#and sometimes one of those users - still self-conscious about their place in the world

[vimbry]

omg wait yeah a notif tag about the "isopods are cringe" thing just reminded me: you ever see that post on here with an addition where someone shyly tagged it with, "I know possums are "out" but-" what do you mean out they're an animal 😭 don't let people who twist themselves up trying to be unauthentically different to stay on trend make you insecure, none of this matters

[duhragonball]

Neon Genesis Evangelion 16

Tonight's episode: Whatever this thing is.

This one opens with another breakfast at Misato's place, but Asuka jumps out of the shower complaining it's too hot, then jumps down Shinji's throat for apologizing for things he can't control, like the water being too hot. She also seems sore about Misato getting back together with Kaji, then she slams the door shut, which I didn't even think you could do with those Japanese sliding doors. You'd just tear the whole thing apart, right? Anyway, this scene was probably intended to reintroduce the main cast, particularly Shinji, who will be psychoanalyzed later, but it's weird how Asuka will barge into a room, throw three different fits simultaneously, and leave. I feel like that probably needs some professional attention.

The kids do another round of testing at the NERV base, and Shinji's compatibility with the Eva has increased again, finally putting his numbers above Asuka's. Misato hopes this will improve his confidence. Asuka, of course, is very gracious abou-- ha ha I can't even finish that sentence. No, she throws another fit, because it's a day that ends in a "y". Rei's like "good luck with that" and leaves her to stew.

It does actually give Shinji something to feel good about. He does a little fist pump on the bus, but he sees some kids laughing at him and he gets self-conscious about it.

The next day, a giant sphere shows up over Tokyo-3, and they can't even tell if it's an Angel or not, but the smart money is on "yes it is". Misato sends all three pilots to reconnoiter, and tells them that one will go into attack, with the other two backing that one up. Asuka suggests that Shinji take point, since he's testing so well these days. Misato isn't sure he's up for it, but Shinji's feeling his oats, so he wants to do it. Well okay then.

But Shinji's a little too eager this time. He pulls too far ahead of the others, so there's no one to back him up. Impulsively, he opens fire on the Angel, and then a shadow appears underneath him and swallows him up. Great, so it's a Stand User on top of everything else.

Later, Ritsuko explains that the shadow is the Angel, and it only appears when... look, I'm not going to pretend to understand how this works. The big sphere is actually the shadow cast by the Angel's weird geometry. The point is that Shinji's inside a parallel world separate from our own universe. The power cable to his Eva was severed when they tried to pull it back out, but if he conserves battery power in life-support mode, he should be able to survive for sixteen hours.

Okay, these batteries are complete bullshit. Sometimes they're only good for one minute, other times they can power an Eva for five minutes, and now there's a way to keep it on for sixteen hours. I get it, it's probably all about what you do with the Eva while it's on the battery. Combat and locomotion are going to waste power much faster. But it's strange to me how it can last that much longer in a situation like this. It would have been easier for me to buy that they developed a better battery since the last episode.

Asuka openly mocks Shinji for his predicament, and Rei asks her if she pilots the Eva just for the praise of others. Uh, yeah, Asuka practically admitted this a few episodes back. Asuka denies it now, but come on. Don't kid a kidder, Asuka. I don't think I understand Rei's point here, but it's pretty clear that Asuka is just acting out to avoid dealing with the stress of Shinji's disappearance. Rei isn't buying it and she's not going to take the bait just to give Asuka the distraction she wants.

Inside, Shinji is still alive, but there's nothing he can do. His sensors can detect nothing outside the Eva. To his credit, he did set the Eva on life support mode, so he's got plenty of time, but there's not much he can do other than wait for a rescue.

It doesn't take long for him to start panicking. See, he's thinking about blood, which is what Rei was thinking about when she synced up with Unit 01 a couple of episodes back. She got a taste of his dark thoughts, and I guess he got a taste of hers when Unit 00 went berserk all over again.

Outside, Ritsuko proposes a plan that would involve dropping 992 N2 mines into the shadow, all at once. That would somehow allow them to recover Unit 01. Misato asks how Shinji could possibly survive such a thing. Well, he'd be inside the Eva, so if the Eva's salvageable, I assume he'd be alive as long as his life support doesn't run out.

But Ritsuko doesn't say that. Instead she explains that the Eva is the priority here, not the pilot. Misato slaps her for that. Damn!

See, this is what I'm talking about when I was complaining about the first half of this series. Not everything has to be a laser karate fight or an exploding robot. This show's premise is loaded with tension--the world is always in danger of being destroyed-- so you knew that one of these days Ritsuko and Misato might not get along as well as they normally do. But they could have done something like this much, much earlier in the show than this, and it would have added a lot of texture to the story. I mean, at least they're doing it now, so it's not a total waste, but a lot of the good stuff we're getting in the second half makes me mad at the missed opportunities in the first half.

Ritsuko pulls rank and tells Misato that she's told her all she knows. We know that's a lie, because Kaji showed Misato that secret room in the NERV basement. Misato doesn't know what an Eva is, exactly, but it's got something to do with that Angel corpse that's trussed up downstairs, and Gendo Ikari and Ritsuko seem to care more about the Evas than the pilots.

Meanwhile, Shinji experiences some sort of presence who identifies as himself. All beings, it explains, are composed of two selves: one's own self-perception, and the way one is perceived by others.

The voice tells Shinji that he fears the Shinji Ikari that exists in the minds of others. He's too wrapped up in worrying about how others feel about him. This probably stems from his father deserting him as a small child, but...

... the voice tells him it isn't that simple. Shinji ran away from himself that day. There's images and voices accusing Gendo Ikari of killing his wife, so I have no idea how to unpack all of that, but there's a rich tapestry of issues here. It's hard to imagine that this is just Shinji's mind talking to itself, because he normally isn't this willing to confront these things head-on like this. So maybe this is Angel trying to make contact with him, but we can't tell.

Then, as Shinji seems to succumb to the life support failure, some ghostly figure embraces him and... I don't know.

Outside, the shadow on the ground begins to form bloody cracks, and NERV's sensors go off the charts. No one knows what's happening.

Ritsuko is especially confused, because her recovery operation hasn't even started yet.

Then we see the Eva's hand burst out of the sphere. You know, the sphere that Ritsuko said wasn't actually the Angel? Well, all that blood coming out of it would beg to differ. Maybe she didn't understand it as well as she thought.

I gotta say, this is pretty cool.

Finally Unit 01 busts out and it screams like it did way back in the beginning, when Shinji didn't know what he was doing. This terrifies a lot of the people on the ground. Asuka is gobsmacked to see just what it is she's piloting. I think Rei already knew they were like this. Pretty sure Ritsuko knew as well, but...

This is still beyond anything she might have expected.

Her words are a clue for Misato, but she doesn't think the Evas are simply copied from the body of the first Angel. There's more to it than that, and what really concerns her is this: Just what is NERV planning to do with the Evas once all the Angels have been destroyed?

Anyway, they get Shinji out of the robot and he's still alive, though delerious.

Later, Ritsuko and Gendo are overseeing the repairs to Unit 01, and she worries that Misato or Shinji might have noticed something about the Evas that they're not supposed to know. If they ever figured it out, she worries that they'd never forgive them. Gendo acknowledges this, but wants to leave it be for now.

Shinji wakes up in the hospital bed, but this time Rei's there at his bedside. She tells him to take it easy and leaves.

As Rei leaves, we see Asuka at the door, much to her chagrin. Shinji is gratified to know they both care about him.

Shinji looks at his hand, then observes "It still smells like blood." His hand, or the whole room? And what does this mean? Did he kill his mother?

[lalalian]

My problem with this take is that there are people that want to live in a story with conflict— conflict they know they can handle. No, not in a dramatic “haha, I’m stronger than alllll~ of you~!” kind of way, but more in an introspective manner.

Yeah I wanna shift to a story. Yeah I want to romanticize my life (not trauma, I’ll get to that in a sec) So what?

Yeah I wanna have a self insert power fantasy. So what? Is my dragon rider academy dr and my fantasy romance novel inspired dr both essentially just self insert fanfics?

Yes. But the thing is, I know myself and what I can handle. I haven’t lived a simple peaceful life, I’ve been around so much death, drugs, pedophiles— everything. I know who I can handle and who I cannot. If you haven’t been around the block, be introspective. Visualize [insert event] as if it’s happening, feel it on your skin, smell the scent of whatever is happening, if you feel sick or uneasy, I think it’s time to reconsider adding that event to your DR.

I do think shifters should know the weight of certain events BEFORE scripting things in. I in no way would murder someone in my DRs, I don’t think I’d even do it for survival.

But I’m still shifting to DRs where it’s not 100% safe. Why not just shift to live an eternally peaceful life as a cat instead? Why not shift to live in a utopia? Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to shift to those kinds of places (I desperately need to be a chihuahua), but I want to experience life to the fullest. I’m not shifting to places where I’d have to kill a fully conscious sentient being, I’m slicing and dicing monsters, solving mysteries, and learning how to fight with swords.

To me, it’s frustrating to see people say I can’t shift to a story-like reality. I can play around with the world building and plot of my DRs all I want, but that doesn’t mean that life is trivial to me. Recently, I wrote about post regarding death and the lifespans of both dragons and riders— genuinely, it was a little hard for me to continue because all I could think about was my own dragon.

To me, he’s already someone I want to protect. Sometimes I stay up thinking about what kinds of food he’d like the most. I wonder if he’d accept my cuddles (he’s supposed to be quite the fussy type), and I wonder which teacher he’d hate the most. I want to know how his scales feel, and if he’d tolerate my nose boops. Because I’m planning to shift before he hatches from his egg, I’m always thinking about what things I should teach him.

If I build my DRs like a story, why would I feel this way? Do I really think so little of my life in that reality if I don’t feel a warm connection with the people there?

Why is it wrong to live in a story? Why is wrong to live in a fantasy if you take that fantasy seriously?

I always hate the see stuff like this because I know it’s targeted towards people like me, but, yall wrong as hell.

I saw another girl who shifted to some sort of war in Ancient Rome (It might’ve been Greece, idk) but she was one of those nurses that tended to soldiers’ wounds. She shifted there long enough to marry and settle down with a man (she didn’t script this). This girl knew what kind of place she’d be in. She knew that she’d have to amputate limbs (she amputated many limbs, actually). She knew about the medical practices. This girl was fascinated by that time period, it’s why she shifted there. But she didn’t come back traumatized— she talked about her life there as if she was recounting a simple memory. This girl knew herself, she knew her boundaries, and she ended up fine. She shifted back there multiple times, and I think she said it was her fav DR. I don’t remember her user, but if I find her again, I’ll edit this post with it. EDIT: I FOUND HER, her user is whyenshusband on TikTok

Anyway, yes it’s real. I know it’s real. But I also know myself.

I do draw a line tho with pedophilia, sexual assault, and incest. Thats weird asf, I can smell yall from here 🤢 (Of course if you’ve already experienced those things before and you want to heal from them in a reality that makes you feel safe enough to confront those fears, that is a different story).

Someone has gotta tell these shifttok mfs that shifting is REAL, this isn’t some silly oc shit. THIS. IS. REAL.

Scripting traumatic stuff is real, You guys face got to stop.

[writingwithcolor]

What Does Our "Motivations” PSA Mean?

@luminalalumini said:

I've been on your blog a lot and it has a lot of really insightful information, but I notice a theme with some of your answers where you ask the writer reaching out what their 'motivation for making a character a certain [race/religion/ethnicity/nationality] is' and it's discouraging to see, because it seems like you're automatically assigning the writer some sort of ulterior motive that must be sniffed out and identified before the writer can get any tips or guidance for their question. Can't the 'motive' simply be having/wanting to have diversity in one's work? Must there be an 'ulterior motive'? I can understand that there's a lot of stigma and stereotypes and bad influence that might lead to someone trynna add marginalized groups into their stories for wrong reasons, but people that have those bad intentions certainly won't be asking for advice on how to write good representation in the first place. Idk its just been something that seemed really discouraging to me to reach out myself, knowing i'll automatically be assigned ulterior motives that i don't have and will probably have to justify why i want to add diversity to my story as if i'm comitting some sort of crime. I don't expect you guys to change your blog or respond to this or even care all that much, I'm probably just ranting into a void. I'm just curious if theres any reason to this that I haven't realized exists I suppose. I don't want y'all to take this the wrong way because I do actually love and enjoy your blog's advice in spite of my dumb griping. Cheers :))

We assume this is in reference to the following PSA:

PSA to all of our users - Motivation Matters: This lack of clarity w/r to intent has been a general issue with many recent questions. Please remember that if you don’t explain your motivations and what you intend to communicate to your audience with your plot choices, character attributes, world-building etc., we cannot effectively advise you beyond the information you provide. We Are Not Mind Readers. If, when drafting these questions, you realize you can’t explain your motivations, that is likely a hint that you need to think more on the rationales for your narrative decisions. My recommendation is to read our archives and articles on similar topics for inspiration while you think. I will be attaching this PSA to all asks with similar issues until the volume of such questions declines. 

We have answered this in three parts.

1. Of Paved Roads and Good Intentions

Allow me to give you a personal story, in solidarity towards your feelings:

When I began writing in South Asia as an outsider, specifically in the Kashmir and Lahore areas, I was doing it out of respect for the cultures I had grown up around. I did kathak dance, I grew up on immigrant-cooked North Indian food, my babysitters were Indian. I loved Mughal society, and every detail of learning about it just made me want more. The minute you told me fantasy could be outside of Europe, I hopped into the Mughal world with two feet. I was 13. I am now 28.

And had you asked me, as a teenager, what my motives were in giving my characters’ love interests blue or green eyes, one of them blond hair, my MC having red-tinted brown hair that was very emphasized, and a whole bunch of paler skinned people, I would have told you my motives were “to represent the diversity of the region.” 

I’m sure readers of the blog will spot the really, really toxic and colourist tropes present in my choices. If you’re new here, then the summary is: giving brown people “unique” coloured eyes and hair that lines up with Eurocentric beauty standards is an orientalist trope that needs to be interrogated in your writing. And favouring pale skinned people is colourist, full stop.

Did that make me a bad person with super sneaky ulterior motives who wanted to write bad representation? No.

It made me an ignorant kid from the mostly-white suburbs who grew up with media that said brown people had to “look unique” (read: look as European as possible) to be considered valuable.

And this is where it is important to remember that motives can be pure as you want, but you were still taught all of the terrible stuff that is present in society. Which means you’re going to perpetuate it unless you stop and actually question what is under your conscious motive, and work to unlearn it. Work that will never be complete.

I know it sounds scary and judgemental (and it’s one of the reasons we allow people to ask to be anonymous, for people who are afraid). Honestly, I would’ve reacted much the same as a younger writer, had you told me I was perpetuating bad things. I was trying to do good and my motives were pure, after all! But after a few years, I realized that I had fallen short, and I had a lot more to learn in order for my motives to match my impact. Part of our job at WWC is to attempt to close that gap.

We aren’t giving judgement, when we ask questions about why you want to do certain things. We are asking you to look at the structural underpinnings of your mind and question why those traits felt natural together, and, more specifically, why those traits felt natural to give to a protagonist or other major character.

I still have blond, blue-eyed characters with sandy coloured skin. I still have green-eyed characters. Because teenage me was right, that is part of the region. But by interrogating my motive, I was able to devalue those traits within the narrative, and I stopped making those traits shorthand for “this is the person you should root for.” 

It opened up room for me to be messier with my characters of colour, even the ones who my teenage self would have deemed “extra special.” Because the European-associated traits (pale hair, not-brown-eyes) stopped being special. After years of questioning, they started lining up with my motive of just being part of the diversity of the region.

Motive is important, both in the conscious and the subconscious. It’s not a judgement and it’s not assumed to be evil. It’s simply assumed to be unquestioned, so we ask that you question it and really examine your own biases.

~Mod Lesya

2. Motivations Aren't Always "Ulterior"

You can have a positive motivation or a neutral one or a negative one. Just wanting to have diversity only means your characters aren't all white and straight and cis and able-bodied -- it doesn't explain why you decided to make this specific character specifically bi and specifically Jewish (it me). Yes, sometimes it might be completely random! But it also might be "well, my crush is Costa Rican, so I gave the love interest the same background", or "I set it in X City where the predominant marginalized ethnicity is Y, so they are Y". Neither of these count as ulterior motives. But let's say for a second that you did accidentally catch yourself doing an "ulterior." Isn't that the point of the blog, to help you find those spots and clean them up?

Try thinking of it as “finding things that need adjusting” rather than “things that are bad” and it might get less scary to realize that we all do them, subconsciously. Representation that could use some work is often the product of subconscious bias, not deliberate misrepresentation, so there's every possibility that someone who wants to improve and do better didn't do it perfectly the first time. 

--Shira

3. Dress-Making as a Metaphor

I want to echo Lesya’s sentiments here but also provide a more logistical perspective. If you check the rubber stamp guide here and the “Motivation matters” PSA above, you’ll notice that concerns with respect to asker motivation are for the purposes of providing the most relevant answer possible.

It is a lot like if someone walks into a dressmaker’s shop and asks for a blue dress/ suit (Back when getting custom-made clothes was more of a thing) . The seamstress/ tailor is likely to ask a wide variety of questions:

What material do you want the outfit to be made of?

Where do you plan to wear it?

What do you want to highlight?

How do you want to feel when you wear it?

Let’s say our theoretical customer is in England during the 1920s. A tartan walking dress/ flannel suit for the winter is not the same as a periwinkle, beaded, organza ensemble/ navy pinstripe for formal dress in the summer. When we ask for motivations, we are often asking for exactly that: the specific reasons for your inquiry so we may pinpoint the most pertinent information.

The consistent problem for many of the askers who receive the PSA is they haven’t even done the level of research necessary to know what they want to ask of us. It would be like if our English customer in the 1920s responded, “IDK, some kind of blue thing.” Even worse,  WWC doesn’t have the luxury of the back-and-forth between a dressmaker and their clientele. If our asker doesn’t communicate all the information they need in mind at the time of submission, we can only say, “Well, I’m not sure if this is right, but here’s something. I hope it works, but if you had told us more, we could have done a more thorough job.”

Answering questions without context is hard, and asking for motivations, by which I mean the narratives, themes, character arcs and other literary devices that you are looking to incorporate, is the best way for us to help you, while also helping you to determine if your understanding of the problem will benefit from outside input. Because these asks are published with the goal of helping individuals with similar questions, the PSA also serves to prompt other users.

I note that asking questions is a skill, and we all start by asking the most basic questions (Not stupid questions, because to quote a dear professor, “There are no stupid questions.”). Unfortunately, WWC is not suited for the most basic questions. To this effect, we have a very helpful FAQ and archive as a starting point. Once you have used our website to answer the more basic questions, you are more ready to approach writing with diversity and decide when we can actually be of service. This is why we are so adamant that people read the FAQ. Yes, it helps us, but it also is there to save you time and spare you the ambiguity of not even knowing where to start.

The anxiety in your ask conveys to me a fear of being judged for asking questions. That fear is not something we can help you with, other than to wholeheartedly reassure you that we do not spend our unpaid, free time answering these questions in order to assume motives we can’t confirm or sit in judgment of our users who, as you say, are just trying to do better.

Yes, I am often frustrated when an asker’s question makes it clear they haven’t read the FAQ or archives. I’ve also been upset when uncivil commenters have indicated that my efforts and contributions are not worth their consideration. However, even the most tactless question has never made me think, “Ooh this person is such a naughty racist. Let me laugh at them for being a naughty racist. Let me shame them for being a naughty racist. Mwahaha.”

What kind of sad person has time for that?*

Racism is structural. It takes time to unlearn, especially if you’re in an environment that doesn’t facilitate that process to begin with. Our first priority is to help while also preserving our own boundaries and well-being. Though I am well aware of the levels of toxic gas-lighting and virtue signaling that can be found in various corners of online writing communities in the name of “progressivism*”, WWC is not that kind of space. This space is for discussions held in good faith: for us to understand each other better, rather than for one of us to “win” and another to “lose.”

Just as we have good faith that you are doing your best, we ask that you have faith that we are trying to do our best by you and the BIPOC communities we represent.

- Marika.

*If you are in any writing or social media circles that feed these anxieties or demonstrate these behaviors, I advise you to curtail your time with them and focus on your own growth. You will find, over time, that it is easier to think clearly when you are worrying less about trying to appease people who set the bar of approval so high just for the enjoyment of watching you jump. “Internet hygiene”, as I like to call it, begins with you and the boundaries you set with those you interact with online.

[arrantsnowdrop]

To be a Jedi - Anakin Skywalker x Reader

Request: “anakin/female!reader getting together fic that involves reader crying because she’s feeling self-conscious about her appearance and feeling worthless and anakin comforting her and calming her down and then accidentally confessing to her?”

Tags: @lothloriien​

Warnings: self-deprecation, insecurities, etc. (~2,500 words)

~~~~~

Being a Jedi really sucked sometimes.

Not all the time. In fact, you normally enjoyed the fast-paced, demanding lifestyle you led. Even as a youngling you had taken pride in the ritual and responsibility of being a Jedi, and now, as a Padawan on the verge of facing the Jedi trials, you were more confident than ever that the Force had led you down the right path.

But that didn’t mean you didn’t have bad days every once in a while.

Your Master had been called away on some highly classified mission in the Naboo system, so you’d been spending the week at the Jedi Temple working on some independent research and participating in training sessions with the other senior Padawans. Unfortunately, they were focusing on lightsaber combat this week - something you were definitely not as skilled at considering your specialization in negotiation and communications.

It wasn’t that you were unathletic - you were training to be a Jedi for crying out loud - but it was hard not to feel a little self-conscious about how much you were struggling with the training exercises, especially when your assigned training partner was none other than Anakin Skywalker.

It was just past midday - you’d been training for hours already and still had a few to go. The sun was blaring down on the courtyard where you and the other Padawans were sparring under Obi-Wan’s supervision.

You panted heavily, eyeing Anakin as the two of you circled each other slowly. There was no question as to which one of you would launch the next parry - Anakin had taken the offensive right out of the gate - so all you could do was try to catch your breath and prepare yourself for his next attack.

His eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, a few beads of sweat dripping down his forehead and some of his hair sticking to his face. His eyes were following your every move, tracking you like you were some kind of prey.

You hated this.

Suddenly, Anakin lunged forward, blue lightsaber whirring loudly as he swung it towards you. You groaned, lifting your own lightsaber up at the last possible moment to deflect him.

“Such a slow reaction time,” Anakin teased, grinning as he stepped back to give himself a wider range of motion.

“I thought it would take you longer to catch your breath,” you replied, voice strained as you blocked another one of his strikes.

You’d been friends with Anakin since Obi-Wan took him as a Padawan years ago, offering to help him as he played “catch up” with the rest of you. The fact he’d become such a strong Force-user despite starting so late was something you deeply respected him for, though you were perfectly content simply watching him display these skills.

Being on the receiving end of a lightsaber attack from Anakin Skywalker was not something you would consider enjoyable. You’d spent the whole morning dodging and jumping and somehow still losing every match. 

You flinched as Anakin’s lightsaber hit your torso, the sting of the “training mode” setting hurting far less than the sting of your own pride.

“Seven to one,” Obi-Wan called from where he was watching. You groaned, rubbing your temples with your free hand and turning your lightsaber off.

“Hey, you were definitely doing better than time,” Anakin said reassuringly, sensing your frustration. “Improvement is all Obi-Wan is looking for.”

“Improvement doesn’t take away from the fact I’ve lost seven matches today,” you seethed, bending down to re-tie the laces of your boots.

“Perhaps if you worked out a bit more you wouldn’t lose so often,” one of the other Padawans jested. Your head snapped up, face flushing as you sent them a pointed glare.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you asked curtly, watching them look between you and Anakin uncomfortably.

“It’s just-”

They didn’t get a chance to finish, letting out a small shriek as they dodged a rock flying through the air. You turned around to look at Anakin, his slightly raised hand indicating who’d been responsible for the rock. At least he was using his Force capabilities in your favor now.

“Thanks,” you muttered, reigniting your lightsaber, glancing at the clock above where Obi-Wan was sitting. All you wanted was for training to be over so you could retreat to your room.

“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” Anakin said, a somewhat angry look on his face as he took a fighting stance across from you. “You’re perfectly capable of wielding a lightsaber, and you’d definitely beat them if you’d been paired up.”

“Hopefully,” you corrected him, “hopefully I’d beat them.”

“Definitely,” Anakin insisted, you rolling your eyes as you lifted your lightsaber in front of you.

----

What sucked about getting older was how little you saw Obi-Wan and Anakin. Your Master was responsible for conducting multiple research projects for the Jedi Council off-world, and Obi-Wan and Anakin hardly ever stayed on Coruscant for longer than a few days, so it was unlikely that you’d find yourselves in the same place for a decent amount of time anymore.

Normally, you would’ve used this week as a great opportunity to catch up with one of your oldest friends. This damn lightsaber training was getting in the way.

It had been yet another long day of sweating the equivalent of your own bodyweight and paling in comparison to Anakin’s abilities. Obi-Wan had focused on lightsaber combat in precarious and compromising situations, with one of which resulting in you falling off a two story rock wall.

As you stood in front of the mirror in your room you couldn’t overlook the spattering of bruises covering your torso and arms, all varying hues of blue and purple culminating from the last few days. You sighed, grateful you were getting the extra training you so clearly needed and nervous about what that meant. Imagine you’d been confronted by some Sith fanatic in the last few weeks - who knows how long you would’ve lasted?

Perhaps you were overthinking. You did have an extremely over-skilled training partner who made most other Jedi look incompetent with a lightsaber.

That being said, you still couldn’t shake what that other Padawan had said about you yesterday. Had you really become unathletic? You didn’t think you’d ever really neglected your daily training exercises, but perhaps those weren’t enough.

You sat down on the edge of your bed slowly, shoulder slumped. Maybe you weren’t as capable as you thought. The bruises all over you and lack of any actual visible muscle certainly pointed towards that.

----

The next morning, you skipped breakfast, giving Obi-Wan some offhanded explanation as to why you’d be missing training and heading for the library. You weren’t really skipping for no reason, your Master had given you a list of different research topics for you to look up in the Jedi Archives. Did you really need the extra time to get this done? No, but it still gave you a good excuse to avoid the feeling of physical incapability that accompanied your training sessions.

Plus, you didn’t want to slow the entire group down. Tears pricked at your eyes as you remembered yesterday when Obi-Wan made you repeat some dumb exercise on a floating raft over and over again, even though everyone else had already done it to his satisfaction. It was humiliating.

At least here in the library, surrounded by stacks of holograms and books, you were in your element. Here you didn’t have to move fast or chop anyone’s limb off out of self-defense.

It was sometime in the late afternoon when Anakin stormed into the library, loud footsteps immediately shushed by a swarm of librarians. You couldn’t help but grin softly, eyes meeting his as he marched over to you much more quietly.

“Even the great Anakin Skywalker is no match for an angry librarian,” you teased, him scoffing as he plopped down in a chair next to you.

“And where were you today?” Anakin asked, a strange intensity behind his question. You gulped, gesturing to the pile of transcripts and notes in front of you.

“I was right here,” you replied meekly.

“Since this morning?” he asked, eyes widening in surprise. You nodded.

“What the heck, Y/N,” he groaned, leaning back in his chair. “Obi-Wan assigned me a different partner. Do you know how irritating every other Padawan is to train with?”

“No, I’ve only ever trained with you,” you said bluntly.

“Exactly!” Anakin responded a little too loudly, earning him a dramatic shush from the circulation desk.

“Shut up,” you chuckled, slapping his chest lightly. He rolled his eyes.

“What I mean is that I’ve only ever trained with you, too, so everyone else doesn’t live up to my expectations.”

“What expectations?” you asked quizzically, flipping one of your notebooks closed.

“Working hard but still having a good time,” he answered, waving his hand nonchalantly. “You never sacrifice good banter for anything, I value that.”

“Ah, I’m glad to know you only value me as a training partner for my humor,” you retorted dryly, gathering all your belongings into a pile and standing up. Anakin’s brows furrowed as he looked up at you, a confused look painted across his face.

“Hey, what?” he asked, standing up with you. “What happened?”

“Nothing, just makes sense that you only enjoy my conversation, not anything actually training-related.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, completely dumbfounded as you started walking away.

“See you tomorrow, Anakin,” you replied, refusing to shed any more tears until you reached your room.

----

The next morning you were too unmotivated to let Obi-Wan know you weren’t coming, deciding instead to stay in bed and do absolutely nothing. Well, you were reading, but what did that really matter to a Jedi? You were supposed to be able to do backflips through the air and take on five enemies at once, and yet here you were wrapped in two blankets feeling like absolute shit. Some Jedi you were.

You held your breath as someone began knocking furiously on the door, hoping desperately they would think you weren’t home.

“Y/N, I know you’re in there,” Anakin called. You groaned, turning around and smashing your face into the pillow.

“Y/N!” he called again.

“Don’t come in!” you shouted back, voice muffled through the pillow.

“I’m coming in.”

“Don’t-”

You never got the chance to finish, bolting upright in bed as the door flew open, Anakin stalking in. You rolled your eyes, just thankful he had kept the door on its hinges.

“What is wrong with you?” he demanded, cringing as you recoiled slightly at his harsh words.

“What do you mean?” you replied quietly, his face softening as he took a seat on the edge of your bed.

“I meant what’s wrong, not what’s wrong with you,” Anakin corrected, taking your hand in his own.

“Nothing’s wr-”

“Don’t give me that,” he interrupted, shaking his head. “Don’t even try, I know you better than anyone Y/N, what’s wrong?”

You kept quiet, focusing on the way his thumb was rubbing small circles on the back of your hand.

“You’ve been acting off since we started training together, is it something I did?” he tried again, genuinely concerned. You laughed dryly and shook your head.

“No, Anakin, you didn’t do anything,” you replied truthfully, looking at him. “You’re perfect, I promise you did nothing wrong.” He gave you a small smile, looking down to where he was still holding your hand. He didn’t let go, only gripped you a little tighter, urging you to continue. You bit your lip, debating whether or not to tell him.

“Do you remember when that Padawan told me I needed to exercise more?” you asked finally. His head snapped up, eyes meeting yours.

“I knew it,” he murmured, nostrils flaring as he tried (and failed) to conceal his budding anger. “I knew it.”

“Anakin it’s ok,” you said, reaching out and rubbing his forearm, his gaze following your hand. “I mean, they were right, if I-”

“No,” Anakin said. “No, they weren’t right. They have no idea how strong you are, how capable-”

“Anakin I’ve struggled this entire week,” you blurted, eyes stinging and face heating up. “I pale in comparison to you, and the other Padawans, at least physically. I thought whatever training I’d been doing had been enough but clearly it wasn’t, so they’re right. I need to exercise more, I need to train more, I’m incapable of defending myself with a lightsaber and I don’t even look like a proper Jedi.” You thrust your bruised arms out towards him. “Look at these, you don’t have them, no one else does. I’m the only one who struggles with every exercise and test.”

You realized you’d begun to cry, tears rolling down your face and breaths shallow.

“Y/N,” Anakin murmured, hurt in his eyes as he took your arms gingerly in his hands. “Y/N, no.”

Your eyes widened as Anakin bent over, slowly pressing his mouth to each bruise on your forearms. You gulped, feeling a little dizzy as Anakin glanced up at you. “You’re an amazing Jedi,” he started, sitting back up straight and pulling you closer to him. You tried to pull away, not wanting to stain his robes with your tears, but he held you firmly. “You’re already stronger than half the people in that group, I’ll have Obi-Wan reassign you so you can kick someone’s ass and everyone will realize it.”

“Anakin-”

He shushed you, resting his chin on the top of your head. You closed your eyes, reveling in the warmth of his body against yours.

“There’s more to being a Jedi than using a lightsaber, anyways,” he continued. “You’re the only person our age in this whole temple that can negotiate with warlords and thieves and murderers and still come back unscathed with five new friends.”

You chuckled, biting your lip as he pressed a kiss against your hair.

“You’re perfect, Y/N,” he insisted softly, you shifting in his arms to gaze up at him.

You were surprised by how nervous he looked, as if he didn’t know how you’d react to what he’d just said, what he’d just implied. You just smiled softly, leaning up to press a slow kiss on his cheek.

“Thank you, Anakin,” you mumbled against his face, grinning as you felt him smile.

Suddenly he pushed himself up, forcing you down onto the bed and collapsing on top of you. You shrieked, bursting into a fit of giggles as he began nestling himself in your hair.

“Shouldn’t you still be at training?” you asked, a wide smile on your face.

“I was sent here by Obi-Wan to fetch you,” he replied smugly.

“So shouldn’t we both be getting back then?”

He propped himself up on his elbows, gazing down at you with a cocky smile on his face.

“I never told him when I’d be coming back.”

You decided you could afford to skip training another day - Anakin probably needed the rest anyways - and pulled his face down to meet your own.

[shihalyfie]

The differences between Takato and Haru

(This meta was requested by @digitalgate02​, who also assisted me with a large portion of it. Thank you for your help!)

Takato and Haru often beg a lot of comparisons because of the fact they go so against the usual “brash hero” archetype common to not only Digimon but also shounen franchises in general, being significantly more mild-mannered (on a language level, they’re also the only Digimon protagonists to date who use the more polite boku first-person pronoun instead of the more assertive ore). Haru himself even points out in Appmon’s very first episode that this kind of personality would normally be more suited towards a side character than a protagonist!

Because of that, Haru is often considered to be a spiritual rehashing of Takato, and many have tried to make close parallels between the two, but while the desire to make comparison is naturally understandable, the truth is that beyond surface temperament, the two characters actually have very little in common. In fact, both Tamers and Appmon take rather different approaches to their definitions of a “conventional hero”, and that results in both Takato and Haru having very different roles in the plot.

In many cases, the role of a protagonist in a narrative has a deep relationship with what kind of narrative it is in the first place, and especially what kinds of themes it wants to present. For instance, in the case of 02, you could argue that the story is more “about” Ken than it is about Daisuke, since both major arcs in the story are about his fall and reformation, but when you consider the major themes present in 02′s narrative about purpose in life and pragmatism, Daisuke’s way of life and overall attitude are vital elements in relation to them, and it’s why he ends up being the “protagonist” (or, more accurately, the character at the forefront of the story) despite Ken’s heavier connection to it.

Tamers and Appmon have a number of similarities in storytelling, mainly that they’re both “hard sci-fi” stories in comparison to other entries that have stronger fantasy elements, and do have a certain amount of crossover in terms of dealing with AI-related topics. However, the actual “nature” of each work ultimately turns out to be different, and thus impacts how each of their protagonists is presented.

I heavily dislike calling Tamers a “deconstruction” of the monster collecting genre or of Digimon Adventure, mainly because of how much that term has been exploited to stereotype works in a genre as being things they’re not, or less nuanced than they actually are (as one Twitter user aptly put it: “a deconstruction is when I like something in a genre I disrespect”). I absolutely do not care for the idea of claiming that Adventure or 02 were somehow less nuanced or “deep” than Tamers just because they were more idealistic or more subtle about it, because they sure as hell had a lot of deeper things hidden between the lines if you bother to look out for them, and I also don’t like the implication that Tamers exists to criticize Adventure for supposedly being too naive. It is true, however, that Tamers re-examines a lot of Adventure (and 02)’s concepts in a different context; while Tamers isn’t as strong of a theme narrative, and it’s much more difficult to say there's an overarching message that encompass most or all of the series as much, it does indulge in a lot of thought experiments and smaller subplots that wouldn’t be possible in Adventure, and Takato thus has an important position in facilitating those kinds of thought experiments. The overall franchise metaphors of “growing” (evolving) alongside your Digimon (or, at least, something different from you) and the symbolism associated with it are still more than present, so the Tamers way of showcasing it is in mainly presenting the question of how that kind of goal would even be achievable in the first place when things aren’t as clear-cut.

In particular, Takato serves to address how someone who doesn’t fulfill the typical protagonist mold would cope with situations that somewhat resemble those in Adventure, what would happen when a Digimon partner is fundamentally different from oneself, and how one would still be able to grow alongside such an existence. Thus, his own character arc is more relevant to his own personal growth in accordance with interacting with Guilmon and what he gets out of his journey. This is especially because one thing particularly unique to Tamers is how it portrays Digimon as significantly more feral and different in mentality to humans, which means that he had a much higher personal hurdle to begin with, and thus his personal story and what he gets out of it becomes of significantly more importance.

Appmon, on the other hand, very much is an overarching theme narrative and isn’t exactly subtle about it, with one of its biggest questions being about what’s important in a world that’s getting increasingly controlled and regulated by modern technology that’s getting more and more intelligent. Haru is thus the embodiment of Appmon’s answer to that question: “to choose to be kind” -- and the less-than-subtle invocation of the word “protagonist” ends up having a very different meaning invoked in its final episode.

At the very least, on top of both being rather unconventional protagonists, both Tamers and Appmon do start with Takato and Haru both expressing a desire to be more like one who could go on some kind of adventure (Takato’s version isn’t as verbal, but his way of enthusiastically putting on goggles as proof that he’s a Tamer in Tamers episode 2 carries heavy implications of wanting to emulate the heroes he saw on TV).

However, this is where we get our first difference: Takato proudly claims his newfound status as the series protagonist, whereas Haru is unsure and self-conscious about it -- Haru himself is the one who initially considers himself not cut out for the role despite Yuujin personally believing he does and Gatchmon trying to urge him into it. And, in fact, this is actually the difference that kicks off where their paths entirely diverge.

Takato is often said to be unconventional for a protagonist, but when you really think about it, it’s not like Taichi or Daisuke were exactly models of typical protagonist tropes; while you could call them “hot-blooded”, in the end, Taichi’s standout traits have more to do with natural charisma and sometimes even being too chill, and Daisuke, for all he seems assertive, is actually extremely deferential. So why is Takato still such a standout in comparison?

Well, when you look at the detailed profiles of all twelve of the main Adventure and 02 cast, you might notice something: all of them are naturally selfless people who put others before themselves without a second thought. On the other hand, when you look at Takato, you might realize that this is very much not the case, especially during the early parts of the series. As much as Takato is a “soft” person, he’s not necessarily very “kind” or “nice”, especially during the early parts of the series; he can get possessive or clingy, petty, or even a little arrogant (Tamers episode 11 basically has him go on a mini-power trip based on his card combo having worked so well in the prior episode, which ends up becoming part of his isolation from Hirokazu and Kenta in the following one). Moreover, Takato loses his emotional composure and becomes a crying mess as early as Tamers episode 2, and while it’s not like other characters in Adventure and 02 hadn’t been prone to emotional outbursts, combine it with the above facts and you get the take-home that Takato isn’t “soft” out of an active choice to be so as much as he’s just really, really lacking in emotional mettle to begin with.

To be fair to him, Takato has to deal with quite a bit more stress during the early parts of Tamers than Haru has to during the equivalent parts; having to deal with a Digimon partner that’s outright feral at times and doesn’t have a fully intelligent understanding of how to communicate is a pretty rough thing to start off with. That said, Takato is fairly cowardly even in situations that don’t necessarily have to do with this, it’s just that this makes it worse -- but it means a lot that Takato himself is willing to put in that much effort in bonding with Guilmon despite being initially intimidated by what he’d just created, and that perhaps is what’s the beginnings of how he continues to develop that strength of heart for the rest of the series (and also extends to how he’s the one who connects with Grani).

This is in contrast to how Haru is described by Yuujin at the end of Appmon episode 1, in which Yuujin states that Haru is already cut out to be a protagonist because he’s a kind person -- in other words, Takato is someone who is not cut out to be a protagonist of any kind of adventure at the start of Tamers, even though he thinks he now gets the luxury of being one due to the circumstances he’s thrust into, whereas Haru is already someone with the potential to be one even at the start of the series, but initially lacks the self-confidence to consider himself able to be so. Thus, Takato’s character arc involves having to actually grow into someone worthy of the position, whereas Haru’s involves coming to terms with the aspects of himself he already has but doesn’t quite understand yet.

One very important thing to reiterate is that “unconventional” does not necessarily mean “better” by default, and, on the flip side, just because Takato isn’t as virtuous of a person at the beginning doesn’t mean he’s a worse character (after all, these kinds of things are what makes one interesting). Rather, it’s more important to consider why these characters are this way based on the context of the narratives they’re in.

In the case of the Adventure/02 kids, getting twelve naturally kind kids wasn’t exactly accident, nor was Haru and the other Appli Drivers also being that way; said kids have a bit of selection bias in that they were deliberately chosen by various entities (”the one who wishes for stability” and the Agents, the Holy Beasts, or Minerva) knowing that a massive world- or humanity-threatening crisis was on the horizon and quite understandably picking kids who had the greatest potential for the kindness that shouldering the world’s burdens would take (in Adventure and 02 this manifested in having the kids resonate with Crests and Digimentals that represented virtues, and in Appmon this involved Minerva actively testing them). After all, it’s only natural that anyone with the chance to recruit people to help with a monumental task would ideally go out of their way to pick people who seem best suited for the job, whether it’s something as grand as fantasy chosen hero picking or something as simple as job recruitment. But at the beginning of Tamers, none of the involved parties were really aware of any kind of grand, looming threats on the horizon, and whatever the DigiGnomes were thinking (or not thinking) when giving Takato his D-Ark is arcane to us all, and so Takato ended up becoming a Tamer by functional accident, resulting him starting off very poorly equipped for the job and having to learn how to do it on the fly.

This also means that the “motives” Takato and Haru have for taking action at the beginning of the series are accordingly different. Because any concept of “stakes” was not immediately apparent at the start of Tamers, Takato’s motivations for being a Tamer are more self-centered and selfish than Haru’s are for being an Appli Driver at the start of their respective series.

Takato’s motives at the beginning of Tamers really just revolve around “I want to be able to play with Guilmon more and not lose him,” and there’s no indication at said beginning that he’s really prepared for or even understands the part about having to protect others from harm. That doesn’t mean that Takato’s a selfish person to the extent of not caring about others at all -- in fact, by the time of Tamers episode 15, he demonstrates an understanding that they’re not playing a “game” anymore when things get difficult (and even puts his foot down in front of the other kids for it, a huge improvement from his rather cowardly outlook at the beginning of the series), so the issue largely had to do with the fact that the early parts of Tamers didn’t immediately make such high stakes clear, and Takato himself was thus in a situation of not worrying about others because that necessity wasn’t there yet. But even in the same episode, Takato still has a clear motive of wanting to show off his cool Digimon partner to the others and bask in his “status” as a Tamer, and it’s still a huge contrast to Haru who was initially too humble to accept his role as part of such a larger narrative until his desire to “protect everyone” won out. It’s a big deal that Haru understood the stakes that would be involved in the fight against Leviathan from day one, and actively chose to opt in because of his selflessness.

Another major reason for this difference is that Haru has a certain character trait explicitly ascribed to him that isn’t with Takato: Haru enjoys reading books and is actually rather book-smart and intellectual. On a certain technicality, Takato being characterized as not particularly skilled in that department actually brings him a little closer to the conventional shounen protagonist archetype than it does a “bookish” character like Haru, because such a character is often considered too nerdy for the protagonist position -- but in Haru’s case, the fact he’s actively thoughtful and ruminates on things means that he spends a lot of time thinking about “what’s the right thing to do” in a given situation.

For all it’s worth, I really hope that the above won’t be taken as an implication that Takato is a fundamentally bad person for having more selfish immediate priorities than Haru or the Adventure/02 kids do; having to carry the weight of such a large thing is a huge thing to ask of someone, especially when we’re talking about someone who kind of got thrown into this whole mess and has been spending the entirety of this series trying to figure it all out without a lot of reliable sources of help. On top of that, it should also be noted that Takato is ten; if there’s anything that can be said to be not entirely true-to-life with the Adventure and 02 cast personalities, it’s that a lot of the emotional awareness and levelheadedness they exhibit usually come from people much older than 8-12 (it’s one of the “acceptable breaks from reality” employed in kids’ shows that kid protagonists are often a tad bit more mature than actual kids would be at that age, otherwise a lot of said kids’ show plots wouldn’t function), and real ten-year-olds in Takato’s situation would often have more difficulty knowing what to do with such great burdens at this age. It’s actually fairly significant that Haru is 13 and from a group composed mainly of middle schoolers, in contrast to the older series having elementary school kids (the youngest Appli Driver, Astra, is actually the same age as a classic Digimon series protagonist), and thus it’s probably not surprising that they’re more willing and able to deal with such huge issues much earlier on.

Thus, although Takato’s character arc does involve him slowly growing into the role of becoming less shallow and selfish, and becoming more truly assertive while he’s at it, this fundamental difference in their natures ends up continuing to have a major influence by the time of the later parts of the series. The difference can be most starkly illustrated in Tamers episode 35 versus Appmon episode 41 -- in which Takato, upon seeing Beelzebumon kill Leomon, is utterly consumed by his emotions and decides that the best course of action to take would be killing Beelzebumon in revenge, even though this won’t bring Leomon back or accomplish anything productive (and, indeed, it does make things worse in the form of driving his own partner over the edge and traumatizing Juri further). (Adventure had already warned that prioritizing “revenge” over “protecting others” is foolhardy and tends to cause a lot of really nasty problems.)

In contrast, one thing you might notice about Haru is that he never “denies anyone’s feelings”, even when confronting someone like Knight. You could argue that Haru wasn’t necessarily dealing with direct trauma in front of him, but recall that Knight had caused tons of grief and misery for many (something Haru takes serious offense at) and had, along with Charismon, gotten very close to permakilling all of the Buddy Appmon at one point back in Appmon episode 37 -- so it’s not like Haru doesn’t have reason to have grudge against Knight, even if the severity isn’t as immediate. Note that Haru doesn’t “both-sides” this issue; he still insists on making his own case, it’s just that he still doesn’t have it in him to not acknowledge that Knight has a good reason for making the case he does given his background, consider his words to an extent, and fight against the idea of having Knight be killed for no good reason. Haru has a very strong belief in “thinking with one’s heart” and “respecting feelings” that he'd exhibited through the entire series (for example, very prominently in Appmon episode 12 with Rei), and because of that he has a ton of emotional control over himself even taking some very harsh things. It’s clear that Haru does have very deep understanding of what he’s dealing with -- and chooses to be idealistic and kind anyway.

(In addition, because Haru is so naturally inclined to be selfless, the one time he really does hit an emotional low in Appmon episode 49, it’s not anger or lashing out at anyone, but rather sadness and despair. Haru just really does not have the fundamental capacity to be aggressive.)

As said before, Takato’s character arc is very much a personal story of how he grew into the role of a Tamer, via learning to fight for what’s important and have a strong heart for it. As a result, his motives for fighting end up still having a much more personal streak to it than anything -- at the time of Tamers episode 49, technically speaking, the Wild Bunch was still being counted on to work on the D-Reaper problem, and his own family was urging him to stay home for now, but what tipped him over the edge was not some desire to protect people as a whole but rather the fact that Juri was calling for him. It’s not to say that such a thing is selfish -- he’s clearly doing it for her sake, not anything to do with his own -- but nevertheless his involvement was directly related to something that hit a little more personally moreso than it was for the sake of the wider picture.

As said before, this is fitting for someone whose story is really more of a personal character arc before anything else; the significance is more in line with the sheer amount of emotional growth Takato had to go through in order to get to this point at all, and how someone normally so divorced from the concept of heroism could come to do something so meaningful, especially thanks to his interactions with Guilmon and growing alongside him. There’s absolutely no doubt that Takato wouldn’t have been able to do this kind of thing at the beginning of the series, so it’s a huge accomplishment that shouldn’t be watered down. It also makes him a very good foil to the D-Reaper, an emotionless program that’s still fixated on rehashing the same destructive purpose it was originally created for years ago and has long lost its purpose, and while Takato isn’t technically the sole factor in putting it to rest (at most, the most valuable asset as part of the Wild Bunch’s plan), the contrast is quite apparent.

On the flip side, Appmon episode 54 not only involves the exact opposite -- in which Haru sacrifices something closely personal to him for the sake of everything else -- but also ties it very closely to its own series themes, which are assertively laid down in all of their glory during this finale. The reason Haru had been “chosen” by Minerva to begin with, and the reason he himself had been given an opt-in “choice” at the beginning of the series and again in Appmon episode 38, and so many other characters had been given “choices”, is that this story is about choices -- because Leviathan (and Knight, and any kind of “AI should manage everything” argument that this series fights hard against) believes that humans shouldn’t be allowed them, and that everything ought to fall in accordance with a “rational” system. Haru, on the other hand, believes in the human heart that can do unexpected things, and his constant choices to do things out of kindness despite understanding what they entail.

Over the course of the series, Haru hadn’t always been putting himself in a spotlight situation -- in fact, many episodes had involved him saying “we’ll support you!” and generally uplifting others before he’d ever tried to take charge. But in the end, the reason he ends up as the “protagonist” who makes the final choice for everyone’s sake is because he’s the one who understands that gravity of “making a choice with one’s feelings” that’s so vital to changing Leviathan’s mind -- plus, the fact he’d been so supportive and kind to everyone means that everyone else shows up for him when he needs it most. Note that when Astra and Eri are upset at Yuujin in Appmon episodes 48 and 51, it’s not so much out of the overall betrayal as much as the fact he specifically betrayed and hurt Haru, because that’s how much they’ve come to care for him in return.

Hence, why Appmon latently ends on a frame of redefining the concept of “protagonist” -- certainly, on a meta level, Haru became the “protagonist” of the narrative that is Appmon, but what it actually means in terms of what Haru became is that everyone, including the members of the audience watching this series, is “the protagonist of their own life”, meaning that being a “protagonist” is defined merely by said act of “making choices” and defining what your own path will be. And especially in a world where singularity is going to become more and more of a real possibility -- as the show indirectly reminds us, AI surpassing human intellect is something that’s been predicted and warned about in this very world we, the viewers, live in -- understanding this is going to become even more important.

Incidentally, in the end, as much as it might be tempting to try and draw parallels with Takato because both of them are in the franchise-mandated position of “protagonist”, removing that requirement actually brings up a character that might make a much closer parallel -- “making choices that are out of kindness” easily directly invokes a certain other character from 02 who had “kindness” as a huge part of his character arc, doesn’t it...?

Really, if you think about it, Haru has a lot in common with Ken, who’s also thoughtful, intellectual, very in touch with his own feelings, assertive, resilient, strong in heart, and kind out of choice even when he doesn’t have to be -- you could basically say Haru is what Ken would be like if he hadn’t gone through such a massive formative event of trauma early in his life, or, alternatively, Ken if he had a bit more of Daisuke’s more outwardly bright, friendly, and supportive traits. It may not be a comparison you’d be easily tempted to make because, as stated above, as much as Ken had a deep connection with 02′s plot, he’s not portrayed as the protagonist of his own narrative...and, hence, Haru is unusual in that the exact archetype that was formerly placed in the role of the series deuteragonist has now been recast in the role of the protagonist itself. But then again, from Haru’s perspective, it’s not like Ken wasn’t technically the driving force of his own story, right?

(I’m not just drawing this comparison because I usually blog for 02. I promise.)

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Here's a shortlist of those who realized that I — a cis woman who'd identified as heterosexual for decades of life — was in fact actually bi, long before I realized it myself recently: my sister, all my friends, my boyfriend, and the TikTok algorithm.

On TikTok, the relationship between user and algorithm is uniquely (even sometimes uncannily) intimate. An app which seemingly contains as many multitudes of life experiences and niche communities as there are people in the world, we all start in the lowest common denominator of TikTok. Straight TikTok (as it's popularly dubbed) initially bombards your For You Page with the silly pet videos and viral teen dances that folks who don't use TikTok like to condescendingly reduce it to.

Quickly, though, TikTok begins reading your soul like some sort of divine digital oracle, prying open layers of your being never before known to your own conscious mind. The more you use it, the more tailored its content becomes to your deepest specificities, to the point where you get stuff that's so relatable that it can feel like a personal attack (in the best way) or (more dangerously) even a harmful trigger from lifelong traumas.

For example: I don't know what dark magic (read: privacy violations) immediately clued TikTok into the fact that I was half-Brazilian, but within days of first using it, Straight TikTok gave way to at first Portuguese-speaking then broader Latin TikTok. Feeling oddly seen (being white-passing and mostly American-raised, my Brazilian identity isn't often validated), I was liberal with the likes, knowing that engagement was the surefire way to go deeper down this identity-affirming corner of the social app.

TikTok made lots of assumptions from there, throwing me right down the boundless, beautiful, and oddest multiplicities of Alt TikTok, a counter to Straight TikTok's milquetoast mainstreamness.

Home to a wide spectrum of marginalized groups, I was giving out likes on my FYP like Oprah, smashing that heart button on every type of video: from TikTokers with disabilities, Black and Indigenous creators, political activists, body-stigma-busting fat women, and every glittering shade of the LGBTQ cornucopia. The faves were genuine, but also a way to support and help offset what I knew about the discriminatory biases in TikTok's algorithm.

My diverse range of likes started to get more specific by the minute, though. I wasn't just on general Black TikTok anymore, but Alt Cottagecore Middle-Class Black Girl TikTok (an actual label one creator gave her page's vibes). Then it was Queer Latina Roller Skating Girl TikTok, Women With Non-Hyperactive ADHD TikTok, and then a double whammy of Women Loving Women (WLW) TikTok alternating between beautiful lesbian couples and baby bisexuals.

Looking back at my history of likes, the transition from queer “ally” to “salivating simp” is almost imperceptible.

There was no one precise "aha" moment. I started getting "put a finger down" challenges that wouldn't reveal what you were putting a finger down for until the end. Then, 9-fingers deep (winkwink), I'd be congratulated for being 100% bisexual. Somewhere along the path of getting served multiple WLW Disney cosplays in a single day and even dom lesbian KinkTok roleplay — or whatever the fuck Bisexual Pirate TikTok is — deductive reasoning kind of spoke for itself.

But I will never forget the one video that was such a heat-seeking missile of a targeted attack that I was moved to finally text it to my group chat of WLW friends with a, "Wait, am I bi?" To which the overwhelming consensus was, "Magic 8 Ball says, 'Highly Likely.'"

Serendipitously posted during Pride Month, the video shows a girl shaking her head at the caption above her head, calling out confused and/or closeted queers who say shit like, "I think everyone is a LITTLE bisexual," to the tune of "Closer" by The Chainsmokers. When the lyrics land on the word "you," she points straight at the screen — at me — her finger and inquisitive look piercing my hopelessly bisexual soul like Cupid's goddamn arrow.

Oh no, the voice inside my head said, I have just been mercilessly perceived.

As someone who had, in fact, done feminist studies at a tiny liberal arts college with a gender gap of about 70 percent women, I'd of course dabbled. I've always been quick to bring up the Kinsey scale, to champion a true spectrum of sexuality, and to even declare (on multiple occasions) that I was, "straight, but would totally fuck that girl!"

Oh no, the voice inside my head returned, I've literally just been using extra words to say I was bi.

After consulting the expertise of my WLW friend group (whose mere existence, in retrospect, also should've clued me in on the flashing neon pink, purple, and blue flag of my raging bisexuality), I ran to my boyfriend to inform him of the "news."

"Yeah, baby, I know. We all know," he said kindly.

"How?!" I demanded.

Well for one, he pointed out, every time we came across a video of a hot girl while scrolling TikTok together, I'd without fail watch the whole way through, often more than once, regardless of content. (Apparently, straight girls do not tend to do this?) For another, I always breathlessly pointed out when we'd pass by a woman I found beautiful, often finding a way to send a compliment her way. ("I'm just a flirt!" I used to rationalize with a hand wave, "Obvs, I'm not actually sexually attracted to them!") Then, I guess, there were the TED Talk-like rants I'd subject him to about the thinly veiled queer relationship in Adventure Time between Princess Bubblegum and Marcelyne the Vampire Queen — which the cowards at Cartoon Network forced creators to keep as subtext!

And, well, when you lay it all out like that...

But my TikTok-fueled bisexual awakening might actually speak less to the omnipotence of the app's algorithm, and more to how heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

Sure, TikTok bombarded me with the thirst traps of my exact type of domineering masc lady queers, who reduced me to a puddle of drool I could no longer deny. But I also recalled a pivotal moment in college when I briefly questioned my heterosexuality, only to have a lesbian friend roll her eyes and chastise me for being one of those straight girls who leads Actual Queer Women on. I figured she must know better. So I never pursued any of my lady crushes in college, which meant I never experimented much sexually, which made me conclude that I couldn't call myself bisexual if I'd never had actual sex with a woman. I also didn't really enjoy lesbian porn much, though the fact that I'd often find myself fixating on the woman during heterosexual porn should've clued me into that probably coming more from how mainstream lesbian porn is designed for straight men.

The ubiquity of heterormativity, even when unwittingly perpetrated by members of the queer community, is such an effective self-sustaining cycle. Aside from being met with queer-gating (something I've since learned bi folks often experience), I had a hard time identifying my attraction to women as genuine attraction, simply because it felt different to how I was attracted to men.

Heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

So much of women's sexuality — of my sexuality — can feel defined by that carnivorous kind of validation you get from men. I met no societal resistance in fully embodying and exploring my desire for men, either (which, to be clear, was and is insatiable slut levels of wanting that peen.) But in retrospect, I wonder how many men I slept with not because I was truly attracted to them, but because I got off on how much they wanted me.

My attraction to women comes with a different texture of eroticism. With women (and bare with a baby bi, here), the attraction feels more shared, more mutual, more tender rather than possessive. It's no less raw or hot or all-consuming, don't get me wrong. But for me at least, it comes more from a place of equality rather than just power play. I love the way women seem to see right through me, to know me, without us really needing to say a word.

I am still, as it turns out, a sexual submissive through-and-through, regardless of what gender my would-be partner is. But, ignorantly and unknowingly, I'd been limiting my concept of who could embody dominant sexual personas to cis men. But when TikTok sent me down that glorious rabbit hole of masc women (who know exactly what they're doing, btw), I realized my attraction was not to men, but a certain type of masculinity. It didn't matter which body or genitalia that presentation came with.

There is something about TikTok that feels particularly suited to these journeys of sexual self-discovery and, in the case of women loving women, I don't think it's just the prescient algorithm. The short-form video format lends itself to lightning bolt-like jolts of soul-bearing nakedness, with the POV camera angles bucking conventions of the male gaze, which entrenches the language of film and TV in heterosexual male desire.

In fairness to me, I'm far from the only one who missed their inner gay for a long time — only to have her pop out like a queer jack-in-the-box throughout a near year-long quarantine that led many of us to join TikTok. There was the baby bi mom, and scores of others who no longer had to publicly perform their heterosexuality during lockdown — only to realize that, hey, maybe I'm not heterosexual at all?

Flooded with video after video affirming my suspicions, reflecting my exact experiences as they happened to others, the change in my sexual identity was so normalized on TikTok that I didn't even feel like I needed to formally "come out." I thought this safe home I'd found to foster my baby bisexuality online would extend into the real world.

But I was in for a rude awakening.

Testing out my bisexuality on other platforms, casually referring to it on Twitter, posting pictures of myself decked out in a rainbow skate outfit (which I bought before realizing I was queer), I received nothing but unquestioning support and validation. Eventually, I realized I should probably let some members of my family know before they learned through one of these posts, though.

Daunted by the idea of trying to tell my Latina Catholic mother and Swiss Army veteran father (who's had a crass running joke about me being a "lesbian" ever since I first declared myself a feminist at age 12), I chose the sibling closest to me. Seeing as how gender studies was one of her majors in college too, I thought it was a shoo-in. I sent an off-handed, joke-y but serious, "btw I'm bi now!" text, believing that's all that would be needed to receive the same nonchalant acceptance I found online.

It was not.

I didn't receive a response for two days. Hurt and panicked by what was potentially my first mild experience of homophobia, I called them out. They responded by insisting we need to have a phone call for such "serious" conversations. As I calmly tried to express my hurt on said call, I was told my text had been enough to make this sibling worry about my mental wellbeing. They said I should be more understanding of why it'd be hard for them to (and I'm paraphrasing) "think you were one way for twenty-eight years" before having to contend with me deciding I was now "something else."

But I wasn't "something else," I tried to explain, voice shaking. I hadn't knowingly been deceiving or hiding this part of me. I'd simply discovered a more appropriate label. But it was like we were speaking different languages. Other family members were more accepting, thankfully. There are many ways I'm exceptionally lucky, my IRL environment as supportive as Baby Bi TikTok. Namely, I'm in a loving relationship with a man who never once mistook any of it as a threat, instead giving me all the space in the world to understand this new facet of my sexuality.

I don't have it all figured out yet. But at least when someone asks if I listen to Girl in Red on social media, I know to answer with a resounding, "Yes," even though I've never listened to a single one of her songs. And for now, that's enough.

[misterewrites]

Intro to.....????

Hello everyone! Been awhile. It's been busy and really hot for me so it's hard for me to sit down to write sometimes.

But it's here!

E here with the next chapter and the final intro character chapter! The intro chapters were supposed to introduce everyone to the main and important characters of the story, who will be driving the main plots and stories though sometimes i might use new characters or different background characters. So beyond this chapter will be more worldbuilding, story arcs and oneshots. just stories about this world and its characters. I might even use some of my friends ocs i accidentally convinced them to make for my world. It was so much fun!

Alright that's it for me! Stay safe, wash your hands, wear your masks, take care of your loved ones, get vaccinated if you can, push to release the vaccine worldwide and have a great week! Enjoy! feel free to leave likes, feedback *I love feedback and comments even if it's just a line you liked or a scene you found awesome or funny* reblogs and tell your friends! Promoting myself still feels weird haha. E is out! Byeeeeee

If you want an easier time to read the story and since I’ve been shadow banned from tumblr for like ever now, here’s the newest chapter on ao3 right over here! 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30599756/chapters/82583164

If you are interested in my work and want to read from the beginning check it right here  https://archiveofourown.org/works/30599756/chapters/75486005

Interested in my full catalog? https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrE42/works

Summary: Jackdaw is a powerful crime lord in the magical side of Newton Haven. He is feared more than respected and he doesn't care who he has to crush to accomplish his goals. So when his lucrative club is burned to the ground with his guards piled neatly outside, battered broken but alive, he takes it personally. Of course who is crazy enough to burn down a club of a notoriously dangerous crimeboss? A mercenary paid to do so. 

Obviously.

----------

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

The sound of footsteps pacing back and forth thundered throughout the silent room.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

No one said anything. No one could say anything given the disastrous failure of the night. It hadn’t mattered if they were physically present at the site of offense or that they were scattered across town in one of many locations vital to the boss’s business: Someone hit them and the boss was itching to hit back.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

“Alright” A voice spoke up, smooth yet cold.

The room was already quiet but now the air filled with a frighten tension.

The boss whirled around from the massive window he’d been staring out of, eyes narrowing on the defeated group of guards who averted their gaze from his.

The few still conscious were in varying states of dishevel and injured: Broke bones, nasty bruises, clothing ruffled and torn in places. Not a single one had gone unscratched from the assault on the club earlier that night.

Jackdaw was not pleased.

No one in the room knew much about their boss despite devoting their lives to his cause: He was in his mid 30’s, his nose uneven after being broken in a fight though no one could agree what he had been fighting. Long wavy raven black hair ran down his shoulders while his dark brown eyes glanced about, icy and piercing.

“I’m a little confused.” Jackdaw said with a menacing drawl as he approached the closest guard “Mind answering a few for me?”

The guard nodded shakily.

Jackdaw smiled, patting the guard’s cheek in a mocking manner “Good, good. Now let me paint the picture: My club is currently a smoky, charred corpse of its former self. Yes?”

The guard gave another timid nod.

Jackdaw puckered his lips thoughtfully “Okay, okay. How many guards on duty?”

“8.” The guard murmured fearfully.

“Okay. How many standing?”

The guard shot a nervous glance to the other three. They found the floor more interesting.

“F-four.”

Crack!

The guard’s limp body tumbled backwards and laid still on the ground.

Jackdaw flexed his fingers “Wrong! I count three. You!”

The next in line flinched but stared their boss in the face “Sir?”

“Since that one.” Jackdaw lazily motioned to the unconscious man “is sleeping on the job, you tell me what happened.”

“O-okay.” The next in line mumbled “Well the night started same as any other….”

----------

The Gray Waves nightclub brought in a decent crowd for a weekday: Dozen or so people lost in the dim shadows with only a disorienting array of ever changing lights for company. Drinks served and the booming, thundering sounds of music set the chaotic mood clubs thrived on.

Nice peaceful night.

Floyd, the current storyteller, had been watching from the second floor landing when he noticed the gathering of guards below. The eight guards on duty were often out and about performing their different duties ranging from gate keeping the door to making sure nothing disturbed the vibe of the club. The fact five of his coworkers were huddled together should’ve been the first red flag.

The group talked in hushed tones despite the deafening bass and techno music the DJ’s speakers blared out. Once or twice, someone glanced to the far end of the club. Floyd looked and found the source of meeting.

Someone in their forties was loudly drinking at the counter tucked in the shadowy part of the club: It was impossible to tell who they were from this distance but they clearly were enjoying themselves: Head tiled back with messy, wavy salt and pepper hair. They gestured to the bartender (A wonderful woman named Carolyn who unfortunately had school debt to pay off and mob work was the best paying.) excitedly as their drink spilled onto the floor. They wore a large, tattered dark green trench coat that had seen better decades with faded worn out blue jeans. Their black boots were caked with grime and dirt that dirtied the floor. The only thing remotely new was their black t-shirt with some words in white font.

Floyd understood what the problem was: Clubs thrived on their popularity and image. People wanted to feel like they were special, all access stars to the hottest place in the city. With such a reputation came a mighty need to uphold said rep. No offense to whoever was having fun over there but with that look, it might send the wrong message and no amount of cash would ever change that.

Evidently a plan was reached as the meeting broke up. Two guards remained behind, returning to watching the room as the pit boss made his way over to the hapless customer, flanked with back up.

It was oddly satisfying watching the pit boss work: He gracefully slid in and out of crowds, slipping through the lost dancers like a snake treading through water. He motioned to the others to wait then made his way to the person.

The person was singing something at the top of his lungs. Drink, clink or something like that. Maybe it was the song playing at the time but Floyd hadn’t been paying attention to that at the time.

Trench Coat slipped Carolyn something and she laid a bottle of alcohol on the counter beside them: Vermouth? Absente? Vodka? One of those probably.

She nodded gratefully and disappeared into the back.

Floyd frowned at the red flag number two he had just seen: Carolyn was a pretty woman and was told more or less to just do as the customer asked be it answering questions or a reasonable request that wasn’t too out of the ordinary. Of course this was with the strict rule of not to leave the counter unattended.

At the time Floyd thought it was weird, not yet realizing what was about to unfold.

The person poured the bottle directly into their mouth, shaking their body to the catchy beat poorly. Whoever they were could not dance to save their life.

The pit boss, Malcolm, closed the distance between himself and his prey. He snuck closer and closer, the unaware customer too lost in their antics to noticed. Malcolm reached out for their shoulder and…

The thud was loud enough to cut through the noisy club and got the attention of everyone present.

Before Malcolm could even tighten his grip, the person struck: They whirled around, grabbing Malcolm’s head and smashing it into the counter. As Malcolm sunk to the floor, limp and unmoving, the person turned to shoot a smug grin towards the guards.

“I’m on the floor, floor! I love to dance!” They sang, one hand outstretched to the sky, the other gripping the bottle upside and draining its contents onto the counter.

The back up drew their weapons, standard issue nightsticks, and made their way forward.

“So give me more, more, till I can’t stand.”

They emptied the bottle, their green eyes never leaving the approaching guards.

“Get on the floor, floor, like it’s your last chance.”

They chucked the empty bottle into the wall of drinks, broken glass and different alcoholic drinks spilling onto the floor and mixing together.

“If you want more, more, then here I am!”

They pulled a match from within their coat pocket and lit it with the backside of their boot. Without looking, they threw the match over their shoulder and smiled as a raging flame broke out behind them.

The club goers were slow to realize what was going on but the remaining guards, Floyd included, mobilized to action.

Before anyone could react, however, an unexpected shrill shrieked throughout the building: The fire alarm designed to be the most annoying and loudest thing you’ve ever heard.

Even though it had been a slow night and only a dozen or so people were here, the customers panicked with a surge of three times that number.

Screams and yells filled the air as bodies shuffled about in a mad dash. The guards were thrown about, tossed this way and that while the lights, alarm and music worked together to confuse everyone.

Luckily the club was deserted within moments, leaving only security and the troublemaker.

The person hadn’t moved an inch despite the increasingly raging blaze behind them.

The back up pair approached carefully, unsure what this person was capable of.

All of them really had no idea.

The person raised their hand to the sky, belting with full force “LET’S DO THIS ONE MORE TIME!”

Without warning, silence and darkness filled the club: The fire alarm and music died suddenly. The lights followed a moment later but the raging flames, growing hungrily, remained. Floyd’s eyes watered with a sharp pain, the stuffy air and sudden shift in lighting too much for him

Floyd paused his story, uneasy growing at the sight of Jackdaw’s tightened jaw. The poor lad could actually see the veins pulsing with barely contained rage on his boss’s forehead.

“And why did the power go out?” Jackdaw asked through clenched teeth “No one was watching the power? Or the fusebox? Not a single person was guarding what I pay them to guard?”

Floyd remained silent, unsure how to answer that. He was just one of the lower rank and file guards: He got told what to do and he did it.

“Well? I’m waiting Floyd my boy! Why did the power go out?”

Floyd felt the beads of sweat run down his neck.

“Umm sir?”

Floyd nearly collapsed as one of Jackdaw’s techies nervously stepped forward, a loaded video on a tablet in hand.

Jackdaw blew a loose strain of hair out of his face and took a moment to slick back his hair. The vain gesture was enough to allow him to regain some level of composure as he snatched the tablet from the techie. With a grunt, he pressed play.

The video was short: It was a camera feed set up to watch over the fusebox to prevent tampering. Two guards were gesturing to the box, idly chatting with somebody in a red jumpsuit with a clipboard in one hand and a toolbox in the other. The back of uniform had the words “Newton Haven City Maintenance” scrawled across it in some rather hard to read font. The guards laughed out loud, jokingly patting the stranger’s shoulder before leaving frame. The city worker opened the fusebox and began tinkering without anyone stopping him.

The tablet crunched nosily as Jackdaw’s grip sent a ripple of cracks across the screen.

He turned to the techie.

“It was a routine check up.” the techie sputtered out “Our guards called it in this afternoon. Said there was an official letter with stamps and signatures and everything!”

“Did you check with me?” Jackdaw snarled “Because I pay the city specifically so they don’t send anyone to the club. Because of my illegal business practices that I perform there.”

Floyd could see the techie’s shoulder slump, whispering quietly “You were in a meeting….”

Jackdaw growled furiously but returned his attention to the nearly broken tablet.

It hadn’t taken more than a few minutes for the mysterious city maintenance worker to finish. They slammed the fusebox closed, doing a little jig before checking the contents of their toolbox and went on their merry little way.

Jackdaw’s blood froze as the figure gave a cheeky wink to the camera, knowing exactly where it was despite the magical wards in place to keep it invisible.

“Savant.”

An eerie emptiness replaced the hostility in the room.

The fight disappeared out of Jackdaw, leaving only an intense sense of dread and paranoia.

All this was lost on Floyd, who saw the troublemaker’s face and couldn’t help but blurt out “That’s them! The one who beat up Malcolm and burned the club down!”

Jackdaw chuckled darkly “Oh. Oh this makes sense. No one wonder you all get your ass kicked six ways to Sunday. Someone sic’d Savant on me. Ya’ll never had a chance against them.”

Floyd shuddered, the memory of how brutal and efficient Savant had been against them: Grown men dragged kicking and screaming into the shadows, the crunchy noises of bones broken, bodies falling down and yells stopped mid-shout. He still remembered Savant standing over him, nightstick in hand, whistling cheerfully as they brought down the weapon and sent him into unconsciousness.

“Alright!” Jackdaw clapped his hands “Lock it down!”

Everyone glanced towards one another, unsure what exactly the boss meant.

“LOCK IT DOWN!” the snarl that escaped Jackdaw’s lips sent goosebumps down everybody’s spine “NOW! I WANT THIS PLACE SEALED UP NICE AND TIGHT!”

“But we’re 14 stories up...”

Techie flinched as Jackdaw whirled around, eyes blazing with unrestrained rage and impatience “You deaf? I said lock down the building or so help me I’m going to use you as a human shield when they start coming for me.”

Techie opened his mouth when an unexpected sound filled the silence: A muffled, cheeky yet tacky melody of a cellphone ringing.

Glances and gazes looked about trying to find the source of the disturbance. Floyd was baffled when he realized it was coming from inside his coat pocket. Nervously, he reached within and slowly pulled out a palm sized flip phone, the kind hadn’t been used in decades.

Jackdaw’s eyes widened with fear and alarm as he snatched the phone from the poor guard with inhuman speed.

“It’s them!” Jackdaw’s voice was manic “IT’S THEM!”

The mobster was torn about what to do next: Answering meant playing right into Savant’s hands and whatever the mercenary had plan. On the other hand, not answering would no doubt annoy them into far worse retaliation.

With a hard shallow, Jackdaw answered with an uncharacteristically shy “Hello?”

He could feel his heart screech to a stop when a bored, almost nonchalant voice replied “S’up.”

Jackdaw threw as much charm and cheer into his voice “Savant, buddy! Pal!”

“Don’t.” the voice sighed tiredly “It’s pathetic when the begging start. You’re a big, bad mob boss. Act like it you dumbass.”

“Fine” Jackdaw let go of any sense of civility “Good old threats: if you so much as show your face around…”

“Ugh too much in the wrong direction” Savant replied, seemingly uninterested in what the mob boss had to said “You people are all the same: False bravado and overcompensating. It’s embarrassing. Just say you’re scared of me and we can move on.”

Despite the severity of the situation, Jackdaw couldn’t help but feel irritated “Oh is that what you want? Get your jollys when powerful people admit they’re afraid of you? You think you can….you can…”

Jackdaw paused, unsure if his ears were working correctly.

“Are you eating?”

“Hmm??” the sound of smacking lips and chewing was the mercenary’s response for a few moments “Oh yeah. Get hungry when working. Normally I’d be all for the theatrics but it’s been a long night what with fucking with your fusebox, burning down your club, planting the phone on a guard. It’s like 3 in the morning dude.”

Jackdaw bit his lip angrily, a single drop of blood running down his chin “It is 3 in the morning and I’m very tired so I’d very much like to conclude our business. How much?”

“To hire me?” more lip smacking “An amount. You could probably afford it.”

Jackdaw let his shoulder’s sag with relief “So it’s agreed? I’ll hire you and we can all be on our merry way.”

“Sure!” Savant said cheerfully.

Bullet dodged.

“You can hire me after I finish this job. By the way did you like the gift I sent you?”

Gift?

Jackdaw was a powerful and feared member of the illicit side of the magical world. He climbed to his position through sheer force of will and power. He left countless of his enemies broken and defeated in his wake.

To see him reduced to a flailing, paranoid mess would be a story no one would believe.

“GIFT?!” Jackdaw screamed, unable to keep the high-pitch whine out of his voice “WHAT GIFT?! SOMEONE FUCKING ANSWER ME!”

The techie was the first to shake off their stupor “Well there was a box that came in today. It was empty and we detected no magic so…”

“Box?!” Jackdaw spat as he wildly searched the room before landing on the seemingly innocent box just sitting on his desk “You brought it the fuck here?”

Everyone backed away.

“I…”

“Wait” Jackdaw cut off the techie’s answer “Maybe they were hoping you’d take it somewhere or get rid of it. No, no this is good. We’re outwitting the fucker.”

“Sir, the box was empty. And you told use you personally wanted to inspect any and all….”

“You hear that asswipe!” Jackdaw grinned ear to ear “My people are the best! We’re ahead of you. Your game is over, you hear me?”

“My man.” Savant’s voice was infuriatingly calm “It’s just a regular old box for a boring ass mobster.”

“Stop lying!” Jackdaw roared angrily, instinctively bringing down his fist on the closet object in the room.

Which of course was the box.

The parcel collapsed under the mobster’s supernatural strength with little effort. As the box was smashed, the two inert glyph drawn in an invisible ink on both ends collided and activated each other.

The room erupted in an array of dazzling, blinding lights.

The light show hadn’t lasted long but no one knew that as they stumbled around, disoriented and lost, the display still burned in their retinas.

Jackdaw howled violently, swiping at the air blindly with long talon-like nails. Any calls for explanations or help were lost under the raging mobster unleashed.

Jackdaw didn’t hear the window break, the sound of glass shattering as it rained upon the floor. He didn’t see the muzzle flash that flared across the street, Savant’s sniping perch. He knew nothing but the sudden searing pain that filled his shoulder without warning.

Everything drained out of him, he slumped to the floor like a doll. He weakly clutched at his shoulder, steam wafting off the wound as the sliver bullet dug itself deep in its new home.

It didn’t matter what kind of werebeast you were: Wolf, bear, rat or even a raven like Jackdaw. All them were deathly weakened by sliver. The mere smell could cause nausea, touch burned worse than third degree burns and any injuries could take weeks, maybe even months to heal.

Jackdaw wheezed, the room spinning in a messy blur.

“Right.” the phone landed by his ear but Savant’s voice sounded far off like it was echoing down a long tunnel “Sorry I got the paper right here.”

Muted sounds of pockets being turned inside out: Scraping of metal on brick, shuffling papers, even rustling fast food wrappers.

“Got it!” Savant beamed “Quinn says stay the fuck off his turf. Mind your lane or the next time he sends me I won’t be aiming for your shoulder.”

“How did you know I was...I was… no one knew...?” Jackdaw murmured incoherently.

“Your heart.” Savant explained “It’ll be your heart. Okay well I gotta go so take these next few months to reflect on any sort of ill advised turf wars, domestic disputes and fighting with your rivals. If you’re still interested in hiring me for revenge or whatever, you call me at my business payphone. Bye little birdy!”

----------

Savant dropped the phone to the floor, crushing it under their boot while rubbing the tension out of their neck. Around them was the standard stakeout gear: high powered and totally illegal sniper rifle, a neatly piled trash heap and a sniping pillow (Sniping’s hard on the stomach and knees.).

They packed away the gun, kicked the trash heap to make it look more like natural rooftop garbage and went downstairs.

Savant yawned tiredly, not at all concerned with the guards that were pouring out of Jackdaw’s hidey hole. They glanced around, trying to get their bearings when they noticed a hot dog vendor across the street.

“I really shouldn’t” they pursed their lips “Especially after paying for someone to set up the pyrotechnics spells. But I am hungry. Stomach wins!”

Savant made their way over, patting their stomach lovingly “One hotdog please. Everything on it.”

“You got it!” The vendor nodded before eyeing the commotion “What’s with that?”

“I don’t talk business.”

“O-kay. Umm here’s your hotdog. That’ll be two bucks.

Savant reached into their pocket and shoved a hundred dollars into the waiting vendor’s hand. Without a second look, Savant gratefully took the hotdog and walked away.

“Hey buddy! BUDDY! You gave me way too much!”

“You too!” Savant replied, took caught up in the rapture that was their meal.

This was a really fucking good hotdog.

[hvilested]

Yes, you can cure Maladaptive Daydreaming

Two years ago when I joined this community, I think I was more dead than alive. I've been waging quite a brutal war with maladaptive dreaming and the array of issues that underlie it ever since then and I'm on my way out of this prison. I wanted to do something for you guys so here is a little essay with insights on MD and what you can do to understand better and finally tame this beast. Hopefully, someone will find it useful.

The split and the life between two worlds

Do you think the vague feeling of being split in two and existing between two worlds but belonging to none is exclusive to maladaptive daydreamers?

“If you try to have a conversation with me, I can’t bring myself to listen to you. I pretend to listen and you really think I do but my mind is somewhere else, thinking about it. Every time I try to stop doing it, I genuinely feel as if a part of me has been torn off and a deep sense of personal loss ensues. I feel as if I’m not here but I’m not there either and I can’t shake off this feeling of being split in two.”

This is what a recovering heroin addict once told me. Heroin addict. But it’s also what a regular maladaptive daydreamer could have told you, isn’t it?

Maladaptive daydreaming is, among other things, a typical psychological addiction. Most of the negative issues associated with maladaptive daydreaming come from the fact that it is an addictive coping mechanism and not some unique disorder with specific symptoms just recently discovered. You have heard million times that addictions are encoded in the primitive part of the brain associated with survival – which means that if you don’t get your fix right now, you feel more dead than alive and you need your drug of choice to bring you back to life. Your brain is sending a false message to you – it is issuing an urge that is blown out of proportion, compelling you to constantly indulge in daydreams and making you think that if you don’t, the world will end and you will lose a part of yourself. Drugs usually invade your sense of self – they fuse with it and by giving up the drug, you feel as though you are giving up a dear part of yourself.

Addiction is addiction but different types of drugs and addictive behaviors tell you different things about their users. So what does fantasy reveal about you? MD is like a guardian angel that tries to protect you too much and eventually causes more harm than good. But it’s still your guardian angel that tried lifting a burden off your brittle shoulders. It’s destructive in its own way but it was originally born to protect you from something. To realize and accept what you are trying to run away from is your first step towards recovery. Maybe it’s depression, maybe it’s low self-esteem and loneliness or it’s anxiety or PTSD.

Fall of the self

Maladaptive daydreaming isn’t the act of random mind-wandering – it’s a highly immersive mental activity, where all attention is gathered and directed towards happenings of the fantasy. This would be parallel to a so-called flow state, which is characterized by immersing intensely in an activity to the point of losing the sense of self. Which means, whatever happens in fantasy, happens, but not to you. It is a selfless experience, never integrated into what you call yourself, into sense of identity, into what makes you you. It exists as a detached, ecstatic, fleeting moment that slips through the fingers the moment you try to make sense out of it and process it as your own experience. You witness traces of happiness but the happiness is never yours.

Fantasy is an egoless state of mind where we are not ourselves. And by temporarily cutting ties from your own ego, the conscious identity, you’re also cutting ties from all insecurities you have ever had, from all the problems that are currently bothering you and this is why daydreams feel so damn good. Everything bad is just cut off from your perception. The part of your brain that defines your sense of self, along with all the negative things and mental illnesses attached to it, is turned off.

As you venture into this egoless place that is MD, you make up imaginary people you sometimes end up loving dearly or even fall in love with or you conjure imaginary places you’re desperately drawn to, and then suddenly – you wake up from your dream and you’re violently pulled back to reality and to being yourself. And this is where the problem arises: all those things you’ve done in your dreamworld and all those made up people you’ve come to love have nothing – absolutely nothing – to do with real YOU. They are not attached to your conscious sense of self. All those dreams and false memories you made – you made them in an egoless state of mind. And it’s this that makes you feel split. It’s not the fact that you’re physically apart from the content of your fantasies. It is the fact that your subconscious feelings, fantasies and desires do not connect to your sense of self. Even if everything you’ve been daydreaming about came true, you’d still feel like garbage, empty and miserable. If your imaginary friend came to life to make you less lonely, you’d still be lonely – because MD isn’t about made up friends or lovers or getting a new life. It’s about you not wanting to be you. Everything else is irrelevant.

In other words, you’re not addicted to your fictional characters or your imaginary love or to a fantasy about being a famous singer or writer. You’re addicted to not being you. You’re addicted to this erratic state of consciousness that is MD – regardless of its content – that provides a temporal relief.

I’m not saying that you don’t genuinely care about the content of your daydreams (quite the opposite, more on that soon) – what I am saying is that it’s not your love towards whatever is the content of your fantasies that creates this ugly feeling of being split between two worlds. One thing I can assure you (and this comes from my own experience) is that the moment you feel comfortable being you, those two worlds will reconcile, they will merge into one, and you’ll finally feel at peace with yourself.

Will a part of you be taken away as you give up your daydreams?

Maybe the saddest question I have ever asked myself was ‘how much of myself will I lose when I give up the only thing that makes me happy?’ Here’s a glimmer of hope: you’re not supposed to give them up. To give up the feelings you experience in your daydreams is self-mutilation. As strange or silly as they are, they still represent a censored part of your subconscious; maybe they are an epitome of your loneliness or your sadness. They are a testament to how hard you’re struggling and how hard you’re trying not to be dead – and to give this up is a crime towards yourself. Maladaptive Daydreaming isn’t just about wishful thinking and getting your wounds licked. It is that one place where your life flame stillburns while you may be dead in all other planes of existence. That’s enough to know that this MD thing isn’t all that entirely wrong. Maybe your real life is all emptiness and void but what you do in your daydreams – you do it with passion. And that’s enough to know that you are still capable of loving and caring about something just like other people. So passion exists and don’t you dare ever doubt that. It exists in a wrong place but it exists nonetheless. What you have to do is find a way to redirect those emotions from daydreams to reality and, as stated before, this causally happens once you’re finally you. All the positive emotions from your daydreams will flow back into you and you’ll feel as though these two worlds between which you have lived for so long have at last coalesced into one.

So what you want to do is focus on healing the self. It’s a tough one but there’s no quick fix here. Now comes the irony which you’ve been waiting for: in order to heal yourself, you need to let go of your daydreams. But didn’t I just say that you aren’t supposed to give them up, you ask? Don’t give up the passion, don’t give up the love you have for the content of your daydreaming, don’t give up the feelings – because they are all, real or not, a reminder that you’re alive. What you do have to give up is the false sense of comfort your daydreams give you. Try giving up all those countless hours you spend stuck in your own head pacing back and forth because you’d rather be there than here. Try giving up the temporal fix when you feel miserable. If someone angers you, don’t impulsively lock yourself in your room and act out a revenge in your head; go kick a sofa or something, lash out at something external.

You have to wean yourself off of this strange dissociative painkiller that’s fantasy, then let yourself feel all the pain with every ounce of your being, let all the negative emotions resurface, let them swallow you alive, don’t resist, don’t run away, accept them, let them ravage you, and somewhere along this process, a part of the you will be reborn. Something will awake. Not all of you, maybe just a small part but that’s enough to gather what’s left of your strength and continue the struggle. If you feel the urge to daydream, this is okay – as long as it doesn’t censor the pain which you shouldn’t run away from anymore, it’s fine to give in and indulge for a while if you feel like you have to. Don’t ignore temptations, this sparks the fire of addiction even more. It’s a well known pattern: if you fight the urge to engage in an addictive behavior, it makes it stronger. If you acknowledge it, analyze it, this is what breaks the cycle of addiction. In other words, the imperative is not to block the pain and negative feelings. If a sudden sense of self-disgust or low self-esteem suddenly hits you, welcome it. Welcome it, analyze it, let it consume you, and you will realize it is just a false message your brain is sending to you because that’s what brains of depressed people do, after all. The more you let yourself feel and process the negative feelings without censorship, the more will the urge to daydream weaken and the less you will run away.

Who are you really?

Depression usually enters people’s lives like a tempest – yesterday you were an optimistic person enjoying simple pleasures of life and today you feel like a suicidal or apathetic piece of shit, and this is how it is for most people. Depression that underlies MD, however, takes a different route. It enters your life stealthily, slowly, so slowly you don’t even notice it, then it gradually robs you of emotions, ambitions, memories, motivation, identity, empathy, and you end up thinking: “I don’t remember a time when I wasn’tmiserable,” or “these bad feelings must be a part of my personality, they have always been here“. Because of this, most of us fail to realize where depression (or anxiety or any other kind of chronic mental illness) ends and where we begin. So if this illness isn’t you, then who are you?

Let me make a digression here. MD is usually born when you can’t express yourself properly because you’re anxious, depressed or sometimes simply shy or lonely. Mental illnesses are like lenses which distort your perception. Everything you see appears more tragic, senseless or uglier than it really is. And your both eyes are infected with these lenses. But here your subconscious decides to play a trick on your mental illness and tells you: ‘well, if your both eyes are infected and make things appear worse than they really are, then why don’t you just close them?’ You do and this is the beginning of the addiction to fantasy. You stop paying attention to the outside world and you turn it inwards and use your mind’s eye to create things inside you: your daydreams. This mind’s eye, which is fantasy, cannot get infected with depression and this is why MD is a safe haven. Depression doesn’t reach there. What your subconscious forgets to tell you before it’s too late is that if you close those two eyes used for perceiving outer world, for things outside of yourself, you’ll be completely cut off from reality. But none of this is your fault – this is a war between mental illness, the attacker, and your subconscious, which is your protector, and you are their battlefield. You don’t have a single choice, they are the ones who decide – you only observe. So if you ever blamed yourself for being too weak to make a decision to cease this addiction, stop it. It’s wasn’t your fault.

Back to my question, who are you then?

The daydream version of you isn’t the true you but it’s not a fake one either. It’s a highly filtered product of your subconscious that tried to protect you. Then we have this other real-life you imbued with low self-esteem and negative thoughts that seem to go on a loop forever. Well, that’s certainly not your true self either. Heck, if it’s any comfort for you, the daydream you is far closer to the true you than this real-life depressed version of yourself will ever be.

Can you remember the time when you didn’t have MD? Can you remember your sense of identity when you were a child free of MD? Try conjuring up all those times when you knew how to live in the present. It doesn’t matter if you were 6 years old the last time you were here. Just try to pinpoint all those moments and try to remember the feeling of being in the now. Here’s one pretty handy trick you can use. I always joke that music is a drug that takes you on a trip down a memory lane. It’s like an emotional psychedelic. It transports you emotionally back in time, to another place, another reality, to wherever you wish. It helps people with Alzheimer’s remember who they are and regain a sense of identity for a short while. Maladaptive daydreamers often use music to help them imagine an alternate setting – but what if you used music to transport yourself to the past when you had neither depression nor anxiety or MD or whatever is bothering you? If you can remember a forgotten song which you used to listen as a child who at the time hadn’t had MD yet, listen to it again, try to remember who you were, and if the song is meaningful to you, the old you and your sense of self, which you used to have back then, will come back to you for those few minutes while the song plays. You’ll feel the warmth of finally being you. You won’t quite be in the present – you’ll be in the past, but it’s your real past, it’s your true self. Try to capture this feeling and then try to reenact it. It’ll strengthen your identity in the long run.

I’ll give another example on what set me free from my own MD for a short while. You all know what fight or flight mode is. What you also probably know is that most people with PTSD or chronic anxiety are stuck in a constant state of fight or flight. Spending too much time in this state eventually leads to a burnout and is a sure ticket to depression since you go from fight and flight into freeze mode where all your functions are off and you feel like an emotionless zombie. You don’t care, you don’t live, you don’t get angry or sad or happy, you only exist on autopilot. In order to feel normal and alive again, you usually need a fix so strong which will set your body back on fire. Someone or something has to attack you so fiercely in order for you to rethink your existence and regain your instincts and the will to fight back. This is what happened to me. When one of my daydreams violently crumbled some time ago, I got so ridiculously pissed off that for the first time after several years spent in freeze mode, I felt genuinely alive. I was me. The anger acted like a stimulant and the state lasted for 15 minutes until the anger wore off. But hell, during those 15 minutes, I was me. I was so mad but I was also indescribably happy. I could feel. I could let go. I was defeated but I also won. The thirst, the cravings, the split, this strange nostalgia for my daydreams all dissolved. But instead of just disappearing, every positive feeling that was limited to the daydream world only, such as sense of purpose, motivation and normal self-esteem, flew back into me. I didn’t lose a single part of me – quite the opposite – I regained back that detached part of my soul that existed only in daydreams. What took for me to awake was extreme anger, being defeated, my world crumbing to pieces. The moment I genuinely accepted that my dream world crushed, the moment I let go of all attachments holding me back for years, I was reborn. The anger, which is a natural stimulant, made something in me click. But note: this feeling of finally being alive and the desire to fight back woke up in me once my daydreams were in danger, not me. It’s because we’re so displaced, because fantasy is where we had hidden the core of our souls.

In the long run, you’re destroying neither the daydream you nor the positive feelings that come with it, you’re not giving anything up – you’re just transferring it to reality, to where it should be. But for this change to occur, before you can be reborn and whole again, you have to self-destruct, you have to let go.

[allthebooksandcrannies]

Just some thoughts on maturity...

This is going to get long so there’ll be more under the cut.

I saw a post the other day about how it can be tempting particularly for the older crowd on this website to judge or condescend those who seem to struggle with expressing or holding truly complex ideas and instead getting stuck in a binary mentality of good vs bad or us vs them. then the post went on to point out that its not really their fault considering that a major proportion of tumblr users are under 25 (according to this report, 39% of users are under 25 and 66% are under 35) and devopmentally this is really where we see the ability to hold complex feelings and accept the existence of multiple realities really start to develop and it was kind of an epiphany for me. 

I don’t want to come across as condescending, after all, i’m part of that 39% myself and can admit that i’m still working on this skillset. But part of emotional maturity is being able to accept and understand that the world is a complicated or gray place and morality is, if not exactly relative, at least exists on a continuum (what is acceptable and even praise-worthy in one culture might be taboo or reprehensible in another [which is why we need to avoid judging past or foreign cultures by our own cultural norms/morals]).  

Just as it is possible to do the wrong thing for the right reasons or the right thing for the wrong reasons and it be both right and wrong at the same time, there can be multiple truths and “realities” at the same time without either being more or less correct than the other. I know that might sound confusing or convoluted but let me explain. You’ve probably heard the expression that there are three truths: your truth, my truth, and the actual truth is somewhere in the middle. I agree with this to an extent. People can look at the same experience and come up with radically different narratives to explain what happened to themselves or others and generally they are both a little biased because the brain naturally works from an egocentric point of view (this isn’t necessarily the same thing as a selfish/arrogant pov, but that we tend to view things based on their relationships to ourselves even if they aren’t actually connected to us, ie a child that sees that their parent is upset about something that happened during their day but assumes that it is somehow their own fault, which gets into some theory of mind stuff that is honestly a whole other post and not really the point). 

An example from my own life, is a common argument that my mother and i rehash a lot lately. Just going off of the things actually said aloud (which is only ever half the argument), my mom likes to ask for constant progress reports on things like my thesis or grad school applications or my love life and then proceeds to tell me what she thinks i should do. Sometimes i humor her and let it go, but other times i try to explain that talking about the things that i’m anxious about actually makes my anxiety related procrastination worse and that i would appreciate it if she wouldn’t ask as often. Those are the main events that lead up to it. 

From what i can tell, she views her questions as good parenting. She has told me before that she felt hurt as a kid by how uninvolved her parents were in her own adolescence/early adulthood and doesn’t want to make same mistakes.  She then takes my request not to ask as a rejection of her parenting, and usually responds by telling me that i should stop being bothered because she’s just trying to help and i’ll feel better if i just do what she’s suggesting (and then proceeds to say “see, aren’t you glad you have a mom who pushes you to do these things” once i finish a project.)

there really is no winning because my mother has never really learned that the things you do to be helpful can still be harmful. in her mind, she can’t be in the wrong because that would make her a bad mom and she can’t be a bad mom because she loves us. sure, she might be able to accept this idea in fiction or in the abstract, but isn’t able to put it into practice because that is a learned skill that she has never known to try to learn. i think a lot of people end up stuck there. tbh its still my first instinct a lot of the time and its only through a lot of courses geared towards developing critical thinking and empathy, a lot of fiction meta analysis, and reading about a million fanfics that each interpret the same canon event differently based on the author’s personal experiences coloring what they viewed as important.

my first instinct is to view my mother’s refusal to change her behavior as a disrespect/invalidation of my feelings. I feel guilty because i know that i should do the things she’s suggesting but that is never the issue, the issue is that i have trouble actually making myself do it. For a long time that egocentric worldview (and that instinct kids have to implicitly trust hteir gaurdians) told me that both the executive dsyfunction and the fighting were my fault. It felt like she was saying that if i was better or smarter or more mature surely i would be able to do this on my own. it felt like she was saying that if i was a better daughter i wouldn’t hurt her feelings like this. 

But i’ve been learning that neither one of us were truly correct and we both were at the same time. Those feelings and concerns were real to us, even if we were both projecting our own insecurities onto the other person. Those feelings were valid and understandable but (and this is incredibly important) that did not give either one of us a free pass on how we acted on those insecurities.  It didn’t make us bad people but it did mean that we were engaging in toxic behavior that just hurt both of us.

So, the question becomes “what do i do with that?” Now that i know we were both responding from a place of trauma and insecurity in the past, how do we change how we act in the future? I think we have to get to a point where we can look at a situation and truly try to understand the internal dialogue that the other side is experiencing in the moment (why they feel the way they feel, do we really have evidence that they feel what we think they feel or are we projecting, are they acting well-intentioned/malicious or are they even considering the ramifications at all/do they have any conscious intentions) and come to a point where we can truly empathize with them, not sympathize with them, not feel sorry for them, but truly see it from their side and understand where they are coming from. we should remember that we’re all a little broken. and we should be gracious and merciful. 

That doesn’t mean we have to be happy about it. We don’t even need to think that they have a good point or that their pov is reasonable or forgivable (sometimes it just isn’t, and its important to understand that too). But it means not dehumanizing the enemy or oversimplifying their position into the general “bad guy” role. You can forgive without absolving and you can understand and show compassion without forgiving or accepting.

You need to set boundaries, and you need to accept that at the end of the day the way that they respond is not on you, not if you’ve acted based on that understanding we talked about earlier and treated them with at least the bare amount of dignity we are all entitled to as human beings. 

Returning to the previous example, with my mother, i now make a point when we disagree of first summarizing and acknowledging the validity of what i understand her intent to be, making it clear that i appreciate that she cares and is trying to be helpful. Then i explain my point of view not as what she makes me feel (because that would come across as judgement that would prompt natural, though incredibly unhelpful defensiveness) but as to how i feel based on my interpretation of the action. I try to make this sound as nonjudgemental as possible without making it anyone’s fault, including my own (which i admit can be easier said than done). Then, i give an alternative suggestion for what would actually be helpful and then it is in her hands. It is up to her whether or not to accept the boundary i have set up.  

In an ideal world she would respect my wishes and alter her behavior. after all, she is supposed to be the adult/parent in this relationship. the emotional labor isn’t supposed to be on the child, at least not the majority of it. 

(side note: this goes for relationships of equals such as significant others, friends, siblings, extended families, and peers. in a healthy relationship of equals you should be splitting the emotional labor equally. if they aren’t trying as hard as you are, you probably need to have a conversation about that and based on the outcome then evaluate how much, if any, of yourself is safe/healthy to continue to pour into the relationship)

But because many people, adults and adolescents alike, have not reached this level of emotional maturity and can’t honestly/completely accept or acknowledge their own flaws and mistakes without their sense of self taking a hit, sometimes its not enough.  My mother, no matter how respectfully i phrase my concerns and request, continues to insist on asking the same nagging questions that trigger a lot of my childhood emotional drama related to being good enough for my parents impossible standards.  I understand why she behaves the way that she does but the fact of the matter is that she still continues to hurt me and no longer has plausible deniability in those situations.  I have the right to be angry, though i do not have the right to lash out or respond in kind. 

I do, however, have the right and the responsibility to myself to do what i can to protect myself from further harm. I still want a positive relationship with my mother, we have plenty of good moments and are very similar people. But i have to be willing and able to remove myself from unsafe situations. Usually that means making it clear that i won’t be answering the questions and not calling or texting with her until the point is made (even if this leaves her surly). 

I had to lower my expectations for her as well. I had a high opinion of my mother because she can be very nurturing and compassionate, especially when we are in agreement. So i thought on some level that if i shared the information and the sources that prompted me to begin my own journey of self-actualization and personal growth in earnest that she would react similarly and understand why i needed her to at least try to do the same. Piece of advice, kiddos, it’s not your job to fix someone, no matter how much you love them nor how much potential they have. It needs to be on them, and they need to make that decision for themselves or it won’t work anyway.

I am trying to accept that unless she makes the decision on her own, she isn’t going to become the mother i want her to be. That’s an incredibly sad thing to realize about someone you love, but its true. If i don’t let that expectation go, our relationship will always be one of disappointment and eventually resentment. Instead, I've had to evaluate what conversations we are and are not able to have in a healthy manner, and just let things be what they will be.  I know my own worth (when my brain chemistry cooperates) and i have a lot of good, healthy relationships in my life that i can turn to when i need something my mom doesn’t know how to give me. 

It’s painful to grow and realize you’re leaving people behind in the process. You can offer them the tools to follow, and give them the support that they need to do so, but only if they want to. 

But i promise you its worth it.  When you accept your own worth with rather than despite your own flaws, when you learn to do the same with others, you realize that there’s a lot more hope for humanity than you thought.  we are capable of so many great things if we are in an environment that fosters our best selves. and even when we are not, we are still capable of growing past our trauma and hurt so that we don’t have to continue the cycle of pain and misery. We can’t control everyone and everything around us, they still have a measure of personal responsibility to themselves and others that you can’t absolve them from.  But you can be an example to them. You can show them through your own life and actions that things can be better, even if they weren’t aware of how much they need things to improve, or how much they deserve it. You deserve good things but you wait for someone to solve it for you. You have to fight for yourself and struggle against falling into the trap of the familiar. It is going to be scary, it is going to be confusing. there will be times when you don’t trust your own interpretations of your emotions and perceptions (especially if you weren’t taught to do so as a kid, its not your fault, but what happens next is up to you). When those times come you’re going to want to have good friends or mentors at your side or as a source of hope that things will be better and that there are people who can and will offer you the help you need along the way. No one can do it alone, and you don’t have to.  For me, my college roommates were my first clue that maybe things weren’t as good with my mother as i assumed, they fostered my confidence and my self-worth and i was constantly afraid i was going to scare them away but they had my back.  I didn’t think i deserved to be happy, i didn’t think i was worthy for anything outside what i could do or give for others and they showed me that i was worthy just as i was.  it was creators like @goldkirk and @maychorian and @cdelphiki and @sohotthateveryonedied that taught me through their works what healthy family relationships (particularly between parent and child) should look like, what unhealthy relationships can do to you, and that families of choice are just as valuable as those of law or blood. And @goldkirk especially, i want you to know that reading your blog, be it the ups, or the downs, your knowledge of things like child development and mental health, and even the things that you find helpful and reblog have meant so much to me.  I have a lot in common with your Tim and with you and you have given me so much hope and confirmation and affirmation that i’m not alone in my experiences and that i deserve to be happy, even if the road isn’t a straight line. and lately i have to say thank you to @mahpotatoequeen for just straight up deciding to be my new mom this summer. I don’t have the words for how much i appreciate you and how much it meant to me that in one of the worst crisis of my life that there was someone who saw the things i had posted just to get out of my system, things i had never said to anyone before and that came from a really broken and painful place, and reached out and stuck around rather than just continuing to scroll and go about their day.

But I digress. My point is that there are people out there that you can learn from and there are people out there who will care. And maybe we all owe it to each other to strive to become the healthiest version of ourselves, so that maybe someday we can be that for someone else.  just a thought.

(I can’t find the original post i referenced earlier but if someone knows what i’m talking about plz send me the link so i can give credit where credit is due)

[mbtiofwhys]

MBTI and quarantine

How INFJ mod and ENFP mod are dealing with self distancing

Disclaimer: quarantine for us began roughly around the end of February, and we’re writing this at the end of April, so it’s been two whole months by now.

How have we been doing up until now?

INFJ mod: the first month went well, and with “well” I mean “bad”. As an introvert, social distancing shouldn’t affect me too much, right? Well, this is true and I suppose it’s a benefit I’ve experimented in the last weeks. It somehow helps me easing emotional pain and stress and this is undoubtedly an introvert perk. At the same time I’m a J. I need a certain amount of structure and order to plan ahead and organize my nearest future. I had a couple of exams during the first month of quarantine and it was stressful to deal with them in an emergency situation with lots of unforseen problems. So, how have I been doing up until now? I must admit that an unexpected emergency like this affected my emotional well-being, but i’m trying to stay positive and learn to adapt and take advantage of quarantine!

ENFP mod: the first weeks had been absolute hell, let me tell you. I lost my routine, I lost my friends, I couldn’t even go out for a walk and every plan I’d made crumbled. Staying home felt like prison, and not having a set routine anymore affected my mental order and productivity because I was no longer able to correctly prioritize things. However, I think being N and being P helped me getting used to quarantine while at the same time being able to at least pursue my main interests and hobbies (I play games, I write, I read, and so on). I’m doing far better now, between discord calls with friends and group projects for uni, I keep in touch with people, while the increased free time allows my sparkling Ne-Fi to focus more on personal projects, like this blog.

Working/studying at home 

INFJ mod: As I stated before, I’m a student. My university reacted well to the emergency and found countermeasures to compromise between a lack of lectures and the regular exams. Now I’m attending online lessons and the situation is far less stressful than it was until a month ago. I don’t have to underestimate this lack of pressure, because in a context where every day feels the same it’s easy to slack off and to lose track of time. From a more concrete standpoint I must admit how comfortable and suitable online lessons are, since i don’t have to spend hours commuting and I can save time.

ENFP mod: I study in the advertising field, so my lessons are more like labs and peer reviews than proper lectures - also, there’s a lot of group work. Quarantine affected all this very badly to put things lightly, and although I appreciate the effort my university put in providing online classes and reviews, things aren’t absolutely the same as before, and this is lowering my motivation overall. I also used to work part time in events and malls during weekends, so obviously I lost that one, too - what a life.

Alone time vs imposed isolation 

INFJ mod: Quarantine should be like heaven for an introvert, right? Here is the fact: I can stay at home for a week or even more without social interaction, but it will always be my choice to recharge my social batteries or to enjoy alone time. This is an entirely different situation. Imposed isolation feels exactly like what it is: a necessary imposition that I didn’t choose. So, even if I need alone time as an introvert, I really miss my friends and the simple things we can do like laughing together, talking about our lives and passions, seeing them smile or telling a joke, sharing emotions. Because as an INFJ my auxiliary Fe just NEEDS to share emotions, thoughts, experiences, fears and dreams with trusted friends. As a Fe user, I’m still managing to find healthy ways to express my feelings, and although quarantine is an unusual situation and there are more constraints, I can still stay in touch with my friend and try to use Fe in a positive way.

ENFP mod: People call us ENFPs ‘the most introverted of the extroverts’ and I can see why but truth is, the E is there and you can’t change that. Not attending classes is hard, and I miss even the smallest things of being outside - like listening to music while commuting or walking in the street and generally… feel the outer world? And even if I, too, need alone time sometimes, it’s different when it’s forced. But I got used to it in the end, so it’s not that bad anymore. Lots of reading, writing and playing games - thank God P5R came out at the end of March. I’m managing by sharing opinions and experiences with my friends - we can’t discuss how Makoto Niijima is the absolute best waifu of the P5 female cast in person, but we can do that via chat with fanworks.

Social distancing: real interaction vs digital interaction

INFJ mod: there is a huge difference between real and digital interaction. If we talk about how internet allows us to communicate and work or study at home, digital interactions surely are helpful and I’m really thankful to live in an era where I can stay in contact with my friends and even see them. At the same time, as a Fe user I find real interaction irreplaceable and from a more irrational and emotional standpoint I can’t compare the two. That being said, I really value digital interaction as substitute of real ones. It’ll always be welcomed, be it to study or to stay in touch with friends. I also must admit how digital interactions are an interesting compromise between alone and social time, a win-win for an introverted Fe user like me.

ENFP mod: I tend to be very touchy when it comes to the people I love so yeah, digital interaction isn’t the same thing. At the same time, none of my closest friends live in my city, and we often need to organize things a month prior to fit everyone schedule, so I’m at least used to not seeing them everyday. I also truly miss my classmates, with whom I used to go out after lessons and have fun. This isn’t obviously possible with Skype calls - and don’t get me started on how project works are harder to deliver like this.

Routine

INFJ mod: Maybe you’ll find it odd to read this from a J, but routines can really stress me out and I need small variation to my daily activities to relieve the fatigue. During this self imposed isolation I’m finding harder than usual to escape from routines.Yes, as a J I need structure and order to an extent. Yes, as a J I need time to adapt to new unexpected situations. What you may not know is that I also need ways to break free from strict and repetitive tasks. In my case, routines need to be a compromise between being mentally reassured by the presence of a certain amount of order and predictability and my aversion for repetitive tasks. Order and structure are subordinated to my desire for freedom. Freedom to create in an environment where I have time and space to envision what I want and how to do it, with my pace.

ENFP mod: I really struggled and I’m still struggling with routine. I don’t like routine per se, but it’s an external factor that gives structure to my life and helps me make the most of my free time while not losing track of my duties. Uni classes played the bigger role in this, and now that they’re online, the temptation of slacking off is really difficult to ignore. I keep my calendar updated and I make sure to be present and focused when needed, but I discovered I’m not well fit for smart working. To me, home is the place where I relax, rest and maybe study, but it certainly isn’t the place where I work. This conflict is what is giving me a hard time focusing on school projects, because if I’m home, the default mode is having fun. Also, I don’t have a sleep schedule anymore. I try my best every night, every night I get rejected.

Dealing with the inferior function

INFJ mod: I’m still working on my inferior Se and quarantine isn’t helping. As the inferior function, it usually takes me a while to even realize how much I’m falling into a Se grip or simply how much I’m not aware of Se. Self isolation amplifies those aspects and makes even harder to become conscious of unhealthy Se manifestations. Quarantine hasn’t stopped me to find a positive outlook in this situation and to learn from mistakes. At first I began to take a more concrete approach in daily life with simple actions. I live in a small town and I have green areas near my house, so I’m lucky enough to be able to spend some time in the nature and to experience it through the five senses. I’m also trying to become more aware of Se by being more present. This week I’m taking action and breaking vicious cycles of overthinking and self-doubt. Self isolation doesn’t allow me to experience life fully, so I’m taking advantage of the situation and I’m focusing those energies in concrete and meaningful actions, like writing on this blog or working on personal project involving creative writing. 

ENFP mod: inferior Si isn’t giving me a particularly hard time, surprisingly. I’ve experienced Si grip and I know what that means to me, but luckily that isn’t an issue now. I sometimes do things that require a more focused and detail-oriented approach: styling wigs for cosplay, trying on new make-ups, baking or cooking, observing what happens out of the window to write it down. They’re not “Si activities” by definition, but they are all things that require concentration, calm, methodical approach and that cannot be rushed - on contrary, sometimes I need to start from scratches and observe my mistakes in order to improve. These are all small things that help my Si stay present and not freaking out overthinking the past, brooding in regrets or yelling at me because I’m not living a structured life at the moment.

The risk of loops and grips

INFJ mod: this is partly tied to what I wrote in the section above: this unexpected emergency and the resulting self isolation produced stress and negative emotions. As an INFJ, my first reaction is to jump in the future and visualize possible scenarios. In this difficult times, I need to take a step back from my negative “what ifs” and to stay positive by building a better future for myself and others day by day, through simple and concrete action. Otherwise I only risk to slip into Se grips or Ni-Ti loops. As I stated before I’m already working on Se: it’s not easy, but I’m at least trying. Another piece of the puzzle is my auxiliary Fe:proper auxiliary function development is essential to avoid loops. As an INFJ, self isolation prevents me from reaching out to my friends as much as I desire, at the same time we can stay in touch through digital interactions and they are surely helping me relieving stress and preventing loops. 

ENFP mod: while the Si part is ok, I still seem to have problems with NeTe loop. I had some rough ten days in mid-March because I was so focused on the million projects I had to finish and how that was stressing me out that I practically lived for nothing else. I managed to stop that before it got worse by speaking with my colleagues and asking to slow down the pace, so that I could have some free time to spend without feeling guilty or unproductive. But I still need to be cautious about the loop.

Trying to use all the four functions (and other healthy coping mechanisms)

INFJ mod: ok, it’s time to sum up what I wrote in the last three sections. From an mbti perspective, I’m trying to find a balance between self reflection (Ni) and concrete actions (Se). Staying in the present, taking full responsibility for my actions,  approaching life through simple and steady actions are all steps I follow every day to shift my locus of control to a more internal position. There are obviously setbacks and some days are far worse than others, but I’m trying to stay positive and find hope. Fe helps me to reach other people which is invaluable but sadly, as an introvert, doesn’t come naturally to me. It’s an healthy way to alleviate or completely avoid loops and to keep my heart warm. Ti, when not involved in a loop, allows me to give structure to what I find meaningful and to organize my thoughts. Ti is basically the backbone of what I envision through Ni. 

ENFP mod: although the first times were rough, I feel I managed to find a balance along the way - with some setback from time to time. My Ne is constantly active in brainstormings for uni and discussing fictional works with friends. I must check on what my Fi needs because I tend to endure stress way more than I should do, so every now and then I must ask myself if I’m fine, if I need to stop or if I truly, absolutely like what I’m working on and, if the answer is no, if it’s possible to discuss it with my project group. Te is very active (even too much, sometimes) and it’s the core of me managing school, blog and personal projects, often writing things down on a schedule in order to keep my mind clear and ordered. I may help my Si more by really trying to re-establish a routine, but honestly the P approach helped me very much in this months of uncertainty, so I think I’ll keep going on like this as long as I’m fine.

Thank you for reading this far! - the mods

[ninamontagutbordas]

HOW CAN I KNOW WHO I AM IF SOCIAL MEDIA DICTATES WHO I SHOULD BE?

The first time I joined Facebook, I was thirteen years old. It was 2008 at the time and none of the existing social media platforms were a big thing in Spain yet. I had a total of seven facebook friends and I only used it to talk to my sister, who introduced me to the social network, while she was away during the summer. Actually, facebook was just a great solution to connect with people traveling or living abroad.

I didn’t understand the power of social media then and, to be honest, it’s still difficult for me to have an accurate understanding of how its power can affect people. It sure has affected me countless times to the point where social media was controlling the way I felt and, it still controls me sometimes.

I am about to turn twenty-five and I am very happy with who I’ve become this past decade. Obviously, I had to go through all the faces the majority of kids go through between the ages of fifteen and the mid-twenties (hopefully I’m not the only one!): I was a stupid teenager at times (to be fair, sometimes still am), there were moments were I behaved as a bad daughter, a bad sister, a bad friend, a bad girlfriend and as a bad “all the roles that a human being can possibly be”, but, still, I am very happy with who I am today and I have forgiven myself for all the damage I may have made.

During this past decade, I’ve managed to create different abilities that helped me understand a bit more how to navigate the awkward early twenties, such as pushing away toxicity, standing up for myself, accepting constructive criticism, and facing mistakes as soon as possible.

BUT, what if social media is dictating what’s toxic and what’s not, when do I need to stand up for myself and when I don’t, which criticism is constructive and which is not and which are the things I should see as mistakes and which are not?

It got me thinking.

I feel like the power of this digital “era” we are living in (is it even an era anymore or at this point is just our reality?) has brought us a lot of good, but also a lot of bad. There have been moments in my life where I found social media was actually very dangerous for me and reflecting on it now, I think my experience may be helpful to some of you as well.  

At the beginning of this crazy 2020, I was in a very bad place. I had just quitted a job that was very damaging for me, I wasn’t comfortable with the way I looked, and I felt very isolated from the important things in life. I have suffered from severe anxiety since I was twelve and had to learn to manage that at a very early stage in my life, but it had never been as bad as it was in January. First world problems? Indeed. I totally agree, but it was a very dark period of time for myself and there was nothing I could do to feel better -or at least I thought so-.

I have the most amazing parents and the most amazing family, a great group of friends who have always supported me no matter what and I had a great loving boyfriend who not once made me feel non-deserving of a happiness that seemed impossible to reach at the time. My support system wasn’t the problem.

SO, why wasn’t I happy?

I knew I had to stop complaining and start doing things that would make me feel better, which would make me heel. Had I known at the time social media was a key element to get there, it would have been a lot easier.  

My body had changed a lot during the past few years, I wasn’t exercising, and I handled my anxiety by eating literally my feelings. My pants didn’t fit, my body was way different than my friend’s bodies (yeah, I know, “don’t compare yourself to others” and “all bodies are beautiful” but still, we all know how it works) and I felt very insecure in general. I never have had the patience or the strength before to beat my laziness and it’s safe to say I had zero trust in myself then, but again, it was time. I had to do something.

I decided to start a severe diet.

If you know me, you know I have had a terrible habit in the past where I start things and never finish them, so of course, I didn’t think I was going to go through with an entire diet. I didn’t see myself capable.

It took me six months and nine days to finally feel healthy and good again, but I did it. (Two out of six months I was quarantined at home, which was not great neither mentally nor physically for the process I was going through). I discovered a lot of myself during that time though.

However, not everything I discovered was actually good, believe it or not. I discovered a lot of bad stuff and not necessarily was I aware of all the negative inputs I was receiving from the internet. One of those things was the social media strategies to engage with users in the wrong way and how that can control a person’s feelings. I was a victim of social media.

During the lockdown, I had to beat my anxiety in different ways so that none of them lead me up to interrupting the diet-plan my doctor had provided me. I had a commitment to myself and the more I proved myself wrong, the better I felt. I’m not a quitter and I wasn’t a quitter back then, but I just didn’t know it yet.

One of the ways to beat my anxiety, strangely enough, was sitting home to my computer and lose myself on social media, as many of us did during the quarantine. Without even noticing it, I ended up falling into a rabbit hole: Instagram food accounts.

Isn’t it so paradoxical? I was doing a diet but still, I was spending my hours looking at thousands of videos of people baking cakes, cooking pasta, and reading recipes I know I couldn’t have as long as I wanted to keep doing this.

Some said I should be proud of myself - being able to look at these videos and not once cheat or interrupt my diet is a great way “to train my strength”. I fully disagree. To me, this was not about strength, to me this was about how the channels in my brain had been educated to think this was normal behavior. It was not. Social media was tempting me.

What I’ve realized through this process is that, it wasn’t actually my choice whether to stop looking at them or not. The less I wanted to see, the more videos I had access to because of the complexity of the social media algorithms. They decided I needed to see that kind of content.

Social media was proving myself and it became an interesting yet dangerous dynamic for me, which is why I find myself writing down this essay. For months, I’ve been having conversations with my parents and my friends about the danger of social media.

BUT, where is the real danger?

In the months that followed, I was starting to feel better. Actually, I was feeling pretty good. Not just physically, but also mentally. I was better than ever and people around me started noticing the inside glow I was feeling.

The problem is that feeling good and being in charge of your own life are two very different things. I was happy but my life was not under control, quite the opposite. I wasn’t in control. Social media algorithms were controlling me.

That’s when it got tricky for me – How could I be the happiest I’ve ever been but feel so frustrated? Was I really happy? Was I pretending to be happy because everyone else seemed so happy? Was I really being myself or was I just pretending to be somebody who I wasn’t? Was social media training myself to think I was happy? Was social media LYING to me?

All of these questions were hunting me, and I just did not know what to do. I was back in shape yet all the pictures I saw on Instagram of these beautiful women in their amazing bikinis during their amazing vacations made me feel self-conscious about myself.

Why did I do this diet? Did I do it for myself or for the benefit of a social network that had thousands of pictures of myself where I could prove to people graphically I had lost a lot of weight?

Social media has an interesting way to make people feel bad and create this interesting millennial feeling of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) – the problem is, we only share 10% of what’s really going on with us. That’s why it was important to me to share this story – I wanted to use social media in a different way. Maybe I’m oversharing, but at least I’m oversharing in a true and authentic way, not in an unrealistic scenario.

A while ago, I decided I would delete all the pictures on my Instagram page and I was only going to leave there the ones that captured the moments where I was really happy and really present. From around 600 pictures I had posted over the years, I chose around 20. They could stay. Twenty-something pictures that reminded me of the important things in life, at least the important things to me. But then I said to myself: “Did I just chose when I felt happy because I deleted some Instagram pictures? This makes me so sad”.

Going through these old pictures, I could clearly tell how my body has changed “for the better” this past nine months but I realized very quickly something very unexpected - I was really happy back then. For sure I had that puffy face and a bigger body, but I was really happy and really secure. And that’s when I realized, social media was dictating what should I do and who I should be. Not because I decided to, but because I allowed it to. 

The thing is that I don’t feel threatened by social media itself. I feel threatened by the way we consume digital content without even thinking of the impact this can have not only on ourselves but on others. 

We get carried away because we don’t use social media in a smart way. We use it to compare ourselves and our life with others, directly or indirectly, whether we like it or not. We don’t consume media to complete ourselves with information and use it for our own profits. We consume media to fill the blanks we are missing in our journeys. 

I’m scared of how fast the world is evolving and how fast digital progress is happening. Let’s see where my relationship with the internet stands in five years when my twenties are over. Until then, I’ll try to use social media for the benefit of the people around me. I feel like we all have a responsibility and, I’m going to commit to it.  

The question is, are you?

[vibranch]

Hockety Pockety - Kingdom Hearts Fan Fic

Pairing: LeonxRinoa Heartilly / Squall LeonhartxRinoa Heartilly Rating: T (for some dark thoughts later into the story) Word Count: 4,197 AO3 link here (Author’s notes can be read here)

Summary: Rinoa Heartilly always seemed like such an outgoing young woman. So Merlin was a little surprised that she was having so much trouble with a spell that required its user to sing and dance.

Leon always seemed like such a quiet and uncaring guy. So Rinoa was a little surprised when he spoke and said something nice.

How should either understand what the other is going through? Does it even matter if they do? AKA: The, no doubt, long awaited origin story to Leon's leather jacket

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

Merlin sipped his tea as he considered how to best explain where his student was going wrong. “My dear, you have to sing the words, not just mumble them like an out of tune frog.”

Rinoa huffed an exasperated breath at the wizard. “I will not! I’m going to look like a loon.” Rinoa could feel her face growing hot as she considered what Merlin wanted her to do.

Long ago before she knew of other worlds, Rinoa used to sit on her mother’s lap and watched the stars as her mother sang to her. Despite her mother’s crippling shyness, she had written and publicly preformed a song about how she felt when Rinoa had looked at her as a baby.

Rinoa loved that song even before she’d even learned to speak. As a baby, Rinoa would mimic the sounds of the song her mother would always sing to her.

And when she’d gotten a old enough to speak, Rinoa would shamelessly sing along with her mother. “Loud and proud,” was how her father would describe her singing.

“Loud and Proud,” Rinoa would shout right back, taking pride in her father’s words of encouragement, not feeling any of the shyness of being heard that her mother felt.

Those days felt long ago now.

Very long ago.

Now that she was older, Rinoa sometimes worried that she hadn’t inherited her mother’s singing voice. Occasionally, while watching the stars alone, Rinoa would sing to herself the same song her mother once sang.

“Darling, so there you are. With that look on your face. As if you’re never hurt, as if you’re never down.”

It hurt to say the words and know that her mother would never sing them to her again, or that her father would never be around to describe her singing as loud and proud either.

But she was glad that it still hurt.

It hurt, but only because she was reminded that she was loved, that there had once been happier, better days before the Heartless entered her life and destroyed her world.

“My mom was a singer, you know.” Rinoa looked to Merlin. “I always thought she was better at it than me, but… Do I really sound like a frog? I don’t think I’m that bad.”

Merlin placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, my dear. Don’t worry you don’t sound like a frog, haven’t you listened to them croak? They have wonderfully deep baritone voices.”

“Oh, so I’m not even as good as a frog.” Rinoa said sadly as she looked at the floor.

Merlin coughed into his hand as he considered his next words more carefully. “Ah, now Rinoa, don’t feel too disheartened. I know you can perform the spell. You just don’t understand the proper form to it. Here, copy after me.” Merlin hopped onto the stool Rinoa once stood on in the middle of the room.

“You’ve already shown it to me, I’m just not going to get it.”

“Ah ah ah!” Merlin tutted. “Watch me now.” He slumped his shoulders and began to chant slow and nervously, “Hockety… Pockety… Wockety…”

Rinoa raised an eyebrow as nothing changed. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m preforming it as you were.” Merlin answered. “Maybe a bit exaggerated, but my point stands. You’ve got to be less self-conscious. When it comes to spells, they can almost feel your indecisiveness and can go very wrong if you don’t cast them with gusto.”

“With gusto?” Rinoa repeated, arching an eyebrow as she did so.

“Precisely!”

None of this made sense to Rinoa. This was supposed to be a magic and spells lesson, not a singing and dance class. Confidence had always been key when it came to learning new spells, but she never had to dance and sing like an idiot for a spell before.

“Now watch me.” Merlin cleared throat and scanned the room carefully.

A moment later he jumped into the air and danced on the stool. Not caring about how he looked. Which was good. Graceless didn’t even describe as Rinoa watched in horror.

He wants me to do that?

“Hockety Pockety, Wockety Wack!”

Objects throughout the room began to float through the air. As he continued his song and dance, dishes and furniture began to shrink in size and float gently into an open bag of holding he’d laid out.

“There now,” Merlin announced as he finished the spell. “Just do it exactly like that.”

“I am not doing that!” Rinoa said.

“If you don’t, you’ll never master it.” Merlin chimed.

“But if I do, someone is going to walk through that door and see me dancing and singing like a crazy person! I just know it!”

Merlin waved a hand at Rinoa. “Oh poppycock, you worry too much. Just relax and have fun with it. Magic should be fun, so long as you use it responsibly.”

Stepping gingerly onto Merlin’s Stool, Rinoa believed she understood why her mother had always struggled to publicly perform her songs in front of an audience now.

“Go on!” Merlin cheered. He knew she had it in her to perform the spell. There was a great source of magical potential within her, and he couldn’t wait to see her soar!

“Hockety… Pockety…” Rinoa slowly began. She felt the sense of unease and shame build within her. “Loud and proud, loud and proud.” Rinoa repeated under her breath.

“Is everything alright?” Merlin asked. Perhaps he should have thought of a different spell to teach her instead. He didn’t think she’d have so much trouble with it. She normally seemed so outgoing and extroverted everywhere else.

“Hockety Pockety!” Rinoa yelled at the top of her lungs. She took a peek at the curtain that served as Merlin’s door, looking for any sign of outside movement. “Wockety Wack! Abra Abra, Dabra Nack!” Rinoa kicked her legs out and began to dance on the stool just as Merlin had.

Merlin watched with pride as the spell worked its magic. Objects lifted gently off the shelf and bobbed in orbit around her. Each time they drooped down, they rose back up a size smaller than before.

Rinoa couldn’t believe it, it was working! She continued to sing the song, with only slight interruptions coming from a laugh that would bubble out of her throat. She spun a couple of times, letting herself become lost in the moment.

“Keep going, keep going!” Merlin encouraged. A request Rinoa happy to oblige.

So caught up in the moment, Rinoa didn’t notice the sound of someone moving aside Merlin’s curtain and stepping inside.

“Merlin, can I use your…”

Rinoa’s eyes shot open. She was frozen in place, looking directly at Leon.

Not again… Rinoa thought to herself.

“I, uh, I can come back later.” Leon said embarrassedly, as if he’d been the one they walked in on.”

Rinoa covered her face with her hands as it began to heat up, unintentionally casting an aero spell that lifted Leon off his feet and threw him somewhere outside. Rinoa hadn’t even noticed that she’d cast the spell until she heard something splash into the lake outside Merlin’s house. Cracking open an eye, she saw Leon wasn’t in the room anymore.

Leon stepped on to the grassy shore of the lake, trying not to think about the condition his leather jacket was going to be in once it had time to dry. The soggy, muddy grass he stepped on gave way as he put his full weight onto it, causing Leon to tumble back into the water.

“Umm, do you need a hand?”

Leon sat up from the water to see two brown eyes staring at him with a mix of concern and amusement.

“I’m fine.” Leon replied curtly, trying to grab hold of something solid to help pull himself back up. A piece of muddy embankment came lose, pulling grass out by its roots as he fell back in the water.

Rinoa stretched out with her hand towards Leon. “It’s alright I won’t blow you away again.”

Sighing with resignation, Leon reached back for the girl’s hand.

“Sorry, about that…” Rinoa rubbed the tip of her boot on the ground as she tried to find a better way to apologize.

“…Whatever” Leon replied.

There was an uncomfortable silence as Rinoa waited for Leon to continue. He looked uncomfortable to her. She wondered if she made him uncomfortable, or if it was just because he was soaked.

Probably because he’s soaked, she decided.

If he wasn’t going to break the silence, Rinoa decided she would. “Did you need to speak with Merlin?”

“No, it can wait. You go ahead and finish your lesson and I’ll come back later.” Leon said.

“Oh, well I’m finished now.” Rinoa dug circles in the ground with her boot. “Merlin said I pretty much had the spell figured out, so I’m done now.”

“If you say so.” Leon said as he squelched towards the entrance.

Rinoa winced as she saw the condition of his leather jacket. It was completely soaked, and it would only get further damaged as it dried.

“Oh, by the way,” Leon said just before entering Merlin’s House. “You sounded good. Sorry if I bothered you again.”

Rinoa walked home, considering Leon’s words. That was the second time he’d walked in on her singing.

The first time he’d heard her, she was singing quietly to herself as she watched the stars. Just as she’d done with her mother years ago. She hadn’t even noticed he was there until he’d said anything.

“He’s too quiet!” Rinoa yelled. With no one walking the streets at this time of night she could give into the little temptation to be a bit loud.

But even back then he wasn’t rude or anything.

“That’s a nice song.” Leon’s voice cut through the cold night air like a knife.

Rinoa jumped back in surprise. “Sorry, I thought I was alone… How long have you been there?”

“Not long,” Squall admitted. “I was just on my way to see Merlin. He has an entrance to the water way.”

“What do you do down there?” Rinoa asked. She didn’t often talk with Leon. In fact, he didn’t often talk to anyone. She’d really only seen him say short sentences to Aerith, Yuffie, and Cid. Nothing that could really be considered a conversation. Just enough words answer a question they had or the bare minimum to politely respond to something they said.

Rinoa was almost certain she had a closer relationship with Aerith and Yuffie than Leon did, maybe even Cid. But the little that he did talk with them was more than he ever said to anyone else.

“I go there to be alone.” Leon answered.

Rinoa scrunched her eyebrows together as she tried to understand his answer. “You go there to be alone? But you’re always alone.” Rinoa suddenly realized that what she said was rude before she could stop herself.

“…Whatever,” Leon responded. He didn’t know why she cared what he did there. At least when he was there no one bothered him. Sometimes just being secluded was all he wanted. Still, he felt compelled to tell Rinoa more. “Gunblades can be dangerous around others so it’s safest to make sure I practice somewhere others won’t accidentally sneak up on me and get hurt.”

“Wow, I didn’t realize you were so considerate of others.” Rinoa said only a little sarcastically. “Is it really that dangerous of a weapon?”

Leon considered explaining how the recoil from pulling the triggering mechanism adds a lot of recoil. How one time when he was younger, he pulled the trigger and shot out of his hands and landed somewhere behind him.

And even though he was used to its recoil now, his old instructor back home had drilled into his head that ‘the worst always arrives with an audience’, and an audience could get hurt if it ever flew out of his hands again.

But instead of explaining any of that, Leon just replied with a curt and succinct “Yeah.”

“How kind of you.” Rinoa said, again only slightly sarcastically. She realized she was probably sounding kind of rude again. “Sorry, I guess I was expecting you to say more. I know we don’t talk much, but you never seem to have anything to say.”

Leon sighed. Cid and Aerith were always asking if he was okay, and despite constantly telling them he was, they never seemed to believe him. Even Yuffie, who was more oblivious about how much he wanted to be left alone, was constantly questioning every little noise and sound he made. Rinoa seemed to be the same as them, and yet for some reason, he found he didn’t mind as much.

“Leon, are you alright?” Rinoa asked. He’d been silent for a while now, so she said with innocent intent. Despite that, the question annoyed Leon.

“I should go.” Leon announced before Rinoa could ask another question. But her words, ‘you never seem to have anything to say,’ rattled in his head. For some reason he wanted to prove her wrong. “I liked the song, by the way. Sorry if I bothered you and made you stop. It sounded nice.” Leon walked off before Rinoa could say another word.

For some reason, when Merlin told her that he had a new spell to teach her, and that it required the user to sing a song to do it, Rinoa thought of that night with Leon again. She felt a little more confident in her singing voice since that night and decided to attempt the song.

Rinoa felt so stupid as she laid down on her bed. Leon had nothing bad to say to her, and what had she done? She sent him flying into a lake. No doubt ruining his jacket permanently.

Maybe she could think of a way to apologize for blasting him into a lake. Just saying sorry didn’t seem right. But what else could she do?

She had once considered adding a leather jacket to her everyday outfit, but this was back before Leon and the others came to Traverse Town. But she found it to be a little too Hell’s Angel looking for her taste. Almost literally with the red angel wings embroidered into the back of it. She liked the angel wing motif, but not even that could save it for her. Now it just hung in her closet, never to be worn again.

Maybe that could make a good replacement for the one she ruined…

Of course, once she’d pulled it out of the closet, she saw it definitely wasn’t going to fit. It would be way too tight on him. It’s not like she’d memorized his body size, but still. Something told her Leon probably wouldn’t fit in a women’s size. The short sleeves alone would cut off the circulation in his arms, if his arms even fit through it.

Then she got an idea.

It was probably stupid idea. But she couldn’t get it out of her head.

Loud and proud.

She recanted the words to the song Merlin had taught her, changing the lyrics slightly.

The sound of a pulled trigger immediately followed by the sound of a firing mechanism echoed through the cavern. The smell of gunpowder wafted in the air mixing with the smells of wet stone and still water.

Leon smiled, or the closest thing he would allow to a smile. He felt at peace. No one was around to remind him of his old home or the people he couldn’t save. How he ran away, how chose to save himself, how he should have stayed and fought till the bitter end.

Oh,

There goes that smile.

Good.

What right did he have to be happy? Every time Cid, or Aerith, or even little Yuffie, asked him if he was alright, they wouldn’t quite believe him when he said he was.

They didn’t understand that he was alright and that was the problem. He was alright and so many others weren’t. Why should he be alright? It wasn’t fair to everyone he failed if he just moved on and forgot them.

Sometimes Leon thought his favorite part of the water way was just how alien it was to home. It was completely different to anything he would find in Radiant Garden.

But in moments like these, not even that fact could help. Maybe it was because there was one last reminder of home hidden even in here. A warp gummi that Cid had placed behind a mural that laid on the wall beyond a section of deep water.

Cid trusted Leon enough not to take the warp gummi hidden in this place. That or he knew.

Knew that Leon was scared to go back. Scared to watch his own Heart flutter out of his chest, lose his mind, and become a Heartless. Just like everyone he couldn’t save.

Maybe

Maybe it was time to change that. He could be fearless, like a lion. Unafraid to take on the endless horde of Heartless that were no doubt still ravaging his home.

All he’d have to do was wade into the deep water that separated him from the mural that housed the warp gummi he needed.

His leather jacket was already ruined from water damage, so it’s not like that weak excuse was still there to stop him.

Leon stood at the edge of the water as the thought lingered in his mind.

Was he really going to do it? Return to that Hollow Bastion and fight until he hoped he could feel redeemed?

“Uhh,” A voice interrupted his thoughts. It came from by the stairs that lead back to Merlin’s house. “Sorry, am I interrupting?”

Rinoa tiptoed into the water way, taking in the soft green glow of the room.

Leon looked at her skeptically. “No, I was…” He looked back at the mural the warp gummi was in. “Just taking a break.”

“From your Gunblade practice?” She swung both arms exaggeratedly together, mimicking what she thought a Gunblade swing looked like.

“Yeah,” Leon kept his voice even. What was she doing here? He told her he liked to come here to be alone, right?

Rinoa walked further in but stopped as she saw the cracked remains of Leon’s leather jacket. “I’m sorry about your jacket. I didn’t mean to get it wet.”

“…Whatever.” Leon said, but he felt like he should be thanking her. Now that it was gone, it was just one less obstacle to stop him from marching into the water, taking the warp gummi, and taking off for home again. Then whatever happens, happens.

“You say that a lot. Is it a nervous tick or something? Do you get nervous around girls?”

“N-No.” Why was she asking him something like that? A question like that is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leon could feel himself getting hotter, but he didn’t have anything to be embarrassed about!

Rinoa took a slight pleasure at seeing him look flustered. It was a nice change from his usual, or more like constant, stoic demeanor. “Well, it’s not ‘whatever’ to me. I feel bad about it.” Rinoa paused for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice rose with excitement. “Which is why I got you something.”

Leon watched as she ran back towards the stairs. If Rinoa had looked back she would have remarked that he looked like a cat, tilting his head in confusion.

Rinoa came running back holding a black leather jacket of her own. “Here! It’s a replacement for the one I ruined.

Leon examined the gift. Red angle wings on the back? Not really his style. But it was high quality and looked comfortable.

C’mon, try it on, try it on!” she cheered.

Leon sighed as he put it on. He tried to make the process look tiring, but if he was being honest, he was a little excited too.

Rinoa was nervous as he slipped both arms into the sleeves. She made a small inaudible gasp as she realized her mistake. She hadn’t made it long enough!

Unlike his old one, this new jacket only reached as far as, maybe, the middle of his stomach. She hung her head in defeat. She cursed herself for not noticing the issue sooner.

“Thank you. I like it.”

Rinoa’s head shot up. He was twisting and turning, trying to check himself out in it as best he could without a mirror. And was there some actual emotion in his voice as he said it too?

Leon liked how the sleeves ended at his biceps. The nights in Traverse Town never got as cold as back home, so he could see himself being much more comfortable wearing this new one. And while he liked the fake fur collar from his old one, it had been an uncomfortable reminder of his old life as of late.

Rinoa watched in fascination as he moved around in the women’s jacket she’d enlarged. “You know?” Rinoa said, interrupting Leon from further investigating how he looked. She gazed into the water Leon had earlier been standing near. “I just realized I walked in on you practicing. I guess that means it’s your turn to push me into the water now, huh?”

“I’m not going to do that.”

Rinoa couldn’t help but smile. Did he think she was serious? Rinoa couldn’t tell. Even he couldn’t be that literal, but he said it so seriously. “I was just joking, Leon.”

Leon was quiet for a moment. “… So was I.”

“You were not!” Rinoa laughed. When she finally looked up at him he had that flustered look again. Like a cat that had been caught looking foolish. She recollected herself and figured she should stop teasing him. “Sorry, I can go now if I’m bothering you.”

“You’re not.” Leon spoke faster than he meant to. Unlike most people, he didn’t mind her being around. There was something about Rinoa’s presence that he didn’t want to lose.

“I thought you said it could be dangerous being near someone practicing a Gunblade.”

“Well… Maybe not that dangerous. Besides, I think I’m done now anyway.”

“Then, if you’re done practicing, what did you want to do?”

“We could talk, I guess. I haven’t really gotten to know many people here yet.” Leon admitted.

“Yeah, I guess we could.” Rinoa had some doubts about Leon as a conversationalist. He was so quiet and untalkative that she half wanted to joke that she was surprised he even knew how to talk. But she figured that would just make him angry.

“I kind of want to know more about that one song you were singing.” Leon spoke, taking charge of a conversation for once.

“O-Oh, you mean Hockety Pockety?”

“No, the other one you were singing. When I was on my way to Merlin’s the first time.”

“Oh, you mean ‘Eyes on Me’. My mother actually wrote it.”

Leon tilted his head. “Really? That’s impressive.”

“Yeah, she was really talented. I can’t sing it as well as her, but I still do sometimes when I’m alone.”

“You sounded fine to me.”

“Oh, thank you.” Rinoa didn’t know why she felt so embarrassed to receive such a simple compliment.

Rinoa thought about the song ‘Eyes on Me’ some more. When she looked back, she found Leon’s gaze firmly planted on her.

His eyes are on me.

It was just word association, but as soon as she made the thought, she felt something twist in her gut.

Rinoa suddenly felt the need to think about something else. She muttered the words to Hockety Pockety, hoping the lyrics would get her mind off of whatever she definitely was not thinking of.

“Rinoa, are you-” Leon stopped when he felt something move on his arm. He looked at it but didn’t see anything different.

Wait a minute… Was his sleeve larger now?

No, that would be impossible. Probably just his imagination.

Leon had long since forgotten about taking the warp gummi and flying back to Hollow Bastion. The desire to make one last stand on his home had evaporated over the course of the night. Slowly the idea had faded when Rinoa presented the gifted jacket.

They talked for a long time. About lost homes and adjusting to Traverse Town. Leon talked about his Gunblade training and why it could be dangerous. Rinoa talked about Dogs and caring for them. Leon didn’t know she cared so much about dogs. Rinoa admitted that on multiple occasions she’d asked Merlin to conjure up a fountain or a statue in the third district for the two dogs she’d been caring for.

Leon hadn’t even realized he’d forgotten about taking the warp gummi when he finally went to bed. In fact, it would be a long time before Leon would remember his idea to return to his home for one last fight. But by that time, he couldn’t see a point to fighting an obviously hopeless battle.

After all, he had a right to be happy and to make something new for himself. He could see a little bit clearer that his life hadn’t been a waste.

[ipraygreywords]

Slayers Week 2 Day 2: Villains

But is he really? 

 “I am both better and worse than you thought” (Sylvia Plath). 

Of all the many characters for whom I have written, none is more difficult to pinpoint than Rezo, in this particular regard.  This is the man who heals stray kittens for little boys when nobody is looking, who devoted 150 years of life to traveling nonstop and healing hundreds of thousands of people of illness, but also steals another preteen boy’s body for the chance to cure his own blindness.  See what I mean?

My ultimate conclusion is that Rezo is a good person who has had to compensate for personal impediments using opportunistic means, and because Rezo was never fully in control of Rezo’s own judgment or Rezo’s own choices, these actions became increasingly abhorrent in the two to three years before his death: but he still did a great deal of good in his life, and, were he to live free of that influence, he would be unequivocally good. That is WHY he was chosen to be corrupted.  Bad people attack symbols of goodness to demoralize their enemies.  But let me back up. Because woosh. This is a complex topic.  

Sussing out Rezo’s moral alignment is difficult because Rezo, as we see him in canon, never does anything without the powerful, corrupting presence of a ma-oh (the strongest tier of demon in all his world, one of only four in the universe, who are eclipsed by only one other being) which was affixed to his soul from birth.  This ma-oh (the mouthful name of “Ruby-Eyed Shabranigdu”) chose Rezo intentionally as a vessel, from which he hoped to eventually be resurrected (in the process, killing Rezo–a fact which alone is intriguing, because Shabranigdu has done this before to other humans, who survived his resurrected and far more comfortably cohabited with him).  So when one analyzes Rezo’s actions as a human being, one always has to try and separate out Shabranigdu’s manipulations from Rezo’s natural inclinations. Let’s get a couple (overly simplistic, imho) anti arguments out of the way first:

–People who dislike Rezo often point out that Shabranigdu picked Rezo because he saw vulnerabilities that he could exploit to the point of serious moral corruption.  That means it was possible to break Rezo: but I–and Lina Inverse, the chief protagonist of the Slayers series–believe that still doesn’t condemn Rezo as a “bad” or “weak” person. It just means that Shabranigdu, who is a master manipulator, could find a strategy with which to erode Rezo’s will. I also believe that because Rezo was born with a famously powerful capacity for white/healing magic, and a demonstrable urge to serve others in ways that could not possibly benefit him, Shabranigdu thought it would be perversely hilarious to target a cleric: a person in whom people placed their trust, to have their best interests at heart, and to make them well. (Shabranigdu’s main goal is to wreak despair and violence on the world, and return it to a state of chaos, so why not take down a few more people beyond Rezo, ruin their faith in the benevolence of their healers, while he’s at it? But I’ll get to this more later.)

–People who dislike Rezo also often assume that Shabranigdu was the cause of Rezo’s eyes being sealed shut, causing him “blindness,” from birth. Why is this important to your question? Because when we analyze the series more closely, it becomes clear that Rezo’s eyes are a protective seal AGAINST Shabranigdu’s resurrection, which means that the ma-oh cannot complete his resurrection unless Rezo opens his eyes (we see this both in Slayers Season One and in Slayers Evolution-R).  When Rezo was born, his eyes acted as a failsafe shielding the world FROM Shabranigdu.  Shabranigdu had to act against that failsafe to be reborn.  So Shabranigdu turned the VIRTUE of the sealed-shut eyes into a HANDICAP which embarrassed, discouraged, and isolated Rezo, because he could cure everyone else with his amazing healing skills, but not himself (and even a saint must eventually feel jealousy and resentment from that)–such that EVEN THE THING THAT MADE HIM FAMOUS, AND GOOD, AND LOVED BY OTHERS, BECAME A SYMBOL OF “BUT NOT YOU: YOU DON’T GET TO BE HAPPY LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. NEVER YOU.”  A person who is depressed and angry and alone is much easier to break.  See below.  

–People who dislike Rezo almost always cite what he did to his own grandson Zelgadis as the most condemnation-worthy “evidence” that he is rotten to the core. While there is NO EXCUSING WHAT HE DID, and I will NEVER think what he did is okay, I could not disagree with these individuals more.  Rezo is capable of forming and maintaining loving attachments; in the end, Shabranigdu USES precisely those loving attachments to isolate Rezo, by perverting their purity, and breaking his loved ones WITH HIS OWN HANDS. What better way to demoralize a good person than to make them SEEM to choose being a monster?  There are actual contemporary scientific studies that prove that one of the best ways to torture prisoners of war is to make them torture others. It dehumanizes them, renders them weapons, and lowers their resolve to fight back. This is what happened when Rezo took Zelgadis’s words “we need to do small evils for great good, and get stronger” and twisted them into an excuse to make Zelgadis a chimera–effectively alienating Zelgadis from the world just as Shabrranigdu had Rezo–as part of his research to cure his own eyes.   (People reading this who have the “but he knew Zel could never be cured, and Evo-R proves that!” rebuttal, let me know, because I have a whole separate meta theory on that, which does not exonerate Rezo, but does cast serious doubt on the allegation that the chimera process can never be reversed).   –Rezo does terrible evils (the other big whoppers are creating and experimenting on a clone of himself, and deliberately spreading a disease to an isolated kingdom to take advantage of its ill as test subjects).  But, and while this isn’t a make it or break it thing, he lso more than once shows genuine contrition for the evil he has done, when it will benefit him in no way to do so. This is rare, and sometimes it is on the tail end of a lot of emotionally manipulative bargaining and self-justification (borne primarily of pride), but he has either apologized or openly acknowledged that his choices were evil and unconscionable, on both the occasions that he was confronted by the heroes for his choices. –People who dislike Rezo like to say “he only started his white magical career to try and heal his own eyes!” to which I answer: yes, and? The subsequent entire life he spent healing people while continuing to master other magics to heal himself were not mandatory. No one was forcing Rezo to share his findings with others.  That was an act of selflessness.   –Both times that Shabranigdu is reborn out of Rezo (which…rips apart his body, fun times) and he realizes it, he helps the heroes kill Shabranigdu, and without him they would have failed to do so.  Which. You know. BIG INDICATION that he’s not, at heart, a bad guy lol. –Rezo plans ahead to try to do damage control for potential collateral, when he does selfish and reckless things.  It’s usually not enough, and he puts new meaning to the word “quixotic.”  But it still matters for the purposes of your question. For instance, when he finally breaks down and chooses to resurrect Shabranigdu, he plans to create an arguably evenly-matched creature called a “Zanaffar” with which to kill the demon the moment he gains vision.  He also creates laboratories deep underground so that explosions can be contained and do less damage to the surrounding area.  He also thinks (wrongly) that he can heal all the people in Taforashia before they die, once he can see.    Rezo’s fatal flaw in all these cases is to assume, out of desperation, that he is capable of more than any one human being ever could be.  

Which is not good or evil, really, but HUMAN: pulling us back toward a consistent, perennial theme of Slayers, that humans are flawed but redeemable creatures, neither gods nor demons, who exist to maintain the *balance* of the cosmos (the true plan, according to Xelloss, of the most powerful of all beings, referred to as LoN).  

–People expect too much of Rezo, which I think was a genuine, conscious point the Slayers writers wanted to make.  

It doesn’t excuse anything he did that was evil.  At the same time, there are two ways to dehumanize a person. One is to vilify them.

The other is to idolize them.   Zelgadis idolized Rezo. Eris idolized Rezo.  Pokota idolized Rezo.  And Rezo took advantage of that, and that’s wrong. But think about that for a moment. It is wrong, on a moral level, to idolize a living person, and expect god-tier ethical purity at all times and under all forms of pressure.  It is wrong, and it is hurtful.  Sometimes it’s done out of naivety, sometimes emotional codependence, but in any case, it is wrong. I speak here from painful experience on the receiving end of idolization. It exerts impossible pressure on a person. And it is scary.  

Hundreds of thousands of sick and disabled people idolized Rezo. They built statues and made paintings of him. They installed him as one of the “Five Great Sages”–literally the most revered of magical users/scholars of ALL RECORDED HISTORY.  They threw so much money at him that he owned “several” mansions by the time of his death.  Rezo was good at maintaining the facade of authoritative serenity. But my God, was it ever that: a facade.  He was tired, angry, and afraid: so afraid that he once told his servant Ozel, in strictest confidence, knowing she would tell no one else, and in a tone of deep depression,  “Sometimes I lose my sense of what it is to be a person.”  

And don’t we all know the feeling, when we too are at a crossroads?  Isn’t that HUMAN?

I genuinely believe the Slayers writers wanted the audience to sort of meta-replicate the feelings of Rezo’s disciples, and expect Rezo to be a saint, and then be horrified and angry when his worst actions proved seriously otherwise. And then by the end of the story, I think they were meant to realize, this was just a guy. This was just a guy who had the rough equivalent of Satan possessing his body and soul, a guy who was meant to be a healer but had his whole life rendered a farce because of his own soul’s attempt to keep a monster sealed inside.  Rezo became a living prison for a demon, and he could not contain it. No one, in fact, who has served as the vessel of Shabranigdu has been able, ultimately, to resist him.  

[rgr-pop]

i unfortunately (due to, am broke) am going to be in the market for some new powders in a few months! powders are cool because i use them up--amazing, the panners were right. so here is a post on my powder usage. (for newer followers interested in makeup talk: i do not wear foundation but i do conceal pretty much every time i go out, i have only mild dark circles with significant variation on account of i sleep only sometimes, and okay-to-normal dry skin that is finicky and about which i am reasonably self conscious. i’m a dry in a dry land.)

i cannot say i have ever purchased a setting or finishing powder in my life, and it has only been a year or a year and a half since i have been using either regularly. powders made their way into my daily life because youtube rotted my brain about how much i have to do to my skin, but it’s interesting because my increase in powder use coincided with a sea change on youtube (at least among the marginally-hip youthful medium hurus, who i follow a lot of), a move against powders in favor of dewier low-coverage looks that wear away naturally. i have not found that powder usage impedes these qualities in my own makeup use, and while i respect the techniques of these hurus (and implement many of them) i characterize this as one of many subtly homophobic beautube backlashes going on right now. i do not necessarily find that powder intensifies the condition or appearance of dryness, and i do not experience cakiness. i am, like everyone under the influence of the huru brain worm, at least a moderate user of oil or glycerin based “setting” sprays. i like the versatility of powdering, and i find powder particularly useful for keeping my watery eyeballs from ruining my whole face. i do not do anything difficult or strenuous ever, but i do expect the upper half of my face to hold its makeup for the duration of whatever it is that i wear it for, and i always find that my makeup looks okay (slightly smudged and faded but acceptable) at ten or twelve hours. this is one benefit of not wearing foundation.

here is an overview of the powders i have had and what i’m looking for:

tarte’s “smooth operator” amazonian clay pressed setting powder. i have had this for years. is it a mini, or just small? where did it come from? i think free with something, years ago. can i tell you what kind of good skin privilege i had? when i got this--YEARS ago, five years ago??--i wasn’t precisely sure what to do with a “setting powder.” i was very makeup literate about everything except for doing things to your skin, because i never did anything to my skin, either because it was  perfect or our culture was less hellish (a little of both). it is just lucky that i ended up purchasing the concealer that is supposed to go with this item that i had acquired for free. they work beautifully together and used wisely i never experience anything like creasing, cakiness, migration, transfer of eye makeup including mascara. not ever, nothing like this. this concerns me, i am worried that i have gone and gotten myself reliant on an expensive powder. and it turns out that high end powders are expensive! (the concealer, which i cannot imagine using up in two years, is $26 and i got it during the sale, the powder, which i would imagine would last me the same amount of time, is $35). as a non-foundation wearer with skincare literacy (no offense rich girls who buy vitamin c), i am not accustomed to spending that kind of money on a “practical” item, only fun color cosmetics, or perfume, either of which would last me typically my entire life. lipsticks, blushes, highlighters, maybe a palette, etc. i would be tempted to buy this powder again, however the drive to educate myself on the world of powder is telling me not to! so i will not.

a loose silica hd powder from modelco or city colour or jcat or something, i am not going upstairs to check. i am not going to use this item up anytime soon, but i do like having it on hand. it came in a subscription service back when i did those. i do not believe that just a silica hd powder is the kind of product you need to invest a lot of money in, flashback or no. i am not precise enough in application to use this powder on my undereyes--i tend to sweep it into my eye wrinkles and then i get eye crease flashback in mood or retail lighting (the only kind of atmospheres i am ever in). i am unsure whether i would have this issue (being unable to get away with imprecise dusting) with other loose powders for the undereye, and i’m curious to confront this problem! i can lightly pat and then lazily dust around my eyes with a pressed powder because it is not as airborne. but is this lightness a problem with all loose powders, or just the cloudy silica ones? unsure. i’m overall not worried about facial flashback if i were to set my cheeks or something with this, because my skin is already quite literally flashback colored, so who cares. but there is nothing elegant about this kind of product and i do not need it.

this pressed color correcting powder palette from elf. wow i have had a journey with this item, which i have had for years! i got this because lucas s*******ed it for me one year. he would always choose the weirdest things! he is still like that. i had no idea what to do with this--and i still wonder about such a product. for a long time i believed pretty strongly that your color correcting product should be your cream base product, combined with a translucent or skin toned powder. but the yellow and green in here have been very useful to me, once i figured out what to do with them, so i was wrong. the yellow is an adequate undereye powder when my purple is more pronounced and i’m using a less-yellow or low-coverage undereye concealer, such as today! i really am a believer in the low-coverage but quite-yellow undereye for me (color correction instead of coverage), but with this powder it is easy to go overboard and become noticeably yellow, so i have to use restraint. i would be interested in trying a pale yellow pressed powder from the drugstore to replace this one--i will not buy this product because i have never used the blue or the pink. (when yellow and green are used up, i will probably mix them together and try them as a spot setting powder, given that my natural tone is “pink and blue” anyway.) i think i will probably buy something like this essence banana powder--people say they love essence powders. it may be a little warmer than what i’d prefer but for the price it would be worth it. there is also a banana powder backlash on the wind that i disagree with! overall a color correcting backlash that i find misguided and racially concerning! anyway, it’s the green in this elf product that i have loved. i heavily conceal my jawline with concealers that fix + powders, to cover redness that is just the color that i am there, and to lock it in place because i touch my face a lot. i like this area kinda blanked out to heighten the impact of blush. i do a similar thing to my upper lip area when it is all inflamed, as it has been. a pale green powder is very good for this and i would like to buy another one--cheap is fine because i do not need any kind of elegance here, as long as it is pale. this looks just perfect and if it is that price in store i will pick it up soon. i also like to use green-leaning pale concealers for this purpose, but that is another topic for another time!

the bare minerals mineral veil, i think it was. i had a couple of minis of this that had been my mother’s, and i finally used them all up, as finishing powders. this was just okay, but i am VERY into finishing powder techniques for my personal face, somewhat like this. i am very interested in using a probably-too-illuminating powder all over my entire face. perhaps even to set my undereyes, like jaclyn hill does with lancome absolue peche. people still call her insane for doing it but i think she is brave and can i tell you how badly i want that powder?? badly. the unfortunate thing is: what i need is a luxury--like, not even high end, luxury--finishing powder; and loose powders get used up so quickly... like, i cannot even allow myself to try the hourglass loose setting powders because i know i will love them and they will own me for life. but when you look at it like that, maybe i should finally get my dumb ass the ambient lighting powders? i would absolutely set my undereyes with them like a fucking despot vampire king. it would really work for me. so yes i definitely need to get my hands on absolue peche and figure out which ambient lighting powder i’d need :[.

okay! so what’s the deal about loose vs pressed powders? like i said, a lot of the hurus are going powderless now just as i’m getting serious about subtle powdering, but even other huru/muas i usually take advice from are swearing by loose powders when i’m into pressed powder! what’s the truth? what is good? powder me

[wndybird]

laughter pokes its way across misted eyes, dabbling cheeks with flecks of light. this child, the universe clutched in her palms, refusing to shed a thing.

MEET WENDY darling DARWIN.

OOC.

AUTHOR: ren, 20, est, she / they. CONTACT: my discord is ren 🎃✨#6401, pm me if you want my telegram or kik !!

BASIC.

NAME: wendy darwin

EXPLANATION:

wendy’s decision to cling to her true name was deliberate as an act to reclaim her sense of self , and to exercise some control over her life after the exodus took part of that from her. there’s also the added fact that it’s so much easier than trying to go by another name, which seems like a ridiculous amount of trouble to go through.

darwin was chosen out of ease , as well , being two letters off from her true surname and sounding fairly similar. behind the scenes , i chose it since its meaning is “ dear friend ” and i believed that would reference the supposed origin of wendy’s name well.

NICKNAMES: wen, wendybird, bird, little bird. ( i will sometimes call her wendigo, wendini, and wingdings. ) GENDER: cisfemale SEXUALITY: panromantic pansexual

OCCUPATION:

wendy is a full time student at the fable community college , and also works as a cashier at the local bookshop. she may sometimes take up the occasional odd job as a babysitter , a proofreader for other students , or even a tutor if she’s incredibly strapped for cash , but these are small side things that she only turns to when the going gets really tough.

she left her major as undeclared originally , as she wanted to be able to experience various differing courses , but has recently changed it so that she’s majoring in creative writing and minoring in journalism.

AGE: twenty BIRTH DATE: july 7th ZODIAC: cancer sun, sagittarius moon SECRET LANGUAGE: day , week , month , season , way , & personal path CELTIC ZODIAC: oak ( tree ) , wren ( animal ) BIRTHDAY TAROT: temperance , the hierophant

MAGIC:

wendy is not a magic user , though she will always quietly find herself envious of those who are. it’s possible that her curiosity and desire to be closer to the arcane may lead her into trying to practice , but that remains to be seen. otherwise she tries to function on the belief that magic is not just defined by the arcane , but little , every day things. like your headphones not tangling in your pocket , or your schedule lining up perfectly for the day , things of that nature.

PHYSICAL.

FACECLAIM: kristine froseth HEIGHT: 5’ WEIGHT: 126 lbs HAIR COLOR & STYLE: honey brown , long , wavy. usually kept down , sometimes half up , in a bun , braid , or ponytail. will occasionally do cute things like space buns , braided crowns , etc. EYE COLOR: blueee DOMINANT HAND: left DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: freckles , longass eyelashes , a birthmark on her right thigh , generally looking like a baby deer smh SCARS: she has a few very old , very faded scars across her feet and ankles from running about barefoot on neverland , but you probably wouldn’t notice them unless you were looking for them. PIERCINGS: earlobes TATTOOS: none yet

PERSONALITY.

MBTI: esfj KEIRSEY: guardian — provider ENNEAGRAM: type 2w3 

 ALIGNMENT & MORALS:

her heart is soft , but it is just. her alignment is lawful good , and she tries to operate on a set of clear , concise morals. her involvement with certain individuals may muddle this , at times , but her conscious is painfully loud and she will always be a voice of reason and a champion of what is right. her crux is that she is sometimes prone to bending too easily , as she still clings to her belief that no one can be all bad.

TRAITS:

( + ) optimistic , intelligent , honest , empathetic , brave , adventurous , friendly

( - ) idealistic , stubborn , nosy , susceptible , perfectionist , insecure , anxious

CONNECTIONS.

MOTHER: mary darling ( status: ??? ) FATHER: george darling ( status: ??? ) SIBLINGS: john darling ( status: alive. ) , michael darling ( status: deceased. ) PETS: eventually a dog in place of that abandoned wolf pup , maybe SIGNIFICANT OTHER: it’s complicated.

hello i LOVE to plot please come plot with me !!! i’ll have a legitimate connections page made soon i promise

IN CHARACTER INTERVIEW.

QUESTION TWO:

Was it hard adjusting to life in Fabletown? Do you miss the Homeworld?

Her heart twists until it aches, settling somewhere in her throat, and the soreness she feels there is terrible. She misses the Homeworld like you would not believe, yearns to return back to what she’s known up until recently, but she knows she must make the best of her situation. Wendy is nothing if not hopeful, and this is what keeps her afloat, even on the days when all she can do is sit at home, squinting into the distance, as she recalls her life before the Exodus. She smooths her skirt with trembling hands, the pleated navy fabric rustling silently, and straightens her back. She shouldn’t slouch. She knows better.

“I think the adjustment must have been difficult for everyone, myself included.” Wendy is not one to overlook the trials and tribulations of others, even as she herself struggles with the day-by-day of this new world. “Of course I miss the Homeworld, I miss it like the stars must miss the moon when the sun rises, I—I think it would not have been so hard, coming here, if I’d not felt as though I was leaving so much behind. But I’m sure the same can be said for most anyone in our… situation.” She doesn’t mention the nights that seemed to sprawl on, where she’d not slept for days, instead choosing to cry, or the days when her chest felt so hollow she was almost convinced she’d need to pick apart her ribs in order to find out whether or not she still possessed her heart.

A loose curl brushes her jawline, and she brushes it away, tucking it ever so gently behind her ear. “I’m still adjusting. It’s not been an easy task, by any means, but I believe part of our responsibility now is to remain adaptable. Besides that, it would be unfair to say that the change has been entirely terrible. We’ve been granted new opportunities, the ability to meet new people, there are so many new things to see and do.” It’s easier to treat this like something of an adventure, than to see it as a never-ending eternity. How familiar.

“I suppose, most of all, it’s important to stay hopeful.”

QUESTION THREE:

Where is your favorite place in Fabletown or New York?

The question is no sooner posed, and Wendy is smiling to herself, images of her loft conjured up within her imagination. It is certainly not the house in Bloomsbury, but it is her own, and she has made it as such. The walls are white, and would be considered bland, were they not adorned with pictures and artwork, string lights that cast the den in warm light. The couch is a mess of throw pillows and a particularly soft fleece throw, coffee table crowded with textbooks, notebooks, book-books, and the occasional succulent; everything is somewhat disorganized, but in the most organized way possible. Knick knacks line the shelves in her bedroom, tiny little things she’s picked up here and there, and none of them need a particular meaning in order to belong. Today, the apartment smells like chamomile tea and cinnamon, warm and cozy, safe and secure, like a blanket wrapped around your shoulders.

“My home, of course.” Her voice is filled with the sort of pride you’d hear a mother speak about her children’s accomplishments with, because truly, the home she has created for herself here in Fabletown is a safe haven, her own little alcove of personal magic. She may not be someone in tune with the arcane, but she can create her own version of magic, whether it be in how she interacts with others, or things she chooses to do for herself. Buying a new candle to soothe her nerves? Certainly. “It’s small, but I’d like to believe it’s welcoming. Filled with love, if you will, and I find that to be rather important.”

QUESTION FOUR:

How do you feel about magic? Do you think it should be banned, regulated, or neither?

Her eyes are aglow with enthusiasm at the mention of magic—such a wondrous little word that is, blanketing her heart in childhood nostalgia and the need to believe—but behind that lies a certain amount of trepidation. She has seen the danger that comes with placing unrestricted power in the hands of those who operate on their own rules, how magic can be used not only for wonder and creation, but for destruction and greed. If you would look hard enough, beneath the many layers of wonder and hesitancy, you would notice something else: the barest flicker of envy. Wendy is not one to become so often plagued by jealousy that she grows into something bitter and mean, but sometimes even she is not free of those resentful pangs. She has only ever been able to taste magic at the grace of another, and though she’s grateful for even a taste, it would be nice to be able to harness it for her own. If only for a day, even.

Her hands are clasped neatly in her lap, one thumb running over the other in time with her breathing. “I believe,” She begins, and then pauses, as though she must regather her thoughts. “I believe magic is an extraordinary thing.” Another pause, as the lush forests of Neverland appear behind her eyelids when she blinks, the tang of magic in the air, the sparkling lagoon, the mermaids—it shifts, and then something is very wrong. Grinning skulls peek through gilled skin, flashing sharp teeth and cavernous eye sockets that consume her like the void. It is enough to startle her back into shaken silence for a few long minutes, the ticking of the clock hanging on the far wall feeling awfully familiar as it tracks her silence.

“And as with all extraordinary things, there is the ever-present risk that someone will come along and ruin it, so to speak. Magic is a gift that some may be far too comfortable taking advantage of, for the wrong reasons.” Her words seem to be spoken with a sense of mourning underlying them, and the downward turn of her lips belies regret. Truly, she believes in the goodness of others, but logically she understands that without rules set in place, it would give too much allowance for evil to run wild. “If we lived in an ideal world, I would find no issue with letting magic flow freely, but in this case regulation is the safest choice.”

QUESTION FIVE:

Who do you think killed Little Red Riding Hood?

Minutes pass in silence as she glances around the room, as if the walls will afford her some secret knowledge, some right answer, as if one were to exist. Wendy has tried not to let her thoughts linger for far too long on what’s happened to Little Red Riding Hood, as if her denial would undo whatever had been done to the woman. Out of sight, out of mind, isn’t something that seems to exist, in this case. Teeth sink into her lower lip, and she chews although she knows better, nipping at glossy skin that will turn sore if she keeps it up.

“I don’t know. It’s not a satisfactory answer, I do know that much, but.. this isn’t something I’ve wanted to devote much time to. I don’t want to think about what happened to her, or worse yet, who could’ve done it—this is a terrible situation.” Violence has been present in her life far too often as of late, and her skin is littered with goosebumps now at the consideration that there may be a possibility that someone she knows could be a cause, or a suspect, at the least. Wendy places that thought within a box, seals it off, and places that into another box, on and on it goes, until the intrusive idea is locked away for the time being. Her eyes are apologetic, soft, tinged with fright. “But I hope justice is served, for her sake.”

PLAYLIST.

coming soon..