOO HARD

RULES UNDER CUT

about the mun: my name is graves. i use they/them pronouns. i'm 28. i have no triggers i need tagged. i love talking ooc to people! please always feel free to drop in my DMs. if you prefer discord, i'm happy to give it to my mutuals. i have sporadic activity due to work/personal life and mental health reasons.

i. this blog is elderly in rp years. it has been revamped as of 05/25 when i returned to rping after a long hiatus.

ii. i am mutuals only. i don't interact with people i don't follow. i check my followers, so i will eventually see when someone follows me. if you have a separate sideblog for rp and follow from another blog, i accept people letting me know so that i know who you are! i accidentally unfollow sideblogs sometimes if i somehow miss that it's a sideblog and see that it doesn't follow me.

iii. if we are mutuals and you want to unfollow me, please softblock me. super awkward thinking we are mutuals and trying to interact with someone who doesn't want to rp with me!

iv. common sense things: no godmoding, communicate with me if you want to control my muse a bit in your reply besides for very simple things (i.e. handing something to one another), and talk to me when there is violence involved, especially if it's about assuming my muse is going to get hurt; no drama, no being an asshole; etc. kilgrave is a strange muse in that he inherently thwarts the godmoding rule for other muses, so please keep this in mind when choosing to interact with this blog. always let me know if a command he gives makes you uncomfortable for any reason. due to his canon divergence, my kilgrave does not make commands as often as other versions, so we can really play around with this.

v. i prefer not interacting with minors, so 18+ please. this blog contains triggering, adult themes. i tag major triggers and try to keep triggers of people i follow in mind, but i may admittedly mess up. please let me know if this happens. i tag things with "_______ cw" like "blood cw" and etc. that said, triggering content is fairly common, and i would suggest not following if any of these are dealbreakers: mental illness, abuse, stalking, harassment, unhealthy patterns of behavior such as obsession, sexual assault mentions.

vi. there may be usfw content on this blog, whether sexual, alluding to abusive/toxic situations, violent, etc. i'm down for most things, so long as it's not glorifying inappropriate content.

vii. that said, mun doesn't equal muse. if you can't understand that, please do not follow. i rp a shitty bastard on here, and i don't approve of his behavior in real life. obviously. but if you aren't comfortable with how our characters are interacting, please let me know because i don't wish to make anyone upset/triggered at all! i've had some bad experiences with people who don't speak up or mistake rping toxic content as me condoning it. i try to be conscientious, but i also can't read minds.

viii. i use small text, light formatting, and 100x100 icons. let me know if this is an issue. i generally write multi-para, whatever i feel needs to be said. i don't expect matched length, but i do need replies to have enough substance to go off of. i likely won't follow you if you write purple-prose or your formatting is too heavy— i simply cannot understand what it is you're saying, sorry.

ix. i know this was already stated, but please please please keep in mind kilgrave is a giant piece of shit who has the power to control others, so this blog's content can be triggering. just please take care of yourself. you can find my multi over at @threadpull if you want to interact with me and not kilgrave specifically.

x. when i send memes, i tend to spam a few. it's to give options. i don't expect you to reply to all of them, it's entirely up to you!

xi. i don't do passwords. i promise i read your rules. i also tend to not do interest checkers either.

[embracesufferdestroy]

lying in bed having one of those "wish i could quit everything and course correct my entire life" days. i know it's not my fault that everything ive been saddled with has hindered me in some shape or another, but I really regret not starting college until now, even though i know in my heart that if i started right out of high school, I'd have just dropped out anyway or found some way to fuck that up. i just hate the way my life currently is, how hard I've been stagnating and how every little thing becomes a massive obstacle. ive had obstacles with jobs, top surgery, money, college ... im not giving up, and ive never had the intention to give up, i just have no where to voice my frustrations. my job is a total dead end and i want out so badly, i wish i could be a full time student just learning & hanging out & dedicating my time to that. instead i work full time to pay my bills and I still don't have enough money to live, which has been my biggest obstacle with starting college. i used to be scared of taking out loans and getting into any sort of debt because i hate the feeling of being tied down but at this point i just don't care anymore. ill take out a hundred million dollars if it means being able to go to school full time lol. i just want to be in a more productive environment, where i feel like im actually doing something. i want to actually work towards something, but i also struggle to have any sort of faith in my plans moving forward. just nothing has worked out the way i wanted it to. i wasn't even able to go see that dissociation specialist that's 5 minutes from me because he doesn't accept my insurance. generally i feel ive been pretty positive despite everything, at least compared to how I used to be, but this is getting so ridiculous. i want to just trust that wherever i end up in life is where im meant to be, but i don't believe in predetermined fate anyway so

[unfunky-and-out-of-time]

seeing a lot of reactions to ep 7 and as someone who has barely seen ep 4-6 i thought id be the perfect person to share my thoughts on it

this was more watchable than the other eps. tbh i am lowkey checked out w most of the character and seeing the ones i really liked become boring is a shame..... mm was my absolute fav and theres something about his arc this season that feels like his character is stagnating. when i thought his struggle in s3 was arguably one of the best arcs of the entire show! so yeah idk. that sucks

frenchie idgaffffffffffffff about i think he stopped being a good character after s2. tbh the show is generally at its strongest when it explores the dynamics between the characters and idk whats up but i think the writers this season got sick of it? its silly

^ adding to this. hughie and butchers dynamic is just completely gone..... kind of funny bc this is literally what its been about. imagine breaking bad but walt and jesse dont talk. the few dynamics they still remember feel like theyve been... declawed? mm and butcher fight but its whatever. annie and butcher disagree and who gaf they HAVE to work together (i strongly disagree with this and also i dont think the boys shouldve reunited at the end of s3 but thats another story)

i also really dislike that we havent brought up lenny in so long. he's so crucial to butchers character. i also just generally miss butcher and homelanders dynamic even if idgaf about him. that was the other central dynamic of the show imo. i miss when butcher would hallucinate homelander mocking him! i need kessler to start rolling his eyes at butcher or else....

a few specific thoughts:

ive known about butcher cheating on becca for months now and thought it was incredibly stupid and ruined a lot of his character. mulled over it for a few months and came to the conclusion that its not absolutely out of character. i do think butchers relationship with becca is his central moral guide and that he put much more on her than you should in any healthy relationship and that she was probably aware of it but definitely not to the total extent. like i always say he probably just spent hours staring at the wall waiting for her to come home when they were married. i also think he is a huge self-saboteur and i do believe becca made him want to be better (even if its not in a traditionally healthy way etc whateverrr) but i think especially with a guy like him it wasnt all very straight and nice. they must have had a lot of ups and downs and i think becca knew him as much as he let her (in s2 she says something along the lines with "this didnt start with me" and butcher also says "what was i before you? nothing") because that to me would show what made their relationship so special and central to butchers character. i do not think her death made him snap, i think her love made him hold back and believe he was content with a simple life even if that would never be the case. at the same time i think he fully believed he was completely undeserving of her love and that paired with his alcohol abuse would get to him.

"becca lied to both butcher and ryan so ryan saying she would want him to tell the truth doesnt make sense" this is kind of funny bc like..... she is allowed to be a hypocrite? and i think it makes her much more interesting for it? she was dealt absolutely shitty cards and the entire situation is unjust so pointing this out is kind of weird. she can absolutely preach one thing and do another this is literally every other character on this show

butcher and ryans dynamic is probably the only thing i have an unpopular opinion on but thats because my take on them is heavily painted by their pre s3-finale interactions and the writers chose to take a different route with them after that

[dusk1dawn]

Lately ive been feeling like the world can, and will end any moment now. Ive been holding back on big decisions (not that i really any anyway) and whenever i remind myself of it my anxiety spikes. Sometimes i think "what if its now. What if in a second ill hear the sirens go off or a bomb and I'm gonna have to evacuate" and usually its in the bathroom, so its like "great! Im naked and wet, how do i do it?". And then over the past few months ive been making kinda a list of things i would grab if i was to pack in a hurry - and to be fr if there was bombing going on or and typa life-or-death situation i probably wouldn't, i would just run out in pjs and only with my phone, and with my luck it would probably be at 20% at best. - Anyhow I've been having this recurring thought of what is of value to me, that i would wanna keep if i were to leave this place forever, and the list, well it's not realisting at all. No, god damn it, i would not take 30 books, 10 notebooks and half my wardrobe, no it will not fit in a bag, not even if i were to take two. But what it also caused is I've started to maybe evalute things around me. But also I am so not gonna buy anything unless i die without it. Its just another reason for my profound stinginess. And idk, its my last year before so called adulthood (or actually, i dont know what they call it) and i just generally have no idea about anything. I just feel so overwhelmed with life (And apparently with death as well) and all is so not well. Nothing is fine, but also everything is as it was. Stagnation, but also days wither away way to fast, they're burning out and the smoke is choking me.

:) but thats just that

[lemonboyfest]

reminders

reminders for 2024:

You’re not dead yet. Get the fuck up. Drag your corpse kicking and screaming into tomorrow. One day you will stop surviving and start living

more studying, more walks, more reading, more skill-based hobbies, more experimenting w pretty fits and hairstyles, more gym, more exploring new things in general, more whole foods/healthy recipes, more financial literacy, more time management, more time off the phone, more being out the loop. nothing else matters

hrmm. well hold on now ive been filled with a sudden joy and whimsy for the world

Glowing kind of love

fuck beauty standards. someone looking at you with love in their eyes is the most beautiful thing in the world.

as a girl who is literally just a girl i am always yearning. always longing always missing always wearing my heart on my sleeve. always feeling like my heart is on the verge of exploding. the sight of the sun makes me cry. anyway

i hope that when i die there will be an apartment with everyone i’ve ever loved in it and we are together always

read a lot and read everything

film and art and music are what builds ur soul

be outside

love and romance will not come to you any quicker if you are focused on it constantly

possessions don't improve things

movement does improve things

university is <4 years of the rest of your life - make the most of it

find the pleasure in hard work

lose the pleasure in scrolling

creation is essential

joy, love & intelligence are the tenets of life

stagnation isn't inevitable. no person is in a fixed state. you can always change

i love listening to someone’s favorite song its like im mentally holding their hand

you just had an epiphany about your sexuality? just own it. you like this unpopular thing your friends don’t like? just own it. you’re trans? just own it. you’re doing something unconventional? just own it. you’re completely free to share your reasons, but you don’t have to justify why you made the decisions you made. if you disclose something and a friend makes a face, okay well that’s too bad bc that’s who you are. they’re free to leave if what makes you a person doesn’t sit right w them. you don’t need to explain the why and the how and the when as if you’re trying to outrun their disapproval. be confident enough in yourself that you don’t feel the need to owe anyone an explanation. you’re you and that’s that.

what im learning is that you cannot avoid your way into a life you enjoy

i have the opposite of that “everyone is an npc” mentality people have embraced where i’m instead like. the person next to me in line has someone they can’t wait to go home to, the person picking up their mail has felt devastation before, everyone in this grocery store is doing their sunday shopping, maybe the person that just honked at me is having the worst day of their life, my neighbor has doctors appointments and favorite foods and a song they can’t stand to hear anymore… you are all fully realized complex people and that is overwhelming me on a spiritual level…

"omg you'll post 'i need him' on the most average men" "she's mid" most of us are average and it's good that we can find beauty and desire in average people .... on god FELT. i really need to start practicing this though. i get so complacent in my complacence i listen to my friends and i try so hard to fit in i insult people for no reason there is so much more to them than their aesthetics and if i do not find them attractive then what is to say someone else doesn't why do i feel the need to invalidate why am i rude ? people are all beautiful i need to remind myself . changing

[lovesaadiqa]

the unthethered soul

this book is one that keeps on giving or growing me i should say. my second time reading it helped me realized the different spaces i was in before and now. i seldom go back and read my entries, its kinda of cringe for me especially when i don't see in growth from one post to another, stagnation makes me sad. anyway i cried alot the first time i read this book and this time im highlighting like hell. just to catch me up, ive been driving over the road for 5 months now, initially soothing myself with music, empty conversation from random people and as dangerous as it sounds, tv, movies and murder mysteries. the last 30 days has been silent asf on my truck, no nothing! the window down and my thoughts. i gave the book another go round but ive been applying what im reading and this shit is no joke! ive learned how to know when im in the seat of self, how to be aware of my awareness, how to watch my emotions form, how to disconnect from what im seeing and pay attention to how whatever it is im seeing is making me feel. amateur at best but today was another monster and i can see how i definitely will need my awareness to grow and how consistency will play a major role in how fast i can find my freedom.

its 4th of july, no the weekend, the literal day. i'd been driving for 4 hours and go to my receiver super early because when i started my route i forgot the time zone was going to change. i arrived at 1:30 cst and am told the ppl who unload me was changing shifts and i'd have to wait until 3:45.. there's no pressure but its hard asf to find parking in general but especially on a holiday or weekend so idgaf about nothing but finding parking because im less than 1/2 mile aware from a flying j and dont wanna have to get back on the highway to find parking. i get back in my truck, eat and get on social media. i can feel someone unloading me but it's nowhere near 3:45 so i grab my paperwork and march my ass inside hype like "yes, imma be outta here soon" i get in a realize it was an over zealous worker who came in early for holiday pay (i'd still have to wait for my paperwork to get signed). someone shows up in the office right at 3:45 and im told they have to count and verify my freight which would be at least 30-45 more mins. im ok with that because my appt time wasn't until 5pm and im already unloaded before 4. it's gets dumb tricky because im notified im counted and good to go, i get inside and the guy who is to give me my papers says i have to pay a lumper fee. i've never in all my months had to pay a lumper fee, in fact i don't know wtf that is so i call my dm and I get Matt (he's a rude sob and hate hearing his damn voice) who tells me i have to send a message form. i do as im told but get a reference number on my tablet that says give this to the ppl inside to pay, i get inside give them the code and they tell me to put it in the payment slot on the text they sent (in my head im screaming "what fucking text") -- fuck the rest of the story

as im walking back and forth from my truck to the receiver i can feel the agitation building, my responses are on the rude side, i can hear my consciousness forewarning me that im getting heated. i tried to feel what was happening inside of me as im also trying to remain professional. i tell myself that im only frustated because i dont think im going to be able to find parking, im losing it becasue wtf is a lumper fee and wtf you mean i have to pay it, what text did you send me on top of hearing "western express this is Matt" lmmfaooooo. i get to the fucking gate to leave and the bitch gone say "can you pull all the way up im pregnant and i dont feel like walking to the back of your trailer. i legit wanted to run her tf over because bitch you at work and pregnant ppl arent handicapped HOT!!!! In the time it took me to tell myself to calm and actually calming down i ran a stop sign and drove past the flying j entrance.

then i get to my lil to do list and im supposed to read a chapter: Removing Your Inner Thorn (im literally fighting back tears writing this) the second fucking sentence "In order to grow, you must give up the struggle to remain the same, and learn to embrace change at all time" ATE ME TF UP! Im not the same because now i have the awareness to spot, feel and identify my emotions before they have me in a chokehold. knowing all that i still copped an attitude and let them run me. this chapter talks about have a literal thorn piercing a nerve and the options you have to avoid the pain. first option is to avoid anything that will touch, bother, graze, tap, irritate your torn.. second option, remove the fucking thorn all together! a few lines that made me legit get my laptop, come into the pilot and write this entire entry: if you decide you have to keep things from touching the thorn, then that becomes the work of a lifetime; the life of protecting yourself from the problem becomes a perfect reflection of the problem itself; you can actually fell that because you've minimized the pain of the problem, you've solved the problem.. all you did was devote your life to avoiding it; the problem will be back the moment the external situation fails to protect you from what's inside; you are not the pain you feel; the thorns naturally work themselves out if you stop protecting them; you do no get rid of loneliness (or any thorn sadness, depression, anxiety, short temper, a broken heart, abdandonment) you just cease to be involved with it, it just another thing in the universerse like cars, glass or the stars.

i cant began to explain how i did the work and then read the book. there is no joy like getting it. i understand now. im praying for more situations to arise so i can better at this and win inner peace for myself. the ultimate goal for me is to sit in the seat of self and remain there.. i just know with my whole heart i will read this book until the cover falls off because it is a complete guide to spiritual freedom, in my opinion. i have about 6 books on my truck right now and this one is the most got a second read before i finished any of the other one for a first time. im happy to be here. in this space, with this awareness and the understanding of what to do with it and how if benefits me. i will get so fucking good at this!!

i hope when you come back to read this it wont be cringe babygirl. i wish you nothing but healing and total well being. to think that coming face to face with a pain that made you know want to wake up no more got you here is nothing but God's love for you. its so important to realize that it was all necessary! forgive, relax and release Saadiqa but most importantly remain thank for it all. equipped with the know-how to watch your thoughts and detach from them should make this journey so fucking delicious. you are awareness and EVERTHING else is an object of your consciousness. the feelings, the thoughts that get stuck on repeat, other people, aging, your body.. all of it. just a thing/things you've become aware of, they are not you. never, ever, ever forget that. leaving the seat of self is such a massive step down that some people do it for a single thing and they're never able to return again. that is the prize, the gift of a life lived. Chapter 8 over and over and over and over again!!!! please get this Saadiqa it is my life's wish for you NEVER STEP DOWN!