#anyways i think ill manage to do this by putting off something i am able to do less like writing

[notachair]

I think... this puts to word some of what I felt was kinda of with how handled things. Some anyway. I've been trying to articulate what feels... off. It's rough so bear with me trying to untangle more of it... and I'm so sorry but this is a wall... on your post... tell me if you want me to make my own and just link to this instead.

When it comes to Jayce's little speech there's this line, as an example...

And what got me immediately here is... when have we really been shown that to be true, to "always" be true? I felt like this was an assumption put onto Viktor by the writers. Internalized ableism is a bitch, but I think they're doing a lot here with the implication of "always". Disabled folks all have our own journeys with it, but I don't think moments of falling prey to it- is something that should define his whole historic relationship to his disability. (Also one's allowed to vent about one's experiences with one's disability and the realities of how one's met with in the world, without it being taken as a diminishing of one's own worth.) And as you say, none of that really address the whys of the structural aspects affecting him both physically and mentally. Like (in regards to the internalized ableism) what is it that is constantly trying to make those shards of pain and inadequacy they'd put in him- to expand and consume, despite whatever fight he'd put up against it on either the internal or external front? And then there's also the difference between wanting to manage one's disability and... you know, hoping to cure one's *terminal* illness in fear of death's face.

I won't deny other disabled people feeling any comfort in those words. I do think there's something delicate and meaningful in having someone care for you and remind you of your worth when those shards, unwittingly or not, have spread and festered a wound in your self perception, because people keep saying it should be there and trying to create it if it's not. It's not that it can't be or isn't impactful, but... was that it? The big message? In combination with everything else, it felt more... preachy? And to a certain degree patronizing? The issue is that I felt *talked at* from someone's able-bodied* perspective. *Yes, even if Jayce no longer is non-disabled himself, that current commonality isn't emphasized, and even so- disabilities and disabled experiences aren't 1 = 1 (this applies to me too), never mind the *terminal* aspect, his leg's also an acquired disability.

Okay so what only ever Jayce apparently managed to have Viktor see, was essentially: "only you can show me that perfection perceived is not something worth seeking- an empty reward. There's beauty in imperfections", or something right? And his mode of attack was... that. Idk I am left unimpressed. I understand the point of putting value on perceived "imperfections", and that Viktor (could... actually... I had a whole section on internalized ableism I removed lol. But.)... that his disabilities could be and was perceived as "imperfections" within his new framework (btw, I saw him using the hexcore on his bad leg as a means to test out his chances for curing his terminal illness- 🤔 not really as a "I kinda just really wanted to cure my leg idk", and it would make for the most obvious results if it worked without messing with the vital organs of his torso, though he was only allowed to keep it for so long by that hexcore). But also, the philosophy he presents was more about than just his own disability or actual terminal illness (!!), it's about a flawed perspective on the general human condition, put to the extreme after Viktor became increasingly isolated (despite being surrounded by people mind and body, "we are one") and grew further detached, partly to the nature of his new existence* (*thoughts to be had here though, and also, whatever happened to the build up and clarification of to whatever degree the hexcore itself influenced him?).

Motive: on his desire to help others, emotionality.

A core part of Viktor's character is his desire to help and aid people, particularly those of the Undercity, and with Jayce it becomes about helping people through the science of hextech (a renewable and non-exhaustive energy source, I think there's a Point there) (tho I've gotta say... their presented products in S1Act2... can't say it's impossible for geniuses to be kinda dumb, it wasn't what I expected anyhow lmao). Act 3 Viktor, post-"imperfections of emotions and individual agency leads to pain and strife, as the other inextricably bound side of the coin = humanity's self-corrupting contradiction" conclusion, basically ended up out there trying to calculate himself to solving human suffering on an evolutionary level (truly Singed's apprentice that way), which was just eugenics in the end.

Even if that point of validation, of acceptance, is nice, especially when previously thought something forsaken to you... and despite what some would previously read/portray him within fandom- he DOES care about the interpersonal, like there's a reason he clings onto that goddamn tattered blanket 😭 And he continues to make a point of wanting Jayce by his side again in both act 2 and 3. But I still feel like it misses the "point" when the majority of the focus ends up on "you're doing this because of internalized ableism but I'm telling you that you matter actually, to me". I feel like it simplifies a lot to draw such conclusions of the matter, and make that the most effective point of "attack". I mean- seeing himself and what he was about to make the world into- kinda did after the mask broke a bit. But- other than Viktor's lines of "why do you persist? After everything I've done?", the "you were never broken" ends up defining this important built up scene. And I dislike this focus that completely overrides the structural issues involved, and basically works as a good-feel band-aid. I dislike the way Viktor's character motivation feels reduced to that point, with that "always" in particular, as well as the "only you" when that was the conviction made. Combating ableism 101.

Like I get he's attacking the personal projections that could drive the conviction, but he sorta kinda didn't hit all the marks there. Uh- not to say that I don't know he's just being sincere here as well, in expressing his care and love for Viktor. But I feel like it works as a deflection that shouldn't have been entirely effective on its own (yes the future-vision, but it's not emphasized in a way I'd like), story-wise anyway. I thought maybe they'd emphasize more on the emotional part, of his overall self-perception and of Viktor hurting (and not just in the "internalized ableism" way) despite however unaffected he might or might not seem (def not all gone). I can see Viktor in his state of upset and alienation of his body (and mind?)... see that hurt (grown from affection) as something, on a personal level, that holds or has held him back from actually follow up on those dreams of helping people (which become *that* in result). And with the access to the power that he has... conveniently think to attempt ridding himself of it, distancing himself, rather than process it. There's a certain... distancing happening just from that nature of having access to the experiences of so many people too, through that hivemind even if it's the most intimate thing as well and would stir a lot of emotion within him. And then there's him getting offed by Jayce in act 2 where he has his whole "two sides of the same coin" moment, and in the end, seeing "the glorious revolution" as a final calculated solution to strife (and- perhaps his own internal strife). There's something too to that "the line" sequence after being rejected in episode 8. But yea, there is a point here that could have been made in terms of valuing "imperfections" of the human condition, but it's... not really being made? "They're part of everything that makes you you, and everything that I admired about you" (paraphrasing), sure, but what about some emphasis on other things idk. He's more than that and all that, but I feel like they ironically made everything about his disabilities instead, and I'm dreading the state of readings and depictions🧍

(Btw on that note of "part of what makes you you", I did like that even the herald still had his braces and ect. fused to his body, and even glowing up in the astral plane. I liked that the ones that were "cured", was not left unmarked by the change. Of note- a lot of those people seemed to have had similar conditions to Viktor, in the sense that they affected the limbs. Pretty sure that one kid who led Jayce was the kid in a wheelchair beside Ekko in ep 7 when watching Heimerdinger's performance)

Also, I would... have liked... more of him taking a side with the Undercity though... and agency, non-agency, death, transformation…go rage some my guy 🔥

Motive: on Piltover / Zaun, the structural.

So on another point... a very important aspect here for Viktor IS that initial dream of theirs WITH the sociopolitical circumstances. Before all of the cult stuff, the main tension between Jayce and Viktor is the matter of the Undercity and how they're dealing with the hextech (I've kinda wanted to make a post about it). And similarly with catvi and the story otherwise, that element does not get as acknowledged, and it suffers for it. Their dynamic and history is not removed from its sociopolitical context. And there... is something to that shard of insecurity impacting him more than he'd thought. But what it comes back to- is the structural injustices he has been faced with both as disabled and a Zaunite/someone of the Undercity. Like his terminal illness was literally fucking because of the damn injustices Piltover inflicted upon them, majorly didn't care to fix and would punish people for protesting. And as I said, their common initial dream, was essentially about helping people through the science of hextech, like- people of the Undercity. Something which they failed to follow up on, and then Viktor was dying, accidentally involved Sky in his own risky business that resulted in her death and him getting suicidal, then- died from Jinx's attack- frankensteined in violation of his agency (!!!)- and then Viktor leaves Jayce *after seeing the hextech weapons plans* (double betrayal). And there really is something to Sky's significance here... But yea, Viktor leaves with a totem to those hopeful dreams, in order to try to help or aid people of the Undercity with the new abilities he had. Like he's not wrong for wanting to do that, I get why he'd just up and leave. His philosophy about things resulting into the idea of a "glorious evolution" to solve human strife and the details of those transformation do essentially just become eugenics in the end though (btw, whatever was their choices with "all those willing" to forceful turning...?).

I think there are ways they could have explored further nuances around all of this, but like with the other things, the journey was cut short and simplified. In a sense I'm glad he had more agency than people were speculating, but at the same time... And I think there is a Choice done in making Viktor's "glorious evolution" the bigger bad (together with Ambessa and whatever she was doing all of that for), AND that it served as a way to override majorly every other conflict by presenting a bigger bad for Zaun and Piltover to "unite against a common enemy" for. If they'd emphasized more on him being a reaction to those injustices, with a hexcore boost, to Piltover's structural injustices against the Undercity (which includes that social model of disability), then maybe it could work more. AND with it having a presence in the Viktor-Jayce confrontation/resolution. But it's more "both sides"-ing the issue, with its favour in Piltover's hands despite it all. And like- "I dreamt about giving magic to the people-" yes, but what was the reason why? I'll give him points for the "now" in "now I only want my partner back" anyhow. Idk, I don't see the disregard of the implicit "wanting to help people" part as a win. Though it's presented through the emphasis of "magic" which has been demonstrated as... sinister to a degree, but also... not? Potentially. But the magic was never THE issue.

Even on just the interpersonal level between the too (which it's not restricted to at all)- I, again, dislike this focus that completely overrides the structural issues, and works as a good-feel band-aid. It needs to extend further, and sure it does in a sense on the individual basis with his choice to stay with Viktor even when he gave him an out. But as an important message moment? It doesn't demonstrate enough to extend outside of it, because we don't see it applied in different contexts, like properly addressing his whys. And with Viktor's one line of "why do you persist? after everything I've done" "because I promised you"... it's not that what Viktor did and was about to do wasn't Fucked Up (and he was having a lot of guilt about accidentally having Sky killed, I can see him getting fixated on trying to "make up for" it somewhat after being brought back to life in his alienated body, and in a sense uh... overcompensating), but idk.. I wish there was something that extended Jayce's way too? That addressed those points of tension in their history? I am not a Jayce-hater, but I don't think he's an uncritical "hero" here. Viktor ends up having little voice at this level despite his speeches (we barely hear him talk after the mask fractured some). And the matter of his forceful transformation, is not really brought up other than potentially with "this chain of events, started with you" in that one council room confrontation. "I never asked for this!"- neither did he <3<3<3. Anyway.

THERE IS SO MUCH TO SAY. But I gotta round it up eventually, so I've cutting off all my other things that found its place on this reblog while I've had it in the drafts.

Agency, disability, biomechanics and transhumanism is a TOPIC though. A topic with many fine lines.

Thank you so much for incredible disability representation!! Huh? Uh, yeah, I guess it's okay that there's no acknowledgement of the social model of disability... Oh, our character's feelings about his body and the treatment he faced aren't really discussed in detail? I guess that's alright. 'You were never broken... there's beauty in imperfection... they made you who you are'? That could be appropriate given context, yeah! Oh, no? Not addressing his pain or the discrimination against him or the fact his disabling factors were preventable?

No acknowledgement of how the world should be made better and safer for people who actually have disabilities? Only a message of 'disabilities don't make you inherently broken' that feels aimed at abled folks? ...Okay.

Anyway... thank you for the incredible disability representation.

[kaetor]

like Eight posts sitting in my drafts and going nowhere because I cannot bring myself to image description them

[the-bonfires-ember]

ok so this has a lot of facets so bear with me. standard disclaimer that this is all based on my personal experiences as a narcissistic sociopath; im not a professional and i dont speak for everyone.

anyway.

firstly, yes we do. i think prosocials/egotypicals do it too to an extent but for different reasons and in different ways.

from an aspd perspective, i get annoyed at people and it is no longer to my benefit to stick around them, ill just disappear in a classic ghosting style. frankly i never get to this point anymore because ive managed to surround myself with people i very rarely if ever find annoying. in the past, when ive befriended people and then theyve frustrated me or ive just generally found them annoying for some reason, ive either slowly extricated myself if i could keep getting stuff out of the person or just totally destroyed the relationship so that they stopped reaching out and i could stop expending energy into dodging them. in my head if someone has pissed me off, it means that its going to keep happening and theyve just finally shown me their true colours so i might as well get out now or detach myself so im not going to emotionally invested enough to get annoyed again in the future. essentially this means i stop caring about them at all. as for how fear factors in; it goes a pretty long way back into people being fundamentally untrustworthy and only beneficial in as much as i can get from them. if im putting up with more than im getting out of it, id just walk away because everyone is out for themselves and of course that applies to me too. thats the way ive been taught the world works, and if im not getting any emotional backlash for doing that, why wouldnt i? it just makes sense. im fundamentally out for myself because no one else has been there to help when i needed them in the past.

from an npd perspective, if someones annoying me its likely because i am thinking of myself as being vastly superior to them and find the annoying quirks of them to be proof of their inferiority. the fact that theyve disagreed with me or fought me on something means they dont have the degree of respect and admiration for me that they should. this usually leads to me discarding them out of frustration and ill push them away by just showing less and less interest in them, or the ways i would that i mentioned above. the fear here, as you may be able to guess, is being wrong and being weaker/worse/unworthy. for me, being right and being more esteemed than my peers was a matter of survival in my childhood, and now if someone is starting to chip into the veneer or perfection ive built and maintained they have become a threat and i have to separate before they see too much and i lose everything.

now i dont know why you - orginal messager - asked this question, or why anyone else might be looking for this informatio. i can come up with a few guesses though, so im gonna add a couple things that applies to prosocials and other things that apply to antisocials and narcissists. but ill tuck that away so you can ignore my advice if you want to and just take the analysis.

prosocials - if you have a friend with either of these personality disorders and they are beginning to withdraw theres a choice before you. firstly, you can let them. you can recognise that this person doesnt want to associate with you anymore for whatever reason and allow yourself to be at peace with that. im sure it hurts, especially after what ive said about my reasons for doing this, but if you think you are better off just letting this one go, i support that and encourage you to just slip away with a clean break.

the other option you have, if you want to try your best to keep that person with you, is to address it plain as day. its uncomfortable, yes, but try not to be confrontational. a simple 'hey, ive noticed you distancing yourself and withdrawing and i wanted to check in and find out why and whether or not we can resolve this'. perhaps its cold of me to ask this of you, im not entirely certain one way or the other. but you deserve to try and make it work if thats what you want, and the only way that happens is by addressing the problems and really, truly understanding that the behaviours we exhibit come from a place of fear and the memory of pain. they are trauma disorders. and while trauma does not excuse harmful behaviours it does no one any favours to ignore that its the root of the problem. maybe your friend will brush you off, thats true. they might not be ready to look deeper and thats their right. at which point youve done all you can and now you need to prioritise yourself. but maybe youll make your friend reevaluate, maybe they want to heal. and you can be such a huge part of that by just asking the questions and really listening to the response. its hard work, i know, but i will always be so grateful for the people who made me stop and look at myself and really see.

the third choice is you pretend its not happening and just wait to see if they get past it and come back. they might, its not implausible, but to me this feels like inviting yourself to be treated poorly again later when symptoms flare again and those fears react to something you dont understand or know about.

pwASPD and/or NPD - im not going to try and tell you that you owe it to the people around you to recover. im never saying that. recovery is your decision and it should only be for you. i chose recovery because i wanted to see what i wasnt able to before, and it has been so fucking hard. but id do it again in a heartbeat. its important to note though that i got lucky. really really fucking lucky, and id be doing you a disservice if i pretended otherwise. on that note, here is my advice for those who want to get better and those who dont:

if you dont, if you dont want to see the fear that is reacting to the perceived threat, if its still too painful to look at, just dont. let yourself be blind to it and find comfort in the ways you can. its not cowardly, and its not pathetic. sometimes forcing yourself to stare into a fire is more damaging than its worth, and you are the only one who can decide if it is or not. only you know how close to that fire you are. perhaps its better to distance yourself from this person even if its just for now, or perhaps its better to leave entirely. it depends on how uncomfortable you feel. but i suggest figuring it out quickly and saving yourself the trouble that will come if you string someone along for too long. its always blown up in my face eventually, for what my experience is worth, so deciding on your next move sooner than later saves you a lot of trouble. but perhaps the perks are better than the blow up later on. who am i to say.

if you do want to recover though, firstly, give yourself some credit. the way you are reacting is because this has kept you alive and safe this long, dont let yourself forget that. you arent ridiculous or pathetic or cowardly or whatever else your brain might be saying you are. you are alive, and you are deciding to grow past your trauma and the responses youve learnt to cope with it and thats fucking huge. dont forget it. now the first thing you want to do is really look at what is making you uncomfortable. something is, but itll take some digging. these survival methods run deep, and tracing back to the root of the issue will take time and a lot of work and so much fucking courage. its not easy, im not going to lie, but you can do it. you are worth the time and the work it takes to get the things you want for yourself. find out whats messing with you and see how you can resolve it, either by discussing it with your friend and letting them support you or just rationalising it with yourself. understand that you are able to keep yourself safe, you just have to figure out what you are afraid of being vulnerable to. youre going to be ok, and for the record, im really proud of you.

obviously to everyone: do whatever the fuck you want to forever. im not here to tell you to change your entire life just because i say you should, even im not that egotistical. im just offering my experiences and observations, its up to you what you do with them.

[edupunkn00b]

Hey hey Edu! I am having a day™️today and I have been thinking about why it is so hard for me to reread "What Might Have Been", but not "The Uses of Adversity"

Buckle up, there are spoilers for anyone who somehow has not read those masterpieces already

So, I think, I figured out my difficulty with WMHB is that at the core, I can barely cope with how much Remus spirals in that fic. The way he loses his grasp on himself more and more, the way his mind offers him another reality to deal with the how his life is getting out of order just- it did blindside me. Not because it's unrealistic or because you wrote it badly.

I think it just took me so off-guard after reading Happily Ever After where Remus, may have struggled but ended up helping Logan so often. Like, there is this underlying strength in his character that I adored. This hope and playfulness that never seized to show up.

And then he falls apart. It all falls apart and shatters. And I know that people do that. I know that characters do that and that it creates so much more interesting stories.

Later in different tidbits you show us how Remus was, versions of Remus and how he self-destructed before. You showed us better versions of himself, where he gets help earlier, chooses different paths, is able to choose different paths.

So it makes sense that he spirals, gets worse than ever before.

It just hurts so much because to me, it felt like he had it already. It felt like he was out of the woods. It felt like he had gotten better and was stronger than this. But the problem is that healing isn't linear. Sometimes you don't heal at all. Sometimes you just deal with the chipped state you're in.

And I think that was the thing that hurt. That Remus wasn't broken, but chipped. He seemed fine. He seemed to be doing well, to adjust, to grow. But he wasn't really broken, he was just chipped. He is chipped. And that is not something to be fixed but to be dealt with. And it's exhausting and tiresome if you don't know how to do it or have lost the motivation to do it.

But in TUoA we have Logan. And this version of Logan, who has suffered so much and is hurt and fearful and so very much in pain is less painful for me to see than WMHB Remus could ever be. Because that Logan has been broken. That Logan has been irreparably changed and will never be the same again.

And yet. And yet he gets the chance to become someone new. He gets the chance to be put back together in a new way. He gets to have Roman by his side, who looks at his broken pieces with love and care and is with him anyway.

And I think that hit less hard than what happened with Remus and feels more hopeful to me even though I understand that there is much more to come for Logan in that universe. But maybe, he'll be spared to have his son admitted to a mental hospital. Maybe he'll he spared to see his love fall apart because of something he couldn't have.

Maybe at least this portion of his life ends up being gentler than what WMHB would have given him.

Yeah.

I am very normal about your fics.

Kudos.

First of all, all the hugs in the world for you, Eir <3. You are beautiful inside and out and I hope you know that your stories touch me in so many of the same ways you're describing. (Most especially Life on Crow Avenue and Words Are Hard.) <3

I first read your note last night and had to sit with it because you're right, at the core of Remus' journey in What Might Have Been is the terrible truth that mental illness doesn't just go away. It can be managed to varying levels but it won't ever simply 'heal' like a cold or a broken leg. It's always there with us.

That was a difficult lesson for me to learn and one I'm probably still learning. I knew it intellectually but there have been times when life decided I needed to really learn it.

So many of us are those chipped cups, sitting on a shelf or serving some purpose. Just like those chipped cups, some of us break more easily than someone who has never been cracked and we do require extra care.

When I wrote Happily Ever After, I intended it to be a fairy tale. A fantasy, my fantasy, of what my life could have been like had I had friends like Janus and Roman in my life during my darkest times. Of how much stronger and better I could be if I'd had the support they gave him over the years.

I structured it like a fairy tale, took every chapter title from the first line of famous books. Logan started the story sad but unbroken, still surrounded by love and support. He ended the story discovering what I discovered about my self, ended the story with love for him and promising futures for his children. It was my dream fairy tale ending.

And it was completely unrealistic.

After sitting with the story for bit, I wanted to see how that might have actually happened, what a real ending to Logan's story might have been like, because if I could make Logan's fairy tale ending more realistic, I could make it realistic for me, too. That if in the more realistic version when Remus couldn't just bounce back again this time, if in even that version, he and Logan (and Janus and Roman and all of them) could still find a happy ending, I knew I could, too.

The Uses of Adversity is the same tale but backwards. What could possibly lead Logan to a happy ending when he started without Janus as a friend? The first part of TUoA, It Could Always Be Worse was very dark and was nearly even darker. I wasn't sure how it would end until I got to the last chapter. The original tags included an "author chose not to use Archive warnings" tag because that story nearly ended very differently.

Strangely, The Uses of Adversity, as straightforward as Logan and Roman's love story was, was much harder to write than WMHB or any of the other tales.

I hope that for every person who can't ever go back to WMHB, there's a person who reads it and can see that happy endings aren't just for fairy tales. That we can go through it all and still find a way to happiness in the end. That, chipped and broken and spiraling, there's always another chance for us to pick ourselves up or to allow ourselves be picked up, and keep on going toward a place of warmth and joy.

No matter what we've been through, it's never too late to build joyful connections with other people. It's never too late for a happy ending.

[fanfic-phoenix]

QuinObi Week 2023, Day 5 - Author!AU

Rating: Gen

Word Count: 910

Read on AO3

“Correct.”  Obi-Wan’s smile turned into a grin, and he held out a… something.  “Have a torch.”

“How do you think they’ve set us up?”

The man at the table next to Quinlan’s startled, head jerking as if coming out of a trance.  It was dull enough right now to put anyone to sleep, but Quinlan still felt a slight flash of guilt.

“Sorry?” said the man.

“It’s not by genre.”  Quinlan gestured to his own noir-style detective/spy fare, and then to the man’s own grisly looking covers.

The man smiled.  “Assuredly not.  Perhaps alphabetically?”

“Vos, Quinlan,” he said.

“Ah.  Kenobi, Ben.  Or rather, Obi-Wan.”  Ben or rather Obi-Wan smiled.  “If you can guess which is the pen name, you can have one of the very strange merchandise… things that Mr Palpatine has lumbered me with.”

“Ben.”

“Correct.”  Obi-Wan’s smile turned into a grin, and he held out a… something.  “Have a torch.”

Quinlan took it, inspected it, and raised an eyebrow.  “Is it plot relevant?”

“No.  Not a single torch is mentioned.  I was trying my hand at Sci-Fi; everything’s bioluminescent.”

He clicked the button a few times.  “Does it even work?”

“I don’t think so.  I haven’t managed it.”

“Wow.”

“Indeed.”

Republic Books was underfunded, even by Indie standards, but this was rather pushing it.  Quinlan shook his head.  “Honestly, sometimes I think he wants us to fail.”

Obi-Wan hummed.  “I confess he’s never seemed particularly enthusiastic about books.  Or writing.  Or people.”

“Or anything.”

They both laughed, a little hollow, and glanced as one to the clock.

“I’m scheduled for another six hours,” Quinlan said.

“I’m afraid I am, too.”  Obi-Wan sighed, stretched his neck until it popped.  “My brother is bringing coffee in one hour.”

“My sister’s doing the same.  And some biscuits.”

Obi-Wan nodded appreciatively.  “Very wise.  I take it this isn’t your first rodeo?”

“No,” he said.  “The third.  Maybe fourth.  You?”  He dismissed his next line as too much, then said it anyway.  “I’d definitely remember seeing you here.”

“Flatterer,” Obi-Wan said.  He did not sound disapproving.  “This is my first.  I’ve been able to beg off on account of my father before.  He was ill, but now he’s better.”

“You could lie.”

“I could,” Obi-Wan said, “but then I wouldn’t have been here to talk to you, and that would be a shame.”

“Flatterer,” Quinlan said.

Time ticked on.  Visitors were few and far between, and usually more interested in the other authors scattered about the hall.

“Master Yoda has a new philosophy book out,” Obi-Wan said as another three people walked by without acknowledging either of them.  “I imagine most people are here for him.”

“Maybe,” Quinlan said.  “But I think Mace Windu has a new play.”

“Mace has a play out?”  Obi-Wan tutted.  “He might have told me.”

“You know him?”

“Since childhood; he’s friends with my father.”

“Nice.”  Quinlan may or may not have been a dedicated follower of Mace Windu’s work and may or may not have owned a copy of every play, but he wasn’t going to admit it now, when he was fairly sure he was flirting.  Semi-successfully, too.  “Do you want to swap books?”

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow.

“We both have plenty spare.”

“True.”  He seemed to be considering it.  “Alright.”

Obi-Wan’s book was good.  Very good.  It had an easy sort of prose Quinlan would ordinarily race through, and the descriptions were vivid without lagging.  The problem, unfortunately, was that Ben Kenobi was a prolific and celebrated horror writer, and Quinlan Vos was allergic to horror.

He cleared his throat.  “It’s good.”

“Hm?”  Obi-Wan blinked at him, then smiled, focussing.  “Sorry.  I was just at the part where he discovers the true identity of the informant.”

Quinlan gaped.  “That’s almost halfway through.”

Obi-Wan blushed lightly.  “It’s compelling.  In fact I…”  He pursed his lips, then pushed on.  “I’m afraid I race through almost all of your books.”

“You what?”

“You heard me,” he said with a sniff.  “Anyway, I suggest we trade back.  I can see you flinching from here.”

“Sorry-”

“Don’t be.  I take utter fear as a complement.”  He smiled, as if to prove that he really wasn’t offended.  “I just don’t see the point in extending your suffering.”

“It is good,” he said, “but let’s get back to the fact I’m apparently sitting next to a super fan.”

Obi-Wan snorted.  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“So you’re not a fan?”

Obi-Wan Kenobi - excellent writer, apparently not a super-fan, and Quinlan’s crush for all of forty minutes - flicked him a supremely dry look.  “If I take an early lunch and kiss you stupid for the twenty minutes it takes our siblings to bring coffee, will you hush about my literary tastes?”

Quinlan just about choked on his tongue.  “I-  Yes?  Yeah.  Definitely.”

“Wonderful.”  He placed an almost disturbingly cheerful Back Soon! sign on his table.  “Come on then.”

He hurried after him into the dark corner of the staircase behind the Staff Only banner.  “This is the first time anyone’s kissed me just to shut me up.”

“I’m kissing you because you’re hot and good company,” Obi-Wan corrected.  “Shutting you up is a side effect.”

“Oh,” he said.

“And if you’re amenable,” Obi-Wan continued, “I’ll take you to dinner once we’re no longer contractually obliged to remain in the building.”

“I’m amenable,” he said.

“Good.”  Obi-Wan nodded in a self-satisfied sort of way, and set to the business of kissing him silly.

It was, in Quinlan’s opinion, the best publicity event he’d ever been forced into.

Tagging: @quinobiweek

Thanks for a great week!!

[lostinfantasyworlds]

Life Update

Heyyyy it’s been a while! I never really expect anyone to notice when I fuck off for long periods of time, but in case you did and happened to be wondering why I was mostly MIA for most of 2023, here's what I've been up to.

The short version: My husband and I sold our first house over the summer and bought our “forever” home! It worked out so much better than I could have hoped, but it turns out that prepping a house to sell and moving = lots of stress and chaos...which caused me to tumble off the deep end mentally for a while afterwards and I’m only just starting to recover.

---

Before I elaborate, I feel like I have to give a disclaimer because the last thing I want is to come across like I'm complaining or ungrateful. I'm very aware of how lucky and privileged I am to be a homeowner, so I am by no means asking for sympathy or trying to act like "buying/selling a house is so stressful, woe is me!" I understand that homeownership is a pipe dream for a lot of people, especially in the current economy, and I don't take that for granted. I'm genuinely grateful that I even have the opportunity to be stressed about something like this, but I can't deny that it was stressful.

If anyone is wondering how I managed to buy a house at all, I'm happy to answer that in a separate post. The abridged version is extremely lucky timing plus countless hours of hard work put into fixing up our first house that we bought for cheap back when the market was way more balanced (2016).

When I talk about the stress of last year, it's almost entirely in regards to my own mental health which is something I've always struggled with. I get overwhelmed VERY easily by regular life, let alone when I go through a major change (no matter how positive it is). Every big transition period in my life has triggered intense anxiety disorders and/or depression for me, so that's the main reason why things felt so difficult.

If you happen to be thinking something along the lines of "shut the fuck up, no one cares you were stressed, you're so privileged to even be able to own a house," ...believe me, I've already said to myself a million times. That is part of why I end up so depressed in the first place, because I feel like I “don’t have the right” when my life is so wonderful. But thanks to therapy I understand more about my mental illnesses and I'm trying to be less hard on myself now.

Still, I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea 😅.

---

Anyways! If you want to know more about our house/see some pics, the long version with all of my rambling is below the cut!

The long version:

My husband and I bought our first house in 2016, right after getting married. It was conveniently located right across the street from where we had been living with 4 of our friends (which is how we were able to save enough money to buy a house), but it was in such bad condition that it didn't even meet the FHA minimum property standards so we had to use a special type of mortgage to purchase it. We always meant for it to a long-term flip, planning to live there while renovating it so that we could sell it after a few years and use the profit to buy a house that would be more permanent.

We put so much literal blood sweat and tears into that house. In the beginning we spent every single hour of our spare time fixing up the house. We do all renovation work ourselves because my dad and husband have experience with demolition, electrical, and plumbing. And anything we don't know how to do we just figure out as we go along. The only time we hired a contractor was to replace the roof that had extensive water damage.

(This is the water damage discovered down the whole back of the house a few weeks after we bought it 🙃)

(One before-and-after out of many to avoid making this post absurdly long. The contractors finished the ceiling when they did the roof but otherwise we did all the work on that bathroom ourselves, including moving the shower wall back 6 inches so that the shower door wasn't mounted to the window trim 🤦🏻‍♀️)

Over a few years we worked on remodeling each room until we eventually we got super burnt out, and then the pandemic happened and we both fell into a deep depression. Finally, in 2022 I got myself a therapist and started clawing myself out of the dark place I was in, and at the start of April 2023 we started prepping the house to sell. I had been watching the market steadily increase to absolutely insane levels and knew it was kind of a “now or never” situation, even though I still felt very fragile mentally so I was worried how I would handle such a large undertaking.

I never could have imagined just how amazing it would turn out. We truly couldn't be happier with our new home, it’s pretty much everything we were hoping for and I still can’t believe how lucky we are to have gotten it. I was prepared to have a hard time finding an affordable house. I had heard of all kinds of horror stories and the crazy competition going on in the market was intimidating. I thought we were gearing up for the long haul, and prepared myself for a lot of disappointment. Our house was the first house we put an offer on (the third one we looked at in person) and we somehow got it! It’s insane, I'm so fucking grateful.

The only catch is that it's a lot more of a fixer upper than we had originally planned on buying. I didn’t think that we would ever buy another house that required as much renovation as our first one did, because that shit was intense and we are now in our 30s and very tired 😂. But our new house has so many features that were on our “would-love-to-have-but-probably-won't-find-in-this-economy” list like laundry upstairs and an attached garage (also a pond??!?! We have a fucking pond and I love it so so much🥹). So we knew we could turn it into a home we’d love spending our lives in if we put in the work. Plus it was actually well below our budget (probably because of the condition it was in).

We decided to offer what we were willing to pay, which was well above asking but we still didn't think we'd have a chance because the market is so competitive. I don’t know if our real estate agent just worked some magic (she was amazing), but we were genuinely stunned when she told us we got the house.

(Our beautiful pond🥹 🥰)

After that, things moved SO fast. The timing made it overlap with the prepping/listing of our first home, which was really stressful to juggle all at once on top of our full time jobs. I thought selling was going to be the easy part since the market is so skewed towards sellers right now. And it did go amazingly well once we listed (64 showings and 12 offers in one weekend, fucking nuts?!?!!), but the months leading up to listing the house were CRAZY. I knew it would be a lot of work to prep the house since we had a bunch of unfinished projects, 4 open permits with the town that we needed to get closed, and had accumulated so much shit over the years, but I definitely underestimated how intense it would be, especially with the overlap of buying our new house. I had used up all of my PTO for the year by June in order to deal with house things and felt like I was constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown. I pushed myself way past my limits and knew I would pay for it eventually.

But we made it through the chaos and officially moved in July. Let me just say that I hope I never have to move again😵‍💫. It was 90+ degrees (F), 95% + humidity that weekend, and then POURING rain on the day of the move🙃. But other than that, everything went pretty smoothly! After a couple weeks of getting settled and sleeping in the living room, we started on the renovations in early August.

(Before and after of our living room that we are using as a hobby room for D&D, music, art, etc I love it so much!)

(Before and after of the downstairs bedroom which we use as our office)

We remodeled two whole rooms in about 6 weeks, which was wayy too much. We had been going nonstop since April and by the time we got to October, I hit a wall. Because my mental health was incredibly fragile to begin with, surprise surprise I ended up stuck in another bout of horrific burnout-fueled depression for a solid 2+ months after we finally paused to take a break. I've struggled with my mental health since I was a teenager, having periods of depression, panic disorder, and GAD on and off. Also over the past year, I’ve started to suspect that I may have undiagnosed ADHD so there's a lot going on with my brain. I've always been a very sensitive person, and my mental health is the first thing to suffer if I don't take care of myself.

I started feeling a bit better in December, but then things got crazy again with work and the holidays, so I ended up back in burnout land yet again. Now I think I'm finally starting to truly recover as I enter the slow season at work. We are easing back into renovations but I've been trying to take it as easy on myself as possible to avoid falling back into that dark place, which is why you haven't seen much of me on tumblr. It bums me out, and I often feel frustrated with my own limitations when I see everyone posting and chatting and creating and I want so badly to join in, but I sadly just haven't had it in me for a long time. But I'm still lurking and forever obsessed with InuKag and hope to be recovered enough to participate in fandom stuff more soon!

I've still been writing and drawing here and there whenever I get a bit of inspiration. I actually just finished an Inuyasha redraw that I'll be posting soon! I've also been writing a lot more recently, or at least thinking a lot about my WIPs😂. The main one I've been working on is If It Kills Me, which I am dying to share with you all. But it's a mystery/thriller/actiony type of story with plot points that still need to be figured out, so once those pieces fall into place I will hopefully be able to wrap it up. I'm going to be working on it a lot in February, so we'll see what happens.

I would love to share my other main WIP The First and Last this summer (since it's a summer-based story), but we'll see how things go. The next major renovation project is the kitchen 😵‍💫, so fandom things might have to sadly take a backseat again during that. But I'll still be lurking here and missing you all! ❤️

[darkfire359]

Thoughts on e8-e10 of The Terror

(The final entry in my posting saga)

I went in expecting expecting literally everyone to die on this "doomed" expedition. So in that sense, Crozier and Silna surviving meant that things weren't as bad as they could have been. But also... holy shit, Jopson's death was heartbreaking. The fact that he didn't know what happened to Crozier and so he thought he'd been abandoned by his captain was so incredibly tragic. And undeserved! Like I'd argue that Jopson probably dies in a worse way than basically anyone else in the series (maaaaybe not Sir John, but Sir John also got some karmic retribution for disrespecting Silna's dad and for putting everyone's lives at risk). So WHY did Johnson have to die alone, in pain, and thinking he'd been left behind by the man he cared about most? I am so upset by this.

Thoughts on some other deaths:

Goodsir's was not as sad for me when it happened—he at least got to kind of choose how it happened, and it seemed like he'd at least accomplish saving Crozier. Ultimately it seemed like it didn't do that much though, and Silna's reaction to seeing his body was also heartbreaking.

Fitzjames's was sad, but in a more heartwarming way? At least he got to die with someone he cared about next to him. I definitely understand people shipping Crozier/Fitzjames now.

Gibson's death I think I had spoiled a while ago, so my main takeaway was that it was less gay than I expected. Like, it was still reasonably gay, but I expected it to be very gay. The thing that gets me is that I'm not sure whether or not Hickey did it out of love (Goodsir had just explained to Gibson that he was going to die from illness eventually but that he would suffer PAINFULLY first) or pragmatism, because Hickey wasn't in the tent when Goodsir gave the diagnosis. Did he overhear it and want to keep Gibson from suffering? Or was it actually just that Goodsir said that Gibson couldn't haul? Characters having already canonically fucked does NOT stop me from wanting to analyze the homoeroticism of their subsequent scenes.

I feel like the Crozier/Fitzjames death scene and the Hickey/Gibson one were explicit parallels of each other, given that Crozier also mercy killed Fitzjames (massaging the poison down his throat) and Fitzjames tried to get Crozier to eat him. TBH I kind of feel like Crozier should have indeed done so—given that Team Hickey ended up finding Fitzjames's body anyway, it's likely that he got eaten regardless. Surely one wouldn't want other men to be the ones to eat their boyfriend, right? (Relatedly, Fitzjames saying "Use my body!" also sent my mind in directions away from the seriousness of the scene.)

Speaking of scenes where someone sadly and homoerotically holds their BF, the Bridgens/Peglar stuff was also sad and sweet. Probably if I rewatch the series and actually pay attention to them more earlier, it would be even more so.

Now I'm sad about Jopson's death again because he was all alone and abandoned. :'(

Also it's sad that Little died without ever being able to tell Crozier that he TRIED to rescue him. I initially thought that Crozier legitly wanted the men to go south, so the fact that he'd been misleading Team Hickey and had actually been counting on Little to rescue him was tragic.

Blanky’s death seemed like the happiest—he got to finally discover the Northwest Passage, while wearing his WTF fork outfit. Good for him, that badass deserved something cool.

My friend that I was watching with hates Hickey now and so was happy when he died. I was fully expecting Hickey's crazy murder schemes to come up at some point and so my opinion on Hickey didn't change that much. I do think it would have felt weird for the plot to *not* have Hickey die though.

Speaking of Hickey, some obligatory Hickeyposting:

I love how he somehow manages to be comic relief in addition to being the primary villain. I laughed my ass off at the reveal that he murdered a guy and stole his identity completely unnecessarily, out of a mistaken impression he'd get to summer in the Caribbean. Also the scene where he started singing while all of his men were panicking about the Tuunbaq was black comedy hilarious.

Way before this episode, I saw some shots of him with a noose around his neck. I assumed I'd been spoiled for his death scene. Then I saw those shots tagged as being from e8, and I figured that I probably hadn't been. I was correct! (Later I got spoiled on the real death.)

Crazy as he is, I feel like he had to have been like, "Wow, um, okay," when Crozier's approach to cannibalism was to cut off and eat Goodsir's raw, calloused, foot skin.

I didn't initially appreciate how TINY he is. There was a scene where he was standing in between Gibson and someone else and he was just soooo much shorter than both of them. So brave of the creators to canonically make him a top.

I expected him to kill more people. I think Gibson might have even been the only person he *directly* murdered in these three episodes? He definitely caused quite a lot of trouble though.

I think I got trolled into thinking that the Tunbaaq would die from choking on Hickey's evil evil soul, rather than choking on a literal chain. Whoops.

I was surprised that Hickey didn't bring up more audience-compelling points during his hanging speech. Or maybe I was surprised that Crozier was as straightforwardly good as he turned out to be? I think it might've been cool if Hickey had been able to call out Crozier on real flaws, rather than mistakenly interpreting his plan to resign and lead a team south as something selfish.

[which-hospital]

And Another One - Casualty Hiatus Thoughts - 2/?

I'm still ill but I went into uni anyway like the brave little soldier that I am! (Every night, I decide that all the work that I need to do can be done “tomorrow” but we’re rapidly running out of those until the deadlines. I have lost my train pass and student ID. All I’ve listened to all day is the demo version of Geyser by Mitski. Vague sense of doom.) I got myself some Tesco Finest cookies on the way home. I’m just complaining here. 

I'm back for more already, seems like I've opened the floodgates but this one won't be as lengthy as the other one was. Genuinely sorry I can’t shut up. I thought I was done for a while but I put an episode from series 36 on in the background thinking that I'd be able to do stuff while it played but got distracted by my opinions.

Potentially all over the place again, though this one does manage to be mostly about the series 36 mother-hell storylines. So there's a theme. Warning - I started going off about Dark Room which has a lot of transphobia in it and that’s part of what I talked about.

I really don’t know how I feel about the resolutions of Sah and Teddy’s storylines with their mums. Okay, we already know I'm about to be going on about Sah and Teddy's mother problems storylines but I'm sure there are other characters who this is/isn't applicable to - feel free to let me know about it. As a recap: it’s kind of hard for me to figure out how to describe exactly what happens at the end of Friends Like These, but if anyone has ever seen that quote that’s like “I tried to ask my parents to leave the room, but not my life”, Teddy asks Gaynor to leave the room and she leaves his life. A couple months later a patient situation causes Teddy to call his mum (and that is not brought up again when he gets trapped in a mine in the next episode) and also we are left to assume that all is fine now. Pretty simplistically, in Enough, Sah and Jools talk it out after Kevin has another stroke and then they are also just portrayed as being okay forever by the end of that episode. 

I can absolutely believe that these characters, sad and work-stressed and not always the most emotionally mature, would forgive their mothers. I don’t even disagree with it happening on a story level because I think it could make for a really good development in those stories, or even just a less-than-happy ending. What I don’t enjoy is how these endings are presented as being happily-ever-afters and that everything is supposed to be fine now because they’ve forgiven/reconciled with their mothers who haven’t really done anything to deserve it. Jools is objectively neglectful, and telling Sah they were always enough does not make up for that. I think Gaynor’s behaviour is emotionally abusive; she’s controlling his life, emotionally manipulating him, she’s trying to even limit his contact with people other than her (and she has been doing this, he “wasn’t allowed friends”). Unless I'm wrong, we don’t see or hear from Gaynor at all between Friends Like These and We Need To Talk About Ollie. I don’t doubt they love their kids but that doesn’t make them good parents, and it’s not on their kids to be doing the work to improve the relationships. If we’re getting these forgiveness endings then Jools and Gaynor need to put more effort into proving they’ve changed. Or (and I'd probably find this more interesting cause I'm mean). Forgiveness needs to be presented as something that isn’t this simple happy ending because it doesn't feel like that in these circumstances. I respect the potential misery of the undeserved forgiveness, I love misery for them, especially when they’re both in mother-hell together, I am mean. But if you want to give them a happily-ever-after, keep them away from their mothers or make their mothers do the work. 

They make Sah be the bigger person way too much, actually. In Dark Room, why does Sah have to be nice to Scott when Scott deserves to get re-beaten to a pulp? I don’t care that his mum is also terrible. Not only did he bully them when they were teenagers, he tried to ruin their whole life as a fully grown adult. Their mum is terrible as well and you don’t see them acting like that. They don’t need to be the bigger person and try to help Scott and his also terrible mother, they need a weapon of mass destruction. Also, why is Sah’s deadname used so excessively in series 36? Or at all? Ever? I’m sure there were ways around the audience ever needing to actually know what it was, even if they felt like the story required the implication of characters using it. Another potential Casualty hot take, maybe? I don't think Sah's dad is all that great of a parent either. Obviously it is entirely Jools' fault that Sah has to be his carer at such a young age, he had no control over that and Jools is definitely the worse parent, but getting back with Jools without telling Sah, cancelling plans with Sah to go on dates with Jools, excusing Jools’ pretty transphobic remarks and acting like Sah has to forgive Jools because he has really isn’t great. They were right when they said “it’s not just you she left”. IT’S! NOT! JUST! KEVIN! SHE! LEFT! It annoys me that Casualty is like ‘this action will have consequences’ about that scene because Sah is right. The only person I truly like from Sah’s pre-joining-Casualty life is Bill Phillipsen (and his dead wife) and he died. I knew you very briefly/not at all but I miss you Bill and Jean <\3

This post is absolutely the post for me to start getting into the connections between the mother-hell storylines but I won’t in full. They are kind of this pair of opposites, not just on this wider level of overinvolved mother vs uninvolved mother, there are a lot of patterns I’ve noticed in the episodes and the dialogue. I’d find them all now but it's 2am and I need to be awake at 8am at the latest so I’m putting off compiling that list for another day. Some faves that I can remember off the top of my head: opposite Jan advice scenes, Gaynor really struggling to say she’s proud of Teddy even though he really wants her to while one of the first things Jools tries to say to Sah is that she’s proud of them and they tell her not to, “you won’t see me back if I go” vs “I’m back now if it’s not too late”. I really like these connections, that's why I'm so passionate about what I don't agree with in these storylines.

I didn't mention this in my last post but I got my hands on a bootleg of The Play That Goes Wrong with Milo Clarke as Max and it's very enjoyable. I've been meaning to watch TPTGW at least since I watched both series of the show, probably longer, and I succumbed to the Casualty brainrot and and had to see his version. All I'll say: He really knows how to play aunt based nepotism and situations that could be solved with polyamory.

Based on when one of the episodes is set to air, I don’t think we’ll see Casualty back until about December 30th, unless we are gonna have another break between episodes once it comes back. I don’t really care that much and also, Christmas/New Years episode? The most recent Christmas episode was that one where they were like “what if it was last year?” back in 2021 and that’s always been a weird choice to me. I just want a silly little festive one, normal Casualty episode featuring carol singing and tinsel and the implication of a really intense staff party (we will never get the Sah/Teddy Christmas party of my dreams, not this year cause they’re in the current situation, not last year cause no Christmas episode and also the stuff with Jan was happening then, not the year before…). The only thing that bothers me about the hiatus is the inevitable time skip, so much time will have elapsed in universe by the time it comes back so I feel like we will have missed a lot of the immediate aftermath of stuff that happened at the end of Driving Force.

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World! Chapters 52: There Is Neither Beginning Nor End & 53: The Wheel Turns

Spoiler alert: This is the end of the book, so if you haven't finished reading it yet, there's certainly spoilers ahead. I also went ahead and spoiled the rest of the series as a treat.

Chapter 52 has the trefoil leaves chapter icon, a symbol of how winter is over and spring has come at last, here on... May 9th. Yeah that's gonna cause some problems later.

Light. That should mean something. Thought was a new thing. I can think. I means me.

René Descartes doesn't really seem like a potential candidate for a past life of Rand in the same way that Yeshua of Nazareth (the subtext is screamingly obvious), Arthur Wellesley (no seriously, this one is canon, wait for it), or Volodymyr Zelenskyy (improbable leader with a blonde wife named Olena) are, but it's not impossible either and kind of funny! What better reason for headcanons?

With an effort he fumbled his sword from its scabbard. Only a few ashes remained from the red cloth.

This bodes poorly for Morgase - Rand might like a few members of the current world order and respect leaders who ascended lawfully and rule justly, but even they have to be replaced as a part of his embracing his destiny.

Egwene. He broke into a shambling run. Leaves and flower petals showered around him as he blundered through the undergrowth. Have to find her. Who is she?

If I was skilled enough, I could absolutely extract an essay about how these five sentences cover so much of the endgame of the series, but alas I am very rusty. Nonetheless, it's very significant that she is the first name that comes to mind as Rand recovers from his head trauma.

A pretty girl looked up with big eyes from where she knelt beneath the spreading branches, flowers in her hair, and brown oak leaves. She was slender and young, and frightened.

I can't tell if it's the head trauma or the denial he already had, but either way it's very impressive that Rand continuously acknowledges that all three of the women are deeply uncomfortable being around a man who just channeled at a scale unseen in millennia without ever processing why that might be.

In the Age of Legends, Aginor was close behind the Kinslayer and Ishamael in power.

In one of the deepest tragedies of the Breaking, while all the libraries were put to the torch, Buzzfeed's archives survived long enough for Aes Sedai to be able to study articles about Top 10 Channelers Who Might Kill Us All Without Noticing During This New and Horrifying War.

“The Dark One,” the Aes Sedai cut him off. Ill or not, her voice was firm, and her dark eyes commanding. “Best we still call him the Dark One. Or Ba’alzamon, at least.” He shrugged. “As you wish. But he’s dead. The Dark One’s dead. I killed him. I burned him with. . . .” The rest of memory flooded back then, leaving his mouth hanging open. The One Power. I wielded the One Power. No man can. . . .

Lews's fatal flaw of pride comes out most strongly when Rand is channeling or in its afterglow. Shepherd Rand would never have thought, if you'd asked, that anyone could channel enough power to kill the Dark One, even if it looked like it.

“I had suspicions from the first,” Moiraine said.

I dunno Moiraine, I really feel like you're choosing your words carefully to hide the fact that you were pretty up in the air about it the whole damn time.

He shivered. He felt so cold his fingers hurt. “If I never do it again, if I never touch it again, I won’t. . . .” He could not say it. Go mad. Turn the land and people around him to madness. Die, rotting while he still lived. “Perhaps,” Moiraine said.

I mean, she's choosing her words carefully everywhere else. In this case, "perhaps" means, "I can't literally say it's impossible because maybe somewhere in all of human history one person managed to resist channeling, but I so strongly believe it's impossible that I really want to say it anyway."

His throat constricted until he could hardly breathe. Will they turn their faces the way Egwene did? Will they scream and run away like I’m a Fade? Moiraine spoke as if she did not notice the blood draining from his face.

It says a lot about the friendships Rand has that absolutely none of this crew does abandon him. They're a bit distant, but it's Rand who really pushes the others away in the immediate future.

Moiraine continues to be a bad mentor here, ignoring Rand's obvious emotional distress to try and push him along the path of prophecy. For all that she really is one of the best Aes Sedai, the fact that in just a little bit she's going to be describing him as a tool to be used (and not explicitly denying Rand's metaphor of being thrown in the trash afterward) shows a lot of where her headspace is at. Rand needs to fulfill the prophecies, seal the Dark One, break as little of the world as possible along the way, and then bleed out so that the adults can take back over once the Last Battle is done. She isn't malicious in this perspective; she just has spent so long dedicating her whole self to the cause that she's forgotten that once upon a time she herself was just a young woman who didn't know what destiny had in store for her and what she'd be giving up to save the world.

“A tool made for a purpose is not demeaned by being used for that purpose,” Moiraine’s voice was as harsh as his own, “but a man who believes the Father of Lies demeans himself. You say you will not be used, and then you let the Dark One set your path like a hound sent after a rabbit by his master.”

And like, I don't blame her for being harsh here - like Rand, she's just had a hella traumatic experience after two straight months of misery and anyway her argument itself is quite sound - but she is the adult in the room and Rand's being given the worst news imaginable. Her refusal or inability to be kinder in this moment and try to deescalate is really the moment that Rand shifts from seeing Moiraine as a potentially untrustworthy individual who is nonetheless worth putting faith in to being the dangerous trickster figure who only wants to parade him around as her puppet.

“So you’re alive after all.” Mat laughed. His face darkened, and he jerked his head at Moiraine. “She wouldn’t let us look for you. Said we had to find out what the Eye was hiding. I’d have gone anyway, but Nynaeve and Egwene sided with her and almost threw me through the arch.”

Hell, let's look at these three paragraphs in a bit of detail: here's where Mat's testimony shows that Moiraine is manipulating the situation and separating him from his best friends (and that she's won over Nynaeve and Egwene in the process).

“You’re here, now,” Perrin said, “and not too badly beaten about, by the look of you.” His eyes did not glow, but the irises were all yellow, now. “That’s the important thing. You’re here, and we’re done with what we came for, Whatever it was. Moiraine Sedai says we’re done, and we can go. Home, Rand. The Light burn me, but I want to go home.”

Here's where Perrin confirms that Moiraine intends this separation to be permanent: the other two boys aren't channelers so she's willing to let them go if they want - and Rand has no reason to think they won't be leaving soon enough anyway.

“Good to see you alive, sheepherder,” Lan said gruffly. “I see you hung onto your sword. Maybe you’ll learn to use it, now.” Rand felt a sudden burst of affection for the Warder; Lan knew, but on the surface at least, nothing had changed. He thought that perhaps, for Lan, nothing had changed inside either.

Rand's out of allies. The girls are Aes Sedai to be, Mat and Perrin are seemingly out the door. So he imprints on the last human left to him, the dude who is allied with Moiraine but hasn't been relentlessly sketch about it and shown Rand some kindness along the way. Hell, he's even proven his relative humanity in the love Rand knows he has for Nynaeve but can't act upon.

(I'd include Loial's paragraph that comes next but it basically boils down to "If things get scarier, I'm out," which is of no comfort to Rand.)

“Cuendillar,” Moiraine said. “Heartstone. No one has been able to make it since the Age of Legends, and even then it was made only for the greatest purpose. Once made, nothing can break it. Not the One Power itself wielded by the greatest Aes Sedai who ever lived aided by the most powerful sa’angreal ever made. Any power directed against heartstone only makes it stronger.”

I really do wonder what it is that the Dark One managed to do to corrupt these things - and what mechanism will eventually be discovered to turn heartstone back into regular stuff for the next turning of the Wheel. Maybe they just always trade it all to the Finns and magical chemistry is different in such sideways places.

The flattened cube of gold and silver appeared to be solid, but the Aes Sedai’s fingers felt across the intricate work, pressing, and with a sudden click a top flung back as if on springs.

I suspect (as do others!) that the Horn of Valere had been kept in a stasis box. The Tower likely recovered a few over the millennia, letting Moiraine recognize this one and understand how to work out how to open it.

“I begin to wonder,” Moiraine said. “The Eye of the World was made against the greatest need the world would ever face, but was it made for the use to which . . . we . . . put it, or to guard these things? Quickly, the last, show it to me.”

It's both Moiraine. They knew Rand would need to use a lot of untainted saidin (even if they didn't know what for) and they knew that once he showed up he'd need the rest of the crap, so they put it all in the same place. Imagine if Rand had needed to go running around the world to find them all.

The whole thing seemed of a piece, neither woven, nor dyed, nor painted. A figure like a serpent, scaled in scarlet and gold, ran the entire length, but it had scaled legs, and feet with five long, golden claws on each, and a great head with a golden mane and eyes like the sun. The stirring of the banner made it seem to move, scales glittering like precious metals and gems, alive, and he almost thought he could hear it roar defiance.

I wonder if dragons were still remembered in LTT's era or if he just really liked weird biology.

Dead, brown leaves falling from the great oak. Dead leaves rustling thick on the ground in the breeze, brown mixed with petals dropped from thousands of flowers. The Green Man had held back the Blight, but already the Blight was killing what he had made.

But only because no one is taking action, but more on that next chapter.

Rand climbed into the bay’s saddle with a sense of loss. It shouldn’t be this way. Blood and ashes, we won!

We've moved into chapter 53. It has the wheel-and-serpent icon that I don't think we've seen since the Prologue, showing how we're moving into an especially epic part of history. And now we have Rand reflecting on a running theme of Jordan's, that absolutely none of the epic battles end in anything like happiness and that yes dammit losing could be even worse.

Before the oak, Loial knelt, closing his eyes and stretching out his arms. The tufts on his ears stood straight as he lifted his face to the sky. And he sang.

It's not battle that holds back the Blight, as necessary as it might be, but love.

He half expected they would have to fight their way out as they fought their way in, but the Blight was as quiet and still as death. Not a single branch trembled as if to lash at them, nothing screamed or howled, neither nearby nor in the distance. The Blight seemed to crouch, not to pounce, but as if it had been struck a great blow and waited for the next to fall. Even the sun was less red.

The Shadow's been dealt an absolutely humiliating defeat against a bunch of country bumpkins, it's frankly surprising that the entire kingdom of Malkier wasn't freed from the Blight after this - and even as is the ruins seem less forlorn. There's not much to quote for the next little bit because it's all the same: everything is better and everyone is happier for it.

Ingtar’s was the first face Rand saw that was not smiling.

Aww, is the Darkfriend who betrayed everyone he ever loved by giving into despair still sad? Poor baby.

Agelmar was in his study, with his swords and armor back on their racks, and his was the second face that did not smile.

Aww, is the Dar-- wait no that's not it. Agelmar is of course unable to smile because he knows what's coming: a powerful male channeler.

“A miracle,” Agelmar said, shaking his head, “but. . . . Moiraine Sedai, men say many things about what happened in the Gap. That the Light took on flesh and fought for us. That the Creator walked in the Gap to strike at the Shadow. But I saw a man, Moiraine Sedai. I saw a man, and what he did, cannot be, must not be.”

No miracles in this world; to quote Futurama:

(He told Bender so himself.)

Sadly for Agelmar, Rand can and he will and yes, he very much must.

“We won, Lord Agelmar. We won, and the land freed from winter is the proof, but I fear the last battle has not yet been fought.” Rand stirred, but the Aes Sedai gave him a sharp look and he stood still again.

Rand's interior Lews pride is so strong he'd be perfectly happy to out himself as the Dragon Reborn at the worst possible moment if it meant he could shout, "I killed Shai'tan!" at someone.

I did not show it to you to taunt you, but so that you will know that in whatever battles yet come, our might will be as great as that of the Shadow. Its place is not here. The Horn must be carried to Illian. It is there, if fresh battles threaten, that it must rally the forces of the Light.

In many ways, it feels like Illian only got so strongly associated with the Horn so that Moiraine could have a hyperfixation to be hilariously wrong about that wouldn't hinder Rand's actual development too much. The Wheel's a real jerk, you know?

“Good, sheepherder.” Leaning against the railing with his arms folded across his chest, the Warder watched him critically. “You are doing well, but don’t push so hard. You can’t become a blademaster in a few weeks.”

He'll do it in six months, three days - and four months, one week, and three days of that will be completely wasted. Unless maybe his Blademaster skills from those lives rubbed off on him in some sort of Everything Everywhere All at Once style training session.

“Somewhere. I don’t know.” He did not want to meet her eyes, but he could not stop looking at her. She wore fed wild-roses twined in her hair, flowing about her shoulders. She held her cloak close, dark blue and embroidered along the edge with a thin line of white flowers in the Shienaran fashion, and the blossoms made a line straight up to her face. They were no paler than her cheeks; her eyes seemed so large and dark. “Away.”

Egwene is showing her first real signs of one of her ultimate skills: being able to adapt to whatever culture she's visiting so long as they're not treating her worse than a slave. She did this a bit when they were leaving with Moiraine but that was clearly more youthful rebellion and now it's becoming something more.

Rand meanwhile thinks he's getting out of this town and he's just so wrong because he doesn't even want to leave his friends.

“Moiraine does not know I am alive. I have done what she wanted, and that’s an end to it. She doesn’t even speak to me when I go to her. Not that I’ve tried to stay close to her, but she’s avoided me. She won’t care if I go, and I don’t care if she does.”

Yeah, Moiraine's done a great job of torpedoing the relationship she could have had with Rand.

“And wait for some Aes Sedai besides Moiraine to find out what I am and gentle me?” His voice was rough, almost a sneer; he could not change it. “Is that what you want?” “No.” He knew he would never be able to tell her how grateful he was that she had not hesitated before answering.

Something the Egwene haters are blind to is that while she can be remarkably uncharitable towards Rand, she's still fiercely loyal in her own fashion. Rand being gentled is unspeakable in her eyes and the revelation her tests seem to show her that she will inevitably be forced to turn against Rand horrifies her to a degree beyond even Mat's own disgust at his own visions of betrayal. All the alt!Egwenes fail Rand but this one true Egwene only ends up opposing him in a way that saves the world and isn't an abandonment.

The faint blue glow faded from the stone, and a smile touched her lips. It had no power in itself, the stone, but the first use she had ever learned of the One Power, as a girl, in the Royal Palace in Cairhien, was using the stone to listen to people when they thought they were too far off to be overheard.

Moiraine, honey, please stop scheming. It's only making things worse for everyone including you.

“The Prophecies will be fulfilled,” the Aes Sedai whispered. “The Dragon is Reborn.”

This right here is for us the reader: Moiraine might be petty and underhanded in a lot of ways, but she isn't using Rand the way other Aes Sedai seem to have used the false Dragons. She genuinely believes that she's fulfilling the prophecies. We needed this reassurance - frankly Rand does too but he can't have nice things - so that when she gets increasingly sketch in this next book we still know to root for her.

And that's the end of book one! I say it still holds up and is one of the stronger fantasy novels out there - its ending is bizarrely esoteric but honestly it's just the final escalation of the dream sequences that run throughout the novel. Its focus on Rand is a little odd in light of the huge ensemble we end up getting, but honestly in the later novels we cross over to a point where I feel like there's way too many POV characters running around so having too tight a focus is better than the alternative in my book.

I'm gonna take a little break again, maybe do another novel in between, but rest assured I'll be hopping over to The Great Hunt and getting into that madness soon enough.

EDIT: Crap, I know I was forgetting something. @butterflydm Absolutely no references to channeling slowing aging exist in this text, so yes, that probably explains the oddities of Lews' family situation.

[dreaming-of-lu]

am v fatigued rn so sorry if this is incomprehensible but im wizard anon from your other blog and i wanna say i appreciate you 👍 i dont write stuff that other people would be interested in consistently enough for me to ever keep up with my own writing sideblog (tho i do have one) so being able to pop in and submit stuff whenever i do manage to make something others might like has been great. worse at interacting with this blog bec i didnt know it existed for a while and am very tired and often forget to reach out when i think about it... but i do like your stuff 🤲 interacting with others on social media is just hard for me for some reason???? not used to reaching out and talking to others online i forget i can do that.

maybe if i get free time from my other writing stuff ill work up the courage to write some whump or something and submit it here, i know my fave things to write are niche or will get repetitive but if other people genuinely like/want lu x reader stuff centred around queerness, disability and hurt/comfort then i might get the itch for it.

apologies if this doesn't make sense. feel free to dm me (i think you know my actual blog) if you ever wanna discuss ideas/brainstorm/chat/etc. ill try to post little thoughts here more often if i get them, and engage more. i get why its discouraging i feel the same with my own stuff but i know im not abled enough to be as consistent as i want to, both in making and replying, so i usually try to put it out my mind. a thing me and my friend does is when we read each other's fics we go back and screenshot/copy paste specific sections we liked especially and add commentary or just point it out as a Good Bit, ill try to do that with more fics here and on tumblr in general i think, and i encourage others to do the same, as someone who puts Themes and Motifs into all their fics. i want people to notice them or let me talk about them lol

anyway. youre cool. remember that 🪄✨

- wizard anon

🧙 anon! Hemlooo! So glad to see you here too! It's completely valid for ya. Social media is a bit harder to interact cause well, you don't see the person's face and you're talking to a complete faceless stranger. It's definitely a bit more daunting and also gathering the will to think of words without scaring/nerving the person off. Either way, sometimes you just gotta be brave and take the leap.

The thoughts?

I will be waiting for your tasty treats as always eue

[rottytops]

i definitely think the adhd medication (successfully) rewired my brain and made me seek out long term goals over short term pleasure like i have been literally my entire life so now my current goals are to unfuck my credit to move away from my shitty roomies, get my new car and actually get into an ltr lmao

SUPRISINGLY ENOUGH 2 of these 3 goals are either in progress or very obtainable ive been saving a tunna cash and i can get a new car next month after i get my license renewed and ive found this cute little studio that i can maybe move into if i get help co-signing it, then ill just camp out there until my loans are paid off in 50000 years

the last one though.,,,,its so weird. the like. burning fervor to date someone long term kinda slugged me in the back of the head! ive always WANTED a nice relationship but it was never a PRIORITY to me bc i had video games or whatever. these new feelings made me realize ive been living my life like. entirely for myself which is FINE but my standards for myself (combined with how ADHD made me content with literally anything as long as it was easy) make me like. gutter trash tier as a partner, i think. essentially as i am now, unless the other person is equal parts deranged and shitty, im utterly unlovable which is like. tough tits i guess. but if im honest about it i can at least try to change it. part of me is conflicted; if i have to change myself to become more datable, is the person really dating me, or am i just creating a false persona to get conditional love. its a scary thought but at the same time im not really changing MYSELF past getting in shape and taking care of my skin, its more im giving up on being a dopamine addicted manchild and getting my own apartment. with my own car and stuff...these are actually just completely normal goals to have and i already wanted them i just kinda have new motivation for it lmao!

you cant just force a relationship and theres no way im attracting the hoes to me in my shitty room, so i think i need to??? go??? outside??? and hang out with ppl??? utterly mortifying but when i get my car next month i think i can actually do that. id like to make more irl friends as well, i had a bunch of friends in college so. i guess ill go to more smash locals or something but outside of that sigh sigh i have no idea.

these major revelations have all hit me in like the past 2 weeks, since i started my medication and the dosage was upped, i have a lot of work to do and not that much time to do it, really!!!! i hope i can become someone like. worth keeping around in a few months time...!!! the pieces are there i just need to like, put them together....



i could write a whole thing on how mad i am that it took me so long to get medicated and how fast i became a Normal Person after being on meds but like idk that line of thinking doesnt help anybody...!! i accomplished so much even with my debilitating ADHD and now i can do so much more with a mindset that can actually handle the shit neurotypical people expect me to be able to do, considering how im literally good at everything, combined with how ive managed to survive this long with almost no real help from irl people (seriously ive gotten more assistance from my online friends than literally anybody in my family both financially and emotionally) means that me WITH medication is gonna go absolutely insane. im going to be like ultra rich this time next year, probably LMAO....or at least have a boyfriend AURHUFG



anyway if u read this for some reason i love u and also give me ideas on going out and meeting people, i think i can hold a conversation just fine but where do people even GO. do you guys think ppl at bars or whatever know about disgaea. hmmm.

[bindi-the-skunk]

Let me hurt him for you chapter 3

"So, let me get this straight, Dorian drank a potion that you made for me to suppress vampirism?" Mina had heard and seen several oddities in her life...and how was an incident of this magnitude near the bottom of that list?

"Yes, I will have to collect more supplies later to create it again for you; I hope...this encounter...has not...you know..." Henry mumbled, feeling the urge to rub the back of his neck in embarrassment but not wanting to stop the comfortable position of having Mina's arms wrapped around his and his other hand on hers, his wrists and hands having been bandaged with great care by Mina who had managed to find some clean wrappings in one of the boxes.

"It has not; I appreciate your efforts and am impressed that you have found a way to suppress..." Mina trailed off, looking at the street momentarily before offering a smile.

"Don't get me wrong! I love you for you! I just wanted you to be comfortable and happy..." Henry looked at the ground, biting his lip in anxiety over trying to find the words he wanted to say and say them correctly "I know how it is not to be able to enjoy things the way-"

A soft finger was pressed to his mouth, ceasing his building stress as blue met grey.

"It is alright, I do want to try it" Mina could hardly hope to think she would ever be able to be an ordinary woman again, even if it only would be for a day, to have such a thing at her fingertips, the vampiress had to fight to keep her excitement down to prevent unleashing the darker part of her self.

To be able to feel her emotions again fully, not to have to suppress them to try and keep the vampire under control, to keep from hurting others, so many things she had once taken for granted, the taste of food, the warm sun in her face without being irritated by it, she had no doubts her skin felt cold to the touch or a disgusting lukewarmth.

Henry was always warm; flashes of heat plagued him, and Mina hoped her chill brought him some comfort from his fevers. To think he had done all of this for her, only Jonathan had ever bothered to care about her in such a way before him.

Mina still missed Jonathan terribly, his strong arms wrapped around her, keeping her safe, even after learning of her curse, he had still wrapped her in his embrace, loved her just as deeply as before, he had even said he would join her in vampirism if that is what she wanted, but Mina had, of course, refused, she would never curse the man she loved with this sorrow, she had been his bride, his wife, through sickness and in health, till illness took him from her.

Suppose Mina could find amusement in the fact she seemed to have a type in men who were not traditionally masculine...not that it stopped said men from moments of great bravery and passion.

Henry could never be Jonathan, but he did not have to be, they would never have the wedded bliss that Mina and Jonathan had shared, the doctor had no interest in marriage anyway, he had been content to remain a bachelor the rest of his days, but he, like anyone, still needed companionship, he had also taken such a thing for granted, but now they had each other, all of their good and bad doing its best to co-exist.

What a pair they made.

Henry smiled as Mina put her head on his shoulder, reaching up he brushed some hair from the vampiress's face and smiled back even as Hyde let his presence be known.

"That little fucker is still back there, alive," Hyde growled. He had been stirring fitfully ever since they had left the warehouse, the back of Henry's mind pounding with the heat of his rage "We should have let Mina finish him off"

"I did not want that thing on her a moment longer; Dorian Grey is not going anywhere far in the state he is in. Best to get Mina back and feeling safe before we come up with any plans on how to handle this," Jekyll argued back; he wanted to make Dorian pay for what he had done, itched to do something to make him suffer as much if not more so than how Mina had with that device around her throat.

But Mina was the main priority now, get her back to the Nautilus, then come up with some excuse later to leave, he did need more ingredients for the potion to give Mina, and he remembered her mentioning how she did miss a specific brand of sweets from when she was human.

Pharmacy, sweets shop, and then off to find where Mr. Grey had slithered off to.

"Promise me we can at least make his true demise as painful as possible"

"I think I can agree to that..."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"Oh! I forgot I did make two of them" Henry smiled as he held out a simpler vial of the suppressor potion, it was nowhere near as pretty as the rose vial, but Dorian had ruined the surprise anyway...

"It is incredible that you were able to...how long have you been working on this?" Mina asked, fighting the urge to grab it, eager to feel like herself once again after so long, but she could wait a moment longer.

"Not long after we...well...I thought it might be nice to have a ...p-proper date ...dinner...a show..." Henry blushed, Mina's smile afterward only adding to the shade "Even those like us deserve some happiness, right?"

Mina nodded with no shortage of experiences, mourned for being unable to fully enjoy them in her eyes.

The vial was placed gently in the vampire's hand, and Mina almost shook as she popped the cork out of it and tipped the glass to her lips, careful not to spill it any.

The potion burned her throat, and it was not the most pleasant tasting of things, but the monster that lay curled in the back of her mind slowly receded, more than distracting her from such insignificant unpleasantries as her face too, found a blush as her blood flowed freely after sitting dead for far too long.

Henry watched in awe as Mina's cheeks developed a soft pink hue, and her eyes sparked, her fangs turning back into human canines.

Dear God, she was undescribably beautiful no matter her form.

" And she is ours, Henry" was the greedy thought Hyde expressed for both of them, his rage sated at the image.

"How do you feel?"

"Human" 0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"You look great!"

"How about a kiss for ol Rodney to celebrate, hm?"

Nice to know Mina was still capable of a scathing glare even as a human....

"You must be thrilled," Nemo offered before everyone would see a floating bruise in the shape of a woman's hand wandering around the following days. "Shall I assume you will be heading out to enjoy the rest of the day?"

"Actually, considering the circumstances I think staying here would be prefu-aaauhh" Mina yawned suddenly, covering her mouth before blushing in mild embarrassment "Oh, Pardon me."

"Seems the potion returned your need for sleep," Tom noted, chuckling a bit.

Mina frowned, she did not want to spend her day as a human sleeping it away, not after all the hard work Henry had put into it for her.

"I think enjoying a nap would not be a bad idea," Henry said, making Mina turn to him in slight surprise at his lack of disappointment "it makes sense your body would need a bit of a recharge after...the incident earlier today, and I do need to get more supplies to make more of your elixir. Afterward, I'm sure Nemo would not mind us borrowing the library for a reading date."

"You have to go right now?" Mina was curious about this lack of annoyance and honestly would have liked him to take a rest with her since he too looked like he needed it.

Henry nodded offering an apologetic smile "I'm afraid so, I'm not sure if our next stop will have the chemicals I need, and I want to have it on hand in case we come across a festival or other event."

Mina did not like it, but it made sense since Dorian drank her would-be first dose of the medicine. Glad he did, though, as it hopefully put him down for good this time! It had been a shock seeing his corpse drop to the ground all bloodied before Henry had distracted her, Mina's mind was still slightly buzzing with this image, but it could also be her exhaustion talking, they would have to return to the spot in order to retrieve the body just in case he did-

A kiss to her cheek distracted from the idea of a foul job, and Mina was smiling again.

"I won't be long, don't start reading anything too interesting without me" Henry allowed himself a mild joke.

"No promises," Mina quipped back. 0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Jekyll gripped the bags in his hand tightly, finding what he needed had been without incident and had only taken him about ten minutes, if he timed this right, he would be back before his absence proved worrisome.

And might even have time to pick up those donuts, the shop owner said he would have some fresh in the next hour or so, which would more than explain his tardiness if someone asked, a warm bag of sweets would distract anyone.

And the resulting fight over them would also prove a good diversion from unwanted questions of where he had been well waiting for baked goods of all things.

"Other way, Henry, do not get distracted; I know that little rat bastard is here...he has a different scent from the one he had before, but it sticks out like rot," Edward growled.

Rot was the perfect way to describe it too, no doubt the potion not allowing his life of hedonism to go unchecked anymore, and Mina had been healthy, unharmed by the potion at all, but this...Dorian seemed to have been affected by it, the scent of disease hung in the air so thick that even Henry could smell it, if all of the picture's visible sins appeared on Dorian as the day progressed, the once-immortal would be dead before the hour was up.

A mild pity, all things considered.

Good thing he brought gloves.

[orifu]

good evening my beloved chatters. its time for another episode of orifu v doccy who. this time we're tackling those first two episodes of season 1

yes, i missed wild blue yonder, the giggle and the church on ruby road. maybe ill get back to them.

anyway. to address what i said last time about the new tardis interior, i was entirely wrong. the new interior only sucks when its in apple store mode. they put in the colour and it can look gorgeous, even if its a single colour. love seeing it change.

now, in a moment for the show that i will only call "unique" the first two episodes were dropped at midnight today. im not gonna point fingers at who did what here nor am i going to speculate about disney or whatever. this is about the content of the episodes, not the whatever else. personally im ok staying up til 2am for the stuff.

space babies. that sure was an episode. i think the plot was a very interesting concept, even if its execution felt a little lackluster. the babies themselves looked fine but sounded mostly... off... but that's not really a problem.

i recognise im a mega genius but it feels like the whole thing with the bogeyman was just trying to delay the reveal of it all being mucus. it was pretty obvious pretty early on. i do like the idea of the rogue machine trying to raise the babies through bringing stories to life.

overall i think the episode was really solid. not the best but what you'd expect from doctor who. the visuals were a whole other story though -- you can really tell where the budget is going. i think this episode to me is like a 7/10. its for sure the prelude to something greater.

the devil's chord. jinkx's character is so good. i just love the camp and the whole attitude and it just works so well idk. the way she plays maestro is incredible and i love their whole character. they really carry the episode.

i dont know anything about the beatles so i cant speak to that aspect of the episode. the plot is interesting, leaning more into the fantasy aspect that neo who seeks to explore. maestro being part of the toymaker's legions is a great explanation for their presence. and, of course, more rtd foreshadowing.

i know this is gonna be controversial but being meta with the music is a really cool idea i think. the doctor who theme being played in universe like 3 times or something, ruby playing her own theme (i think) and the doctor breaking the fourth wall (the incidental music!) were executed well imo.

it's a bit of a weird contradiction how maestro destroying earth before ruby was born not affecting her while the butterfly did (is that what that tardis setting thing did?) but whatev. the whole music video at the end of the episode was unexpected but honestly just really cool. i did appreciate maestro's singing too and i feel it worked better than the doctor singing in the church on ruby road.

honestly i love how wlw is like mentioned twice in the episode but just as a normal thing. somehow to me that makes maestro mentioning the sad lesbian music just funnier that itd otherwise be. i think rep that doesnt go "wow look at me" works best as it does here. and yes, as a girl in red head, i do love lesbian heartbreak music.

even if this episode's plot was really simple in concept it doesnt feel dragged out like space babies and is overall a lot more entertaining. and, of course, more building up of whatever russell's cooking up. i think this episode is like an 8/10 for me. excited for more!

conclusion? ig? next week is moffat's episode boom. ive heard this is doctor lite (but im not sure) and apparently the whole episode is about the doctor stepping on a mine and not being able to move. i would be entirely unexcited if it werent moffat writing this episode.

doctor who clearly has a lot of threads at play between mrs flood, the whole toymaker stuff, the 14th doctor, the one who waits, the master, etc, etc, etc. i hope we manage to get a satisfying ending instead of a classic rtd deus ex machina.

i presumably have a lot more thoughts i have already forgotten or havent thunk yet. if you want to know more of my opinions, watch harbo wholmes' eventual review. we tend to agree a lot. until next week, i guess that's it. how do i end one of these posts again

[snakedogge]

huh total night-posting on the topic of "socially acceptable" mental illnesses and those tiktoks with kids being like "I came here for a mental breakdown now I think it wasn't that serious"

So I'll ramble under the cut about personal stuff - what is this Tumblr but an informal journal for myself anyways

I have had something Deeply Wrong with me for such a long time and after a complete shattering of my mind was I able to get it diagnosed and could start managing it, processing and healing

When I told people in my closest social circle at the time i quickly realized it was A Fucking Mistake. hey, here's my very serious diagnosis of being schizophrenic, I'm telling you all because I trust you and I need support

Suddenly people in my DMs "I think I hear voices too what are yours like? Mines named so and so" and I have to stress this that it wasn't somebody also with this issue coming to me for insight. Multiple people suddenly started identifying with me and leaning *into* it.

My ex who I was with at the time started saying "I think there's something wrong with me too I'm also paranoid" and then used that as a reason he couldn't work. He actually took my explanations for what I was going through and used my experience to get approved for disability through his work. I would wander the streets at night and hide under random cars because I could feel myself being followed. Like my ex is a whole story on his own but I was so genuinely unwell and he literally just used that to do even LESS for me than ever.

My friends started trying to probe about my voices and if they have identities and what was going on in my head and then it didn't take long until they had DID and were kinning characters. (which is not a diss on people with DID or who kin characters. in this specific situation, however, it was deeply uncomfortable.) Meanwhile I couldn't sleep at night because of the faces and because I could swear there were cameras in the walls and before I realized it I couldn't even tell them these things because they'd already packaged up my problem as being cute and quirky. what was my horrifying daily existence became this weird...quirky topic.

It's a really isolating experience. And all that to say I wouldn't undermine that those ex-friends truly did need therapy or help but when I told them my diagnosis they just took it a step further and saw it as a label for some identity and it truly felt like they made it about themselves.

Like my life was already spiraling out of control and now whenever someone asks me "so what are the voices like?" I just immediately cringe regardless of intent. I completely stopped being open about it because of shit like this. I wish I wasn't unnerving to be around and off putting. Yeah some of my stranger moments are funny in retrospect (thanks, Rick and Morty inspired delusional outbursts at 2am) but I still wish they never happened and I never did them.

And I don't mind leaning into being a weirdo. But leaning into my mental illness is totally separate territory. And it was a strange experience to feel, over time, like somebody was just trying to co-opt my identity, multiple times.

I know that of course some of that could be elevated by the paranoia but that's why I've sat and run through everything start to finish multiple times.

anyway all that to say that yeah, I believe people genuinely think mental illness is just a series of quirks. it's not just kids either but full grown adults. maybe they don't consciously think "it's just quirky" but the versions of mental illness they are comfortable with in their head only go that far. idk I am very sleepy

also glad my ass is back on tumblr. it's as anonymous a social media as I can get anymore, and I love feeling like I'm talking into a fuckin void of nothing, but still leaving a speck of me behind somewhere on the internet. honestly at the end of the day I just want to talk about my experience with my mental illness, but without... all of that. and without making others uncomfortable. like I feel like I have a few people I could absolutely DM them about stuff but I also feel it would put them in a tough spot. so God bless Tumblr dot com

[aamethyst000]

looking after someone with dementia - March 2,23 1:28pm

I came to her house yesterday evening at around 530pm, almost forgot to heat up her supper yesterday (I actually felt guilty about it) and stayed upstairs for a bit to keep her company for an hour or two. then I remembered that I was told she likes to be alone some time, so I came downstairs to figure out how to work the tv. I managed to figure it out, got on YouTube and started watching "The Last of Us" part one: episode 12 (markiplier let's play) at the part where ellie is taking care of injured Joel and then ended up being kidnapped by the cannibalistic Pedophile (he deserved so much more pain before death). Joel manages to save her even though he isn't fully healed.

I went to bed at 130am last night, had a hard time going to sleep because I COULD NOT just warm up for the life of me. I actually woke up before my alarm this morning, I was gonna say I am surprised but I think it is because I am in someone else's house. She seems to wake up very early, is she goes to bed at like 7 or 8. She has been kind to me so far, we didn't have much of a conversation. I guess she prefers that, judging by the way she talks to the nurses when they come in. I was told that I CAN go home for a few hours but the thoughts and doubts in my head are telling me otherwise. so, I am waiting for a friend of hers (also a nurse) to come here so I can ask her if I can head home for a few hours and then come back. I just don't know when she will be here.

3:30pm - yeah, I am not going home at any point today. kind of disappointed cause if the frie d comes over NOW. there will be no point. by the time I make it home, I'll only have time to change and get tf out again. I wanted to brush my teeth and take my pills (forgot to pack them). it is kind of annoying when stuff like that happens. I had assumed I'd be here another day, I was just hoping to go home and let off some tension I have in my body. oh well, one more full day.

I just finished watching TLOU part one on YouTube, ill be watching ellie's storyline before I start on part two. Poor Ellie went through so much in her life. She was even being trained to kill fireflies. I'm a little surprised at that at the same time,it sounds like something the government would do to gain power again.

6:05pm - I just finished watching ellie's storyline, and OH MY GOD I AM IN TEARS. I fckn LOVED IT!!! AND now I am watching part two of TLOU, I am READY for tears man. anyway, I think the lady I am looking after is slowly getting ready for bed. at the very least, she is slowly getting settled down. last night, she went to bed at like 730. she got up pretty early this morning. so far, this is not much different to my own daily routine. which is great ^-^ my nerves has finally calmed down a lot today. I even wrote 4 pages in my journal!

7:24pm - woo, I might be able to go home some time after lunch tomorrow. the daughter of the lady with dementia will hopefully be here by then. she just messaged me telling me she just got home, hopefully it wasn't a rough ride back. poor thing fell off of the roof of the shed. I have been double checking the woodstove and the front door all day (actually both of us have). the front door slide open sometimes and the woodstove doesn't warm up the upper part of the house. I feel bad about that. anyway, she put herself to bed, turned off all the upstairs lights and turned off the TV. I might go to bed early tonight, knowing I have to get up at like 9am or even 830am.

[malaierba]

it actually makes me a little bit ill how well toshiro could get along with his party if only he'd like. acknowledge the five elephants in the room. just, be a bit more vulnerable, acknowledge what he's truly thinking about some of the things in his household + where he stands on them, how some of the things his party's done have made him feel, etc.

maizuru is her own whole thing (they need therapy) (i could write 10.000 pages and not get everything off my chest) but,

with hien, man, she took their failure about as hard as he took it. she obviously also holds herself up to absurd standards, she's blunt and direct where toshiro can't be, he's sensitive and observant of things she doesn't notice. i know it's her bluntness what made him feel unable to continue to approach the friendship with his genuine self, he's probably too tired of masking on the regular for his duties to even consider doing it for a friendship (looks at Laios), but at the same time, Hien tells us in that one comic focused on her that she's UNCOMFORTABLE at the distance that's developed between her and Toshiro. she thinks that going after Falin is stupid and she gives it her all anyway. isn't there a willingness there? if they could talk about it, man, if they could say "you know i thought you'd end up together" "like my dad did to maizuru, or like he did to my mom? i couldn't do either. not to myself and not to a friend", if they could arrive to an agreement where toshiro manages to say "when you dismiss my feelings like this it hurts me" and she can go "okay i'll do better but don't just shut me out".

Beni is just. about as passive as toshiro, isn't she? she's pretty and useful, but keeps mostly to herself. i look at her comic where she explains alllll the things she goes through make-up wise to feel able to even start performing, and to me is like. i know someone else just like you. and then, the way she reacts to Hien's confidence. I wonder, does Toshiro look at them and think, yeah she's a better friend to Hien than I am? That's, realistic, that's definitely something that creates some awkwardness irl. But man. so much common ground. so many fo the same strategies to navigate the world. the potential for quiet understandings.

and then Izutsumi and Tade. I wonder all the time, and I'm pretty sure I'm right, if the scenes where Toshiro's looking at bugs with interest and an open mind are somehow meant to be extrapolated to his private thoughts on Izutsumi and Tade, how they're treated, how he can actually see that they're in a messed up situation and yes, he's mostly complicit in his innaction (he also has no actual power within the household, lets note that. As long as Maizuru is around she's acting as an extention of Toshitsugu, and he's still bound to his decisions). He's just, aware of the power dynamics, aware of how messed up it is, aware that Izu and Tade are beings who are affected unfairly by it, but man. Innaction man. He can't, fucking bring himself to talk to Tade about the stupid pedestal she's put his fuck-ass dad in, yet its obvious he's been thinking about it for a while. The way this man is (at the point where he's still in the Dungeonat least) he'd have an easier time timing it so she can go after Izutsumi and be free in Mellini, and its such A SHAME. Tade has a good perception of him! she matches his freak! they're stupid together! he cares and he has cares for so long, but he just can't take the first step to make an actually meaningful bond happen, to do something meaningful for Tade.

And I talked about Tade and Izutsumi on the same paragraph bcs frankly I have an awful headache and I wasn't thinking too much about it probably, but also, man, he could've had... not a relationship. Izutsumi always resented the household and was within her right. But a series of good talks, meaningful talks, talks where theyre open, where Izutsumi says the quiet part outloud (particularly as it relates to Maizuru and Toshitsugu), where Toshiro has to explain with his own words "this is how this system has been designed... and you're right, it's fucked". Maybe they could never have been friends, but they could've had a life-changing impact on each others life. They're so complementary in so many ways, does Toshiro realise that many experiences he had within the household he'd have an easier time sharing them with IZUTSUMI than with his own brothers? like.

well. anyway. wow to care so much about so many people, and respect them all as professionals so much, and be unable to build anything with it

i actually really like these scenes here

he's like "my retainers are so skilled and good. i think i'll go with them see ya xoxo"

in the back of his mind im sure he was thinking "we just died after 3 days of going without food and youre telling me to go back in with MARCILLE as our only healer? hm. yeah.... i think i'd rather go beg to maizuru for one (1) favour"