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lets-try-some-writing · 2 years

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Hi! So this isn’t exactly a request, more or less me just sharing thoughts/rambling. So it’s common knowledge that humans pack bond with damn near anything that they find cute, right? It’s human nature, to just look at a cute delivery robot and go “yeah, this is family now”. And I think this is a double edged sword because that’s what causes things attachment issues and the like.

How do you think team prime would react to something like this happening with the trouble trio? Like the kids eventually (inevitably) look at them and decide that these giant robots are their family and they will NOT let them go. Would the bots be confused? Or would they accept it and move on with minimal questioning. Personally I think that at first it would be awkward until the bots learn of how humans work, and then they realize that this is just how people work, and they accept it with time.

I think it has some really good potential for both fluff and angst.

Anyways I really love the blog! I’ve been reading a lot of your posts and all of them are very nice to go through and think about! :D -🦌 anon

OOooh! I really really like this thought. The human kiddos getting attached and the bots having to figure out how to manage that makes me happy. And thank you anon for your kind words! I am glad you like my posts!

Cybertronian Views on Relationships

Cybertronians are functionally immortal, they do not die from any sort of frame deterioration except in rare cases, and their sparks blaze on until forcefully extinguished. As such their views on some concepts are rather skewed to match up with their long lifespans. Time is one of those things, they simply do not see it the same way as humans. Days are fleeting moments, weeks are little more than a flash to them, years are but months in their view, and vorns are the closest they have to an actual measurement of time that matters. They see everything in a far longer view, planning for centuries into the future more often than not.

Despite the war forcing their views on time to match those of humans more closely, their ideas regarding friendship, family, and other bonds have not changed. Bonds are a sacred thing, they are not made in a day nor do they break easily. It takes years for a sparkling to bond to their Caretaker despite the Caretaker in question doing everything to love and care for them. While other species may find it strange, for Cybertronians it is completely normal since the sparkling does not have any actual relation to them prior to a bond forming. Not only that, but if the sparkling and Caretaker do not match it would be terrible for them to be stuck together when it clearly does not suit either party. They have eternity ahead of them, having a good family is more important than any benefits an immediate bond may bring. Unlike species who reproduce on their own and have an instinctual bond with their offspring for survival reasons, Cybertronians, while still feeling affection for their young counterparts, still need to put in effort to bond with their sparklings.

Friendships take even longer to form, anywhere from vorns to centuries. Cybertronians naturally tend to group together, its part of their code, a way to ensure they survive. And so they can easily be amicable with one another, but a proper friendship does not form until two bots can safely determine that the other is a good match for them. This can happen rather quickly if both save each other or prove through action that they are a suitable partner in a survival situation, forming a bond of necessity. This was common during the war and allowed the Autobots and Decepticons to form bonds fast enough to actually have a sense of comradery. But when not forced due to stress or other factors, friendships form through shared ideals, functions, or simply a harmonization of sparks. Take Ratchet and Optimus's relationship for example. Both were from wildly different castes and functions, neither having particularly close ideals outside of their wish for freedom for all, but with time they formed their bond.

Romantic relationships are not really a concept that Cybertronians are familiar with, at least not in the sense that organics are used to. They have no sexual drive since they do not reproduce through intercourse or other methods involving the union of two individuals. The closest thing Cybertronians have to a romantic relationship is an evolution of an Amica bond (the bond that forms between close friends), that being Conjunx Endura. Even then it isn't really a marriage, more like a shared habitation where both bots trust the other with their lives and to make decisions in their stead. They may be more affectionate with their Conjunx than with their Amica or other friends, but ultimately the bond is like the highest form of companionship instead of a marriage. Simply put, Cybertronians just have a different view on relationships as a whole.

As such when the children walked into their lives, it was rather awkward for a while due to the differing views of the bots when it comes to bonds. Especially with PDA and such not really being something Cybertronians do for various reasons.

The Children's Attachment

When the children became the Autobot's charges, they expected very little to change beyond the chaos that was guaranteed to come from human sparklings running about. At most they were prepared to have stress induced friendship bonds form between themselves and the children. Even though Optimus was near desperate to coddle the human sparklings he kept himself controlled as always and life went on as normal. That was until the children began getting all touchy feely, behaving in a manner around the bots that was reserved for Amica bonded or Caretakers and their sparklings on Cybertron.

It started with Miko. Her family life was less than stellar and so she quickly took a liking to Bulkhead who came to be an older brother/fatherly figure for her. She started hanging around him more than any of the other bots, and that was fine, in fact it was a normal starting point for any set of bots looking to possibly develop a friendship. Bulkhead didn't mind and the team didn't bat an optic, it made sense for Miko to begin attempting to bond with her guardian if only to make their time together more tolerable. But then she started getting all affectionate with Bulkhead, dragging him out to do things with her, giving him gifts, and even giving him the odd kiss on the cheek. And that baffled the entire team, not just Bulkhead who could only stand around in confusion and embarrassment from the mixed signals he was getting. Did Miko want an Amica bond? Was she trying to tell Bulkhead she wanted him as her Caretaker? Or was there some strange human nuances he was missing?

It was odd, but the team tried to chalk it up to Miko being Miko, that was until Rafael got in on it. He started purposefully checking in on Bumblebee, becoming a bit of a mother hen while also spending nearly all of his free time with the scout. This was once again seen as pretty normal for Cybertronians looking to bond, after all, it made sense for Rafael to want to spend time with Bee to see if he was a good match. But just like with Miko, he started getting more intimate, joking and playing around with Bee in a manner reserved for close friends or even Amica bonded. He carefully made stickers for Bumblebee to wear on his armor and went out of his way to try and find a way to fix Bumblebee's voice when nothing else was on the agenda. It was odd behavior and once again, sent very mixed signals. It certainly didn't help when Rafael began mimicking Ratchet and following him around, much like a sparkling would with a potential Caretaker.

Eventually even Jack started becoming far more affectionate than what the bots were used to and expecting. He worried for Arcee, fixing up her paint for her and playfully teasing her in fun banter. He gave her small gifts and took the time to teach her things about human society. This only served to drive home to the bots just how odd the human children were and made them begin to panic slightly due to the incredibly mixed signals. Arcee couldn't figure out what the heck Jack was trying to do with his interactions. Did he see her as a potential Caretaker? If so, why was he teaching her things? Did he want an Amica bond? But if that was the case, why was he allowing her to take care of him as she would a youngling? Not even Optimus was exempt from the children's confusing affection. All three of the children also made sure to offer him some love too, giving him little gifts in the form of small trinkets and constantly pestering him to play/assist them in something. It warmed his spark, but also left him just as confused as the rest of the team.

Of course it never occurred to the team to just ask what the children wanted outright because why would they? They were millennia old, they were pretty sure they understood what the children were asking of them with their actions. Hence began the team's very dysfunctional attempt to try and match whatever they believed the children wanted of them. It was awkward and felt rushed to most of the team, but they did try their best. And upon doing some additional research they came to understand somewhat the driving force behind the children's behavior. Apparently humans are pack type species and rapidly form and break bonds as a means to survive with their short lifespans. Hence their (not so sudden) sudden affection in the optics of the bots. So despite their own reservations and the blatant disregard for the normal order of things on the children's part, the team did their best to bond in whatever capacity the children seemed to want.

Bulkhead did his best to try and respond to Miko's affection with a more fatherly approach. He tested the waters carefully, doing his best to not pressure or overstep while still attempting to take on a parental role in her life. When he found no objection from Miko in response to his minor worrying and slightly more authoritative tone with her, he pushed things up a notch, feeling pretty confident in his choice to try and become her secondary Caretaker since her parents weren't available. When Wheeljack arrived and was met with similar levels of affection from Miko, he took one look at Bulkhead and followed his lead. In the end Miko did not realize it, but she gained two very very overprotective fathers. With Bulkhead being the more reasonable one, constantly checking on her to make sure she does her work and fuels properly and Wheeljack adding a little bit of chaos while also being the one to dole out punishments when needed. It has never been anything worse than having to stand in the corner or sit up in the rafters with no way down without help, but still Bulkhead frets.

Bumblebee took Rafael's concern and more understanding approach to mean that he was working toward trying to gain an Amica bond with him. It was surprising, and since he had never been presented with such a situation before, Bumblebee went to Optimus for advice on the subject. And so soon after Bumblebee took to doing what a good potential Amica should do according to Optimus, that being trying to understand and connect to his possible best friend. He took the time to listen, learn, and discover everything he could about Rafael without being a creep and digging through his files (that would break the rules, a good Amica doesn't do that). He spent as much time as possible with Rafael, having discussions and trying to bring them closer. And in the end, Rafael, much like Miko, had no idea when he gained himself a similarly very very overprotective brother and friend. No one touched Rafael without Bee being there to drive them into the ground before they could so much as lift a finger. Rafael was his friend, his potential Amica, no one was allowed to harm him so long as Bumblebee lived.

Ratchet saw Rafael's mimicry and overall interest in him as an obvious cry for a Caretaker, and so believing himself incapable of being incorrect on that front, did not even hesitate to begin the bonding process. When Rafael wasn't with Bumblebee, Ratchet took him and carried him around in one of his servos or on his shoulder, taking the time to answer all of his questions. Ratchet would check Rafael regularly and sing on a pitch too low for human ears but most certainly meant to calm a sparkling. He would also carefully listen to everything Rafael said to him, taking note of anything that could be bothering his little one. Anything at all that upset Rafael was tended to by Ratchet. A wound? Ratchet would tenderly put a band-aid on it and give Rafael a little treat he had June buy for him. Trouble at home? Ratchet was always there to listen and quietly coo at his small human sparkling, reminding him that he is loved. In the end Rafael got himself a highly devoted Caretaker, willing to do just about anything for him even if the medic in question refuses to acknowledge it.

Arcee took a lot longer than the rest of the team to figure out what the pit Jack wanted from her. He treated her like an equal, bantering and playing but still looked to her for care. And that confused her to the point of leading her to also go to Optimus for consultation. His advice was to try taking on a more motherly role and see how Jack felt about it. And so trusting her Prime, she did as advised, and surprise surprise, Jack didn't seem at all concerned if a little irritated at times. Seeing this Arcee rapidly took on the role of a secondary Caretaker for Jack. While he had his mother, he did not have a father, someone to protect him. So Arcee stepped up, becoming a more masculine parental figure for him, teaching him the things a father normally would have to the best of her ability. She even went so far as to look up things like how to tie a tie and how to change a car tire just for Jack since no one else was going to teach him any time soon. Of course she still mostly kept to a more feminine role when it came to Jack's care, but when required she took up the mantle his father left behind. And just like Miko and Rafael, he had no clue when he ultimately gained himself a doting parent ready to murder and hide the bodies of his enemies for him.

As for Optimus? He was perfectly content to take on the role his position as Prime offered him. On Cybertron, while sparkling had primary and secondary Caretakers to handle a majority of their needs and education, there was always a more communal effort involved. In small select groups like Optimus's team on earth, there was always a head to the clan that formed. There was always a protector and elder guide for all the young bots under their care. And in the team's case, that was Optimus, that with him being the Prime and old as dirt, being bested only by Ratchet in age. And so in light of this and his own desire to care for sparklings, human as they might be, Optimus took on the role of the clan guardian. He taught the children whenever there was time, teaching them important life lessons through simple tales and stories. He regurally sat them on his shoulders and sang to them songs of Cybertron and the history of all that his people held dear. He told them the history of the Cybertronian people, taking care to ensure the children learned well and grew up strong as a Prime should. And on top of that, he often made the children small gifts in return for their own, ranging from talismans to interesting objects he found on patrol.

In the end, the team bonded to the children, their attachment being far greater than anything the human children could have even conceived with the sacred status associated with bonds. As such, any and all attempts to touch the children by MECH, the Decepticons, or anyone else was met with immediate and sharp retribution, even being detrimental at times.

Bonds

Bonds are sacred, they mean everything to Cybertronians. When they form, they are often for life, never to be broken save for the most brutal of betrayals. The children did not understand this in large part due to the culture difference. As such when the bots began growing more aggressive and less content with things going on in the children's lives, they could not comprehend why.

Every single time Jack's bully turned up to harass him, Arcee had to struggle to keep herself from pommeling the brat. Jack was her boy, he was so kind and loving, he did not deserve to hear the slag coming out of the mouths of his peers. Bumblebee often found himself growing paranoid whenever Rafael was away from base for more than a day or two, wondering if something had happened to his potential Amica. He paced, concerned beyond words that something had happened, or worse yet, that Rafael had found him unsuitable for an Amica bond. And any time some kid tried to bother Rafael while Bumblebee was there waiting very nearly ended in bloodshed if not for the constant fear of discovery looming over his helm. Bulkhead and Wheeljack had many many profane words in store for Miko's foster and biological parents. How dare they leave the lovely girl alone! How dare they never give her any affection! Miko's quiet cries in the dead of night where she called out for her parents always tore Bulkhead and Wheeljack's sparks to shreds. They wanted nothing more than to comfort her, but instead all they could do was shower her in affection later as they knew interacting with her in that state would do no good.

Ratchet regularly contemplated just straight up kidnapping Rafael after he took a closer look at his home life and saw just how little his parents cared for him. Did they not know that sparklings were a rare and wonderful gift? Downright disgusting in his book. And when it came to a Con touching Rafael, Ratchet's normally calm demeanor went flying out the window, nearly leading him to kill a few Vehicons in rage. No one touched his sparkling. Optimus was not any better. If any of his little ones were touched, grown (Bumblebee) or otherwise (the children), he would not hesitate to destroy the perpetrator, primely duties be slagged. And much like Ratchet he tended to consider the possibility of up and adopting (stealing) the children, perhaps even finding a way to get them proper Cybertronian frames. His little ones needed to live long lives after all, Optimus would not stand for anything else.

Knowing all this, MECH really shouldn't have expected anything aside from an outright slaughter when they took the children. Even Autobots have breaking points..

#maccadam #transformers prime #transformers #optimus prime #ratchet #arcee #bulkhead #bumblebee #rafael esquivel #jack darby #miko nakadai #cute family feels #cybertronian culture #this was a long one #but goodness I cannot get the idea of the bots just losing it out of my head #touch their little ones and say your prayers cuz you about to meet your deity

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ramshacklefey · 2 months

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Do any actual historians or sociologists still think that women magically become housebound and oppressed when a society picks up grain-based agriculture, or is that just one of those things they teach us in school?

Because first of all, in a small subsistence farming community, everyone works the fields during planting and harvest seasons. There's not really any other option.

And secondly, in a non-industrial society, there is so much fucking work to do to keep everyone alive, even if we only look at food. Grain farming is a solid way to get a staple food, but you need a lot more than that. Once grains are harvested they need to be threshed and stored. You need vegetable gardens, and then you need to preserve the vegetables so you'll still have food outside the growing season. That means pickling, drying, packing in oil, making jams and preserves, etc. There may also be orchards or bushes to tend. Herbs (because everyone has always wanted their food to have fucking flavor). There are animals to care for: feeding, milking, and collecting eggs. Butchering and then preserving meat. Someone in a household has to also be aware of and tracking how much of everything you have. Between planting and harvest, crops need to be tended: weeded, watered, protected from animals or thieves.

And if we look beyond just food production? Clothes and tools need to be made, which is a full-time occupation by itself: sheep or goats have to be sheared, fibers processed and spun, cloth woven, and clothes stitched. Raw materials need to be gathered and prepared for use. If something breaks, someone has to repair or patch or make a new one. Pottery and baskets need to be made, as do string, rope, and fishing nets.

Wood or dung for cooking has to be gathered, and if you live somewhere with cold winters, a LOT of wood needs to be set by. Water needs to be fetched from wherever your community gets it. Children need to be looked after and educated. The elderly and infirm need care.

All of these tasks require specialized knowledge and skills. People are by and large not idiots, but there's a limit to how many skills a single person can acquire well enough to perform them on the level needed for survival.

And this isn't even getting into community leadership, arbitrating conflicts, organizing group labor, and the host of related social wrangling that has to happen to keep a group of people functional.

Throughout history and around the world, different cultures and communities have organized who takes on which of these tasks differently. Yeah, there are some trends and patterns about gender roles that are interesting. But it would be foolishness to assume just because work in a particular group is segregated by gender roles, that women were also oppressed and devalued. That speaks more to our own views of the value of certain kinds of labor more than anything else.

I guess my point here is that we don't know how or why so many societies developed some form of gender-related stratification. And projecting our own particular form of patriarchal society backwards in time or onto different societies is an unhelpful form of revisionism.

#ramshackle thoughts

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nb-n0v4 · 1 year

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was lookin at @charseraph 's crowns and remembered an alien I made ages ago called Seraphs! long ramble about these guys under the cut lmao

mmm okie so the seraphs have a hive mind similar to the mercane from dnd, all connected but still sporting individual personalities, with the Arch or "Arch-seraph" as a "mother" to the species that spawns more through asexual reproduction. Seraphs are essentially made of stardust and their internal composition is similar to that of a plant or fungus, lacking any kind of skeletal structure and instead having incredibly tough skin covering a network of simple muscles and a complex neural network that spans their entire bodies.

The little nodes on their cap don't function as normal eyes but instead see auras and act as powerful sensory organs that detect minute changes in atmosphere and the composition of the environment around them. They are capable of surviving in a total vacuum, since this is where they are born and they are in fact made for interstellar existence. Their main goal is to collect knowledge to further the intelligence of the collective consciousness held within the Arch and bring intellectual enlightenment to species they perceive as worthy.

They have no spoken or written language and instead communicate through complex telepathy. they range in color from void black to bright white and always have a vaguely pearlescent sheen to them. Their "eyes" are a nebulae of colors that shift with the electromagnetic currents that pulse through their bodies. They're graceful creatures, and surprisingly agile and strong.

If a seraph dies, which is a rarity, it's a somewhat common practice for another seraph close to them to fully assimilate the deceased seraph's consciousness and live as a combination of the two, meaning seraphs will occasionally house multiple sets of memories. If the memories are not assimilated then eventually that seraph is reborn through the Arch, with a fledgling occasionally choosing to take on the life of a deceased seraph instead of gaining one through their own interactions with the universe.

they don't have a concept of family unit structure within their society beyond existing as a collective, and are largely solitary or pairs, with no need or desire to reproduce and physical distance being immaterial to their interaction with others of their kind. Seraphs also don't have a concept of age, since they receive a wealth of knowledge about existence in general from the moment of their conception, and emerge fully developed. "Young" serpahs only exist in a chronological sense, but a seraph always remains with the Arch for around 70 years communing within the knowledge of the collective before venturing out, regardless of how they chose to assimilate, in order to be properly knowledgeable and suited to bringing enlightenment.

Older seraphs will often pose as what could be likened to psuedo-religious figures, imparting the secrets of the universe onto planet-bound species and encouraging them to interstellar travel. The Seraphs will then travel with these races to gain their unique perspective on the universe around them. They have no culture of their own, and instead strive to understand the universe through all of its infinite lenses.

They hold no regard to morals, good or otherwise, and are an utterly unbiased and mostly passive race. Not to say that you couldn't get them to help you out with something, after all, their own interaction with the universe and the races in it is part of the knowledge they strive to collect, it would just take a lot of convincing as they largely prefer to simply observe.

the oldest recorded seraph (outside of the Arch, who's age is indeterminable despite best efforts, and is even theorized to be a remnant of existence from a previous universe,) is roughly 24 billion years old, as Seraphs do not die naturally. This seraph, unlike it's bretheren, has actually begun to show what could only be called signs of aging, bearing small under-developed growths reminiscent to that of the Arch.

It is theorized that this seraph is in the very beginning stages of growing into an Arch itself, and grants a mind-boggling look at the time scale necessary to create one of these beings. This seraph is also capable of creating primitive proto-seraphs that are colloquially known as "cherubs" that resemble small earth jellyfish both in appearance and level of conciousness.

#my art #alien species #speculative biology #sci-fi #spec bio #seraphs #original aliens

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your-local-crypt1d · 3 months

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rattles my metal bucket w like 3 coins inside, pleading eyes… empires tommy thoughts?

Is angst okay? Because I have angsty stuff that'll I'll put under the cut just in case

Cw for ptsd and panic attacks ✨️

So the grimlands many export is gunpowder, right? So they have fireworks and TNT in excess. The only problem with that, is Tommy's trauma surrounding both.

The first time fWhip learns of this is when he's showing Tommy around outside the manor and some fireworks go off in the distance, simple celebratory ones.

Unfortunately "simple celebratory" fireworks aren't a thing from where Tommy comes from, they're a weapon of war exclusively, and his soldier brain kicks in when he hears them.

He's immediately shouting "Get down!" and pulling fWhip with him to the floor, laying on his stomach and covering his ears. Tears are streaming down his face and he's muttering about executions and battles.

fWhip actually has decent knowledge on how to calm someone down from a panic attack, he's just so stunned in the moment one of his guards does it for him. Doing the "5 things you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and one thing you can taste" grounding thing.

After all that, fWhip makes a note to make some noise-cancelling headphones for Tommy.

Tommy gets a very different but similarly stemmed reaction when learning about fWhip making bombs, and overseeing demolition projects in the Grimlands and outside. He knows logically fWhip is just passionate about his work, but every time he sees the man grin maniacally about it, Tommy just sees Wilbur.

Tommy starts getting jumpy and nervous around fWhip again after learning that. Tommy knows he's not anything like Wilbur but he still flinches away from fWhip, "If I can't have L'manberg, then no one can!" echoing in his head.

It's only when fWhip confronts him about it ("confront" is way too harsh a word for how gently he asks Tommy about it) does Tommy crack. Through angry tears he makes fWhip promise he'd never blow up the Grimlands (Tommy doesn't wanna admit he's starting to see Eastvale as his home), that fWhip means it when he says he's just blowing things up to make room for builders and nothing more, nothing terroristic.

fWhip is utterly horrified at the implications and very quickly swears on his life he'd never purposefully "blow up" anyone! Certainly not the Grimlands, certainly not his home.

fWhip starts keeping a list of triggers for Tommy after this, he is very concerned for this kids wellbeing.

In the meantime, he finishes Tommy's new prosthetic arm. Tommy doesn't know how to respond at first when given it, his immediate thought is if this is some sort of trick or way to garner his trust before hurting him (like everyone else), but he ignores that in favour of putting the new arm on, the magic and redstone humming to life.

He cries, happy tears don't worry, but he cries a lot. He was so sure that after Dream broke his old one he'd never have another arm, he'd have to learn to survive on one again! But fWhip put his own valuable time into making one, a real one that functions not a trick, and holds him through the tears.

It's bittersweet in a way, Tommy finally getting the kindness he's so desperately wanted and needed over the years. He's grateful to have it now but where was it when Wilbur died? When Tubbo exiled him? When Dream nearly killed Tubbo over his stupid discs? When Dream permanently killed him in prison?

I just want Tommy to be able to cry for once, cry until he feels better and have someone (Papa fWhip) to be there to comfort him.

Tommy also getting to enjoy a fireworks display without a panic attack because of the previously mentioned noise-cancelling headphones.

I do also have a short thing I wrote where fWhip does calm Tommy down from a panic attack if you want!

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awellboiledicicle · 1 year

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First person to try drilling down on what Fido's deal is would be Gale, between adventuring and actually sleeping. He's limited to whatever books they can scrounge initially [as Fido is hoarding them to learn about the world they're now stuck in], but by the time they get to Baldur's Gate he's going to have some very specific queries outside of the whole Crown research thing.

First person to go "Maybe this is a warlock thing" is, naturally, Wyll. Because Fido is going to eldritch blast something in a panic and he's going to go "now hold on". Also because I imagine Mizora would think it was hilarious another warlock is making noise about his deal. They make some barbed comment to her, the magic flaring a bit, and she tuts at Wyll for consorting with 'that mean old octopus' behind her back like this. Leaves before explaining anything.

Astarion 100% believes they're lying about not knowing they're bound up with some apparently tentacled monster when it comes out. like. just thematically it feels like a thing one should know about. He's just saying that if HE had made a deal to get MAGIC INVULNERABILITY POWERS, then HE would have remembered that. They throw a handful of grass at him and he rolls his eyes.

Lae'zel still occasionally thwacks them with a random sword to see if their protection is still working. This is, she insists, a function of their friendship that she would bother doing a check at all. Deep down she just really appreciates their willingness to listen and learn from her, as well as their absolute unwillingness to take any shit from her. Thus the checking.

Shadowheart still thinks they're a little crazy, for different reasons. Initially it was because they insisted they had no idea elves were real, followed by being from 'earth', followed by their panic response being to yell insults at the enemy to make their brain explode. The warlock thing feels like they might have been lying about it--a skill they seem unnervingly good at in spite of their general honest streak--but honestly? Given how they keep tripping into being good to others, she wouldn't doubt them having been just given the ring by some sorcerer or something.

Halsin feels conflicted about Fido expressly because they have a very... dim view of nature being allowed to take its course. With people. They get along largely after Fido gets fed up and goes "you're ungodly old so you can handle sitting down and leveling with me here. I need you to understand that, where i come from, if someone looks at someone like me and says 'nature should take its course' that means 'i want you to not exist'. It means 'you are unnatural'. We're not having the same conversation when we talk about nature, here. I like the birds doing bird things and fish swimming and whatever. But sometimes nature is cruel and I am living proof that sometimes nature would destroy people and things that should exist." Basically they get along on principal but have initial complications bc Fido spent a lot of time as a chronically in pain child being told survival of the fittest wouldn't allow for them. As a queer kid being told they were unnatural. So on. So they don't actually have beef with him so much as a kneejerk reaction for a little plus the initial GODDAMNIT response when he can't help. His take on the warlock thing is largely being curious as to how that happens without ones knowledge.

Karlach meanwhile is just pissed that she can't hi-five them without it still hurting. Like their skin doesn't melt but they can still feel the sensation of heat and pressure, so it isn't pleasant. She also wants to know how one ends up in a warlock pact without knowing it because that feels like a pitfall to avoid.

Not pictured is the GOO checking in occasionally like it's reading the sunday paper like "oh they had a conversation about the nature of gods with Gale. Cute. Aww they're having cognitive dissonance about the nature of sentience after using speak with animals. Popped a man's head like a cherry. Shame, they could have interrogated that one."

#Fido the Bard

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dollar-store-sparklez · 2 years

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I am here to ask about the 2b2t headcanons (as somebody who actually played there 4 years ago and on other servers like 9b9t, 0b0t and constantiam) because it absolutely will piss off some people and that's always funny

HELLO REAL 2B2T PLAYER WELCOME TO MY GAY LITTLE HEADCANONS

so i have a lot but therye very scattered and not always the most important. the main cool headcanon i have about 2b2t stuff actually ist directly 2b related, its hack client related and how i speciffically made it so a hack client would function in a for realistic written setting.

so the tldr of it is that it becomes fucked up magic tattoos.

so basically, hack clients are enchantments for a living person, tattoo ink with lapis for stability and whatever goo is inside bottles of enchanting. they can really fuck up your player code (weird mix of like. dna and your soul) if you do it wrong or even just is you use it a lot. like overclocking a computer but its your soul and weird magic.

obviously not everything in a client is actually like, translatable into a written setting (like how the hell are you supposed to turn anti afk into a real world thing anyways) but yknow, a surprising amount can be. now bc theyre tattoos you can kinda pick and choose which ones you want, and i have a little bit of lore for the tattoos themselves, which is that obv hack clients are banned in a lot of places, so if youre trying to hack on say, hypixel, your would have your client hidden in the designs of a normal tattoo. also jsut cause its cool the different runes of the client glow depending on which ones are in use. this is optional ultimately but it looks sick so... why wouldnt you?

i have other lore also! so obv 2b players go through lots of totems, and theres a common headcanon of popping totems giving you gold scars and slash or a strip of gold hair, so my headcanon basically is that its really common for 2b players to appear to be blond. they have full heads of totem gold hair and its equally common for folks to dye it. some folks like to show it off as a mark of survival, some like to hide it so its hard to tell theyre from 2b or so you cant tell how many totems theyve popped, or just cause they like a different look. its also an easy way to tell new players from older players, because if youre walking around with their actual natural haircolor and only a strip or two of gold they obviously havent been here long. some folks have the gold scars and some dont, thats more of a personal design preference, i tend to say the combined regen from the totems and from everyone chugging god apples tends to wipe the worst of them away

beyond that, honestly its mostly just a matter of taking existing 2b2t history and culture and tweaking it to for a less videogamey setting. honestly one day id lost to run a oneshot of something with 2b as the setting. theres the obvious stuff like melons and signs on highways, though the melons make more sense now bc theyve been specifically bred over the years to still grow in absolutely dogshit conditions from lack of water to salt water, freezing weather, little, poor, or otherwise nasty soil (i imagine a lot of earth in the greater spawn region is unusable due to withering and explosives), while still providing ample fruit for wandering souls.

its also of course, kinda hard to turn things like backdoor drama and nocom into written lore, and thats something im currently working on but well. i havent needed it for lore so its been on the backburner.

i think culturally, theres not too much knowledge about 2b2t outside of anarchy circles, though i think theres probably enough for there to be occasional suspicious about it if youre like. naturally blond and have a sleeve, not that most folks would say anything.

more 2b2t things, i think like, 2b2t 'fashion' tends to learn toward things that are durable and easy to move in, less about looking good, but looking good is a bit of a status symbol. if youre wearing delicate clothes, things you cant/shoulder get dirty like suits and silks and the like, then like, youre doin good if those things are clean and intact. kinda the same with jewelry, its mostly just a statement about yourself rather than a show of wealth, it shows youre doing well enough you can take the time to look good rather than survive. cause yknow. rampant inflation bc of duping. also a bit of a statement about clothes being like, if youre in something restrictive like a suit (which is fairly common on skins i notice) it implies youre either good enough at pvp you dont need that extra movement, or that you just dont need/want to pvp. theres also a decent amount of copycatting, trying to dress like well known players but that mostly just outs you as being newer and less experienced.

now actually getting to 2b2t and actually leaving is a little bit harder, ive thought about this a lot and really, in the end it comes down to what the lore youre currently doing is like. the story im in currently doesnt have a server hopping mechanism, everything is just like, places on a map. 2b is almost like... its own dimension? or like the backrooms. you can go there on purpose and leave on purpose, but you can also end up there on accident at times.

i almost imagine 2b2t to be like... a scary story? like a lot of people arent really convinced its real. its like an urban legend almost, a myth kids whisper about at sleepovers after trying to summon bloody mary in a bathroom

i could probably go on about stuff but this is really long tbh

#pandora speaks #ask #wooooooo #thank you for asking its fun to infodump

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alchemicaldesignquery · 2 months

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Gearing up for a Storm: Tank in 5v5

Anticipating a lot of discussion (and "discourse") when the next Developer Blog/Director's Take from Overwatch 2 drops because it is going to specifically target the 6v6/5v5 dilemma...

....Conundrum...

........debate.......

..............concern?

All and all, going to be a pretty defining lecture for a game that I (and many others) have spent years with. Nearly a decade for some of us.

l o l

Until then! There's been some discussion around the recent patch as well as concerns regarding

POWER CREEP

and just what can be done with Tanks. Namely

Are Tanks doomed to be throw pillows of weakness constantly hiding from focus fire and CC effects?

Or Raid Boss style dungeon gods that no one can kill before they team wipe the enemy?

Is there a middle ground?

The difference between busted Tanks and Pillow Tanks at the design level, falls largely on factors from outside of the game; or more accurately

Player defined mechanics vs. In-game mechanics

The former are strategies that players will implement through coordination, targeting, communication, and knowledge-...all of which are not functionally taught or defined within Overwatch. You have to learn how to communicate, coordinate, take high ground, and focus fire, through experience and playing with other players.

Playing Soldier 76 doesn't automatically embed the concept of High Ground, into your head while you execute his kit. It has to be discovered, memorized, and implemented while playing which is a significant abstract in the Cognitive Load of a player who is trying to absorb:

12 different audio cues at any given moment

10 different visual effects at any given moment

18 separate mechanics happening at different intervals and/or simultaneously

all the exceptions, qualifiers, and hidden modifiers with the first three in this list

The on-going demand on a player's memory makes remembering to execute strategies/tactics (which are outside the sensory feedback received from the game) a more distant priority for a lot of players. Most will have to have those strategies/tactics backed up in their reflexes from other games they've played (FPS', MOBAs, Shooters, etc.)

Players who can implement (Information > Knowledge > Execution > Reflex) Player-defined mechanics, are easily poised to hammer another player with an overwhelming amount of In-Game Mechanics.

Focusing the player with the largest hitbox in the game with 5 different kits and the many different interactions they all have is, quite literally, an overload of that Player's own cognitive load; demanding that player operate at such a high level of active memory and execution, that they'll burnout eventually and long before they achieve anything of value in the game-

-or give that player access to mechanics and stats that can outright cancel or deny whole swathes of enemy In-game mechanics just to survive (Orisa Fortify, Hog Vape, DF/Ramm Block, Mauga Overdrive, etc.), which?

Isn't really fun for either side. Not in the long run.

Can we see why Tank Players are increasingly frustrated and/or leaving the game?

The Middle Ground

I'm a firm 6v6 advocate.

But I also know Overwatch 2 should never return to 6v6.

(Because the amount of Dev work that would need to go into making 6v6 viable, would demand a whole new game and they might as well get started on that now and let OW2 have it's lifecycle of 4-5 years).

So what to do about 5v5?

Well...

It's worth noting that, as a format, 5v5 is very difficult to parse from moment to moment; a constant stream of razor thin balancing that shifts and changes as min-maxing of both Player-defined mechanics and In-game mechanics emerge with each new patch.

That is to say, from a design perspective

There will always be a lopsided quality to this format, either within the Roles, within the mechanics, or within the compositions.

But we can mitigate much of the frustration by broadening the options available for Tanks, so that their potency (power) isn't the only option.

Tanks can't be shrunk down. They can't be made significantly weaker and they can't be allowed to steamroll over the enemy either.

Each of those (all of them) would result in pretty big swings of frustration that no amount of collabs or novelty will be able to bury.

Instead, what should be the focus is lower potency with broader (and I mean broader) delivery.

Make each Tank? A Multi-Zoner:

Every single Tank should have the capacity to threaten (not necessarily damage) multiple areas of the map, either through enabling or engaging mechanics.

By creating multiple zones/areas/points of contention in the setting, a Tank can disperse a number of the enemies resources to those varied zones, demanding the enemy dilute their attention or face a possible overwhelming cascade of In-game mechanics that sends them back to spawn.

A few examples of this design execution below, using Zarya as the Tank:

Example - Defensive, Mitigating

Zarya with 2 independent bubbles is a concentration of power around the Tank that begs for all the attention, but also incentivizes her to NOT bubble anyone else.

Giving Zarya one personal bubble + 2 projected bubbles that each only have 100-150 health, would give her up to three (3) separate zones she could apply to any given fight/area of a map.

Zone for her support(s) in the backline, while bubbling a Reaper/Genji going in with Ult, and still having her own personal bubble (and resultant charge to wreck face) for protective purposes.

Example - Offensive, Zoning

Zarya's particle grenades (her Mouse 2/Right Click) when striking the environment, land and persist on the field for upto 2s, or until enemies come within proximity (0.5m).

Large ammo dumps, these can be used to make areas significantly less inviting or engagement worthy to an enemy team, forcing more favourable sightlines and, less, focus fire from the enemy.

Example - Defensive, Zoning

Zarya's Personal Bubble will produce a significant knockback effect if destroyed, giving her room to retreat or find cover incase of swarming or overwhelming by the enemy.

This can also provide her with some significant advantages when played around Graviton Surge and her Particle Grenades.

This is not an exhaustive list of options, but showcases how differing mechanics can result in better zoning potential for Zarya as a Tank, without increasing her potency in a kit already designed to be potent. Broader utility that provides further options for tactical and strategic importance, is how a singular Tank can not only survive but further enable their Team to play the game...

...which is what Tank is all about, really.

#game theory #game design #overwatch 2 #6v6 #5v5 #and yes this is possible with every Tank #I do not think the Devs have enough resources to pull this sort of thing off though #Still worth explaining/exploring #6v6 deserves an Overwatch 3 #Tanking

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hourlymbti · 11 months

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Inferior Se

There are quite a lot of strange tips when it comes to developing Se (e.g. many merely say going outside and playing sports). Physical inability is a very narrow view of inferior Se. While it’s not entirely wrong for Se to be associated with this (Ni doms are more comfortable with their Ni. Why take in and deal with all this incoming information when you can just rely on your "patterns of life" to do the work for you. But perhaps they feel afraid or overwhelmed by the flux of the environment. Maybe with a touch of performance anxiety. Se is about an objective reality, it's largely based on what others see as well. There's often hidden, or not hidden, insecurity with the inferior function. A symptom could be a fear of the environment, a fear of "perceiving/experiencing" incoming data,giving a "poor experience" of reality which could come from a bad portrayal/display, underwhelming results, etc.), people are mistaking/overemphasizing a correlation to be the thing itself. This common conception reflects how oversimplified Se descriptions are. Physical inability is only one possible symptom of having difficulty working with or adapting to realities that don’t fit your assumptions. Function placements are less about what you use the most and more about the "attitude" of your conscious mind (feedback from the unconscious occurs daily like a boomerang). In reality, everything is nuanced, but when we speak of type, we speak of a concept that can be treated as a simplification. A certain function has a louder voice, that doesn't mean the rest are ignored or always valued less.

Things such as danger can be identified naturally, without prior experience. Pi takes these innate knowledge into consideration. Using Ni as an example, when two primitive men spot a tiger near their camp, who is more likely to survive if it turns out to be violent? One who sees an attack as a mere possibility? Or the other that feels it as an inevitable reality? Ni allows you to reduce reaction time because you are already aware of what’s to come (even if what you believe is wrong, it still reduces time used for the decision; Ni is not questioned, it is merely seen).

Ni falls under assumptions. Well, other functions are capable of this but it is strictly assumptions. The brain is supposed to make assumptions. Primitive men don't try to make 100% conclusions before making decisions. When they don't know where to look for food, they need to make a decision, otherwise there would be stasis so even with the little to no info to work with, they set in one direction and go for it. Generalizations and simplifications are made because they are efficient, and these cause us to form assumptions. Inherently, they can't be 100% correct, but these are often necessary for things to function in both the primitive and modern world. Judging by appearance is an assumption, whether to people or products. Grades are simplification. To quantitatively measure something that is qualitative by essence, would always be simplification (e.g. intelligence, stress, pain). People will have faith in particular, products, services, academic institutions. But it's not like they have experienced what it's like to be taught in each school. How we use grades to determine if someone is a bad student, or if they are ready to proceed to the next academic level would take us of generalizations for the criteria. Similarly, to use age or amount of work experience as a measurement of maturity, competence, and wisdom would be a way to simplify the process of making conclusions. The generalization would be more years = more wisdom and the such. Another generalization would be 5 years of work experience = good enough for the job (these associations are more about Te & Si). It’s not perfect, but it can be effective in screening out a list of options. Depending on how much the generalization is seen as reality, they serve as either a reference point, or a clearcut border between yes or no. This has become a tangent but it may be of use. To be clear, this is not exclusive to Ni, but the main functions capable of doing any of the following are the introverted functions and Je (expect generalizations and simplifications in anything subjective as well as any form of judgement. this does not apply much to Ne and Se themselves as those functions are non-subjectively empirical).

Assumptions (not just Ni's) are mentally efficient, but it naturally comes with a higher risk of error. Keep in mind that less information = more assumptions is mainly going to apply to Ni. It still applies for assumptions in general, however, this can be seen more in Ni as it cares less about context (it'll come in different flavors. Ni focuses on "trendlines" rather than the overall datapoints. Each trendline can have many possible combinations of data points which means Ni will be more likely to see the same thing even though the context plus many details differ greatly). It only extracts the skeleton, the rest of the meat doesn't matter in terms of being able to identify that skeleton or making assumptions that would work with the skeleton (try to figure out what a human looks like based on their skeleton, you don't. Ni sees the skeleton, and fills up the rest based on that structure. However, since its focus is on the skeleton, it'll simply end up as a vague image of what to expect. After all, x-rays dont say much about the rest of the tissues. Once Ni "sees" the structure of the situation, it is up to the user how they'll handle the rest. The higher the Ni, the more likely the user will lean towards whatever direction it may be pointing to). Si assumptions would be more about "what they already know". It looks at the strength of the total connections to the existing puzzle pieces (connections to inner content). When looking at existing puzzle pieces (stimuli), Si uses their database to identify then associate. If the data is identified as x, y, and z, Si will scan for perception related to each of them as well as their combinations (sometimes xy triggers more content that x or y separately). The more related perception (based on experiences) and the stronger its connections are (as in mentally significant), then the higher chance of assumptions or information that come along with the stimuli. You identify this guy as Bob. You think "Bob? I love that guy" or "Bob? That's the guy who ate my sandwich". You may also look at Bob and identify some of his characteristics as "suspicious". You then associate him with danger, deceit, evil. Maybe you identify the weather as sunny then associate it with heated emotions (e.g. excitement, anger). If you identify the weather as rainy maybe thoughts come up that "this'll be relaxing", "this'll be inconvenient", or "this'll be a low-energy day". Basically, when it comes to filling up information, Si doesn't "thrive" in uncertainty/gaps in information. Si thrives in things they "know well" or are familiar with. It's more above looking at data then -bringing up supplementary pieces of data- based on their previous observations. Ni looks at data, then -sees- a line that must be followed by the world (in this case, the word "must" isn't a matter of value, but mere perception: it's simply how the world is. Fi wouldn't make assumptions). It's a bit similar but that nuance is what separates the two.

First look at some basics of Ni and Se.

Si is more likely to result in actively looking for more information to use as points of reference to understand something. They focus on information that brings up information from their head. It's more about bouncing back information through by using what's available as points of reference rather than absorbing available information as they are. But Se would seek to find more information they can grab through their circumstances (judging based on what they know in the present) rather than obtaining information with reference points (information that brings up internal information). A dominant Ni user would be satisfied as long as they have one clear idea of what's going on or what'll occur (one clear idea, means images which do not contradict, but compliment each other. They can have multiple ideas as long as they align and blend well together: all eggs in one basket). It doesn't matter how much raw information they can get or have already absorbed from the situation, if Ni "realizes" or "sees" something, they shall follow. Ni going overboard means that it is less questioned and easier to accept.

How you develop Se should be based on the unhealthy behaviors you notice on yourself (you need to notice individual issues with inferior Se and find ways to work on each of them. Ways that seem best for you and your circumstances). The dominant is of primary importance. If the wishes of the inferior function were against those of the dominant (which is a typical scenario), it will be repressed. The other functions ultimately serve the main gatekeeper, the dominant. The more one-sided you are towards the dominant, the less attention there is to your inferior. Too much weight on Ni is what causes the unhealthy behaviors of inferior Se. Ni itself (i.e. pure Ni, ignoring other functions) treats its conjectures as plain indisputable facts, perhaps even more factual than actual facts (Se). You will observe this the most in dominants where Ni has a voice over reasoning and evidence.

This is due to the nature of introversion and the nature of N vs S when in dominant positions. When you're trying to convince a pure introvert of something, you have to pander to their worldviews 100% of the time. If you can't convince them of something purely by using evidence and arguments that fit their worldview, they won't change it. A pure extrovert, on the other hand, would be convinced too easily. Any information, arguments that can be vaguely used to support the claim will do well enough to convince them. The issue is that you can't cause them to permanently believe in that. Depending on the circumstances, they can be a giraffe denier today but a giraffe acknowledger tomorrow. A pure introvert (someone with an introverted dominant function so strong that it completely gatekeeps any extroverted function) is just trapped in their own head, incapable of changing their worldviews. Because the dominant function is introverted, they only evaluate information, values, conclusions, etc. internally. You cannot change their system because they'll judge all of your arguments and evidence based on that system [a pure extrovert would be completely void of any gravity towards the inside that they would completely adapt their mindset and worldview to the situation/circumstances, without assessing whether those external conditions are valid/invalid, trends/anomalies, etc.. Say someone is a murderer a week ago, they would simply see the person as a person, not a murderer, because that's all they see in the present conditions]. Perhaps Ni (faith that their assumptions are facts) and Ti (faith that what makes sense to them is a fact) would fit a conclusive tunnel vision better since those functions formulate an conclusions of the world (Si doesn't really make a conclusion whereas Fi's doesn't try to conclude about how the world is but about how it should be. But as introverted functions, those two will of course still be stuck in their ways, just in different aspects). Between Ni and Ti, however, Se being the inferior function may give Ni dominants the most tunnel vision. Aside from the inferior being the most gatekept function, rather than absorb all stimuli in a raw form (Pure Se), someone with dominant reliance on Ni would have a weaker perception of all those incoming waves of information, and would often even use their Ni to make up for it (fill in the blanks/ make things up based on their internal perception. note: to a certain extent, Si is also used to make things up to fill the gaps in one's perception, but you'll more often see those distortions of reality from lower Si users simply because higher Si users have less gaps as they actively seek more reference points to give more information)

For the mind of a Se dominant, it is by nature that Ni shall be "inspected" in the gates of basingSe. Contradicting evidence is immediately observed. The strength of these observations (in terms of psychological intensity) greatly out match that of Ni given that Se is in the center of the spotlight. This can make Se dominants quick (or even too quick) to deny Ni unless what they have observed generally supports it. This lack of trust in their gut may even make Se slower to act (but this is compensated with Se’s nature to seek actual information, while Ni compensates their lack of info by using their gut feelings). You could argue that it's partially about anti-Ne more than anti-Se. Dominant Ni can shape Se information however they want. Ni can produce several ideas based on the data, so long as they all follow the same narrative. Ne, on the other hand, encourages contradicting ideas. It doesn't matter if they have no clear vision, they're more willing to accept uncertainty. Ne doesn't like putting all eggs in one basket. Ni doesn't like the lack of direction. Intuition has an introverted and extroverted side. The more you lean on one side, the more you leave from the other. The inferior Se allows Ni to continue having this disconnect from the world as inferior functions can easily be filtered, further supporting its tunnel vision. The brain can find patterns/narratives in just about anything. It's a matter of if one is able to notice which are random/accidental or how significant/representative a pattern is. Normally, people can notice if something looks like a face, but what if you can't distinguish paradeloia from actual faces. In a chaotic cloud of noise, how would you know if someone called your name, or if it's just your brain interpreting messy sounds as your name? You always think you're onto something or suddenly receive this great revelation (mainly Ni, Si is more "robotic" not in the sense that it's emotionless but more about like a flowchart or a program receiving an input then puking an output in a straightforward, data/detail-oriented manner.). It's not a matter of absorbing stimuli, it's more so about how the stimuli is transformed/identified/pieced-together by the brain (Ni/Si).

While a pure extrovert is a direct mirror to their surroundings, constantly reflecting and going with the flow of external feedback (e.g. observation, judgment of others, every opportunity that arrives) without the ability to filter, question, evaluate, or make sense of them in any depth; a pure introvert would be so deep in their own pit that it becomes a perpetual cave of ignorance unexposed to any sort of light from the world beyond their own. Of course, these are mere exaggerations as everyone has introverted and extroverted sides. A disconnect from the inner world, causing inability for anything deep or long-term. A disconnect from the outer world, leaving an unchanging force. I have previously described introversion vs extroversion in terms of penetration of external stimuli. Extroversion can absorb & handle plenty of stimuli because it only needs to exist or land on the "surface of the mind". Introversion, on the other hand, requires more processing. Only the stimuli that are able to penetrate deep into the mind will have interacted with inner content. In this case, it's not that the stimuli which contradicts their worldview isn't capable of penetration, it did interact with the inner world but the inner world threw it into the dump which consists of things that are "rejects" or "wrong". When that same stimulus does come back, the inner world already understands it to be "wrong" and immediately throws it with the rest of the dimp. Extreme introversion's worldview is similar to someone in a tunnel that faces toward one particular direction. Anything outside of it doesn't deserve to be even acknowledged as possible or slightly correct. All they see is whatever goes in the tunnel, in other words: what fits their worldview and what validates their worldview, causing them to go by it more and more.

The goal is to reduce this one-sidedness, but not to completely remove it (additional note: developing the non-inferior can be a stepping stone for developing the inferior as it opposes the dominant’s i/e orientation). Introverted perceiving functions perceive a subjective reaction that arises from the acknowledgement of an object, but not the object in its own right.

First look at some basics of Ni and Se.

This is not a "signs your a Ni dom" post, just possible effects of Ni dominance or bursts which are more likely to occur regularly to those who trust their Ni. In the dominant position, it is common knowledge that the user is fulfilled by finding (what they perceive as) the one true meaning or the most fitting possibility/perspective to the situation. To the dominant user, this no longer is a possibility, but a fact. People naturally trust/listen to their dominant function the most, often ignoring resistances against it. For Ni, a common weakness is a tendency to tunnel vision. To alleviate the issue, you need to notice related tendencies and behavior within this scope (this doesn’t tell you what exactly to do. It merely acts as a framework to spot and identify). They're essentially the same thing at core but here are a few ways inferior Se can manifest as (keep in mind that some of these descriptions are very extreme. Unhealthy Se may commonly be a bit more mild):

Have difficulty adapting yourself and your thoughts to changes in the actual present situation.

Perhaps while you look at the sky, you lose sight of the ground, making it difficult to work with what you have and build it all up from the base, one floor at a time, piling it up until it becomes a skyscraper. You see in your head, a continual movement of one floor to another, building up from bottom to top, yet you are unable to take the first step to build the foundation as you have difficulty fully grasping the situation at hand and what could be done about it.

Overanalyze details; search for unexisting deeper truths/meanings (perhaps due to discontentment with direct and meaningless situations/objects or existence). These dominants often overcompensate a desire for their life to have some sort of greater meaning

Fall apart and have difficulty reacting/adjusting properly when one important detail in your plan of action (which may have too much and/or too detailed assumptions) turned out to be false (i.e. if things dont go according to your vision)

In paranoia, focus on a single prediction — an impending doom., and because of this feeling of inevitable disaster that will occur no matter what you do, do nearly nothing about it or at least struggle to get the will or energy to do so because any resistance seems futile

Upon all the things you have observed, you see a trendline within the sea of data points. But once the trendline is made, that is all you see. Anything that diverges from this trendline, any path, any new information, is quickly marked as wrong and irrelevant. Your main type of rigidity lies here. Inflexibility towards what you don’t see as the one true path.

Ni doms are the most trusting of Ni. An "I intuitively know, and that's enough" mindset allows you to take advantage of your Ni, but this almost-absolute faith causes you to tunnel so hard on one conclusion that you strongly resist other possibilities. For example, they simply believe that this equals this or this will lead to this, other functions are needed for reasoning and groundedness but Ni dominants care less about that, they don't need confirmation to believe Ni. As a perceiving function, what Ni serves to them comes across as empirical, the calling is a matter of is or isn't. They don't need explanation or proof to believe it, given that it is the highest function. Reasoning and evidence are valued secondarily. No matter how questionable the calling seems, they have faith in it. They mentally go "all-in" to one conjecture. You constantly go back into this conclusion, with conscious hierarchy forcing yourself to believe and have hope in it even when overall reason and evidence leans against it. You completely deny and ignore the periphery, the possibilities disparate from your own. You prefer not to believe that you drew a false conclusion so you feel unsatisfied, maybe even scared or threatened by realities that do not match this conclusion/vision of yours regarding how things are (it may even become a desire to bring this into reality. While Fi creates an image based on desire. Ni creates an image that the user ends up desiring due their trust/preference on Ni. It's natural for the introverted perceiving functions to get attached). You then overlook/brush aside details that don't fit into your Ni's narrative and what you perceive as the patterns of life/people/the world. Concrete data that come as a blunt "this is simply what is" is important to get out of your tunnel vision but you overemphasize only the details that fit this conclusion (a highly polarized dominant will filter your inferior so that you only see what validates the dominant’s agenda). You may also have resistance or fear in direct methods of acquiring data (primary data, actually witnessing/experiencing/observing/experimenting things yourself). This conceivably applies to the indirect methods as well (secondary data, records from others).

#Se #Ni #cognitive functions #mbti

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waytootiredstudent · 1 year

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....

I have another story to add to the 'My life has ADHD'.

- Tried fixing the bath today. Like, water running down outside the bathtub when you shower. Easy fix, I know the problem, have a solution. Half an hour tops.

- Discover silicon that's basically black at this point. Resign myself to 'alright so this gonna be a longer project'.

Poor, misguided me. Foolish Icarus. You have no idea. You're a broke student with a misguided sense of 'I can fix this myself, right?' with no skills or knowledge to back that confidence.

- my sister plus three other ppl are coming tomorrow. Including a child. We need a functioning bath.

- sparing you the details but I dissamble the whole fucking bathtub. Stare at the monstrosity that they call a functioning system.

- regret half of my life choices.

- realize that I will have to recaulk the whole fucking thing.

I have never done such a thing. Nor watched it being done. I'm a baby adult. My survival skills wholly rely on YouTube tutorials.

- after contemplating to just ignore the problem I go to work.

- my guys. I know nothing, yeah? Nothing. But whatever the fuck I learned in the five minutes Google research was already more than whatever the fuck the guy did who had his hands on that bathroom before me.

- as a product of that I have to remove two caulking. And a part of the wall because someone thought it was smart to have a plastic cover over the caulk to embedd it into the wall. As I put the chisel to work I wonder how I could explain to my roommate what happened to the bathroom

- roommates comes in. Looks at me. Looks at the bathroom. Looks at me again. I have a mask on, safety goggles and slightly maniac expression as I hack at the caulking that's so inaccessible that I can't reach it with my tools. Roommate says nothing. Offers me some pasta.y stomach reminds me that I have eaten exactly one piece of chocolate in the morning.

- roommate has some art project with mirrors. I get to smash some glass. Feels very nice. Roommates leaves for a walk.

- through some miracle and with a lot sweat, tears and curses I finish the caulking

- high from my actually decent looking work, sleep depravation and one monster the only thing still making me move, I decide to help roommate with before mentioned art project.

- mirrors are the worst. I mutter and curse while I do my work

- roommate tried talking to me a few times. I do not realize that. Or notice them. Until half an hour later when they suddenly spawn in the kitchen where they have been the whole time. I have a miniature heart attack and nearly throw the caulking gun at them in surprise.

- they tell me I did a good job and to got to bed. Despite my normally strong hatred for being told what to do I follow the advice. I feel more drunk and incoherent than after three cocktails

- I go to lie down on my bed, tired, exhausted and ready to just shut down

- roommate comes in.

- "hey don't you think we're missing something essential from the house?"

- I stare at them blearily, unsure if this might already be a dream and if not, how I should get the brain capacity to think and formulate words. Was that a discussion prompt, a philosophical question as to what is deigned important? Is important an objective word or always subjective? Or is it a subtle hint that we need something in our household that once again is normal for the rest of the world but didn't occur to me until pointed out?

- Roommate smiles loopsided and drags something into my view

- I don't comprehend. There's glass. Wood. Some splinters.

- a window

- I look to wall where my window should be. I see hinges moving in the wind.

- The fucking window broke off. My roommate holds the fucking broken away window of my bedroom in their hands.

- I decide this is a problem for tomorrow. Then I don't have a window. Who needs windows anyways. Importance of things is subjective.

#My life has ADHD #actually adhd #Yes instead of sleeping im writing a post #What about me gives the impression that i would make healthy life decisons?

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bklynmusicnerd · 1 year

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I love reading your perspective on gh, particularly Trina and Spencer. I love that you don’t stay on the surface level of what’s happening but think beyond that to the whys of it all. There’s a reason (when written well) Trina and Spencer move the way they do on the show and it’s important to take that into account when thinking about what they are doing, the decisions they are making. We all make decisions based off our knowledge and experiences. That’s going to inform a lot of decisions these characters make. We see that Spencer continues to be bothered by the break up of their friends group, first because of Esme and followed by the arrival of Dex, hence why he has smoke for days for these two among other reasons. They symbolize the fall of this friend group for Spencer so seeing them causes a visceral reaction and he wants to lash out. We have to remember Spencer has abandonment issues so change is hard for people like that. As we saw at the pool, making Trina happy eventually outweighed his anger towards the situation that at the end of the day he can’t do anything about and it’s just the new reality that’s he’s just gonna have to accept no matter how much it pains him to, as Trina said, “Let. It. Go.”

Thanks for the kind words, anon. Anything purely surface-level is boring to me so it's hard for to me to view any media in that way. I'm a big fan of looking at the "why" and exploring what makes characters tick. I like doing that with Trina and Spencer because I think, when they're written well, there's a lot more going on with them than the surface-level impressions of them as good, studious girl and wealthy bad boy. So that's fun for me to explore.

I also definitely agree with you on Spencer having animosity for Dex and Little Miss White Privilege because they exist as these damaging threats to their friend group. I really like this idea of Spencer seeing the friend group as like a second family for him. The quad of Nik, Lucky, Liz and Emily definitely functioned like a found family. And the friend group Spencer wants with Trina, Cam and Joss is probably never going to come to fruition like that. It's basically on life support after Little Miss White Privilege's antics and the Joss and Dex affair. Of course the reality is that if the friend group was really that strong, they would have survived Little Miss White Privilege and Dex easily.

So maybe Spencer is going through that phenomenon where it's easier to blame outside threats as opposed to looking at the internal weaknesses. It is good that Spencer finally had that moment of prioritizing maintaining peace for Trina when she needed it over picking a pointless fight. It was a solid contrast to his behavior at the beginning of the wedding. I did find it kind of interesting that Trina is basically telling Spencer to let it go and adapt to the new normal. Because she's also grappling with her own inability to let go.

She's lying to herself about Joss because she's afraid to face the new reality of what type of person her best friend is becoming. So, in a weird way, Spencer and Trina have similar hangups, Trina's passive approach to hers just comes across more functional than Spencer's combative approach.

#gh #spencer cassadine #trina robinson #i really loved what you had to say about spencer's thought process #i feel like all signs are pointing to friend group collapse and i wish the writers would just go for it

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dawnmarsalfieetherington · 2 years

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Bushcraft, while sounding like the Australian knock-off of Minecraft they have in down under, no it’s referring to the various tactics and skilled based around survival in the wild, and no camping and Bushcraft is not the same despite having some converging elements as camping is more casual and far leisurely since there’s significantly less risks With camping considering your going into the wild and can bring whatever and as much as you want, bushcraft is more about living off of nature without the aid of much or any items from human civilisation, it covers food (through foraging, tracking, hunting, trapping, fishing), water sourcing and purification, shelter-building, and firecraft.

While Bushcraft more priorities living off as little human items as possible there’s still a few necessities they recommend keeping around.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE COMMENTS

report this adContents hide 1 Bushcraft | A Guide to Natural Wilderness Survival1.1 1. What Does Bushcraft Mean?1.2 2. What Is the Difference Between Camping and Bushcraft?1.3 3. What Are the Six Basic Survival Skills?1.4 4. What Should Be in a Bushcraft Kit?1.5 5. What Is the Best Bushcrafting Knife?report this ad1. What Does Bushcraft Mean? 2. What Is the Difference Between Camping and Bushcraft?fire making, cooking, and sleeping on rough surfaces or tent. Like camping, bushcraft also involves survival skills. However, it entails a primitive lifestyle such as crafting, foraging, and hunting, and uses older ways to sustain life.

3. What Are the Six Basic Survival Skills?4. What Should Be in a Bushcraft Kit?

Brace yourself for any situation and unexpected encounters by using your bushcraft knowledge. Strengthen your survival skills for the various demands of the wilderness, and reconnect with and experience the beauty of the great outdoors.

RELATED: 25 Obscure Bushcraft Skills For Survival

Bushcraft | A Guide to Natural Wilderness Survival

Bushcraft basically pertains to the skills and knowledge you gained by staying outdoors and using these while camping. It’s surviving in the wilderness with a bare minimum, the same as it was for your ancestors.

Building and staying in a tent, hunting, and gathering are some of its related and fundamental skills.

Be it on an island, forest, mountain, or desert, bushcraft is the art of surviving anywhere. It teaches you how to handle yourself in the real and outside world so you can call the remote wilderness your second home.

These two terms are alike and have similar features. Both situations include basic essentials such as food, water, fire, and shelter, but here’s a more detailed contrast between the two.

Camping refers to staying outdoors and using basic survival skills for a period of time. It can be done for relaxation and enjoyment, and you can even bring hi-tech gear for a more comfortable experience.

You can go to parks in your recreational vehicle or RV, and already consider it as camping. This activity may sound more lavish, but it covers some characteristics the same as bushcraft.

It still involves and encourages the usage of the items below.

Saw: Dealing with the wilderness requires the cutting of wood, and an easy way to do this is by using a saw. A hatchet or knife cannot efficiently cut trees for your shelter.

Fishing line and hook: These lightweight items are the basic tools you need to successfully catch a fish. Since fishing is a vital bushcraft activity, you should always have these in your bushcraft backpack.

Kettle: If you want to make some hot coffee or tea, simply put a kettle over your campfire.

Knife: From cutting cords to digging, carving, and whittling wood, you can do a whole lot of activities with a good knife. Knives are extremely functional and serve different purposes. You can also use them for your self-defense, shaving, and when eating.

Tarpaulin and cord: A tarp creates a covered space under which you can sleep or live. Include a cord in your bushcraft backpack to tie your tarp to the trees. This cord can also be versatile as you can hang your other equipment on it.

Clothing: Bring lightweight, waterproof, and durable clothes especially if you’ll do lots of mountaineering and walking. If you’re expecting cold nights, bring pieces that will keep you warm. Don’t forget to bring spare clothes, most especially your undergarments.

Wash kit: Aim for an effective and small kit with simple items for brushing your teeth and cleaning your body.

First aid kit: Add necessary items in your bushcraft backpack that can treat both minor and serious injuries.

Compass: Avoid getting lost while exploring the wilderness. Have a sense of direction and find your way back using a compass.

much of the information was acquired from this site going over some of basics of bushcraft and helped a lot in my summary

https://survivallife.com/bushcraft/

as well as that this other site also helped in my research.

https://www.muchbetteradventures.com/magazine/bushcraft-a-beginners-guide/

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mbti-notes · 2 years

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Hey mbti, I am an infj and I'd like to ask you what exactly consists an spiritual need. I don't know how to explain it to you, but I am in search of a belief system greater than myself. You are a philosopher, right? Maybe I could find some answers in philosophy. If so, where do I start?

The etymology of "spirit" goes back to the word "breath", as related to the "energy" that imbues all living beings. The word "spirit" is invoked as a contrast to physical existence, so it refers to the nonphysical aspects of you and your existence that are presumed to be equally important to the physical aspects. Without one or the other, your existence never really feels right.

If you just live for physical survival, you will soon find that your existence feels somewhat empty or hollow. Why? Because you haven't addressed the question of what you're living for. Many people only come to realize that they have spiritual needs because they sense an inexplicable lack or absence of something important - much of human behavior is motivated by an unconscious desire to compensate for some intangible void within. This leads many people to use their cognitive functions egotistically, as though spiritual needs are just like physical needs like hunger or thirst, for example:

immature Si: only attaches to things for safety/security

immature Ni: only pursues goals that benefit oneself

immature Ti: only uses one's knowhow to cheat or exploit

immature Fi: only cares about one's own feelings

immature Se: only knows superficial pleasures

immature Ne: only wants to be entertained and distracted

immature Te: only wants power, control, or clout

immature Fe: only wants to possess or dominate

The concept of "spiritual need" is about formally acknowledging the necessity of meaning, actively engaging in meaning-making activities, and being in touch with something outside of yourself, beyond mere egotistical wants/desires. Spiritual needs are universal and include things such as:

to seek and apply the right knowledge

to develop one's potential

to put one's talents to good use

to set a constructive direction

to feel a sense of greater purpose

to earn respect and trust

to express care, support, and love

to have a sense of place and belonging

to participate fully in the world

to recognize the value in everything

to conduct oneself in the right way

to care about moral goals/outcomes

to devote oneself to worthy causes

to heal what is hurt or broken

to be present, whole, at peace

to experience beauty, wonder, awe

to have hope for the future

to have faith in a greater power

There are many ways to fulfill spiritual needs because there are many ways to generate a meaningful existence. Some spiritual needs are closely related to the functional stack. The process of learning how to use your functions maturely should naturally generate plenty of meaning for you. For example, observe the connection between these function applications and the needs listed above:

mature Si: use ritual to generate sacred significance

mature Ni: devote yourself to a better future

mature Ti: make the best use of your capabilities

mature Fi: honor what is good and virtuous

mature Se: bring out the beauty and wonder of the world

mature Ne: use possibility to create a better world

mature Te: build a world that works well for everyone

mature Fe: use harmony/gratitude to rebalance the world

Philosophers are not innately more spiritual nor do they automatically possess spiritual wisdom. Some of my classmates went through the entire canon of philosophers and didn't come out much wiser. You say you're looking for a belief system, but that's not really what philosophy is used for a lot of the time. Philosophers are more inclined to doubt and even take apart belief systems, which can be a dangerous activity, if it leaves you with no ground to stand on. Only a subset of philosophers are fully devoted to the concept of wisdom and learning the knowledge that one needs for living life well.

The advantages of being a philosopher come from: general open-mindedness; a willingness to deeply and thoroughly explore concepts; the ability to structure, extract, and evaluate ideas and arguments; the discernment to separate truth from falsity. In short, being a philosopher grants you certain mental tools, but how you choose to use them is what matters most.

You still have to set the right intentions, goals, and purpose. You still have to do the hard work of learning the right kinds of knowledge and then apply the knowledge in the right ways. You still have to keep examining yourself and whether your path continues to be viable and good. To be a philosopher is in some ways antithetical to the concept of a peaceful existence. Is inner peace not what people really want when they say they "want a belief system"?

Instead of getting lost in a sea of abstract philosophical ideas, it would be more fruitful for you to examine the reasons behind why you don't feel at peace and address them more directly. The above list should give you a better idea of what spiritual needs are and the importance of using healthy methods to fulfill them. Determine which spiritual needs are most pressing/important to you at this period of your life, set some concrete benchmarks and goals in relation to them, and come up with a feasible plan for fulfilling them.

#spirituality #spiritual needs #needs #meaning of life #development #self actualization #maturity #ego development #philosophy #morality #ask

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martelldoran · 3 years

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WHAT'S THE CAUSALITY LOOP THEORY

Why Emma, thank you so much for asking. I’m not going to waste time before jumping into this because this is gonna get long so without further ado...

Steve Rogers’ Ending and How Endgame Doesn’t Support a Causality Loop and other such rambles

Last month, I came across a TikTok that proposed that Steve’s ending made sense because it existed within a causality loop. I would link the TikTok but I didn’t save it at the time and trying to find videos on that app is impossible. You think Tumblr’s search function is bad? 🙄 But I digress. The TL;DR of the video is that due to time travel and Steve choosing to go back in time to be Peggy’s husband, it created a causality loop where he was always meant to be her husband because he went back in time and stayed there. The TikToker supported his argument by using Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (PoA), another film that uses time travel and has a clearly defined example of a causality loop. However, his argument is fundamentally flawed so I’m going to combine my knowledge of my two biggest fandoms to tell you why.

Continued under the cut because I have no chill. Beware, it's long.

To first tell you how Endgame (EG) doesn’t support a causality loop, we must establish how PoA does establish one and does it successfully. The TikToker specifically mentions the scenes that take place at Hagrid’s Hut surrounding Buckbeak the hippogriff’s execution, so we’ll look at those first. What the film does really well is establish early on that there is something weird going on well before anyone actually goes back in time. There are three things that happen in quick succession during this scene which sets up the causality loop we see later in the film. First, a rock flies through the window and breaks a jar. Second, another rock hits Harry in the back of the head. Third, once outside, Hermione hears a branch snap and thinks she sees ‘something’. There are also two additional moments later on in the film once the Harry, Ron, and Hermione have come out of the Shrieking Shack which should also be noted: a wolf howl that distracts Remus Lupin in werewolf form from attacking the group and somebody casting a full-bodied stag patronus at the edge of the lake to save Harry and Sirius from the Dementors.

Of these occurrences, the first is arguably the most important because it does the most to establish that there is something going on outside of the Trio’s current understanding of their situation. The film makes a point to frame the jar breaking as Important Information the Audience Must Remember because it shows a visibly confused Hermione reacting to it as she picks up the rock for closer inspection and we the audience are given close up of it in her hand. Not only is it framed front and centre in the shot but the rock itself is very distinctive. It’s almost wholly smooth but for a swirl of fossil, thus marking it as not just any rock but An Important Rock To Be Remembered. This was an intentional choice by director Alfonso Curon because he uses this rock to connect this moment to its mirrored scene later on once Harry and Hermione use the Time Turner.

The audience and the characters find out about the causality loop at the same time. There are clearly stated rules of time travel that say that they aren’t to meddle with time but when Harry and Hermione see that Dumbledore, the Minister for Magic, and the executioner are on their way to Hagrid’s hut they panic because their counterparts aren’t leaving. Then, we see Hermione notice something in the pumpkin patch: a distinctive rock, smooth with a swirl of fossil. Again, we see have a close up shot with the rock centred to show its importance. Stylistically, it’s very similar to the shot we saw earlier in the film which gives the audience an emotional pay off for noticing the connection. When Hermione throws the rock and breaks the jar, it sets the causality loop in motion. The jar was always going to break because they went back in time to throw the rock that breaks it.

And it’s the same with all the other instances. Hermione throws the second rock that hits Harry in the back of the head to alert him to the fact they need to get out of the hut. Hermione snaps the branch and is almost seen by her counterpart in the past. Hermione makes the wolf call to distract Lupin from attacking. Harry, and not his father as he had assumed, casts the patronus to save himself and Sirius from the Dementors. But each of these moments are set up clearly in the ‘first run through’ to set up their payoff when the characters realise, ‘Oh, I did these things. They were always meant to happen.’ From a narrative standpoint, these are planned out moments to clue the audience into the fact that there’s something bigger at play. It keeps them ‘in the loop’ as it were.

This doesn’t happen in EG.

To successfully have set up a causality loop that made sense and had the same kind of set up and pay off as we see in PoA, it would have had to have been established as early as 2014 in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (CA:TWS). This does not happen. One of the main themes of CA:TWS is moving on from the past. Peggy Carter herself even says, “I’ve lived my life, my only regret is that you didn’t get to live yours.” Then saying soon after, “Sometimes the best thing we can do is to start over.” Peggy’s character in Captain America: The First Avenger is set up as someone who acts as the backup/back bone of Steve’s own moral compass. When Steve falters at Azzano about what to about the captured 107th, Peggy is there to remind him of what is right. She serves a similar narrative function in CA:TWS. Steve is struggling with life in the present. He’s just seen the helecarriers and argued with Nick Fury about protection vs fear after the botched Lumerian Star mission. Morally, he’s in turmoil and has turned to Peggy for council because he’s trying to find purpose in world where his rigid morality seems to have no place.

From the point of view of creating a causality loop, one would think that this scene in the hospital would be the place where an initial set-up could be made and alert the audience to the long term plan for Steve’s character. Instead, we have Peggy mourning the fact that Steve didn’t get to live his life the way it should have played out, and why would a woman who has supposedly been married to another version of Steve tell him to move on? In addition, when Steve visits the Smithsonian, he watches a video where he sees Peggy talking about how he influenced her life and how during one of his missions, he saved the man that would go on to become her husband. This is the only mention of Peggy’s husband in the entire franchise until Steve reappears as an old man at the end of EG.

Captain America: Civil War (CA:CW) also offers an opportunity to set up the causality loop at Peggy’s funeral but again, this does not happen. The only family we are introduced to is Sharon Carter, Peggy’s grand-niece. When it comes to filmmaking, every choice made is intentional. From the hair and makeup to the clothes, to the music used, everything in a film means something whether it is to further character development, world-building, or the plot. Filmmakers have a limited amount of time to convey a story and anything that doesn’t matter isn’t shown. Therefore, we can conclude from the text of the film that Peggy’s husband doesn’t matter to the narrative. The person in Peggy’s family who matters to the narrative is Sharon Carter which is why she is given prominence during CA:CW’s funeral scene. Had the causality loop been set up here, there would have been a defining moment like in PoA where the audience is clued into the larger story arc. Maybe someone says something, or he meets his older self, but that doesn’t happen. It should also be noted that apart from a small scene in Ant Man, Peggy isn’t mentioned again until EG.

In Endgame itself, the film still fails to set up a causality loop. It could be argued that this is the most important film for the set-up because this is when the audience gets the payoff. The first thing we see after the 5-yer time jump is Steve in a group therapy session for those that survived Thanos’ snap. Survivors share their stories and Steve talks about Peggy, a woman who has been dead in canon for 7-years and who died of old age. It’s incongruous and sticks out because narratively it doesn’t make sense for him to talk about her and not someone he watched disintegrate in front of his eyes. Steve watches his best friend and hundreds of others turn to ash around him and that film ends on his horrified face as he sits by his best friend’s ashes. Narratively, this is the thread that should carry through to EG but instead, he talks about missing his chance with Peggy. However, unlike PoA, there is no indication whether through dialogue or framing that clues the audience into Steve’s eventual ending at the end of the film.

Even when he goes back to the 70s, we see him looking mournfully at Peggy through the blinds in her office and a picture of him, pre-serum, on her desk. Steve and Peggy’s relationship prior to Endgame is supposed to represent the bittersweet loss of the life he could have had had he not sacrificed himself to the cause in CA:TFA. Then, since the audience knows from Steve and Peggy’s conversation in the hospital in CA:TWS that she moved on from Steve to live a happy life, we can assume that this picture is meant as nothing more than a fond memento of someone that meant a lot to her. Once more, there is no indication that Steve is ever meant to be her husband.

It’s impossible to infer a causality loop here in the same way as we saw in PoA. In PoA, there is a payoff for every single unusual or weird moment the story presents the audience before and after the use of time travel but this is something that’s completely absent from Endgame’s narrative. Steve himself doesn’t even vocalise a desire to go back in time at any point in EG nor at any point during the other films he appears in. In fact, when questioned by Tony Stark about the possibility of ‘going home’ in Avengers: Age of Ulton, he says, “The guy who wanted all that went in the ice 75 years ago. I think someone else came out.” While it is indicative of his unhappiness in the modern-day, it does indicate a level of acceptance of the fact that this is his life and he has to make his peace with it. He’s taken what Peggy said in CA:TWS on board. He’s starting over and moving on.

With time travel, and Steve choosing to stay in the past came the fan theory that one of the pallbearers carrying Peggy’s casket in CA:CW is Old Man Steve, her husband. When presented with this fan theory, writer Christopher Markus said during an interview with the LA Times at SDCC 2019,

“I would very much like that. There is no set explanation for Cap’s time travel . . .I mean, we’ve had public disagreements with [directors Anthony and Joe Russo] about what it [time travel] necessarily means, but I love the idea of there being two Steve Rogers in the timeline. One who lived a long life with Peggy and is in the background of that funeral scene watching his young self carry his wife’s coffin up. Not just for the time travel mumbo jumbo of it, but for the just weird, personal pain and satisfaction that would be happening between two Steve Rogers there. I kind of love it.” [emphasis mine]

This shows that unlike in PoA there was no intention of creating a causality loop prior to Markus writing EG with his writing partner Stephen McFeely. In fact, it makes clear that the actual rules of time travel were in contention and that even those making the film didn’t have a unified idea of what they wanted to create in the first place. The fact that there is confusion surrounding EG's time travel is due to the fact that the people behind it, didn't seem to know what they were writing or consider the consequences of it.

What all of this shows is that an argument of a PoA style causality loop doesn’t hold water. The film doesn’t support it, nor do any of the previous films, because there aren’t any indicators for the audience to latch onto. There is no moment of the rock breaking the jar, or the patronus chasing away the dementors, no moment where that the audience is told to hold into this information for later because there’s some timey wimey stuff going on. Ultimately, when examined, there is no set-up for a causality loop that supports the theory he was always supposed to go back and be Peggy’s husband, particularly when examined against a film that successfully lays it out from the start.

Right, the more academic (lol) part of this post is done. I just want to address one more TikTok that bothered me because I have opinions and MCU Captain America is my Mastermind specialist subject.

The TL;DR of this one was that Steve’s ending made sense because he got out of the fight and was at peace and that that has been the ultimate goal of his character arc. This person argued that Steve used the Avengers to distract himself from the fact that he’s this man out of time and he can’t find peace without a fight which to some extent, I agree with. I don’t deny that that is a major driving force to his story. We see that in Age of Ultron with his WandaNightmare. I don’t deny that that is key to his character. However, this creator then made a comment at the end of this video to the tune of, ‘bUt BuCkY iS hIs StOrY aRc’ and tried to play it off like this wasn’t true or that people were wrong to think that this is the case.

These two things aren’t mutually exclusive. They’re both true. They’re intertwined. But you cannot say that Bucky Barnes isn’t at the heart of Steve Rogers’ story. Bucky was the catalyst for every single one of Steve’s movies. He becomes CA because of Bucky. He goes against SHIELD because of Bucky. He defies 107 countries and the Sokovia Accords because of Bucky. You take Bucky out of the equation and what do you have? What happens in those films if you take Bucky Barnes out of the equation? Viewing it objectively, and even without shipper goggles on, you simply cannot sit there and claim that Bucky Barnes isn't a defining component to Steve’s story. Steve Rogers is motivated by Bucky Barnes. Steve Rogers is motivated by the depth of their relationship and the fact that Bucky Barnes is one of the few things connecting his new present to his old life.

You can definitely see the fact that Steve is uncomfortable in the modern world. He doesn’t address any of his trauma but he still attempts to move on. However, if they wanted him getting out of the fight and finding life as a civilian to be the natural end to his story arc then there was a way to do it which didn’t require him going back to Peggy. It would have been a better and more satisfying ending if he’d actively chosen to retire because I often see the argument that him going back to Peggy is him finally allowing him to be selfish after shouldering so much over the past decade or more. If Steve chose to retire and put himself first, then that sends a better message. He’s still getting the chance to ‘be selfish’ but he’s not throwing the life he’s built away. At this point in EG, he’s spent a huge portion of his adult life in the modern-day. This isn’t the future for him anymore, it’s the present and he’s lived a life and made real connections with people. The MCU does a piss poor job of showing the interpersonal relationships between the Avengers but he is at least shown to be friends with Sam, Nat, and Bucky.

But he goes back to a delusion. Or an idea of something that was never his in the first place.

When I see people make these videos and share their opinions, I can see their points but it’s like they’re taking EG on its own when that's impossible. Endgame only ‘works’ if you have the context of 10 years’ worth of films. You have to at least be somewhat familiar with the characters, who they are and what they’ve done up until now to be able to make sense of it.

However, in saying that, they wrote and filmed the movie in a way to make you think you didn’t have to take into account anything you’ve seen in the past ten years. If you only watch Endgame, you only see a grieving man mourning the love he never had. You see a man, regretful that he didn’t get to be with woman he loved. So at the end, of course it would make sense that he goes back to her. But you can only do that if you completely divorce Endgame from its ten-year canon and in a franchise like this where they make a big deal about everything being interconnected, it simply doesn’t work. Steve’s story arc in Endgame is incongruous to the narrative arc we’ve been presented in previous films.

Ultimately, Endgame is a movie you’re supposed to watch once and then not think about again. It’s made for that first viewing when everything is shocking and exciting because if you stop to think about it even a little bit, it falls apart under scrutiny.

Finally, I think that the downfall of a lot of these ‘Steve’s ending makes sense’ posts is that made by people who are most certainly MCU fans but not Steve Rogers fans and it shows.

#in this essay i will #endgame wank #anti endgame #for the filters #steve rogers #my writing #because this i didn't spend my afternoon on this for nothing #marvel #stevie #angelblue007

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